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Audio codecs

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Audio codecs

Audio Codec

Codecs played at the same time, if not a key, a very important role in the development of technologies in the field of digital sound.

Audio Codecs

The rapid spread of mobile communications, Internet telephony, portable players – these are all examples of the use of codecs. It was only thanks to its invention and implementation that it was possible to transmit audio information through channels that were then very limited in bandwidth. This problem could be solved by increasing the capacity of all transmission channels, which would mean an incredible material investment associated with the remodeling and replacement of most of the elements of the existing infrastructure, or by developing an algorithm that can significantly reduce the amount of data. resulting from the analog to digital conversion and thus be able to use the existing infrastructure. The second way was much more sensible.

What are codecs?
A codec is an algorithm based, as a rule, on one or another psychoacoustic model, which will be discussed below, and includes two modules: an encoder and a decoder.

The encoder encodes digital audio into a data stream, the volume of which, compared to the original volume of the raw material, is significantly lower. Depending on the codec used and the encoding parameters, it is possible to achieve an optimal balance between sound quality and the desired data volume.

However, to reproduce the sound encoded in this way, a decoder is required, whose task is to decode the digital audio stream back to the standard format (PCM).

Codecs and their families
In general, all codecs, of which there are very many at the moment, can be divided into two categories:

At a loss
As mentioned above, basically the codecs work based on one or another psychoacoustic model that determines which audio information is not key for our brain and could be sacrificed and discarded, thus reducing the amount of data. The disadvantage of this method is that when decoding said transmission, the lost audio information cannot be recovered. The compression ratio can reach up to 90% of the original data volume, while maintaining satisfactory sound quality for most normal users. The most prominent representatives of this family are the well-known and perhaps the most common MP3 and WMA.

No loss
In this case, the encoding occurs without data loss, allowing all the information in the original audio signal to be fully recovered after the decoding process. However, the degree of data compression that can be achieved with these codecs is much lower than that of the Lossy family of codecs. In general, depending on the encoding parameters, compression of up to 60% of the original volume is possible. The most popular among the Lossless family codecs are FLAC, APE, and Apple Lossless on the Apple platform.

It should be noted that the vast majority of video formats also contain compressed video and audio. Formats like Dolby Digital, DTS, and their varieties are nothing more than codecs. Without a suitable decoder, it is not possible to read the audio data. In this case, maximum white noise sounds. Therefore, you must be careful not to damage your own ears and equipment.

Encoding options
The encoding parameters determine the quality of the resulting sound and the amount of data in the resulting file. More aggressive compression will reduce the sound quality and reduce the amount of data, that is, increase the compression ratio. Depending on the algorithm used, the result, or rather the quality of your sound, can differ significantly, even when using the same encoding parameters.

One of the most important is considered to be the data flow rate per unit of time: kbps (kilobits per second, the number of kilobits per second). The higher this parameter, the less aggressive the data compression will be. As a general rule of thumb, for Lossy family codecs, optimal values are 192 to 320 kbps. When lower values are used, the loss of quality becomes more significant and is noticed even by ordinary users who do not have any special rights to sound quality.

Psychoacoustic codecs and models
The vast majority of audio codecs are based on psychoacoustic algorithms that utilize the limitations of the human auditory system. These principles are based on research in the field of psychoacoustics, the most significant conclusions of which include the masking effect.

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Audio codecs

Audio codecs

Audio Codec

Codecs played at the same time, if not a key, a very important role in the development of technologies in the field of digital sound.

Audio CODECs

The rapid spread of mobile communications, Internet telephony, portable players – these are all examples of the use of codecs. It was only thanks to its invention and implementation that it was possible to transmit audio information through channels that then had a very limited bandwidth. This problem could be solved by increasing the capacity of all transmission channels, which would mean an incredible material investment associated with the remodeling and replacement of most of the elements of the existing infrastructure, or by developing an algorithm that can significantly reduce the amount of data. resulting from the analog to digital conversion and thus be able to use the existing infrastructure. The second way was much more sensible.

What are codecs?
A codec is an algorithm based, as a rule, on one or another psychoacoustic model, which will be discussed below, and includes two modules: an encoder and a decoder.

However, to reproduce the sound encoded in this way, a decoder is required, whose task is to decode the digital audio stream back to the standard format (PCM).

