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Re: [ARSCLIST] Audio History In a Nutshell?



On 05/12/07, Howard Friedman wrote:

> In reply to Mike,
> 
> I stand corrected. As to the *.CDA format, that's what I see when I
> look at the contents of an Audio CD. 

You are not actually looking at the contents of the CD, but at a
converted version of it, as presented by a computer.

> When I copy it to my hard drive
> it converts, I suppose you mean is extracted to the MP3 format. 

Copying from the CD to any kind of computer audio file is extraction. An
audio CD doesn't have a "file system" like a computer drive.


> But
> how does the 44KB *.CDA file become a MP3 file of MB size? 

A program in the computer converts the directly extracted (probably WAV
or AIFF) file into a lossy, compressed MP3 file.

> And does an
> audio CD actually have the MP3 file on it, or is it compressed, or
> what?

A standard Red Book CD has no MP3, WAV or AIFF files on it. It does
contain a sequence of numbers which a CD player can convert to audio,
and which match the numbers found in a 44.1/16 WAV file (but without the
header data found in a WAV file).

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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