WAV File Specification | Broadcast Format Guidelines
motion film transfer | audio transfer | video transfer | optical transfer | photographic film transfer | book transfer | document transfer
Our audio-visual engineering studio offer a full service audio and tape video digitising service, supporting families, collections and archives of valuable magnetic tape recordings. Based just outside the beautiful City of Oxford, and with an impressive client base, we are one of the leading experts in digital conversions within the UK.
WAVE FILE SPECIFICATIONS
The following information identifies various levels of quality for WAVE audio files.
Basic:
- uncompressed .WAV
- Plain text file or spreadsheet with metadata (information about the recording):
- performer(s) or content creator
- title (if applicable)
- description of subject matter
- date of event/performance
Intermediate (CD quality):
- uncompressed .WAV
- 16 bit PCM (Pulse Code Modulated) encoding
- Recorded at 44.1 kHz
- Plain text file or spreadsheet with metadata (information about the recording):
- performer(s) or content creator
- title (if applicable)
- description of subject matter
- date of event/performance
Advanced (archival quality):
- uncompressed .WAV
- 24 bit PCM (Pulse Code Modulated) encoding
- Recorded at 96 kHz
- Plain text file or spreadsheet with metadata (information about the recording):
- performer(s) or content creator
- title (if applicable)
- description of subject matter
- date of event/performance
Advanced++: Broadcast Wave Format (BWF):
- CD or archival quality .WAV file
- Metadata written to the Broadcast Audio Extension (or “BEXT“) chunk of the .WAV file header (instead of or in addition to the text file/spreadsheet)
