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Quince

The quince (Cydonia oblonga) is the sole member of the genus Cydonia in the Malinae subtribe (which also contains apples and pears, among other fruits) of the Rosaceae family. It is a deciduous tree that bears hard, aromatic bright golden-yellow pome fruit, similar in appearance to a pear. Ripe quince fruits are hard, tart, and astringent. They are eaten raw or processed into marmalade, jam, paste (known as quince cheese) or alcoholic beverages.

The quince tree is also grown as an ornamental plant for its attractive pale pink blossoms and other ornamental qualities.

Description
The tree grows 5 to 8 m high and 4 to 6 m wide. The fruit is 70 to 120 mm long and 60 to 90 mm across.

The immature fruit is green with dense grey-white fine hair, most of which rubs off before maturity in late autumn when the fruit changes colour to yellow with hard, strongly perfumed flesh. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, 60 - 110 mm long, with an entire margin and densely pubescent with fine white hairs. The flowers, produced in spring after the leaves, are white or pink, 50 mm across, with five petals.

The seeds contain nitriles, which are common in the seeds of the rose family. In the stomach, enzymes or stomach acid or both cause some of the nitriles to be hydrolysed and produce hydrogen cyanide, which is a volatile gas. The seeds are toxic only if eaten in large quantities.

Taxonomy
Four other species previously included in the genus Cydonia are now treated in separate genera. These are Pseudocydonia sinensis and the three flowering quinces of eastern Asia in the genus Chaenomeles. Another unrelated fruit, the bael, is sometimes called the "Bengal quince".

The modern name originated in the 14th century as a plural of quoyn, via Old French cooin from Latin cotoneum malum / cydonium malum, ultimately from Greek κυδώνιον μῆλον, kydonion melon "Kydonian apple".

Cydonia is included in the subfamily Amygdaloideae.

Distribution and habitat

Quince is native to the Hyrcanian forests south of the Caspian Sea, although it thrives in a variety of climates and can be grown successfully at latitudes as far north as Scotland. It should not be confused with its relatives, the Chinese quince, Pseudocydonia sinensis, or the flowering quinces of genus Chaenomeles, either of which is sometimes used as a culinary substitute.

History
The fruit was known in the Akkadian language as supurgillu; "quinces" (collective plural), which was borrowed into Aramaic as ספרגלין sparglin; it was known in Judea during the Mishnaic Hebrew as פרישין prishin (a loanword from Jewish Palestinian Aramaic פרישין "the miraculous [fruit]"); quince flourished in the heat of the Mesopotamian plain, where apples did not. It was cultivated from an archaic period around the Mediterranean. Some ancients called the fruit "golden apples".

The Greeks associated it with Kydonia on Crete, as the "Cydonian pome", and Theophrastus, in his Enquiry into Plants, noted that quince was one of many fruiting plants that do not come true from seed.

As a sacred emblem of Aphrodite, a quince figured in a lost poem of Callimachus that survives in a prose epitome: seeing his beloved in the courtyard of the temple of Aphrodite, Acontius plucks a quince from the "orchard of Aphrodite", inscribes its skin and furtively rolls it at the feet of her illiterate nurse, whose curiosity aroused, hands it to the girl to read aloud, and the girl finds herself saying "I swear by Aphrodite that I will marry Acontius". A vow thus spoken in the goddess's temenos cannot be broken. Pliny the Elder mentions "numerous varieties" of quince in his Natural History and describes four.

The season of ripe quinces is brief: the Roman cookbook De re coquinaria of Apicius specifies in attempting to keep quinces, to select perfect unbruised fruits and keep stems and leaves intact, submerged in honey and reduced wine.

Pests and diseases
Quince is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including brown-tail, Bucculatrix bechsteinella, Bucculatrix pomifoliella, Coleophora cerasivorella, Coleophora malivorella, green pug and winter moth.

While quince is a hardy shrub, it may develop fungal diseases in hot weather, resulting in premature leaf fall. Quince leaf blight, caused by fungus Diplocarpon mespili, presents a threat in wet summers, causing severe leaf spotting and early defoliation, also affecting fruit to a lesser extent. It may also affect other Rosaceae plants such as hawthorn and medlar, but is typically less damaging than on quince. Cedar-quince rust, caused by Gymnosporangium clavipes, requires two hosts to complete the fungal life cycle, one being a cedar (most commonly a juniper, Juniperus virginiana) and the other a rosacea. Appearing as red excrescence on various parts of the plant, it may affect quinces grown in vicinity of junipers.

Cultivation
Quince is a hardy, drought-tolerant shrub which adapts to many soils of low to medium pH. It tolerates both shade and sun, but sunlight is required to produce larger flowers and ensure fruit ripening. It is a hardy plant that does not require much maintenance, and tolerates years without pruning or major insect and disease problems. It is favored by landscape architects, such as Frederick Law Olmsted in the early 20th century, for its attractive blossoms.

Quince is cultivated on all continents in warm-temperate and temperate climates. It requires a cooler period of the year, with temperatures under 7 C, to flower properly. Propagation is done by cuttings or layering; the former method produces better plants, but they take longer to mature than by the latter. Named cultivars are propagated by cuttings or layers grafted on quince rootstock. Propagation by seed is not used commercially. Quince forms thick bushes, which must be pruned and reduced into a single stem to grow fruit-bearing trees for commercial use. The tree is self-pollinated, but it produces better yields when cross-pollinated.

Fruits are typically left on the tree to ripen fully. In warmer climates, it may become soft to the point of being edible, but additional ripening may be required in cooler climates. They are harvested in late autumn, before first frosts.

