Q: What is Red Book Audio CD Mastering?
A:
Red Book Audio CD Mastering involves the preparation of a digital CD Audio
"Master" disk for the manufacturing by a CD Replication Plant. As in
Analog "Mastering" final adjustments to the overall sound are made at
this production stage to make the finished product sound its best when heard on
a variety of playback systems.
Q: What is Digital Audio Mastering?
A:
Digital Audio Mastering involves the preparation of a Compressed Digital Audio
"Master" for electronic distribution or streaming on the Internet. As
in Analog "Mastering" final adjustments to the overall sound are made
at this production stage to make the finished product sound its best when heard
on a variety of playback systems. Close attention is paid to eliminate any
audible artifacts or degradation of the audio in the compression process.
Q: What is Digital Audio Compression?
A:
Audio Compact Disks store the audio data in files on
the disk. The audio data is in a PCM (Pulse
Code Modulation) format. Each minute of recording time
consumes about 9 MB (Megabytes) of file storage space. A
three minute song would occupy about 27 MB of
file storage space, and a 5 minute song would occupy about 45
MB of file storage space. Not really that bad, a 650 Megabyte
Compact disc can contain up to 74 minutes of PCM audio.
With file space at a premium and very slow modems
the norm, the sheer size of PCM audio data files made them un
popular as a storage medium for audio on a computer. Digital
compression came along and changed all that. Digital
compression offered a huge reduction in the amount of file space required
to store audio data files. This reduction in file size also
reduced the time required to transmit them electronically
dramatically.
Q: What is Lossless Compression?
A:
Audio compression can be one of two categories, lossless or
lossy. Lossless digital compression is commonly used to
reduce the size of computer files for electronic transmission. In order for the files to
be useable on a computer the files that are extracted from a
compressed data file must be identical to the original
file (before it was compressed). Lossless compression is great
because it makes perfect copies but it doesn't yield very high compression ratios. That means
it doesn't save huge amounts of disk storage space. ZIP, ARC, TAR,
and SIT are some of the acronyms or formats of Lossless
Compression commonly used on computers.
Q: What is What is Monkeys Audio, WavePack and Shorten?
A:
These are all lossless compression formats designed specifically for audio.
They all reduce the size of audio files and reproduce exact copies of
the original data without any losses or degradations commonly
associated with compressed audio.
There several formats for the lossless compression of digital audio.
Click Here for More information on Lossless Compression Of Audio
Q: What is lossy compression?
A:
Audio compression can be one of two categories, lossless or lossy.
Lossy compression algorithms offers much higher
compression ratios than lossless algorithms but in order to achieve this they need to
discard some of the original data. Lossy compression is only
suitable for use on audio or graphical data. The audio or
graphics are reproduced but at a lower overall quality than
they had before they were compressed. In some cases the
difference is difficult to perceive. The
compression ratio can usually be adjusted so the quality level
can vary widely. Audio that is compressed at a 20:1 or 10:1
ratio will certainly sound inferior to audio that was
compressed at a 2:1 ratio. MPEG, MP3, AAC, RA, WMF, JPEG, QT,
and DivX are some of the acronyms or formats of
Lossy compression commonly used for audio and video.
Q: What is MP3, AAC or Real Audio
A:
These are all lossy compression formats designed specifically for audio.
They reduce the size of audio files but they need to
discard some of the original data. The audio is reproduced but at a lower overall quality than
it had before it was compressed. In some cases the
difference is difficult to perceive.
Q: What is Audio Streaming?
A:
Audio Streaming is sound that is delivered to you as it is being received from a
web site or digital radio station. This is very different from downloading a file
to your hard drive and then playing it after the entire file has been downloaded.
The advantage of streaming is that there is no waiting (or very little) from
the time you click the mouse until you hear the sound.
Q: What is Recording Engineering And Production??
A:
All aspects of recording and mixing and production of music and
the soundtracks of film, video or multimedia productions.
Q: What is Recording Studio Acoustical Design?
A:
The design of the walls ceiling and floor of the special rooms that are
used to record and Mix sound.
Q: What is Recording Studio Electronic Design?
A:
The design of the electronic equipment in an Audio Recording Studio.
Q: What is Recording Studio Systems Design?
A:
The design of the system electronic devices used in an Audio Recording Studio.
Q: What is a Stock Music Track?
A:
A Stock Music Track is a pre-recorded piece of instrumental music which is meant
to be used as the background for some larger production. They are available in
many lengths and styles.
Q: What is a Voice Over?
A:
A Voice Over is the overdub and mixing of a live voice over a musical track or
sound track.
Q: What is Non Linear Video Editing?
A:
Non-Linear Editing, in the context of computer editing, is to film and video
editing what the word processor was to the typewriter. Non-linear editing offers
the best of both the film and video worlds..and more. The benefits of Non-linear
editors (NLE) are greater than could be explained here.