Codecs and their families
In general, all codecs, of which there are very many at the moment, can be divided into two categories:

At a loss
As mentioned above, basically the codecs work based on one or another psychoacoustic model, which determines which audio information is not key for our brain and could be sacrificed and discarded, thus reducing the amount of data. The disadvantage of this method is that when decoding said transmission, the lost audio information cannot be recovered. The compression ratio can reach up to 90% of the original data volume, while maintaining satisfactory sound quality for most normal users. The most prominent representatives of this family are the well-known and perhaps the most common MP3 and WMA.

It should be noted that the vast majority of video formats also contain compressed video and audio. Formats like Dolby Digital, DTS and their varieties are nothing more than codecs. Without a suitable decoder, it is not possible to read the audio data. In this case, maximum white noise sounds. Therefore, you must be careful not to damage your own ears and equipment.

Understand audio codecs

Understand audio codecs

Audio Codecs

A codec, or, in other words, an encoder, is a software or hardware tool for encoding and decoding information (in our case, audio information) according to a certain algorithm. There are a large number of codecs on the market, but we will consider only a few of them, the most popular and in demand.

AUDIO CODECS

AOoding, or compression, can be of two types: lossy and lossless. For each type of encoding, there are different types of audio codecs. How is lossless coding different from lossy coding?

When information is encoded without loss, data compression does not lead to loss of information, and thus the decoded audio file is absolutely identical to the original. By coding in this way, the reduction in the initial volume of information reaches 20-50%. Increasingly, this method is used not only by audiomaniacs, but also by ordinary users. As disk space increases and the price of drives decreases, more and more users are choosing to store audio data encoded in this way. Today, there are quite a few algorithms that allow you to do this, but the most popular are those implemented in the FLAC, Monkey’s Audio, WavPack, and TTA codecs.

Lossy data compression is used to obtain the smallest file size. With this encoding, there is no longer a complete match between the original and its converted copy, and there is no way to recover lost information. To achieve the minimum file size, various encoding algorithms are used, from mathematical compression algorithms, in which the quality of the track is not affected, to the so-called psychoacoustic model, which involves removing the “unnecessary” sounds from the original. and reduce the frequency range. Due to the peculiarities of the perception of sound by the human ear, “unnecessary” sounds can conventionally be called those parts of the audio track, the removal of which will not be very noticeable. The very process of eliminating “unnecessary” sounds is called quantization.

There are many lossy compression methods, the most famous of which are MPEG-1 Layer 3, MPEG-2/4 AAC, Ogg Vorbis, Windows Media Audio, MusePack, etc.

Lossless compression
FLAC
One of the most popular formats for lossless audio compression is the FLAC codec. The main advantages of this audio codec are its constant updating and, of course, cross-platform: FLAC compiles on many platforms: Unixes (Linux, BSD, Solaris, OS X), Windows, BeOS and OS / 2. This comprehensive support of the operating system facilitates the widespread use of this audio encoder.

Another advantage of the FLAC audio codec is the presence (in addition to the basic encoder and decoder in the form of libraries that are included in the installation kit) a graphical shell that simplifies the encoding process, as well as external modules (plugins) for different players (including Winamp of different versions, Foobar2000, etc. etc.). The kit also includes a command-line utility for compressing and decompressing files and a utility for editing file metadata.

An interesting distinctive feature of FLAC is that it allows you to make an archival copy of an audio CD, burned to a. In the future, such a copy can easily be written to the disc in case the original disc is lost or damaged. FLAC uses eight compression rates. As with any encoder, the encoding rate and the size of the resulting file depend on the compression rate. ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags can be added to the FLAC stream. This data is not related to the format, but the decoder can pass it.

Monkey Audio
Perhaps the most popular lossless compression codec today is Monkey’s Audio. This is mainly due to the fact that this codec is free and the high-quality compression of the audio stream it provides. The only factor limiting its scope is the lack of cross-platform support: Monkey’s audio codec is present only on the Windows platform. However, support for this format is implemented in various players and, for example, a plug-in for the Winamp player comes with Monkey’s Audio. Additionally, DirectShow filters can be installed for other compatible players. Playback plugin supports all common functions and ID3 tags.

Monkey’s audio codec will certainly be appreciated by those who need the highest sound quality. The codec provides a compression of approximately 40-50%. When encoding data, several different compression rates are available, from a parameter that provides faster encoding to a parameter that performs better compression at the expense of more processor time.