Quince is also used as rootstock for certain pear cultivars. The resultant chimera is called + Pirocydonia danielii.

In Europe, quinces are commonly grown in central and southern areas where the summers are sufficiently hot for the fruit to fully ripen. They are not grown in large amounts; typically one or two quince trees are grown in a mixed orchard with several apples and other fruit trees. In the 18th-century New England colonies, for example, there was always a quince at the lower corner of the vegetable garden, Ann Leighton notes in records of Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Charlemagne directed that quinces be planted in well-stocked orchards. Quinces in England are first recorded in about 1275, when Edward I had some planted at the Tower of London.

Cultivars
The cultivars 'Vranja' Nenadovic and 'Serbian Gold' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Production
In 2021, world production of quinces was 697,563 tonnes, with Turkey and China accounting for 43% of the world total (table).

Uses
Quinces are appreciated for their intense aroma, flavour, and tartness. However, most varieties of quince are too hard and tart to be eaten raw. They may be cooked or roasted and used for jams, marmalade, jellies, or pudding.

Culinary use
Some varieties of quince, such as 'Aromatnaya' and 'Kuganskaya' do not require cooking and can be eaten raw. High in pectin, they are used to make jam, jelly and quince pudding, or they may be peeled, then roasted, baked or stewed; pectin levels diminish as the fruit ripens. Long cooking with sugar turns the flesh of the fruit red due to the presence of pigmented anthocyanins.

The strong flavor means they can be added in small quantities to apple pies and jam. Adding a diced quince to apple sauce will enhance the taste of the apple sauce with the chunks of relatively firm, tart quince. The term "marmalade", originally meaning a quince jam, derives from marmelo, the Portuguese word for this fruit.

Quince cheese is firm, sticky, sweet reddish hard paste made from the quince fruit, and originating from the Iberian peninsula. It is known as marmelada across the Portuguese-speaking world and as carne de membrillo or dulce de membrillo across the Spanish-speaking world, where it is used in a variety of recipes, eaten in sandwiches and with cheese, traditionally manchego cheese, or accompanying fresh curds. In Chile, boiled quince is popular in desserts such as the murta con membrillo that combines Chilean guava with quince.

Quince is also used in the Levant, especially in Syria. It is added to either chicken or kibbeh to create an intense and unique flavor such as is the case with kibbeh safarjaliyeh.

Nutrition
A raw quince is 84% water, 15% carbohydrates, and contains negligible fat and protein (table). In a 100 g reference amount, the fruit provides 238 kJ of food energy and a moderate amount of vitamin C (18% of the Daily Value), with no other micronutrients in significant percentage of the Daily Value (table).

Alcoholic drink
In the Balkans and elsewhere, quince eau-de-vie (rakija) is made. For a quince rakija, ripe fruits of sweeter varieties are washed and cleared of rot and seeds, then crushed or minced, mixed with cold or boiling sweetened water and yeast, and left for several weeks to ferment. The fermented mash is distilled once, obtaining a 20–30 ABV, or twice, producing an approximately 60% ABV liquor. The two distillates may be mixed or diluted with distilled water to obtain the final product, containing 42–43% ABV. Traditionally, it is not aged in wooden casks.

In the Alsace region of France and the Valais region of Switzerland, liqueur de coing made from quince is used as a digestif.

In Carolina in 1709, John Lawson allowed that he was "not a fair judge of the different sorts of Quinces, which they call Brunswick, Portugal and Barbary", but he noted "of this fruit they make a wine or liquor which they call Quince-Drink, and which I approve of beyond any that their country affords, though a great deal of cider and perry is there made, The Quince-Drink most commonly purges."

Ornamental
Quince is one of the most popular species for deciduous bonsai specimens, along with related Chinese quince and Japanese quince, native to Eastern Asia.

Cultural associations

 * In "El licenciado Vidriera" by Miguel de Cervantes, the protagonist develops the delusion that he is made of glass after he eats a poisoned quince.
 * In Turkey, the expression ayvayı yemek (literally "to eat the quince") is used as a derogatory term indicating any unpleasant situation or a malevolent incident to avoid. This usage is likened to the rather bitter aftertaste of a quince fruit inside the mouth.
 * When a baby is born in the Balkans, a quince tree is planted as a symbol of fertility, love and life.
 * Ancient Greek poets (Ibycus and Aristophanes, for example) used quinces (kydonia) as a mildly ribald term for teenage breasts.
 * In Plutarch's Lives, Solon is said to have decreed that "bride and bridegroom shall be shut into a chamber, and eat a quince together."
 * In Kashmir quince is a cooked in a traditional recipe and is considered a local delicacy. Locally the quince is known as Bamtchoont.
 * In Chile, the expression "bruised as a quince" ("más machucado que membrillo de colegial") entered popular language since schoolboys used to bash the fruit against wooden poles and walls to soften them before eating.

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Zgorzelec

Zgorzelec (, Görlitz, Zhorjelc, Zgórjelc, ) is a town in southwestern Poland with 30,374 inhabitants (2019). It lies in Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the seat of Zgorzelec County and of Gmina Zgorzelec (although it is not part of the territory of the latter, as the town is an urban gmina in its own right). Zgorzelec is located on the Lusatian Neisse river, on the Polish-German border adjoining the German town of Görlitz, of which it constituted the eastern part up to 1945.

History
Up until 1945, the modern-day towns of Zgorzelec and Görlitz were a single entity; their history up to that point is shared. The date of the town's foundation is unknown.

