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Music Editing Master
Ideal And Efficient Music Editing & Audio Production Tool For Home Users
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Audio Formats |
Description |
PCM |
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Standard Windows WAV format for non-compressed audio files. Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) is the standard method of digitally encoding audio. It is the basic uncompressed data format used in file types such as Windows .wav. |
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ADPCM |
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Compressed WAV format. ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) is an audio compression scheme which compresses from 16-bit to 4-bit for a 4:1 compression ratio. |
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A-LAW |
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Compressed WAV format. A-Law (or CCITT standard G.711) is an audio compression scheme common in telephony applications. It is a slight variation of the u-Law compression format, and is found in European systems. This encoding format compresses original 16-bit audio down to 8 bits (for a 2:1 compression ratio) with a dynamic range of about 13-bits. Thus, a-law encoded waveforms have a higher s/n ratio than 8-bit PCM, but at the price of a bit more distortion than the original 16-bit audio. The quality is higher than you would get with 4-bit ADPCM formats. Encoding and decoding is rather fast and generally, widely supported. |
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U-LAW |
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Compressed WAV format. u-Law (or CCITT standard G.711) is an audio compression scheme and international standard in telephony applications. u-Law is very similar to A-Law, a variation of u-Law found in European systems. This encoding format compresses original 16-bit audio down to 8 bits (for a 2:1 compression ratio) with a dynamic range of about 13-bits. Thus, u-Law encoded waveforms have a higher s/n ratio than 8-bit PCM, but at the price of a bit more distortion than the original 16-bit audio. The quality is higher than you would get with 4-bit ADPCM formats. Encoding and decoding is rather fast and generally, widely supported. |
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CCIT U-LAM |
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DSP |
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Compressed WAV format. DSP Group True Speech (TM) format. |
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GSM |
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Compressed WAV format. Good for keeping of human speech. |
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MP3 |
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MPEG Layer-3 format. Very popular format for keeping of music. |
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MP2 |
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Ogg Vorbis |
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Ogg Vorbis format. Ogg Vorbis is an audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented. |
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WMA |
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Windows Media Audio format. A special type of advanced streaming format file for use with audio content encoded with the Windows Media Audio codec. The .wma extension indicates a file format and how the content is encoded. |
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CDA |
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AVI |
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AIFF |
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AU |
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G.726 |
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Used for computer telephony. Good for keeping of human speech. |
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VOX |
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Dialogic ADPCM format. The Dialogic ADPCM format is commonly found in telephony applications, and has been optimized for low sample rate voice. It will only save mono 16-bit audio, and like other ADPCM formats, it compresses to 4-bits/sample (for a 4:1 ratio). This format has no header, so any file format with the extension .VOX will be assumed to be in this format. |
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RAW |
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Raw format of audio files. Doesn't contain header of an audio file. |
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MPC |
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The AMR file format is best known for applications and other features integrated in modern cellular phones. These programs range from simple audio player/recorders to programs linked to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology. |
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Files in .M4A format are actually the audio layer of (non-video) MPEG 4 movies. This format is also known as Apple Lossless, Apple Lossless Encoder, or ALE. It is a new codec designed to provide lossless encoding in less storage space. |
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Video Formats (Extract Audio From) |
Description |
AVI
(DivX, XviD, MPEG-4, Uncompressed, Cinepak) |
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AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave. It is a special case of the RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format). AVI is defined by Microsoft. AVI is the most common format for audio/video data on the PC. AVI is an example of a de facto (by fact) standard.
AVI Files are a special case of RIFF files. RIFF is the Resource Interchange File Format. This is a general purpose format for exchanging multimedia data types that was defined by Microsoft and IBM during their long forgotten alliance. |
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MPEG
(MPEG-1, MPEG-2 Video) |
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MPEG is both a file format and a codec for digital video. There are actually three forms of MPEG: MPEG video, for picture only; MPEG audio, which is discussed in the previous section; and MPEG systems, which includes both audio and video tracks.
MPEG files provide excellent picture quality but can be very slow to decompress. For this reason, many MPEG decoding systems are hardware-assisted, meaning that you need a board to play MPEG files reliably without dropping a lot of frames. Although software decoders definitely exist (and there are some very good ones out there), they tend to require a lot of processor power on your system and also usually support MPEG video only (they have no soundtrack).
A third drawback of MPEG video as a standard for the Web is that MPEG movies are very expensive to encode. You need a hardware encoder to do so, and the price ranges for encoders are in the thousands of dollars. As MPEG becomes more popular, those prices are likely to drop. But for now, unless you already have access to the encoding equipment or you're really serious about your digital video, a software-based format is probably the better way to go. |
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WMV |
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Windows Media Video.
Formerly known as .ASF file format from Microsoft.
A .WMV file includes a video stream (compressed using MS MPEG4 or WMV1 codec) combined with WMA encoded audio stream. The file format is proprietary and backward incompatible. Currently, dedicated to slow dialup connections, this media format does not allow even sub-VHS video quality due to blurred picture. WMA audio quality, compared to MPEG Layer3 of the same bitrate, isn't better either.
You may wish to use Windows Media format to create smallest files that are suitable to send by e-mail, however you must keep in mind that .WMV file works like "one way ticket" - once created, it can't be edited anymore, without horrific quality loss. As opposite, AVI files compressed with MPEG4 video codec are still editable and often it is possible to retain source video quality. |
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Quick Time |
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Apple video format for the Macintosh, read only.
Although QuickTime was developed by Apple for the Macintosh, QuickTime files are the closest thing the Web has to a standard cross-platform movie format (with MPEG a close second). The Apple system software includes QuickTime and a simple player (called MoviePlayer or SimplePlayer). For PCs, QuickTime files can be played through the QuickTime for Windows (QTfW) package, and the freely available Xanim program will play them under the X Window System and UNIX. QuickTime movies have the extension .qt or .mov.
QuickTime supports many different codecs, particularly CinePak and Indeo, both of which can be used cross-platform. See the "Codec Formats" section later in this chapter for more information on these formats. |
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Disc Media Type (Burn To) |
Description |
CD-R |
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CD-RW |
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DVD-R |
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DVD-RW |
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DVD+R |
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DVD+ Recordable media (Support Double Layer DVD9-8.5 GB) |
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DVD+RW |
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