Pulse-code Modulation
Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the amplitude of the analog signal is sampled at uniform intervals, and each sample is quantized to the nearest value within a range of digital steps. Alec Reeves, Claude Shannon, Barney Oliver and John R. Pierce are credited with its invention. Linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) is a specific type of PCM in which the quantization levels are linearly uniform. This is in contrast to PCM encodings in which quantization levels vary as a function of amplitude (as with the A-law algorithm or the μ-law algorithm). Though ''PCM'' is a more general term, it is often used to describe data encoded as LPCM. A PCM stream has two basic properties that determine the stream's fidelity to the original analog signal: the sampling rate, which is the number of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Audio File Format
An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data on a computer system. The bit layout of the audio data (excluding metadata) is called the audio coding format and can be uncompressed, or audio compression (data), compressed to reduce the file size, often using lossy compression. The data can be a raw bitstream in an audio coding format, but it is usually embedded in a container format or an audio data format with defined storage layer. Format types It is important to distinguish between the audio coding format, the Container format (digital), container containing the Raw audio format, raw audio data, and an audio codec. A codec performs the encoding and decoding of the raw audio data while this encoded data is (usually) stored in a container file. Although most audio file formats support only one type of audio coding data (created with an audio codec, audio coder), a multimedia container format (as Matroska or Audio Video Interleave, AVI) may support multiple ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Claude Shannon
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, cryptographer and inventor known as the "father of information theory" and the man who laid the foundations of the Information Age. Shannon was the first to describe the use of Boolean algebra—essential to all digital electronic circuits—and helped found artificial intelligence (AI). Roboticist Rodney Brooks declared Shannon the 20th century engineer who contributed the most to 21st century technologies, and mathematician Solomon W. Golomb described his intellectual achievement as "one of the greatest of the twentieth century". At the University of Michigan, Shannon dual degreed, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and another in mathematics, both in 1936. A 21-year-old master's degree student in electrical engineering at MIT, his thesis, "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits", demonstrated that electric ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Telephony
Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunications services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is intimately linked to the invention and development of the telephone. Telephony is commonly referred to as the construction or operation of telephones and telephonic systems and as a system of telecommunications in which telephonic equipment is employed in the transmission of speech or other sound between points, with or without the use of wires. The term is also used frequently to refer to computer hardware, software, and computer network systems, that perform functions traditionally performed by telephone equipment. In this context the technology is specifically referred to as Internet telephony, or voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Overview The first telephones were connected directly in pairs: each user had a separate telephone wire ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Commutator (electric)
A commutator is a rotary switch, electrical switch in certain types of electric motors and electrical generators that periodically reverses the Current (electricity), current direction between the rotor and the external circuit. It consists of a cylinder composed of multiple metal contact segments on the rotating armature (electrical engineering), armature of the machine. Two or more electrical contacts called "brush (electric), brushes" made of a soft conductive material like carbon press against the commutator, making sliding contact with successive segments of the commutator as it rotates. The windings (coils of wire) on the armature (electrical engineering), armature are connected to the commutator segments. Commutators are used in direct current (DC) machines: dynamos (DC generators) and many DC motors as well as universal motors. In a motor the commutator applies electric current to the windings. By reversing the current direction in the rotating windings each half turn, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moses G