Middle Ages
In the Early Middle Ages, the area was inhabited by the Bieżuńczanie tribe, one of the old Polish tribes, which together with the Sorbian Milceni tribe, with which it bordered in the west, was subjugated in 990 by the Margraviate of Meissen, a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire. It was conquered by Polish Duke, and future King, Bolesław I the Brave in 1002, whose goal was to decisively unite all Polish tribes, and remained part of Poland during the reign of the first Polish kings Bolesław I the Brave and Mieszko II Lambert until 1031, when the region fell again to the Margraviate of Meissen. Zgorzelec/Görlitz was first mentioned in a document from the King of Germany, and later Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV in 1071 as a small village named Goreliz in the region of Upper Lusatia. In 1075, the region came under the rule of the Duchy of Bohemia (kingdom from 1198). In the 13th century the village gradually turned into a town. It became rich due to its location on the Via Regia, an ancient and medieval trade road. In 1319 it became part of the Piast-ruled Duchy of Jawor, the southwesternmost duchy of fragmented Poland, and later on, became part of Bohemia again.

In the following centuries, from 1346, it was a wealthy member of the Six-City League of Upper Lusatia, consisting of the six Lusatian cities Bautzen, Görlitz, Kamenz, Lubań, Löbau and Zittau. The town of Gorlice in southern Poland was founded during the reign of Casimir the Great in 1354 by ethnic German colonists from Görlitz, in the last phases of eastward settlement by Germans (in this case by Walddeutsche). In 1469, along with the Lusatian League, the town recognized the rule of King Matthias Corvinus and passed to Hungary, and in 1490 it fell back to Bohemia then ruled by Polish prince Vladislaus Jagiellon. The town brokered international trade between German states in the west and Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and Muscovy in the east, and in 1510 King Sigismund I the Old allowed free trade in all of Poland and Lithuania for the town.

Modern period
After suffering for years in the Thirty Years' War, the region of Upper Lusatia (including Görlitz) passed to Saxony (1635), whose Electors were also Kings of Poland from 1697. One of the two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the city at that time.

In 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna awarded Görlitz to the Kingdom of Prussia and subsequently the city became part of the German Empire in 1871. The city was a part of the Prussian province of Silesia from 1815 to 1919.

20th century
During World War I, the Germans operated a prisoner-of-war camp in present-day Zgorzelec, in which initially Russian, French and British POWs were held, and then from 1916 to 1919 around 6,500 Greek soldiers were interned. After the abolition of the Kingdom of Prussia in the aftermath of World War I, Görlitz became a part of the newly established Province of Lower Silesia in the Free State of Prussia.

On 26 August 1939, a few days before Germany invaded Poland and sparked World War II, a temporary prisoner-of-war camp intended for Poles was established in present-day Zgorzelec, which was soon converted into the large Stalag VIII-A POW camp. The first 8,000 Polish POWs were brought to the camp on September 7, 1939. Also Polish civilians, including women, were held in the camp, which served as a transit camp for Poles, who were deported to Germany either to forced labour or to Nazi concentration camps. Among them were especially Polish activists and intelligentsia from Silesia, Greater Poland and Pomerania, arrested during the Intelligenzaktion. After being brought to the town in freight trains, the prisoners were marched from the train station to the camp, while the local German population and Hitler Youth stood in lines and insulted them. Poor sanitary conditions led to frequent epidemic outbreaks in the camp. During the war also POWs of various other nationalities were held in the camp, including the Czechs, Lithuanians, Jews, French, Belgians, Russians, Italians, Britons, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Yugoslavs, Slovaks, Americans. The French composer Olivier Messiaen was one of its inmates. Most POWs were evacuated by the Germans in February 1945 in a death march, during which POWs who either were unable to walk or tried to escape were murdered.

In the wake of German defeat, operation groups arrived in the town on 10 to 12 May 1945 on the right Oder bank of Görlitz to secure Polish takeover of the town district. Polish administration was officially implemented on 21 May. On 2 June 1945, Polish military closed the bridge in Görlitz to block Germans from returning to their homes in Silesia. Early in the morning on 21 June, the Polish ordered the Germans to leave their homes on the eastern part of Görlitz.

The Potsdam Conference confirmed Polish rule and henceforth, the Oder-Neisse line as the Polish-East German border divided Görlitz (lying on the Lusatian Neisse) between the two countries. The German part retained the name Görlitz, while the Polish part became Zgorzelice, later changed to Zgorzelec. New Polish and Greek settlers arrived in the town and the town was polonized. Zgorzelec had a difficult start as a Polish town because almost all of the infrastructure facilities were located in the part remaining German.

The Treaty of Zgorzelec, between Poland and East Germany, was signed in the city's community center in 1950. Starting in 1948, some 10,000 Greek refugees of the Greek Civil War, mainly communist partisans, were allowed into Poland and settled mainly in Zgorzelec. There were Greek schools, a Greek retirement home, and even a factory reserved for Greek employees. The majority of these refugees later returned to Greece, but a part remains to this day (see Greeks in Poland). The Greek community of Zgorzelec was instrumental in the building of The Orthodox Church of Saints Constantine and Helen in 2002. Since 1999, an annual international Greek Song Festival has been held in Zgorzelec.

In 1972, the Polish-East German border was opened for visa-free travel, resulting in intense movement between Zgorzelec and Görlitz, which lasted until 1980, when East Germany unilaterally closed the border due to anti-communist protests and the emergence of the Solidarity movement in Poland. Until 1975 Zgorzelec was administratively located in the Wrocław (Lower Silesian) Voivodeship, and in 1975–1998 it was located in the Jelenia Góra Voivodeship.

