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ACM
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An Audio Converter Module (ACM) is a module that converts audio format.
Often mentioned along with CODEC. So called ACM CODEC. Windows Media
Player uses ACM CODEC's to play audio files. If you for example use
Rosoft Media Player to play files you must have an ACM CODEC installed
to be able to play the files.
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Adware
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Adware is programs that are available free-of-charge as long as you
use another program that displays advertisements. Adware is not the
same as spyware. Adware programs like n-CASE
from 180Solutions
do not gather any personal information from the user and there for n-CASE
is no spyware.
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CODEC
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A COdec DECoder (CODEC) is generally a device driver for wave file,
which are installed in the operating system. Every program that supports
all installed wave formats can use this CODEC. For example you can use
Fraunhofers IIS Mpeg Layer 3 CODEC to encode and decode wave files and
this way make them 10 to 12 times smaller.
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Control
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A Control is generally a button or any other graphic in a program that
when you click it the program performs a certain type of action. Examples
of Controls are buttons, menus and sliders.
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Driver
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A driver is a program that acts as the interface between a program
and the operating system. For example: To be able to play audio files
you must have a driver installed for your sound card. The program that
plays the file sends digital audio information to the driver. The driver
then sends the information to the sound card. The drivers also send
information back to the user program. For example: When you play an
audio file the driver lets the program know when it should send information
to the sound board The program can't just send the information to the
sound card when it wants. The program must send the information when
the buffers on the sound card have space for them. This way the audio
data are synched so you get a steady stream of data and the sound are
played in normal speed.
The ACM CODECs can bee seen as a driver for a specific file format.
It's a way of making a CODEC usable from other programs such as Rosoft
Media Player and Rosoft
CD Extractor.
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EULA
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End User License Agreement (EULA) is a document that describes the
right to use the product. The document also describes what it is you
are installing. By accepting the EULA you accept the install of all
software described in the EULA. All programs that come with an adware
program should include an EULA.
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File Extension
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File Extension is the three characters after the dot (.) that the file
name ends with. This extension tells Windows how to access the file.
For example a file that ends with .EXE or .exe is an executable program.
A file that ends with .TXT or .txt is a text file that includes characters.
Every byte in file is treated as a character
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MP3
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I guess most people have heard about mp3. For those ho haven't I will
try go get a short introduction. MP3 is a way to compress digital audio.
Digital is impossible to compress if you want the uncompressed information
to be unchained. There fore you must cheat a little bit when compressing
digital audio. The only way is to split the audio signal into frames.
For every frame you then must find the frequencies and their values.
Many frequencies can be removed because you do not hear them. For example
man can only hear two signals at the same time if the differences between
them are less than 50 dB, that is if one signal is 90 dB every signal
less than 40 dB can be removes since you never hears those signals.
At lest a normal person doesn't hear them. There is only one type of
songs where I have heard the difference and that is songs with slide
or steal guitar. So if you are a trained musician and have good hearing
and also have a really good sound board, maybe you should be able to
hear the difference. In mp3 files you simply save what frequencies,
their values and how long the are.
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MP3Pro
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MP3Pro is Fraunhofers update of mp3. MP3Pro uses two data streams to
compress the audio data. One for the lower frequencies and one for the
higher. This way you can compress the audio ore so you can use lower
bit rates at better quality. The key to MP3Pro is the huge patent fees
mp3-licensing
are charging for the right to use the patented functions.
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WAVE
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File format that Windows uses to play and record audio. To read or
write to a wave file you generally write or read to the WaveIO functions
in Windows API
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Windows API
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Windows Application Interface (API) is a set of functions that programmers
use to read and write information to Windows Operating System (OS).
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WMA
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Windows Media Audio (WMA) is Windows own file format for compressed
audio. With the new WMA 7.1 you the quality has been improved very much.
You should compare WMA 7.1 and later with the quality of MP3Pro. WMA
7.1 is way better that mp3 if you compare the quality for the same bit
rates for MP3 and WMA
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