Welcome, future sound explorer! This challenge is all about how computers hear and store sounds. Just like pictures, sounds need to be turned into a special digital language for computers to understand them.
You'll learn about things like sample rate (how many sound snippets a computer takes each second), bit depth (how much detail is in each snippet), and how to figure out the size of a sound file. You'll also discover how real-world sounds become digital, and how we make sound files smaller so they don't take up too much space!
Getting good at this helps you understand how all your favorite music, podcasts, and game sounds work their magic!
Example: A mono sound file is recorded with a sample rate of 1000 Hz, a bit depth of 8 bits, and a duration of 5 seconds. What is its uncompressed file size?
Walkthrough:
Formula: File Size (bits) = Sample Rate × Bit Depth × Duration × Channels
1. Find the total size in bits:
Bits = 1000 (Hz) × 8 (bits) × 5 (seconds) × 1 (mono channel)
Bits = 40,000 bits
2. Convert bits to Bytes (since 1 Byte = 8 bits):
Bytes = 40,000 bits / 8 bits/Byte
Bytes = 5,000 Bytes
So, the file size is 5,000 Bytes.