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Glossary Forensics

Sample rate

The sample rate is how many times per second a digital recording measures the sound wave, in hertz.

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In more detail

CDs use 44,100 Hz and video usually 48,000 Hz. The highest frequency that can be captured is half the sample rate (the Nyquist limit), 22,050 Hz at 44.1 kHz. A file whose content stops far below that limit may have been converted from a lower-quality source, a useful forensic clue.

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See also

  • Glossary Spectrogram
    A spectrogram is a picture of sound that plots time across, frequency up and the strength of each frequency as colour.
  • Glossary Codec
    A codec (coder-decoder) is the method used to compress and decompress audio or video, such as H.264, H.265, AV1, AAC or MP3.
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