Computer Science · Data representation. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.
Text, sound and pictures must all be turned into binary numbers before a computer can store them.
For text, a character set gives every character its own binary code. ASCII uses few bits, so it covers English letters, digits and symbols. Unicode uses more bits per character, so it covers the characters of many languages and emojis, but files are larger.
Sound is a continuous wave. The computer measures its height (amplitude) many times each second; each measurement is a sample. A picture is a grid of pixels, and each pixel stores a binary code for its colour. In both cases more data gives better quality but a larger file.
Students mix up sample rate and sample resolution. Rate is how often a sample is taken; resolution is how many bits each sample has.
Answer: The smallest colour depth is 9 bits.
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