Glossary of Audio Terms

A | C | D | M | P | R | T | W
Terminology Description
CODEC (or Codec)

CODEC stands for compression / decompression. A codec is a small program which allows Windows to compress and/or decompress audio to and from certain formats
Compression

The process of reducing the dynamic range of a given analog audio program by making the

loud parts quieter and the quiet parts louder. A means of encoding a digital file so that it

occupies a smaller amount of disk space than the data contained within the file. In order to

make use of a compressed file, one must employ a codec (coder-decoder)
Digital

The method of turning sound information into computer or electronic information and then
back again for taping and playing back; cleaner than analogue reproduction. Digital technology
breaks your voice (or television) signal into binary code—a series of 1s and 0s—transfers
it to the other end where another device (phone, modem or TV) takes all the numbers and
reassembles them into the original signal
Megabyte

Unit of measure for data file size. 1 megabyte = 1000 kilobytes. 1 gigabyte(gb)  = 1000 megabytes. 1000 gigabytes = 1Terabyte.

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