WAV

File Format
Name	WAV
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Audio and Music WAV
Extension(s)	.wav
MIME Type(s)	audio/x-wav audio/vnd.wav audio/wav
PRONOM	fmt/6
Released	1991

WAV is a widely used audio format, originally developed by Microsoft and IBM and based on the RIFF wrapper format. The usual audio encoding in a .wav file is LPCM, considered an 'uncompressed' encoding. Because of large file sizes, WAV is not well-suited for distributing audio such as songs or podcasts. WAV is used in MS-Windows to store sounds used in applications. It is also used as an archival format for first-generation (master) files, often with a metadata chunk as specified in the Broadcast Wave (BWF) standard.

See Also: List of applications known to use .WAV

References

• WAV : Wikipedia
• WAVE Audio File Format, from Library of Congress resource on Sustainability of Digital Formats
• Broadcast WAVE Audio File Format, Version 1, from Library of Congress resource on Sustainability of Digital Formats
• WAVE and AVI Codec Registries (Historic Registry) Hosted by IANA. Implies use of audio/vnd.wav as mimetype.