Digital Audio Report

Report on
Digital Audio

Submitted to

Avon Barksdale

President of Bioware Technological Research

Facility

Maryland, Baltimore

July 24th, 2007

By

Matthew Angwin

Head of the Black Mesa Research Facility

Nevada, Mexico
 Contents
Executive Summary

Introduction (1.0) …………………………………………..

Types of Players (2.0) …………………………………

…...
Flash-Based Players (2.1)

Hard-Drive Based Players (2.2)

MP3 CD Players (2.3)

Recorders (3.0) ……………………

…...............................
Microphone (Mic) (3.1)

Editing (3.2)

Production (4.0) …………………………………………...

Delivery (5.0) ………………………………………………..

Optical Disk (5.1)

Internet (5.2)

Broadband (5.3)

Flash Drives (5.4)

File Types (6.0) ……………………………………………..

Other File Types (7.0) …………………………………….

Benefits (8.0) ……………………………………………….

Future (9.0) …………………………………………………

References …………………………………………...........
Executive Summary
New digital audio services like satellite radio, online radio, HD radio, and podcasting
with new subscription and data service business models are changing the way
consumers listen to radio. All four digital audio markets will grow steadily — by
2010, 20.1 million households will listen to satellite radio and 12.3 million
households will synchronize podcasts to their MP3 players. Broadcasters and music
labels must learn to deal with this new, fragmented audience. The keys to success will
be subscriptions, ad targeting, and monetizing the many ways that digital audio will
be consumed. (4)
 Introduction
(1.0)

Digital audio uses digital signals for sound reproduction. This includes analogue-to-
digital conversion, digital-to-analogue conversion, storage, and transmission. Digital
audio has emerged because of its usefulness in the recording, manipulation, mass-
production and distribution of sound. Modern distribution of music across the internet
through on-line stores depends on digital recording and digital compression
algorithms. Distribution of audio as data files rather than as physical objects has
significantly reduced costs of distribution. (1)

Tools
(2.0)

Flash-based Players
(2.1)

These are solid state devices that hold digital audio files on internal or external
media, such as memory cards. Due to technological limitations, these are
relatively low-storage devices, commercially ranging from 128MB to 8GB, such
as the second generation iPod nano, the SanDisk Sansa series of players, and the
iriver clix, which can often be extended with additional memory. As they are solid
state and do not have moving parts, they are very resilient. (2)
 Hard Drive-based Players
(2.2)

Hard Drive-based Players or Digital Jukeboxes are devices that read digital audio
files from a hard drive. These players have higher capacities, ranging from 1.5GB
to 160GB, depending on the hard drive technology. At typical encoding rates, this
means that thousands of songs — perhaps an entire music collection — can be
stored on one player. Because of the storage capacity, devices that also display
video and pictures are often hard-drive based. (2)

MP3 CD Players
(2.3)

MP3 CD Player devices are that can play audio files from a CD-ROM in addition to
audio CDs. It uses a lossy compression algorithm that is designed to greatly reduce
the amount of data required to represent the audio recording, yet still sound like a
faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners. (2)

Recorders
 (3.0)

Microphone (Mic)
(3.1)
The microphone is a device used for recording different types of audio.

Editing
(3.2)
In recent years, with the growing popularity of GNU/Linux, a number of Open Source
software projects have sprung up in order to develop an open source audio editing
program. This movement has been bolstered recently by the development of ALSA,
and the Linux low latency kernel patch, which allow the GNU/Linux Operating
System to achieve audio processing performance equal to that of commercial
operating systems. The multi-platform package Audacity is currently the most fully-
featured free software audio editor. (5)

Production
(4.0)
 - Podcasts
- Studio Sound

Delivery
(5.0)

Optical Disk
(5.1)

In computing, sound reproduction, and video, an optical disc is a flat, circular, usually
polycarbonate disc whereon data is stored in the form of pits (or bumps) within a flat
surface, usually along a single spiral groove that covers the entire recorded surface of
the disc. This data is generally accessed when a special material on the disc (often
aluminium) is illuminated with a laser diode. The pits distort the reflected laser light.
Most optical discs, with the exception of a few such as black CD-ROMs designed for
the original Sony PlayStation, have a characteristic prismatic or iridescent appearance
created by the grooves in the reflective layer. (1)

Internet
(5.2)
As the Internet’s community increases, more and more people are using it to transfer,
record and edit their audio. At the present day, the internet is the most effective way to
transfer audio.

Broadband
(5.3)
Broadband in telecommunications is a term which refers to a signalling method which
includes or handles a relatively wide range of frequencies which may be divided into
channels or frequency bins. The wider the bandwidth, greater is the information
 carrying capacity. In radio, for example, a very narrow-band signal will carry Morse
code; a broader band will carry speech; a still broader band is required to carry music
without losing the high audio frequencies required for realistic sound reproduction.

Flash Memory
(5.4)

Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and
reprogrammed. It is a technology that is primarily used in memory cards, USB flash
drives (thumb drives, handy drive, memory stick, flash stick, jump drive), which are
used for general storage and transfer of data between computers and other digital
products. Examples of applications include PDAs and laptop computers, digital audio
players, digital cameras and mobile phones. (3)

File Types
(6.0)
There are a handful of audio file types you should be familiar with if you are planning
to copy music off the Internet or even copy a CD. If you aren't sure what file types
you are working with, you can distinguish any file type on your computer by the
extension in the file name. The extension is the set of letters that follows the dot, as is
in: seashore.wav. (1)

Waveform Audio (.wav)

Waveform Audio (.wav) is a common file format. Created by Microsoft and
IBM, WAV was one of the first audio file types developed for the PC. WAV
files are defined as lossless, meaning that files are large and complete; nothing
has been lost. Professionally recorded CDs are also a lossless audio source. (1)

MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (.mp3)

 MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (.mp3) is a common, compressed WAV file. MPEG-1
files are about one-twelfth the size of WAV files. This is why MP3 players can
accommodate hundreds of songs on a tiny chunk of storage space. (1)

Windows Media Audio (.wma)

Windows Media Audio (.wma) was developed to compete with the MP3
format for Windows Media Player. Microsoft claims that the WMA files are
compressed three times more than MP3s yet retain their original sound quality.
(1)

Other Audio File Types

(7.0)

Musical Instrument Digital Interface (.midi)

Audio Interchange File (.aif, .aifc or .aiff.)
Sun Audio (.au)

Benefits
(8.0)
As digital audio players have spread, new uses have been found for them. This
includes podcasting, in which radio-like programs, or even TV-like video feeds, are
automatically downloaded into the device to be played at the owner's convenience. As
the years progress, it is becoming easier to effectively use digital audio to our
advantage. (1)

Future
(9.0)
New digital audio services like satellite radio, online radio, HD radio, and podcasting
with new subscription and data service business models are changing the way
consumers listen to radio. All four digital audio markets will grow steadily — by
2010, 20.1 million households will listen to satellite radio and 12.3 million
 households will synchronize podcasts to their MP3 players. Broadcasters and music
labels must learn to deal with this new, fragmented audience. The keys to success will
be subscriptions, ad targeting, and monetizing the many ways that digital audio will
be consumed. (4)

References
1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio
2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_player
3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_drives
4.
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,72
11,36428,00.html
5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_editing