Recent history
Since the fall of communism in 1989, Zgorzelec and Görlitz have developed a close political relationship. Two of the numerous bridges over the Neisse river that had been blown up by retreating German forces in World War II have been rebuilt, reconnecting the two towns with one bus line. There is also common urban management and annual common sessions of both town councils. In 2006 the towns jointly applied to be the European Capital of Culture in 2010. It was hoped that the jury would be convinced by the concept of Polish-German cooperation, but the award fell to Essen, with Görlitz/Zgorzelec in second place.

Sights

 * Miejski Dom Kultury (Municipal House of Culture)
 * Polish-Saxon post milestone of King Augustus II of Poland and the reconstructed Postal Square (Plac Pocztowy)
 * Military cemetery of the Polish Second Army – one of the largest military cemeteries in Poland
 * Historical parks
 * Greek Boulevard (Bulwar Grecki), with a view of Görlitz
 * Wheelwright Croft (Zagroda Kołodzieja)
 * Muzeum Łużyckie
 * Town Hall
 * Old townhouses in the city center
 * Former Tricycle Mill (Młyn trójkołowy)
 * Baroque palace in the Ujazd district
 * Memorial to the victims of the Stalag VIII-A German World War II prisoner of war camp

Transport
Zgorzelec is served by two railway stations, Zgorzelec in the southern part of the town, and Zgorzelec Miasto in the eastern part.

Sports
Turów Zgorzelec men's basketball team until 2018 played in the Polish Basketball League (top division). In 2014 Turów won its only national championship and qualified to the Euroleague for the first time. The local football team is. It competes in the lower leagues.

Notable residents

 * Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), German theologian
 * Ryszard Sobczak (born 1967), Polish fencer and Olympic medallist
 * Grzegorz Żmija (born 1971), goalkeeper
 * Agata Korc (born 1986), Polish swimmer
 * Honorata Skarbek (born 1992), Polish singer
 * Wojciech Suchodolski (born 1974), Polish video blogger

Twin towns – sister cities
Zgorzelec is twinned with:
 * 🇫🇷 Avion, France
 * 🇩🇪 Görlitz, Germany (1991)
 * 🇺🇦 Myrhorod, Ukraine
 * 🇬🇷 Naousa, Greece (1998)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Zgorzelec


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Gihwa

Gihwa (, 1376–1433), also known as Hamheo Teuktong was a Buddhist monk of Korean Seon and leading Buddhist figure during the late Goryeo to early Joseon eras. He was originally a Confucian scholar of high reputation, but converted to Buddhism at the age of 21 upon the death of a close friend. He wandered among the Korean mountain monasteries, until he had the fortune of becoming the disciple of the last Korean national teacher, Muhak.

Gihwa's writings showed a distinctive mixture between iconoclastic and subitist Seon language, and a strong appreciation for the scriptural tradition. Thus, he took up from Jinul the tradition of unification of Seon and Gyo Buddhism. Among his writings, there are four works in particular that made a deep impact on the subsequent Seon tradition in Korea. These are:
 * 1) A commentary on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, the Weongak gyeong hae seorui.
 * 2) A redaction and subcommentary to five famous earlier commentaries on the Diamond Sutra, the Geumgang banyabaramilgyeong ogahae seorui.
 * 3) A subcommentary and redaction of the Collection of Yongjia, the Yonggajip gwaju seorui
 * 4) The Hyeonjeong non

As a result of his fourth major work, the Hyeonjeong non, Gihwa distinguished himself as the primary Buddhist respondent to the rising Neo-Confucian polemic of his period, as he responded with vigor to the Neo-Confucian criticisms of Buddhism.

Gihwa died while residing at Jeongsusa, at the southern tip of Ganghwado, where his tomb can still be visited. Gihwa's commentary on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment was translated by A. Charles Muller, in 1999.

Essence-Function is a key concept in East Asian Buddhism and particularly that of Korean Buddhism. Essence-Function takes a particular form in the philosophy and writings of Kihwa.

Biography
At the age of 21, he entered Uisangam in Gwanaksan and became a Buddhist monk. The following year, he learned a Buddhist service from Jacho of Hoeamsa. After that, he returned from a trip to famous mountains across the country and devoted himself to ascetic practice.

title: Gihwa


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Talk:Bit rate

MPEG
could someone add bitrate info for MPEG? and explain that same bitrates dont have to mean same quality - cd has bitrate of 174kbytes/s, encoded to MusePack or OggVorbis could have almost the same quality in 1/10 size. Similar with mpeg vs divx.

could someone explain what bitrate means in terms of audio recordings? -- Tarquin 13:18, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Could someone explain the meaning of the phrase "The bitrate shows how large the quantity of the stored bits per second of music is." Talk about obtuse phrasing! Dostal 21:11, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The bitrate listings under MP3 section is incorrect, it's listed as kbit/s, when 192, 128 etc is actually KB (Kilo bytes) per second.Spladam (talk) 20:14, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

 * The bitrate is AOK in kbit/s. After all, it's the bitrate, not the byterate. An audio CD's uncompressed PCM bitrate is some 1.4 Mbit/s or 176.4 kB/s. --Zac67 (talk) 20:36, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Ogg Vorbis and other formats
Could someone expand the page to include information on the bitrates of ogg vorbis and other formats? --Funnykidrian 02:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Bitrates
This section could do with some work. Most, other than marketers, don't consider 128k to provide CD quality, irrespective of codec. Ok, there is the language 'minimum possible'; but then on the other hand, it gives 8Mbit/s as the 'minimum possible' for DVD quality, when this is more like the _maximum_ possible DVD bitrate (and 'DVD quality' can arguably be had for far less with a more efficient codec such as MPEG-4). Blorg 16:37, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * A lot of the figures, especially in the Video section, were intended to be ballpark values. If you know of more accurate lower bounds, feel free to change them. I really don't want this article get involved in silly "CD quality" flamewars, so how about specifying that "Foo quality" means "more than 50% of casual listeners do not consider the quality to be inferior to Foo". Obviously if you're an expert with brilliant equipment and you know precisely what to listen for, you will be able to tell a difference whatever the bitrate, but that's really not the point. – [[User:Smyth|Smyth]] 19:24, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * Why not simply change the CD quality to 320? Since that is the de facto quality of most CDs recorded nowadays (methinks...). (--HJV)

 * What do you base that number on? I think you're missing my point: the idea behind keeping it at 128 is that it is a number that most casual listeners would not notice to be inferior to the original, unless they were actively searching for differences. This page is supposed to be an indication of what's possible with the state of the art, which is no longer MP3. – Smyth\talk 1 July 2005 08:38 (UTC)

 * Just to get this clear. Is the article trying to tell what the quality of the audio on the CD actually is? In that case it should be 320. If it's trying to say what the human ear distinguishes as "CD quality", then leave it 128... Just to give an example, you can't refer to a 262 144 colour screen as a 65 536 colour screen despite the fact that the human eye will most likely not see any difference between the two. :)--HJV 2 July 2005 01:42 (UTC)

 * "In that case it should be 320."
 * How do you figure? 44100 Hz * 16 bit * 2 channels = 1.4 Mbps
 * (But don't try that on google calculator!) - Omegatron July 2, 2005 04:05 (UTC)
 * CD is 14 bit, so divide by 4 Jabberwoch (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * CD is 14 bit, so divide by 4 Jabberwoch (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

 * It's what the human ear distinguishes. There are explanations in the article itself, in a comment in the article, and a few paragraphs up on this talk page; I think it should be pretty clear. – Smyth\talk 2 July 2005 11:52 (UTC)

 * I don't see any of these explanations.  Do you mean "that is the de facto quality of most CDs recorded nowadays (methinks...)"?  That's hardly an explanation. - Omegatron July 2, 2005 14:13 (UTC)

 * Are you mistaking me for HJV? :) – Smyth\talk 2 July 2005 17:04 (UTC)

 * No. I'm asking where the explanations are. - Omegatron July 2, 2005 19:34 (UTC)

 * Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. The explanations I was referring to are, on this page, 'how about specifying that "Foo quality" means "more than 50% of casual listeners do not consider the quality to be inferior to Foo"', and on the article page, 'The bit rates in this section are approximately the minimum that the average listener (when using state-of-the-art compression) would consider not significantly worse than the reference standard'. Both of those sentences were written by me, so whether they're a good idea or not is obviously up for debate, but I think HJV is missing the point. Or perhaps he's under the delusion that since 320kbps is the maximum bitrate of MP3, that it is in some way equivalent to a CD. – Smyth\talk 2 July 2005 20:07 (UTC)

 * Ahhh... But that's pretty much opinion, no?  That's not the actual bitrate at all.  It's just the information degradation that an "average human" can't distinguish.  Hmmm...  - Omegatron July 2, 2005 20:56 (UTC)

 * Yes, of course it's subjective, but subjectivity is what lossy encoding is all about. Now technically this article doesn't have to mention lossy encoding at all, but audio and video bitrates, and their corresponding subjective qualities, are things that the average user will have a fair amount of experience with, so I think it's a good way of explaining what would otherwise be a fairly abstract concept. – Smyth\talk 2 July 2005 21:35 (UTC)

 * well, I don't know if anyone else cares, but i removed the most people can't tell between 192 and above, which is bogus, you can easily tell the difference between 320 and 256 or 192 or w/e you happen to be listening to. It's not like it's all flac or something. ANYWAY I also believe that the first poster (in this section) makes a point about 128 being cd quality or something? that may have been what the page used to say? Anyway, I remember using musicmatch years ago and when i used to rip stuff it would say 128 was cd quality and nothing higher was needed blah blah and now I'm baffled at how I could have believed that because I can simply HEAR the difference...have standards changed or what? can someone shed some light on this if possible? - Seth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.98.211.8 (talk) 21:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

bandwidth vs. datarate
I think there is a quite bad mixup here. These bandwidth conversion links only offer datarate conversions! the bandwith - datarate relationship depends on the modulation ... Unfortunately this inaccuracy of definitions is all over these articles here!

Mathematically, for a given bandwidth; sampling at 2-times that bandwidth is the maximum sample-rate needed, beyond that no extra information is being recorded. In order to understand why this is you have to understand the mathematics of working in the frequency domain(rather than time domain), but essentially, a 22khz bandwidth signal (such as a sound signal which is human-hearable, humans can only hear between about 20Hz and 22Khz, which is why CDs are sampled at 44.1Khz) sampling beyond 44Khz is useless. Of course, this is given that the sampling being done is 'ideal' mathematically.(In addition, any particular individual might be able to hear beyond 22Khz. However, this begs the question; what musician is intentionally producing sounds above 22Khz??) The extra .1Khz(100Hz) is more than enough to account for the non-idealities of current digital sampler technology.

