Bit rate and Bandwidth

Bandwidth

The bandwidth determines how much capacity is available on a certain channel to send or receive data. The required capacity for that channel is dependent on the amount of data being sent or received.

Bit-Rate

The bit-rate refers to the amount of data being transferred from one location to the other in a certain amount of time

In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable R) is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time.

The bit rate of a file tells us how many bits of data are processed every second. Bit rates are usually measured in kilobits per second (kbps).

Calculating bit rate

The bit rate is calculated using the formula:

Frequency × bit depth × channels = bit rate

A typical, uncompressed high-quality audio file has a sample rate of 44,100 samples per second, a bit depth of 16 bits per sample and 2 channels of stereo audio. The bit rate for this file would be:

44,100 samples per second × 16 bits per sample × 2 channels = 1,411,200 bits per second (or 1,411.2 kbps)

A four-minute (240 second) song at this bit rate would create a file size of:

1,411,200 × 240 = 338,688,000 bits (or 40.37 megabytes)

Bandwidth Trivia