In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the Exodus from Egypt. He is considered the most important prophet in Judaism and Samaritanism, and one of the most important prophets in Christianity, Islam, the Baháʼà Faith, and Table of prophets of Abrahamic religions, other Abrahamic religions. According to both the Bible and the Quran, God in Abrahamic religions, God dictated the Mosaic Law to Moses, which he Mosaic authorship, wrote down in the five books of the Torah. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a period when his people, the Israelites, who were an slavery, enslaved minority, were increasing in population; consequently, the Pharaohs in the Bible#In the Book of Exodus, Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally themselves with New Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt's enemies. When Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites, Moses' Hebrew mother ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pigeon post is not. Ancient signalling systems, although sometimes quite extensive and sophisticated as in China, were generally not capable of transmitting arbitrary text messages. Possible messages were fixed and predetermined, so such systems are thus not true telegraphs. The earliest true telegraph put into widespread use was the Chappe telegraph, an optical telegraph invented by Claude Chappe in the late 18th century. The system was used extensively in France, and European nations occupied by France, during the Napoleonic era. The electric telegraph started to replace the optical telegraph in the mid-19th century. It was first taken up in Britain in the form of the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, initially used mostly as an aid to railw ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Multiplexing
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource—a physical transmission medium. For example, in telecommunications, several telephone calls may be carried using one wire. Multiplexing originated in telegraphy in the 1870s, and is now widely applied in communications. In telephony, George Owen Squier is credited with the development of telephone carrier multiplexing in 1910. The multiplexed signal is transmitted over a communication channel such as a cable. The multiplexing divides the capacity of the communication channel into several logical channels, one for each message signal or data stream to be transferred. A reverse process, known as demultiplexing, extracts the original channels on the receiver end. A device that performs the multiplexing is called a multiplexer (MUX), and a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Audio Bit Depth
In digital audio using pulse-code modulation (PCM), bit depth is the number of bits of information in each sample, and it directly corresponds to the resolution of each sample. Examples of bit depth include Compact Disc Digital Audio, which uses 16 bits per sample, and DVD-Audio and Blu-ray Disc, which can support up to 24 bits per sample. In basic implementations, variations in bit depth primarily affect the noise level from quantization error—thus the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and dynamic range. However, techniques such as dithering, noise shaping, and oversampling can mitigate these effects without changing the bit depth. Bit depth also affects bit rate and file size. Bit depth is useful for describing PCM digital signals. Non-PCM formats, such as those using lossy compression, do not have associated bit depths. Binary representation A PCM signal is a sequence of digital audio samples containing the data providing the necessary information to reconst ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sampling Rate
In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal to a discrete-time signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of "samples". A sample is a value of the signal at a point in time and/or space; this definition differs from the term's usage in statistics, which refers to a set of such values. A sampler is a subsystem or operation that extracts samples from a continuous signal. A theoretical ideal sampler produces samples equivalent to the instantaneous value of the continuous signal at the desired points. The original signal can be reconstructed from a sequence of samples, up to the Nyquist limit, by passing the sequence of samples through a reconstruction filter. Theory Functions of space, time, or any other dimension can be sampled, and similarly in two or more dimensions. For functions that vary with time, let s(t) be a continuous function (or "signal") to be sampled, and let sampling be performed by measuring t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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μ-law Algorithm
The μ-law algorithm (sometimes written Mu (letter), mu-law, often abbreviated as u-law) is a companding algorithm, primarily used in 8-bit PCM Digital data, digital telecommunications systems in North America and Japan. It is one of the two companding algorithms in the G.711 standard from ITU-T, the other being the similar A-law. A-law is used in regions where digital telecommunication signals are carried on E-1 circuits, e.g. Europe. The terms PCMU, G711u or G711MU are used for G711 μ-law. Companding algorithms reduce the dynamic range of an audio signal. In analog systems, this can increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) achieved during transmission; in the digital domain, it can reduce the quantization error (hence increasing the signal-to-quantization-noise ratio). These SNR increases can be traded instead for reduced Bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth for equivalent SNR. At the cost of a reduced peak SNR, it can be mathematically shown that μ-law's non-linear q ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A-law Algorithm
An A-law algorithm is a standard companding algorithm, used in European 8-bit PCM digital communications systems to optimize, i.e. modify, the dynamic range of an analog signal for digitizing. It is one of the two companding algorithms in the G.711 standard from ITU-T, the other being the similar μ-law, used in North America and Japan. For a given input x, the equation for A-law encoding is as follows: F(x) = \sgn(x) \begin \dfrac, & , x, < \dfrac, \\ ex \dfrac, & \dfrac \leq , x, \leq 1, \end where is the compression parameter. In Europe, . A-law expansion is given by the inverse function: The reason for this encoding is that the wide [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |