Digital Speech Standard (DSS) is a proprietary compressed digital audio file format defined by the International Voice Association, a consortium of Olympus, Philips and Grundig Business Systems.
DSS was originally developed in 1994 by Grundig with the University of Nuremberg. In 1997, the digital speech standard was released, which was based on the previous codec. It is commonly used on digital dictation recorders. Modern psychoacoustical codecs that perform nearly as well at only slightly higher bitrates have led to this speech coding standard being less used in modern voice recording equipment.
The DSS file format stores voice audio data in a highly compressed format that allows basic recording functionality (such as recording, playing, rewinding, etc.) as well as the ability to record in either insert or overwrite mode making it ideal for dictation. This along with ability to include additional information in the file header for the transcriptionist including priority mark, author, job type, etc.
DSS is a format designed specifically for speech, equivalent to MP3 for music. In contrast with MP3, however, the quality usually is as low as possible, to minimize the size of the file.
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An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data on a computer system. The bit layout of the audio data is called the audio coding format and can be uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size, often using lossy compression. The data can be a raw bitstream in an audio coding format, but it is usually embedded in a container format or an audio data format with defined storage layer.
A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. Codec is a portmanteau of coder/decoder.
In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression reduces bits by identifying and eliminating statistical redundancy. No information is lost in lossless compression. Lossy compression reduces bits by removing unnecessary or less important information. Typically, a device that performs data compression is referred to as an encoder, and one that performs the reversal of the process (decompression) as a decoder.
MP3 is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners; for example, compared to CD-quality digital audio, MP3 compression can commonly achieve a 75–95% reduction in size, depending on the bit rate. In popular usage, MP3 often refers to files of sound or music recordings stored in the MP3 file format (.mp3) on consumer electronic devices.
Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs. The original WMA codec, known simply as WMA, was conceived as a competitor to the popular MP3 and RealAudio codecs. WMA Pro, a newer and more advanced codec, supports multichannel and high-resolution audio. A lossless codec, WMA Lossless, compresses audio data without loss of audio fidelity. WMA Voice, targeted at voice content, applies compression using a range of low bit rates. Microsoft has also developed a digital container format called Advanced Systems Format to store audio encoded by WMA.
Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samples are taken 44,100 times per second, each with 16-bit resolution. Digital audio is also the name for the entire technology of sound recording and reproduction using audio signals that have been encoded in digital form. Following significant advances in digital audio technology during the 1970s and 1980s, it gradually replaced analog audio technology in many areas of audio engineering, record production and telecommunications in the 1990s and 2000s.
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II or MPEG-2 Audio Layer II is a lossy audio compression format defined by ISO/IEC 11172-3 alongside MPEG-1 Audio Layer I and MPEG-1 Audio Layer III (MP3). While MP3 is much more popular for PC and Internet applications, MP2 remains a dominant standard for audio broadcasting.
In telecommunications and computing, bit rate is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time.
Hi-MD is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage format. It was a further development of the MiniDisc. With its release in late 2004, came the ability to use newly developed, high-capacity 1 gigabyte Hi-MD discs, in the same dimensions as MiniDisc. The last recorder and player was discontinued in 2011. Blank discs stopped production in September 2012.
The Adaptive Multi-Rateaudio codec is an audio compression format optimized for speech coding. AMR is a multi-rate narrowband speech codec that encodes narrowband (200–3400 Hz) signals at variable bit rates ranging from 4.75 to 12.2 kbit/s with toll quality speech starting at 7.4 kbit/s.
Rockbox is a free and open-source software replacement for the OEM firmware in various forms of digital audio players (DAPs) with an original kernel. It offers an alternative to the player's operating system, in many cases without removing the original firmware, which provides a plug-in architecture for adding various enhancements and functions. Enhancements include personal digital assistant (PDA) functions, applications, utilities, and games. Rockbox can also retrofit video playback functions on players first released in mid-2000. Rockbox includes a voice-driven user-interface suitable for operation by visually impaired users.
A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored on a compact disc (CD), Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), Blu-ray Disc (BD), flash memory, microdrive, SD cards or hard disk drive; most earlier PMPs used physical media, but modern players mostly use flash memory. In contrast, analogue portable audio players play music from non-digital media that use analogue media, such as cassette tapes or vinyl records.
The Mini-Cassette, often written minicassette, is a magnetic tape audio cassette format introduced by Philips in 1967.
An audio converter is a software or hardware tool that converts audio files from one format to another. This process is often necessary when users encounter compatibility issues with different devices, applications, or platforms that support specific audio file formats. Audio converters can be employed for a variety of purposes, ranging from personal entertainment to professional audio production.
A dictation machine is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for playback or to be typed into print. It includes digital voice recorders and tape recorder.
Total Recorder is a digital audio editor software from High Criteria, Inc. which is able to record digital sound either directly through the computer's soundcard, or virtually through its software driver.
Grundig Business Systems (GBS) is a German maker of dictation solutions located in Bayreuth and Nuremberg in Germany and employs 170 people. It was spun off from Grundig AG in 2001 to focus on the of manufacture of analogue and digital dictation devices featuring the "Made in Germany" label.
Speech Processing Solutions is an international electronics company headquartered in Vienna, Austria. The company designs, develops, manufactures and markets speech processing devices, such as those used in digital dictation and speech recognition. Speech Processing Solutions was formed on 1 July 2012. Philips Speech Processing was part of the Philips Consumer Lifestyle sector. Speech Processing Solutions is now an official licensee of the Philips brand. The company has subsidiaries in the US, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and Germany, and employs around 170 people worldwide.
An audio coding format is a content representation format for storage or transmission of digital audio. Examples of audio coding formats include MP3, AAC, Vorbis, FLAC, and Opus. A specific software or hardware implementation capable of audio compression and decompression to/from a specific audio coding format is called an audio codec; an example of an audio codec is LAME, which is one of several different codecs which implements encoding and decoding audio in the MP3 audio coding format in software.