[ose]

When an audio player loads and plays back an audio file (e.g. wav or mp3),
how does it know how fast to play it?

Is the following correct?

For a Wave file of 16 bit, stereo, 44.1 kHz PCM,

16 x 2 x 44,100 = 1,411,200 bps

Thus, a player would load for each second playback 1411200 bits of data?

[Scott Dorsey]

ose wrote:
When an audio player loads and plays back an audio file (e.g. wav or mp3),
how does it know how fast to play it?

In the case of a .wav file, the first bit of the file is a header which
says what the sample rate is and how long the samples are (and if they
are packed or spaced out with zeros to a standard word length).

In the case of an mp3 file, the original audio data isn't there, just
a description of the audio data. And that description contains timing
information.

Is the following correct?

For a Wave file of 16 bit, stereo, 44.1 kHz PCM,

16 x 2 x 44,100 = 1,411,200 bps

Thus, a player would load for each second playback 1411200 bits of data?

Right, if it's running 16-bit samples. If it's running 20-bit samples
that are unpacked (ie. they are stored as 32-bit samples with the bottom
12 bits zeroed out), it will be twice that. The header tells you all you
need to know to play the file back.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."