Digitisation of Audio

Sound and other analog data is generally represented as a transverse wave, and
can be converted to digital form by a process called sampling. The two
important aspects of sampling are:

• Sampling size refers to the number of bits used to store each sample
from the analog wave. For example, an 8-bit sample can be represented
256 (28 = 256) possible levels in a particular sample. A higher sample size
will result in increased accuracy, but higher data storage requirements.

• Sampling Rate refers to the number of samples or slices taken from the
analog wave in one second. The higher the sampling rate, the better the
representation of the initial analog signal. If CD Audio quality is required
then a sampling rate of 44.1 KHz (44,100 samples per second) is chosen.

For example, to calculate storage requirements of 2 minutes of CD quality mono

sound:

CD audio uses 44.1 KHz sampling with 16-bit sample size.

Storage per sample = 16 bits

Storage per sample = 16 x 44 100 bits

Storage per minute = 16 x 44 100 x 60 bits

Storage (2 minutes) = 16 x 44 100 x 120 bits

Storage (1 minute) = 84 672 000 bits

Total storage = 10, 584 000 bytes

Total storage = 10.09 MB

*Stereo sound doubles the storage requirements; so multiply by 2.

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Calculating Image File Sizes
The relationship between the number of displayable colours and bit depth

BIT DEPTH NUMBER OF COLOURS RELATIONSHIP

1 2 Colours = 21 = 2

2 4 22 = 4

3 8 23 = 8

4 16 24 = 16

8 256 28 = 256

16 (high colour) 65 536 216 = 65 536

24 (true colour) 16 777 216 224 = 16 777 216

Both screen resolution and the number of displayable colours depend upon the
size of the frame buffer. The display colours every pixel on the screen is stored
in the frame buffer. If you know the number of pixels in an image and the
number of colours in an image, then you can calculate the size of the frame
buffer that will be needed to display it.

Example: Consider an image with a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels in 24

bit true colour- this is usually written as 800 x 600 x 24

Step 1: Calculate the number of the pixels in the image – multiply the two
resolution figures together.

The number of pixels = 800 x 600 = 480 000 pixels

Step 2: Calculate the number of bits in the image – multiply the pixels by the bit
depth.

The number of bits = 800 x 600 x 24 = 11 520 000 bits

Step 3: calculate the number of bytes in the image – divide the number of bits
by 8 (there are 8 bits in a byte).

The number of bytes = 800 x 600 x 24÷8 = 1 440 000 bytes

Step 4: Calculate the number of kilobytes in the image – divide the number of
bytes by 1024 (there are 1024 bytes in a kilobyte).

The size of the frame buffer = (800 x 600 x 24) ÷ (8 x 1024) = 1406 KB
(rounded to the nearest whole number)

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Step 5: Calculate the number of megabytes in the image – divide the number of
kilobytes by 1024 (there are 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte)

The number of MB = (800 x 600 x 24) ÷ (8 x 1024) = 1.4 MB

The frame buffer would need 1.4 MB to store the image.

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