WAV

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File Format
Name WAV
Ontology
Extension(s) .wav, .wave
MIME Type(s) audio/x-wav, audio/vnd.wave, audio/wav, audio/wave, audio/x-pn-wav
LoCFDD fdd000001, fdd000002, fdd000356, fdd000357
PRONOM fmt/6, fmt/142
Released 1991

The Waveform Audio File Format (WAV or WAVE) 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.

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Identification

Files begin with bytes 'R' 'I' 'F' 'F' ?? ?? ?? ?? 'W' 'A' 'V' 'E'.

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