 * sampling beyond 44Khz is useless
 * Except for reducing quantization noise, phase distortion, and aliasing, providing a guard band...
 * what musician is intentionally producing sounds above 22Khz
 * All of them. Harmonics extend to infinite frequency, though the amplitudes become negligible.
 * The extra .1Khz(100Hz) is more than enough to account for the non-idealities of current digital sampler technology.
 * I'm not sure about that. — Omegatron 05:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Merging the little bit rate articles?
The (currently six) bit rate articles need work. The bit and byte rates, for instance:

 * kbit/s (1000 bits)
 * kbyte/s (1000 bytes = 8000 bits)

are currently clumped into the same kilobit per second article, which is suboptimal (though they aren't really worthy splitting into two articles I don't think). Maybe rename to Kilo- bit rates or something? Nah. That sounds even worse...

Also, none of the articles are consistent in formatting or information presented anyway. Maybe these should all be merged into bit rate? It was already decided to keep kilobit, etc. separate, but maybe the rates will never be big enough for their own articles. — Omegatron 05:25, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Transcoding questions
If one is playing music (or speech for that matter) at any given bitrate, is there any point in recording it at a higher rate? Also, if the playing bitrate varies, should one record using a constant bitrate setting or a variable one? 87.74.35.221 19:43, 19 November 2005 (UTC)Eileen Caister
 * If it's lossy audio that's being played back, any non-lossless recording will result in objectively worse quality. Whether this is noticable with your ears is another problem altogether. --KJ 18:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Academia and Science vs. Marketing, Nonsense and Slang
IEEE provides a definite guide on IEEE units and SI prefixes: http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/publications/authors/transjnl/auinfo07.pdf Wikipedia should refer to the correct usage of units. Due to marketing purposes, people tend to write and talk about "kbit/s", "kbps" etc. That's all wrong. To avoid confustion and to provide a solid, profund and reliable system of units that is based on international conventions and scientific relevance, Wikipedia should use "b" for bit as on page A1 in http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/publications/authors/transjnl/auinfo07.pdf and "b/s" for "bit per second", "kb/s" for "1000 bit per second" etc.

Within Wikipedia there should be a clear and precise reference to the academic world and its well developed units. Additional explanations may explain why marketing language may use different abbreviations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Note there is no SI unit for "bit per second".
Baud can be used, but from the Baud page, it only applies to acoustic modems, LAN standards APPARENTLY expressing the data rate rather than the gross bit rate. But I, or they (on that page), could be wrong.Jabberwoch (talk) 00:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

No binary meaning for SI prefixes
The entry currently states: however, most Internet Service Providers, and software companies, such as Microsoft use base 2 ...

I don't believe this is true and request any references to support the claim. I did some research, appended below, and found that a preponderance of evidence is contrary to this assertion, So I am removing this section. I assert that binary prefixes—both the new forms and the misused SI forms—are not conventional units when discussing bit rates.

The references cited below are an ad-hoc sampling of Google results using terms like site:microsoft.com "ISP service" mbps mbit/s megabit.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/intstreaming.aspx
320Kbps (320000 bps) 148Kbps (148000 bps) 66Kbps (66000 bps)

These obviously use the decimal meanings.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/Netshow/evaluate/features.mspx
Produces near FM-radio quality with 28.8 Kbps modems and near CD-quality at 64 Kbps.

"28.8Kbps" is a decimal usage refering to the V.34 standard modem speed. The other uses in the document presumably use the same convention.

http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/6280.asp
Connection	Bandwidth Dial-up	28.8 to 56 Kbps ISDN	64 to 128 Kbps DSL or Cable 	128 to 768 Kbps T-1	1.5 megabits per second (Mbps) T-3	45 Mbps DS-3	45 Mbps

These are all decimal usages refering to standard bit rates, and this usage is consistent throughout this document when refering to fixed bit rates, e.g. for standard link protocols. Yet, the document also includes clear instructions for epsressing the bit rate of streaming media as Kbps of 1024 bits and Mbps of 1024 Kbps:

Samples per second * bit depth per sample * number of channels = total bits per second (bps). Total bits per second / 1024 bits per kilobit = total Kbps

Maybe the distinction in the author's mind (if any) is that fixed link speeds use decimal prefixes while content encoding bit rates use binary prefixes?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwmt/html/introwmt7-2.asp
The bit rate of high-resolution, full-frame, broadcast video is about 128 megabits per second (Mbps). To download one second of broadcast video over a 28.8 kilobit per second (Kbps) connection using a modem would take one hour and 14 minutes.

At least the 28.8 Kbps reference is decimal usage. Other uses in this document are ambiguous.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/f/74fe970d-4a7d-4034-9f5d-02572567e7f7/19_CHAPTER_6_Optimizing_IIS_6.0_Performance.doc
The server is connected to the Internet through a DS1/T1 line, which can transmit data at 1.536 megabits per second.

Decimal usage.

Connection Type 	Connection Speed Dedicated PPP/SLIP via modem 	28.8 kilobits per second (Kbps) Frame Relay or fast modem 	56 Kbps Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) 	128 Kbps Typical DSL 	640 Kbps DS1/T1 	1.536 megabits per second (Mbps) 10-megabit Ethernet 	8 Mbps (best case) DS3/T3 	44.736 Mbps OC1 	51.844 Mbps 100-megabit Ethernet 	80 Mbps (best case) OC3 	155.532 Mbps OC12 	622.128 Mbps 1-gigabit/sec Ethernet 	800 Mbps (best case)

These are all clear decimal uses except for the Ethernet ones which are ambiguous (we don't know what "best case" means).

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/wificomp.mspx
The maximum bit rate for IEEE 802.11b is 11 Mbps (using DSSS). The maximum bit rate for IEEE 802.11a is 54 Mbps ...

