🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan11.220701.718@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>The next question is that of capacity.  If the MD player is at CD
>quality, it will record at about 44,000 16-bit samples per second.  I
>believe the time-limit of a MD is 74 minutes.  This yields 44,000 x 74
>x 60 = 195360000 or 186MW or 372MB.  This is unformatted, of course.
>
>Now, comes the issue of speed.  Since the unit is meant to record live
>audio, it must be able to record at least 44,000 16-bit samples per
>second.  This comes up to 88,000 bytes per second, or 85K per second.
>A slow transfer rate, when compared to hard drives, but fast when
>compared to floppies.  As for seek time, who knows.  That much can't
>be derived from it's performance as an audio player.
>
>Naturally, the specs may be different from these, but one can expect
>these to be a minimum if it is truly a CD-quality recorder.

The MD is supposed to be "CD quality" in the sense that it records only
those sounds that a human being can hear.  The upshot of this is that
you don't need to store 44kHz of 16-bit stereo data in order to
reproduce "CD-quality" sound; the MD actually stores much less than
this.

If my memory serves me correctly, the MD delivers in the neighborhood of
240,000 bits of data per second (far less than an audio CD).  For a
74-minute capacity, this would give you only about 130 MB of
information.  A lot less than a CD-ROM, but a convenient amount for a
removable, rewritable medium.

--
Michael B. Williams
Hewlett-Packard Company
Medical Products Group
Waltham, MA 02254                    Prodigy: Dumped it
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