Audio Notes from Jack B

Well, really its just notes from wikipedia. But its reinterpreted and rewritten to make more sense to me

FLAC
Free Lossless Audio Codec
Compresses 50-60%, decodes 100%
Up to 8 channels- Can group stereo & 5.1
Open Source
Codec
Codec dictates how information is compressed and decompressed within a file container (mp3, wav, mp4)
Container
The format or extension, doesnt dictate how it's information (vid, pic, aud) by a decoder (dvd player)
AIFF
Audio Interchange File Format
Uncompressed PCM
10megs/1min
can include loop point data (HW sampler)
compressed ext = .aifc
Ogg Vorbis
Lossy, Replaced MP3, <chosen as format for streaming from apps like spotify
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format
USEd for computers- good for editing
Not really used for CD players
Can contain compressed audio- or not
Can also store more than audio information

LPCM
Linear pulse code modulation
^Used in AES3, S/PDIF, WAV, AIFF, AU, AVCHD, DVD, and Blu-ray containers &
Uses uniform linear quantization (when converting analog2digital)
^As in how often a point is created to represent a part of the analog. Constant rate

PCM
Pulse Code Modulation
Quantizations are a function of amplitude- smaller size stream

Dolby stereo
Decodes the rear channel as a 7kHz crossover LFO

Pro Logic
Decodes Dolby Stereo Surround audio into Four channels- Without decoder its stereo
Pro Logic A/V units decode audio into the original 4.0 surround- left, right, center, and rear

FFmpeg
FLAC implementation- fastest/efficent lossless audio codec(?codec/cont)

Dolby Pro Logic II

Codec Name

Description

Dolby Pro Logic

Decodes Dolby Stereo Surround audio into Four channels

Dolby Pro Logic II

Upmix Stereo to Surround 5.1 in either Movie, Music, or Game mode

Dolby Pro Logic IIx

Upmix Stereo or Surround 5.1 to 6.1 or 7.1 in either Movie, Music, or Game mode

- Lossy,
- 48kHz,
- 20-bit,
Dolby Digital Plus

- From - 768 kb/s up to 6Mb/s,

- 1.5 Mb/s on HiDef optical discs,
- 256kb/s for broadcast/onlne,
- 1.0-7.1 channels
- ReverseCompat w/Dolby Digital w/ S/PDIF connection

Manually make a Dolby Surround track by making phase-inverted copies of your tracks. Take look at Dolby Encoding Matrices[/u] on Wikipedia.
Just as an experiment, I tried this once using a simplified method as follows:
Center Front Channel = Left & Right Channels Identical & in-phase.
Left Front = Left Channel only (silence in the right channel).
Right Front = Right Channel only (silence in the left channel).
Both Rear Speakers = Left & Right Channels 180 degress out of phase.
Left Rear = Left & Right Channels out-of-phase. Left channel is 60-75% stronger than right.
Right Rear = Left & Right Channels out-of-phase. Right channel is 60-75% stronger than left. Also, delay the rear-channel signals about 30ms.
This actually worked very well, but you can only "steer" the sound in one direction at once. If you try to steer different instruments/vocals to different speakers at the
same time, you will get a mess!
A/D quantization as a function of amplitude- used in PCM encoded audio. Uniform quantization is used in LPCM audio found inAVCHD & MPEG-2

video formats. wikipedia is kewl ^.^