Bitrate
From Dharmasphere
Bitrate is a measurement of the amount of information conveyed per unit of time. In audio files, such as mp3, the bitrate is the amount of audio data that is stored per unit time of a recording.
The greater the bitrate, the greater the amount of data that is required to play the file and the greater will be the quality of its reproduction. Hence, the greater the bitrate, the larger the file size and the slower the download speed of that file over the Internet.
Choosing an appropriate bitrate when exporting audio and video files is a matter of keeping a sufficient quality of reproduction, while keeping the file size as low as possible. The choice of bitrate will depend on the medium in which the file will be distributed - for example, on the Web, keeping a fast download speed is an important consideration.
MP3 Bitrates
- 4 kbit/s — minimum necessary for recognizable speech (using special-purpose speech codecs)
- 8 kbit/s — telephone quality
- 32 kbit/s — MW (AM) quality
- 96 kbit/s — FM quality
- 128 kbit/s — Typical "acceptable" music quality
- 256 - 320 kbit/s — Near audio CD quality