Decimal usage.

http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/5202.asp
A T1 circuit (also called a T1 line) is formed from a combination of 24 DS-0 (Digital Signal Zero) channels, each having a bandwidth of 64 kilobits per second (Kbps), for a total bandwidth of 1.544 megabits per second (Mbps).

T1 = 193 bits/frame x 8000 frames/sec = 1544000 bits/sec = 1.544 Mbps

Decimal usage.

Comcast (US Cable TV and ISP)
http://www.comcast.com/MediaLibrary/1/2/CM/VanityURL/documents/FCC_Entire_Tariff.pdf http://www.comcast.com/Benefits/CHSIDetails/Slot5PageOne.asp

CAP AND SWITCHED ACCESS SERVICES TARIFF Definitions: Mbps: Megabits, or millions of Bits, per second.

Decimal usage explicitly stated.

Speed comparisons are for downloads only and are compared to 768Kbps DSL and 56Kbps dial-up. Maximum download speed of 4Mbps (or 6 Mbps) and upload speeds of 384Kbps (or 768Kbps) depending on the product that is selected.

The DSL and dialup rates are obviously decimal usage. The other uses in the document presumably use the same convention.

Meer.net (US ISP)
http://w3.meer.net/pricing.html

T1 speeds up to 1.544Mb/sec

Decimal usage throughout the document.

Optic Fibre & Wireless (Australian ISP)
http://www.ofw.com.au/e1.html http://www.ofw.com.au/bandwidth.html

This company's usage is almost entirely based on decimal usage of SI prefixes for bit rates, even though they define the terms kilobit and megabit with the binary usage.

What is E1? E1 is a European Telco Standard that carries data at 2.048 Mbps over copper wire.

Optic Fibre & Wireless (OFW) can connect your organisation together at speeds up to 2 Gbps (2,000 Mbps) or 20 x faster than your LAN!

1.5 Mbps (1,500 kbps) - the bandwidth of business ADSL

So far they are using standard decimal prefixes. But then they go and define kbps in a glossary of terms:

kbps (kilobits per second) A measurement of the transmission speed of data measured in 1,024 bits per second.

This is using the SI prefix with binary meaning. Presumably, though, this entry is an error (or an actual misunderstanding of the term by the person who wrote this entry) since all of the actual uses of kbps on this page and elsewhere on the company's site use the decimal meaning (e.g. "56 kbps - the bandwidth of your dial-up modem").

Later, in the same glossary:

Gbps (gigabits per second) This is a measure of throughput in gigabits per second — 1 billion bits per second. (1,000 Mbps)

Which asserts the decimal meanings at least for Mbps and Gbps.

Internode (Australian ISP)
http://www.internode.on.net/adsl/pricing/home.htm

Definitions: * MB is Megabyte * GB is Gigabyte, 1 Gigabyte is equal to 1,000 Megabytes

This is a bit ambiguous but hints at standard (decimal) usage.

Maximum Possible Modem Speeds:

* ADSL2+ Modem - 24000k/1000k * ADSL2 Modem - 12000k/1000k

This is using the decimal meanings for these standard DSL speeds.

ISWest (US ISP)
http://www.iswest.com/DSL.html

Wide variety of DSL speeds; 144 - 768 kilobits per second

This is using the decimal meanings for these standard DSL speeds.

usage notes table
congratulations, that is a well-used and clean table.

"Bitrates in multimedia" discrepancy
The article says:

For technical reasons (hardware/software protocols, overheads, encoding schemes, etc.) the actual bitrates used by some of the compared-to devices may be significantly higher than what is listed above.

It then goes on to list CD audio as 1.4 Mbit/s, implying that this is the physical-layer bit rate. However this is actually the audio bit rate (44100 * 2 * 16 = 1.411200e6). Can we clarify what this section is talking about? Oli Filth 11:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Conversion tables
IMO this page (or the appropriate subpage) should have conversion tables for common bitrates to byterates as most endusers aren't too familiar about the difference. - G3, 15:24, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Bandwidth and Latency
I wonder if it would to mention early on that the difference between bitrate and propagation speed is often talked about in terms of Bandwidth and Latency_(engineering). You can find these articles by following links, but direct linking and description might help. I would recommend only referring to "transmission rate" and not "transmission speed" for the rest of this article.

It is important to remember that transmission speeds cannot increase indefinitely. A server in California and one in India can exchange about 9 round trip communications per second, due to the speed of light. As soon as you start thinking about interplanetary information exchange, you realize that Moore's law isn't going to solve everything. Even seasoned engineers sometimes forget to take simple economic implications of this into account, so it might be worth mentioning.

I agree with Omegatron that sampling frequencies and mathematical limits are relevant. Perhaps link directly to Nyquist-Shannon_sampling_theorem.

Posted 2006-11-02, Dominic Widdows.

Merge of bit/s articles
I've proposed that all the articles like megabit per second be merged into this article. There is nothing about these units that they deserve their own articles.

