Digital Audio Basics

Course: ESE250

Units: 0.5 CU
Required Prerequisite: one intro programming course (e.g.,CIS110, ESE112, ESE116, CIS120)
Terms: Spring Term only
Offered: Current information for Spring 2012
When: Tuesdays 12 — 1:30pm, Thursdays 12 — 1:30pm
First lecture will be Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012
Where:Lecture: Towne 303,   Lab: Detkin and Ketterer Labs
Instructor: Koditschek Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:30 — 3pm, Thursdays 1:30 — 3pm
TAs: Agatha OliveiraOffice Hours: By appointment
Eric PinterOffice Hours: By appointment
Shilpa SarodeOffice Hours: By appointment
Emily ShaefferOffice Hours: By appointment
URL: <http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~ese250/>
Schedule: Working course schedule (Reading, slides, labs will be linked to this page.)

Catalog Level Description: Primer on digital audio. Overview of signal processing, sampling, compression, human psychoacoustics, MP3, intellectual property, hardware and software platform components, and networking (i.e., the basic technical underpinnings of modern MP3 players and cell phones).


Content

Projected topics by week: (Spring 2012 working schedule)

  1. Overview
  2. Sampling / PCM / Digital Audio
  3. Lossless compression
  4. Time-Frequency Conversion
  5. Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem
  6. Human Perception
  7. Psychoacoustical Compression
  8. Hardware Organization
  9. Operating System (sharing hardware)
  10. File System
  11. Networking
  12. User Interface
  13. Intellectual Property


Course Components

Lectures: One 1.5 hour lecture per week.

Labs: Students perform weekly labs for demonstration and grounding. Most demand experiments on a computer. Intent is most labs can be completed in the 1.5 hour lab slot.

Texts: The Theory behind MP3 provides the basic document for 4 of the lectures. An assortment of tutorial materials will be provided on the web for other lectures.

Grading: Grading is based on individual writeups of weekly lab or homework assignments.


Context

This course will be part of the new computer engineering (revised CTE) major. It provides an overview of many topics and issues in the major and prepares students to implement a substantial digital audio platform in the revised ESE350 (which would typically be taken in the term following ESE250).