BIT 3233 AUDIO VIDEO PRODUCTION

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Able to understand and apply :

The difference between analog audio
and digital audio

The concept of audio conversion

Audio format files

Digital audio production

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Analog versus digital can be compared in terms of method of input, data

storage and transfer or the internal working of the device.

Analog Audio Digital Audio

Analog audio/sound is produced
by which the original audio
signal is modulated onto
another physical signal carried
on some media or substrate such
as the groove of a gramophone
disc or the iron oxide surface of
a magnetic tape .
Digital audio/sound is
produced by first converting
the physical properties of
the original sound into
digital information (stored
as bits) which can then be
decoded for reproduction.

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Modulation The process of varying

periodic wavform (i.e:
tone) in order to use that
signal to convey
message

Key parameters:
Amplitud, timing and Analog Modulation Technique
frequency

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Analog Audio Digital Audio

Can produce high quality
sound
High cost because high quality
tape and related hardware is
expensive to buy and maintain.
Low fidelity
Can produce high quality
sound
Low cost because of low
manufacturing cost and in-
mass produced device.
High fidelity

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Standard:

Signal model (microphone, speaker,etc)

Signal levels

Connection and termination

Cicrcuit impendence

Handling multi-channel sound

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Tape recorder

Issues: Noise and Frequency Response

Tape handling : large and heavy reels

Very fast FW and RW

Very constant speed

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

The goal is to create audio with high fidelity

(very high similarity between the original signal
and the reproduced signal) and perfect reproduction
(the recording sounds the same every single time
you play it no matter how many times you play it).

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Digital to
Air pressure Analogue
variations
Converter
Convert `
s back
into DAC
Captured via voltage
microphone

Signal is
converted into
binary
Analogue (discrete form)
to Digital ADC 0101001101 Air pressure
Converter 0110101111 variations

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Produced through the

digization process of
analog signals (digital
Benefits recording)

Digital files can be copied as many times as we want.

No loss of quality when transferred/burned.

Can be burned into audio CD or shared via Internet.

Digital files can be edited easily.

Digitization

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Digital Recording

Analog waves into a stream of numbers and records

the numbers instead of the waves.

Conversion
device

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Analog-to-Digital
Converter

Analog waves into a stream of numbers and records

the numbers instead of the waves.

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Digital-to-Analog
Converter

The stream of numbers is converted back to an analog

wave by a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The analog
wave produced by the DAC is amplified and fed to the
speakers to produce the sound.

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a digital

representation of an analog signal where the
magnitude of the signal is sampled regularly at
uniform intervals, then quantized to a series of
symbols in a digital code.

PCM is used in digital telephone systems and
is also the standard form for digital audio in
computers and various compact disc formats.

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Sampling QUANTIZATION

Code Word Generation

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

A technique used to capture

continuous analog signals, whereby
periodic snapshots are taken. A key
technique used to digitize analog
information

A computer measures the amplitude of the waveform

at regular time intervals to produce a series of numbers
(samples).

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Frequency of sampling (sampling rate)

-Measure in Hertz (Hz)
-Defines the number of samples per second taken from
a continuous signal to make a discrete signal.
-The higher sampling rate, higher quality sound but size storage is big.

Sampling Precision
-Controls how many different gradations (quantization levels)
are possible when taking the sample

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

• Suppose we are sampling a sine wave. How often do we

need to sample it to figure out its frequency?

• If we sample only once per cycle, we may think the

signal is a constant.

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

• If we sample at another low rate, e.g.,

1.5 times per cycle, we may think it's a
lower frequency sine wave.

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

The theorem states that:

when sampling a signal, the sampling rate
must be greater than twice the highest
frequency (bandwidth) of the input signal in
order to be able to reconstruct the original
perfectly from the sampled version.

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

As the rate and precision

increase, the fidelity (the
similarity between the original
wave and the DAC's output)
improves.

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Do research on digital audio format file and present in

group on next week during lab ( Thursday - 16/8/07).
Topics to be discussed are MIDI, Wav and MP3 file.
Discuss in term of concept, related terminology,
differences, hardware, software, examples and others.
Write related report.

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Standard Audio Data Rate

• Standard Sampling rate:
Sampling Data Size in
Bits per Data Rate
Quality Rate 1 minute
Sample Kbits/s Kbytes/s
(KHz) 1 hour
64Kbps 480KB
Telephone 8 8 (Mono)
8 28.8MB
88.2Kbps 660KB
AM Radio 11.025 8 (Mono)
11.0 39.6MB
16 705.6Kbps 5.3MB
FM Radio 22.050
(Stereo) 88.2 317.5MB
16 1.41Mbps 10.6MB
CD 44.1
(Stereo) 176.4 635MB

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Standard Audio Data Rate

Why CD is sampled at because
44.1 kHz?