A NLE allow you to make changes in your video edit anywhere at any time.
A NLE can easily save multiple cuts of one program.
A NLE can remember and undo your recent edits that you aren't happy with.
Q: What is Streaming Video?
A:
Video Streaming is video and sound that is delivered to you as it is being received from a
web site or digital TV station. This is very different from downloading a file
to your hard drive and then playing it after the entire file has been downloaded.
The advantage of streaming is that there is no waiting (or very little) from
the time you click the mouse until you see the picture.
Q: What is Compressed Video?
A:
Compressing Video removes redundant information in video program material. This
allows video information to be streamed to computers in real time or to be
stored and distributed on digital media like DVD disks for playback at a later
time.
Q: What is DVD Mastering?
A:
DVD Mastering involves the preparation of a digital video "Master"
disk for the manufacturing by a DVD Replication Plant. Act and Scene markers are
added to the title and close attention is paid to the video compression rate in
order reduce and eliminate any visual artifacts or degradation of the video in
the compression process.
Q: What is JPEG?
A:
The JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) file format was developed as a non-proprietary high quality compressed graphics format. Web Browsers on Windows, Macintosh and virtually every other type of computer can also display JPEG files making it a de facto standard of the industry.
Q: What is GIF?
A:
The GIF (Graphics Interchange File) file format was initially developed by Compuserve as a cross platform graphics format which would allow compressed graphics files to be viewed on DOS, Commodore and Apple systems. As time went on Windows, Macintosh and virtually every other type of computer could also display GIF files making it a de facto standard of the industry.
Q: What is GIF Animation?
A:
GIF Animation is the easiest way of delivering animation to many web browsers since most of them support this file format. Here is an example GIF animation of a US Flag waving in the breeze.
Q: What is TIFF?
A:
The Tag Interface File Format (TIFF) is a standard for storing bit mapped graphics from scanners and fax machines. Free TIFF file viewers and plug-ins are available for most web browsers and computers. TIFF is commonly used in document management systems to enable viewing of scanned legacy documents. The US Patent and Trademark Office stores millions of old patent and trademark documents in TIFF files so they may be viewed and read by anyone with a web browser and an internet connection.
Q: What Is MIDI?
A:
MIDI is an acronym for musical instrument digital interface. Midi files contain the equivalent of an electronic musical score. This digital sheet music contains performance information, without any actual samples of sound. Midi is the only sound format that contains no actual sound samples. Microsoft .wav files and other formats are real sound files, and tend to be huge files relative to the time duration of the sound, as compared to midi files. Your computer contains the actual patches or samples of sound that are played for the midi score. Midi files can have multiple tracks and can be included in web pages and qucickly downloaded and heard by the people who are browsing your web site.
Q: What is AVI?
A:
AVI stands for Audio Video Interleav. The AVI format was defined by Microsoft. By including an AVI player with Windows Microsoft has made AVI one the most common formats for audio/video data on the PC.
Q: What is QuickTime?
A:
QuickTime is a multimedia architecture developed by Apple Computer Apple for Macintosh, Windows, and other platforms. It allows your computer to work with real time movies, sounds, and high-quality compressed images.
Q: What is MPEG?
A:
The Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) file format was developed as a non-proprietary high quality compressed video format. Players for MPEG are available on Windows, Macintosh computers and many Set Top Boxes and Digital Satellite Receivers.
Q: What is DiVX?
A:
DivXTM is a new format for digital video, much like MP3 is a format for digital music. DivXTM is the brand name of a video compression technology created by DivXNetworks, Inc. The DivXTM codec (short for compression-decompression) is based on the MPEG-4 compression standard. This codec is so advanced that it can reduce an MPEG-2 video (the same format used for DVD or Digital Satellite Transmissions) to ten percent of its original size.
Q: What Is Flash?
A:
Flash is an authoring tool for animated multimedia both on and off the Web. Flash is today the most widely accepted technology for creating fully interactive real-time design animation's on the Web. The most amazing thing about Flash animation technology is its low bandwidth requirements compared to animated GIFs, Quick Time movies, or even Shockwave Director technology.
Flash file size requirements are extremely low due to its use of vector art as compared to bit-mapped art used in animated GIFs. Vector art uses geometry to define shapes and colors rather than bitmaped art which is defined by coloring each individual pixel (represented by a group of data bits) in a user-defined fixed sized matrix (often called a "raster"). Programs such as Photoshop, Painter, XRES, and your scanner software use bitmap graphics.
Flash can be used to make simple animated banners and graphics or used to create an entire Web site. The developer of this product, Macromedia, has designed Flash to work on all operating systems and has designed it to play with the Shockwave plug-in or through JAVA-playback and Active X if you don't have the plug-in. Viewers of Flash animations who have the plug-in will notice the presentation start quicker than those without the plug-in. Flash can also be used for CD-authoring, and is a powerful program for illustration and presentations.
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