Players that use a hard disc can store 6, 20 or even 40 gigabytes of
MP3s. Flash memory players are limited to 1GB or 2GB. 1GB is still
enough room for 800 tracks, calculated as follows.
Let's assume that your edited bird sound recordings average 30
seconds' duration. You choose to digitize them at the highest
quality, which for MP3 is 320K (stereo, 160K per channel).
320,000 bits per second =3D 40,000 bytes per second
therefore a 30 second cut requires (40,000*30) =3D 1,200,000 bytes
a 1 GB flash memory module can hold more than 800 such MP3 files
If your recordings are monaural, 1 GB =3D 1600 files, 2GB =3D 3200 files
Right now, some reader is thinking, "Wow, with a 40GB hard disc, I
could carry every bird sound ever recorded!" That may be true, but
remember that navigating through 30,000 tracks will be a nightmare. I
think it's better to keep your bird sound library on your computer's
hard disc, and only transfer the sounds you'll need to the player you
carry in your pocket. Small is beautiful.
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