Digital Sound

PAGE (1 of 5)

Digital Sound

Sound in the natural world is analog. Sound stored on a computer is digital. Natural sound is the result of a stream of continuous changes of vibrations in the atmosphere. The process of converting natural analog sound into discrete digital sound is digitization. Digitization of analog sounds is composed of two phases: 1. sampling; 2. quantization.

Resources

Download the RealPlayer from Real Networks and install it in your Web browser plugins. The streaming audio/video technology offered by Real Networks is one of the best available. There is a freeware and commercial version available.

Many CD audio file formats exist and information about them can be found on the net.

For those students who are interested analog audio information can also be located on the net.

A good introduction to computer sound from Allison Zhang at the Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester.

Another very good discussion of digital audio has been placed on the Web at the Center for Innovative Computer Applications at Indiana University.

Note: Much of the information for this document was taken from the digital audio references in the course readings.