File Size Vs. Audio Quality: Bitrates Explained
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 12th, 2011
It is important for digital audio enthusiasts to understand what bitrate is referring to when it comes to digital audio files. Readers of this blog will learn how bitrate affects the quality of a digital audio file and also how bitrate affects the size of a digital audio file. The good thing about this information is that it can easily be applied to video files as well!
A digital audio (or video) file has to have a digital compression scheme (also called a codec) applied to it so that it is of a reasonable size to store. Even the .wav files on a music CD are compressed, and .mp3 compression is an attempt to maintain a level of quality comparable to .wav while also shrinking the size of an audio file. This means that MP3s have MORE compression and WAV files have LESS compression. The amount of compression can be varied for any scheme however, and this can also affect file sizes.
A general rule of thumb is that less compression (a higher bitrate) might sound better but it will often eat up more disc space than a file using the same scheme but with more compression (a lower bitrate). This is why some people opt for a space saving scheme such as the MP3 codec but apply a higher bitrate to give the file a better sound quality.