•• Compression Levels ••

Dictation Machine allows the user to select a to select the desired compression level at the time a tape is created.  Compressing and decompressing of the tape is done transparently and once the desired level is selected, user never has to do anything and everything is done automatically thereafter.  Compressing the recorded sound would help to save disk space.  At 22 KHz sampling rate, with no compression each second of recorded sound will take approximately 22k of disk space.  With 3 to 1 compression one second of sound will take 7.6k of space and at 6 to 1 compression only requires 3.8k of disk space.  The disk space used to store a tape is greatly reduced through compression, however the compression process will somewhat reduce the fidelity of sound recorded.  The 3 to 1 compression offers a compromise between disk space and quality of sound.