Audio File Formats
An audio file format is used to store the audio file on the computer system.
The audio coding format can either be uncompressed or a lossy compression algorithm can be applied. In an audio coding format, we ignore the metadata and store it in an uncompressed or compressed format.
Various Audio file format used are:
1. WAV
2. AIFF
3. VOC
4. MPEG
5. RMF
6. WMA
7. AVI
1 .WAV:
The full form of WAV is the Waveform Audio File Format. It is sometimes also called a WAVE and has an extension of .wav. This was developed by IBM and Microsoft for storing audio files on computers. PCM(Pulse Code Modulation) is widely used CODEC for WAV file format as it uses the uncompressed method which gives the maximum audio quality. This form is widely used in a variety of software application programs which requires a sample structure, for example, radio broadcasters use it.
2 .AIFF:
AIFF stands for Audio Interchange File Format which is used to store files in electronic devices and was developed by Apple.Inc.File extension used for it .aif or .aiff.It uses uncompressed Pulse code modulation CODEC. It also uses AIFF variant compression CODEC known as AIFC. The files are made up of chunks that can hold data like numeric data, raw data or simple text. Some common types of chunks are:
1. Common chunk
2. MIDI Data Chunk
3. Comment Chunk
4. Audio recording chunk
5. Marker Chunk
6. Name Chunk
7. Author chunk
8. Copyright chunk
9. Annotation chunk
10. Application chunk
3. VOC:
VOC is an extension for creative voice files, a file format developed by creative Labs. It uses a multimedia algorithm that reduces the file size and for multimedia applications, synchronization markers, and looping markers are used.
4. AVI:
AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave. This form was developed by Microsoft in the year 1992. These files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-video playback.AVI supports multiple streaming audio data and video data like the DVD video format. Overhead for AVI files is around 5 Mb per hour but its significance varies with the application.
5. MPEG:
MPEG file format is also known as MP3 and it is widely used for sharing the audio files over the internet. It uses lossy data compression scheme. It uses perceptual coding in which we reduce the accuracy of certain parts of sound data that is considered to be beyond the auditory limit of most people. Neither error encryption nor error correction of audio data is provided by the coding scheme. It has an extension of .mp3.
6. RMF:
RMF stands for Rich Music Format which is developed by Beatnik Inc. RMF is used for data encryption and to store instrument sound along with MIDI.Java Sound and Java Media Framework implement and play RMF files. It is a wrapped for an audio format which includes .mp3,.wav,.aiff,.aif,MIDI and .au.
7. WMA:
WMA is Window Media Audio and was developed by Microsoft. It is an audio compression technology that is a part of window media framework. WMA files encapsulate of Advanced System Format file which has a file extension of .wma or .asf. Winamp, windows media player and various other players can be used to play WMA audio files.
