Format Description Categories >>
Browse Alphabetical List
WAVE Audio File Format with LPCM audio
>> Back
Format Description Properties
• ID: fdd000002
• Short name: WAVE_LPCM
• Content categories: sound
• Format category: file format
• Last significant update: 2004-07-20
Identification and description 
| Full name | Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE) with Linear PCM bitstream |
| Description | WAVE file format with default bitstream encoding, which is Microsoft (linear) Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) format. |
| Production phase | Used primarily as a initial/middle state format as a master file for audio captured live digitally or from analog sources. |
| Relationship to other formats | |
| Subtype of | WAVE |
| Subtype of | RIFF Resource Interchange File Format for Windows 3.1 |
| Has subtype | WAVE_LPCM_BWF. Broadcast Wave |
| Contains | LPCM Linear PCM |
Local use
| LC experience or existing holdings | Used as the best digital format for most audio converted for American Memory and the Digital A/V Prototype. |
| LC preference | Preferred format for sound recordings. |
Sustainability factors
| Disclosure | Fully documented. Proprietary format developed by Microsoft and IBM as part of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) for Windows 3.1. Incorporated into Broadcast WAVE, standardized by European Broadcast Union. |
| Documentation | Multimedia Programming Interface and Data Specifications 1.0. IBM Corporation and Microsoft Corporation, August 1991. Included in Microsoft Windows Multimedia Programmer's Reference, 1991. Available online, e.g., at http://www.tactilemedia.com/info/MCI_Control_Info.html. |
| Adoption | Widely used. |
| Licensing and patent claims | No special issues. |
| Transparency | See Linear PCM |
| Self-documentation | Can include Fact Chunks with additional metadata, Playlist Chunks defining the playing order and linking to cue points, and Associated Data Chunks containing labels, notes and related text (which can be country/language dependent).
Refinements of the WAVE format used in the broadcast industry include metadata chunks appropriate for the interchange of radio programs and other audio content. |
| External dependencies | None |
| Technical protection considerations | None |
Quality and functionality factors (sound)
| Normal rendering | Good support. |
| Fidelity (support for high audio resolution) | Fidelity for LPCM is enhanced by higher sample rates and sample sizes. Audio CDs use a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and a sample size of 16 bits/sample.
The preferred characteristics for audio conversion from LPs in M/B/RS is 96 kHz with 24-bit samples.
In the WAVE format syntax, the limits on sample rate (a 32-bit integer, up to 0xFFFFFFFF, or 4,294,967,295) and sample size (a 16-bit integer, up to 65,535 bits/sample) are high enough to place no practical limit on fidelity.
In practice, as 24-or 32-bit sample sizes and higher sampling rates (DVD Audio supports up to 192Khz) become more common, the overall limit on file size, set by individual computer operating systems, becomes a constraint.
With 192kHz sampling and 24 bits/sample, about half an hour of stereo can be stored in a 4 Gbyte file (the limit on Windows 2000). |
| Support for multiple sound channels | Not beyond stereo. |
| Functionality beyond normal sound rendering | None |
File type signifiers
| Signifier type | Value | Note |
| Filename Extension | See WAVE | |
| Internet Media Type | See WAVE | |
| Magic numbers | See WAVE | |
| Microsoft WAVE format registry | 0x0001 | From Microsoft registry. |
Notes
| General | |
| History | Format created by Microsoft and introduced with Windows 3.1. Adopted as basis for European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Broadcast Wave standard. |
Format specifications
URLs
• Multimedia Programming Interface and Data Specifications 1.0. August 1991. Issued jointly by IBM Corporation and Microsoft Corporation. (Online at several locations, e.g., http://www.tactilemedia.com/info/MCI_Control_Info.html; http://www.seanet.com/Users/matts/riffmci/riffmci.htm)
Print
• Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Windows Multimedia Programmer's Reference. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1991. Chapter 8.
Useful references
URLs
• See WAVE
Print
Last updated Monday, 06-Mar-2006 07:38:52 EST