However, we should provide a list of each unit on this page, with definitions and anchor links, so the redirects can link directly to the unit's definition and the units can be linked in articles. — Omegatron 00:14, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

If we do merge them, we need to do all of them, merge any unique content like unit definitions and examples into this article, and leave the redirect as an anchor tag to the definition of the unit to maintain links. — Omegatron 01:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I concur with the merge; the articles are very redundant as they stand. I think a redirect would fix the lot since the relevant information is already here, but if you want to do something more complex go for it.  > R a d i a n t <  13:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I'm going to redirect, but also include anything that's not in this article, and maintain the links with anchor tags. Since this has been up almost a month with no complaints, I'm going to do it. — Omegatron 23:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Ok, now I'm looking at this, and it's not as straightforward as I thought. :-)  The best way to present the different units would be a table, but that doesn't lend itself to individual anchor tags.  I guess a Definitions section with a table and redirecting the little articles to that section would work.  I'll build the table here first. — Omegatron 00:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Merge Seems like a good idea to me. ⒺⓋⒾ ⓁⒼⓄ ⒽⒶⓃ ②  talk 21:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

 * I vote yes on merging all the "---bit_per_second" articles with this one and redirecting them all here. I also like Omegatron's proposed table. -- CWesling 02:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

 * I also support this. All the *bit/s article are redundant, since the conversions are obvious, especially with the Bit rate infobox (which should be kept). Superm401 - Talk 13:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I merged them all to Data rate units for now. Now go clean it up. :-) — Omegatron 02:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge of several *rate articles
A merge of the bit rate article, the data transfer rate article and others is discussed in the talk page of the latter page. Mange01 00:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

 * I'm also in favor of this merger. Merge 'em all! 8-) -- CWesling 02:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Bitrate vs. Size of File
I think that it's important that the bitrate vs. size of file comparison be added and which (whether larger bitrate, larger file size or larger bitrate, smaller file size) can be used to optimize performance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jotsko (talk • contribs).
 * Bit rate is file size, more or less. Bit rate is file size divided by play time, so if play time is the same and the bit rate is the same, then by definition, the file size will be the same as well. --Kjoonlee 21:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup
It's great that you're all trying to make wikipedia look nice but all those "it has been suggested that x be merged into this article" banners look atrocious. Either merge them or take the banners down, for goodness sake! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.234.65 (talk) 00:45, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Federal Standard 1037C
Does anyone know which statements in this article come from this standard? If not, can we remove the FS1037C MS188 usage? This template is one of my least favourites on WP, because it seems to be just slapped on articles arbitrarily! Oli Filth(talk) 18:42, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Can't help you with 1037C I'm afraid, but would like to wish you a Merry Christmas anyway :-) Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:46, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

 * This is public-domain material so WP:ATTRIBUTION requirements are light. I've removed it from the article. See Template_talk:FOLDOC for recent discussion. Our mentioning it here should be adequate. ~Kvng (talk) 18:03, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion for comparison table of baud rate, gross bit rate and net bit rate for common technologies
I suggest that the following comparison table is added to the article, after it has been extended with accurate figures. Please add more information to it. Mange01 (talk) 23:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Ethernet gross and net bitrate
The article uses Ethernet 100Base-TX as an example of a technology that has a same gross and net bitrate. But 100Base-TX is using 4B5B encoding; therefore, its gross bitrate is 125 Mbps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.92.145.132 (talk) 10:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The issue is addressed. Mange01 (talk) 20:59, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is 12 sources not enough?
A Refimprove template was added without motivation. Please be more specific and replace it by source needed templates wherever appropriate. Currently the article has 12 sources, and only one source needed template. Mange01 (talk) 20:59, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No answer for 6 months. I added a few sources and removed the template. Please be more specific. Mange01 (talk) 17:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Split? Separate list of Multimedia bit rates?
Can we move the multimedia part into a separate article? At least the list of bit rates. For example Bit rate in multimedia or Multimedia encoding bit rate, or list of multimedia format bit rates or something like that? This article still can sumarize the multimedia aspects but skip the details. See also Comparison of container formats. Mange01 (talk) 17:55, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree Sounds like it would make the article more readable and still provide the details for those who want it. § Music Sorter §  (talk) 15:12, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Bitrate Crash Test
What is bitrate crash test (Crash test)?---90.173.198.163 (talk) 08:36, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

1 Byte/s (Bps or B/s) corresponds to 8-bit/s (bps or b/s) - false or true?
I would like to comment the following statement: Although at first sight this seems correct, in fact it is not. Let's take as an example the plain old RS-232 connection. A typical scenario for sending one byte over this kind of communication medium consists of one start bit, eight data bits and one stop bit, or a total of 10 bits. Although the start and stop bits are overhead and not useful data, they do participate in the communication process and do take time to transfer and process. So, a typical 8N1 9600 b/s communication does not transfer 1200 (=9600/8) bytes each second but only 960 (=9600/10). The difference of 240 bytes is not insignificant and grows when the rate grows (at rate 115200 b/s it is 2880 bytes).
 * 1 Byte/s (Bps or B/s) corresponds to 8-bit/s (bps or b/s)

To complicate matters, an RS-232 line may be configured to use as low as 5 data bits up to as high as 8 data bits, may use one, one and a half or two stop bits and may have or not have a parity bit. In the minimum case (5N1) this makes 7 bits per byte and in the maximum case (e.g. 8E2) - 12 bits per byte. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gazibara (talk • contribs) 15:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

 * I think it's a clumsy way of stating that a byte is 8 bits. Extraneous in the first place, in my opinion. Radiodef (talk) 00:56, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Throughput
Throughput is ultimately the number of bits successfully delivered.

Fidelia215050517 (talk) 15:18, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

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Bit rate or Bitrate
Since the title is Bit rate I assume a search-replace would be in order to make things consistent. What about usage or the term and links here from other articles? Is there an argument for retaining bitrate anywhere in the encyclopedia (excepting quotes and titles in sources)? ~Kvng (talk) 18:08, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

 * Bit rate is fine, just go ahead. --Zac67 (talk) 19:18, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Bit rate