Windows® 98 Unleashed

Audio Codecs

As their quality increases, sound files take up a progressively bigger chunk of your hard disk. To help reduce the load, codecs are used to compress digitized audio and then decompress it for playing. Windows 98 comes with a number of 32-bit codecs. Here's a list of the Microsoft codecs:

Adaptive Delta Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM): This codec works by storing the differences between consecutive PCM samples. This allows ADPCM to store audio data in just 4 bits, which is a 4:1 compression ratio over 16-bit audio. This codec reproduces low frequencies well but tends to distort high frequencies. However, these distortions are barely noticeable at higher sampling frequencies.

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