Digital file degradation (Video/Audio)

[SE14man]

Just quoting here what someone saido n a forum regardings degradation of MP3 files.

Maybe you could tell me if this guy is wrong and why?

Thank you.

"Mp3s are Lossy which means the file degrades each time it's copied, same as a jpeg image, this is obviously important for shared files that may be many generations old, not such a big deal if you've ripped and encoded the mp3s yourself"

"I don't think listening affects it but yes any time you copy the file it degrades"

Now i always thought only Re encoding degraded quality?

Surely this fella must be wrong. right?

[TJohns]

right.
if copying a file changed it then things like ZIP files would corrupt themselves!

[jagabo]

Copying MP3 files does not change them at all. What does degrade the quality is decompressing the MP3 file and compressing it again to MP3. Each time you compress with a lossy codec you reduce the quality.

[hech54]

Surely this fella must be wrong. right?

If he is saying that an MP3 file degrades....for instance...every time you move it from one folder to another, put it to a memory stick and someone copies it from that memory stick, or even every time the MP3 file is played then he is more than wrong....he is an idiot.

[AlanHK]

Now i always thought only Re encoding degraded quality?

Correct

Surely this fella must be wrong. right?

Correct.

[guns1inger]

I love this story. People do get the strangest ideas in their heads.

During the early nineties an IT lecturer at an English university told his students, in all seriousness, that computer virus could jump between floppy discs if they were touching each other in the same storage unit.

When CDs first came out I was told at great length by an acquaintance that the laser wore a groove in the surface of the CD when you played it, so CDs would never last as long as albums.

Sadly, for some people, once these ideas get fixed in their heads, you will never dissuade them.

[jagabo]

Sadly, for some people, once these ideas get fixed in their heads, you will never dissuade them.

Like dvdsham?
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/262036-Buy-DVD-s-with-silver-recording-side?p=20139...=1#post2013933

[lenti_75]

this is the dumbest of them all...just made my day.

when you copy digital, you copy BIT BY BIT....unless those bits degrade from 0 and 1 to something else, then there is degradation.

idiots

[Noahtuck]

LOL!!!
Yeah i do believe this is the first time i ever heard that!!
LMAO!!!

Please post a link to that thread!!
LOL!!

During the early nineties an IT lecturer at an English university told his students, in all seriousness, that computer virus could jump between floppy discs if they were touching each other in the same storage unit.

When CDs first came out I was told at great length by an acquaintance that the laser wore a groove in the surface of the CD when you played it, so CDs would never last as long as albums.

That first one is just beyond even common sense

I remember when CD's first came out this one guy used to say how you could drop them on the ground, scratch them up, put out a cigarette on one and wipe it off and it would still play
I was like, lets test that theory on one of YOUR cd's......
Of course he would not....
LMAO!!!

[yanyancr]

this is the dumbest of them all...just made my day.

when you copy digital, you copy BIT BY BIT....unless those bits degrade from 0 and 1 to something else, then there is degradation.

idiots

sorry but when you copy a file from one place to another, it is possible, though rare, you have one or more bit flips during the transmission. This is a kind of data corruption. You can test it by copying a large number of files and check their integrity before and after, and you can try to copy a huge file (maybe to 5GB in single file) and do an integrity check, you might see a corruption. Yes- BIT BY BIT corruption

[Noahtuck]

Really ?!?!?!
A 4 year old thread

[hech54]

Really ?!?!?!
A 4 year old thread

Why not, he has the brain capacity of a 4 year old.