DATA REPRESENTATION

IMAGES

COMPRESSION

SOUND

PBM monochrome images

Image resolution

Colour or bit depth

Metadata

LOSSY (JPG, GIF, MP3)

LOSSLESS (PNG, TIFF)

Some of the data is lost and cannot be recovered

Can be used on all types of data

BENEFITS

Greatly reduces file size

Reduces quality of images/sound

Suitable for images, sound and video

Cannot be used on text and executable files

Usually less effective than lossy compression at reducing file size

Can be turned back into original format. Uncompression also known as RLE (Run Length Encoding)

Mostly suitable for documents and executable files

None of the data is lost. It is encoded differently

Speeds up transmission of webpages that use images

Reduces space on disc/servers

Reduces downloads times of video, sound (including speech used for VOIP systems) and image files.

Enables better streaming of music and video

The number of combinations (2n) dictates the bit depth and therefore the number of colours that can be represented

A higher bit depth gives a greater range of colour and a better quality image

A pixel is attributed to a number of n bits

8 bits per pixel = 2 to the power of 8 = 256 colours

Each pixel can represent a finite number of colours

16 bits per pixel = 2 to the power of 16 = 65,536 colours

24 bits per pixel = 2 to the power of 24 = 16, 777, 216

The area is defined by the image width and height in pixels.
Eg... 3264 x 2448

72dpi = standard screen resolution

The more pixels, the clearer the image

300dpi = minimum resolution for quality printing (some glossy images / magazines may be at 1200dpi)

Resolution is the measure of the number of pixels within a specific area

dpi = Dots Per Inch ( modern technology uses PPI (Pixels Per Inch) )

Uses 1 bit per pixel

Store image dimensions

Lowest common denominator monochrome file format

Change 'colours' by changing binary values

PBM - Portable BitMap

Metadata is data about data and is stored in the file and gives the program information

Metadata can hold:

file size

date and time it was saved

type of file

who created it (author)

colour depth and resolution

Conversion

Sound sampling

Calculating sound file sizes

Digitized sound quality

Available file formats

.WAV - uncompressed files

.FLAC or .M4A - lossless compression, slightly smaller files

.MP3 - lossy compression, much smaller files

File size (bits) = sample rate x resolution x seconds
EG. 6 samples x 4 bit resolution x 3 seconds = 72 bits
72 / 8 = 9 bytes

Analogue sound signals are continuous

Digital sound signals are discreet

Sound is digitized by repeatedly measuring and recording the sound wave.

Sounds must be converted into digital form in order to be stored and processed by a computer

An ADC or DAC is used to process the input or output

Sound sampling is when sounds are repeatedly measured and recorded.

Sample resolution - number of bits per sample

The number of bits (audio bit depth) used to record each measurement is also known as the resolution.

More bits used per sample enables the height of the wave to be more accurately measured but increases file size