Upper range of human hearing is around 20-22 kHz

“Apply Nyquist Theorem”

Signal got distorted over distance because of :

Interference Impendence

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Calculating Sampling Period

Formula :
Sampling period = 1/ Sampling rate
Example:
Telephone speech has bandwidth of 3500 Hz.
It can be sampled at 7000 Hz (times per second).
In practice, it is sampled at 8000 Hz (to avoid any conversions
errors.) Therefore, here:
#Sampling rate = 8000 Hz.
#Sampling period = 1/8000 Hz = 124 microseconds.

Notes: 1 kHz = 1000 kHz

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Calculating Sampling Period

Exercise :
1. Acoustic signals are audible for frequencies up to 24 kHz. What is the
corresponding Nyquist sampling rate?

Industry Standards for Audio Sampling Rates (in Hz):

6000 8000 11025 16000 22050 32000 32075 44100 48000

2. Compute the sampling periods for all the standard

sampling rates.

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio
File Format
There are two main types of audio files :

PCM stands for Pulse Code Modulation. This is just a fancy name for
the technique described above, where each number in the digital audio
file represents exactly one sample in the waveform.

Common examples of PCM files are WAV files, AIFF files, and
Sound Designer II files.

The other type is compressed files. Modern compressed audio files

use sophisticated psychoacoustics algorithms to represent the essential
frequencies of the audio signal in far less space. Examples include
MP3, RA, and WMA.

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Calculating File Size (Digital Audio)

The formula is as follows:
rate × duration × resolution × number of channels
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The answer will be in bytes
Where:
sampling rate is in Hz
Duration/time is in seconds
Quantization resolution is in bits (1 for 8 bits, 2 for
16 bits)
number of channels = 1 for mono, 2 for stereo, etc.

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Calculating File Size (Digital Audio)

Example:
Calculate the file size for 1 minute, 44.1 KHz, 16
bits, stereo sound
The file size is

44100 * 60 * 16 *2
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= 10584000 bytes = 10.6 M

rate × duration × resolution × number of channels

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Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Calculating File Size (Digital Audio)

Exercise:
Calculate the file size for 30 seconds, 16 bits,
11.025 KHz, mono.

Answer:
File size = 661 500 bytes

rate × duration × resolution × number of channels

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

 Sampling – the number of times to measure the

amplitudes of an input signal in a time interval
 Quantization – how accurate the amplitudes are
measured
 Values are taken from a finite set of possible values.
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Quantization
procedure
The difference between the
actual signal amplitude
and the corresponding
0 nominal amplitude is called
quantization error or
Sample points
quantization noise.

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Quantization error can be reduced by having higher sampling rate

(sample more frequently) and more quantization level
(more bits for each sample).

Example:
Example
With Stereo, 16 bits/sample, 44kHz sampling rate, PCM encoding,
how many bits of data will be generated by a three minute sound recording?

Ans:
3min*60sec/min*44000samples/sec*16bits/sample*2(channel)/8bits/byte
=31.68MB/s

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Exercise:

With mono, 16 bits, 22kHz, PCM encoding,

how many bytes of data will be generated by a
hree minute sound recording?

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Audio Formats
AU Format
Supported by many different software systems over a large
range of platforms.
Extension .au.
WAVE (waveform) Format
Developed by IBM and Microsoft.
Supported by all computers running Windows, and by all the
most popular web browsers.
Extension .wav
AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format)
Developed by Apple.
Tagged file format (similar to TIFF).
Extension .aiff or aif

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

Audio Formats
RealAudio Format
Developed for the Internet by Real Media.
The format allows streaming of audio with low bandwidths.
Extension .rm or .ram.
MP3 (MPEG I Audio Layer 3)
MP3 files are the sound part of the MPEG video format.
MP3 is one of the most popular sound formats for music
recording.
Sounds stored in the MP3 format have the extension .mp3.
Other popular format
MIDI, wma, AC3, etc.

Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

MIDI
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was
developed in the early 1980s for electronical
instruments and computers
Allows different electronic devices to communicate
together

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 Chapter 2 Analog Audio and Digital Audio

MIDI

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was
developed in the early 1980s for electronical instruments
and computers

Allows different electronic devices to communicate
together

MIDI data is not digitized sound: it is a shorthand
representation of music stored in numeric form

It cannot store songs, only tunes.

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