Bitrate

Bitrate

Bitrate: the rate at which data is transferred from one location to another.

Bitrate can be described also as the amount of data transferred in a given time, usually in a second, and is most often measured in one of three ways: bps (bits per second), kbps (kilobits per second), or mbps (megabits per second).

Again, we have already seen that bitrate is related to all of the previous terms in the list, as each measures a data transfer, of which bitrate is the base measurement, each just measured a slightly different aspect of bitrate.


Bandwidth measured the amount of bits that could fit through a connection at one time; baud rate measured how many groupings of this data registered in a given time; and bits of course are the foundation of bitrate. Another important (and decidedly interesting) use of bitrate is as a measure of audio and video quality.

But how can the rate of transfer affect the quality of sound or sight? Quite simply, the higher a bit rate, the more information is transmitted per second. This means that more of the subtleties in audio and video can be coded into the data, and thus provide more information.

Mathematically, this means that when looking at a song compressed at 120 kpbs and another at 200bps, the 200kbps will be of a higher quality. The same goes for video (a 3000kbps video is better than a 1000 kbps video).

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