Audio File Formats
Basics of Video Camera, Lights &
Sound Unit 4
Topic 32
1 of 17
Objectives of the Lecture
• To explain the students about types of audio file
• formats To understand about their use
2of 17
Lecture Outcomes
After going through this lesson, a student shall be able to
understand:
• Audiofileformatsandtheiruse
3of 17
Audio File Formats
• An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data
on a computer system.
•It can be uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size,
often using lossy compression.
• The data can be a raw bitstream in an audio coding format, but
it
is usually embedded in a container format or an audio data
format with defined storage layer.
4of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• WAV–Waveform Audio File
• WAV stands for Waveform Audio File Format (also called Audio
for Windows at some point but not anymore).
• It’s a standard that was developed by Microsoft and IBM back
in 1991.
5of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• Many think that WAV files are uncompressed audio files, but
that’s not exactly true.
• WAV is actually just a Windows container for audio formats.
This means that a WAV file can contain compressed audio, but
it’s rarely used for that.
6of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• AIFF -Audio Interchange File Format
7of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• Similar to how Microsoft and IBM developed WAV for
Windows, AIFF is a format that was developed by Apple for
Mac systems back in 1988.
• Also similar to WAV files, AIFF files can contain multiple
kinds of audio. For example, there is a compressed version
called AIFF-C and another version called Apple Loops which
is used by GarageBand and Logic Audio — and they all use
the same AIFF extension.
8of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• MP3 -MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3
9of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• It was released back in 1993 and quickly became popular,
eventually becoming the most widely used audio format in the
world for music files.
• The main pursuit of MP3 is to cut out all of the sound data that
exists beyond the hearing range of most normal people and to
reduce the quality of sounds that aren’t as easy to hear, and
then to compress all other audio data as efficiently as possible.
10 of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• AAC -Advanced Audio Coding
11 of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
AAC - Advanced Audio Coding
• It was developed in 1997 as the successor to MP3, and
while it did catch on as a popular format to use, it never
really overtook MP3 as the most popular for everyday
music and recording.
• It’s the standard audio compression method used by
YouTube, Android, iOS, iTunes, later Nintendo portables,
and later PlayStations.
12 of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
MOV (Apple QuickTime Movie)- Contd..
• Developed by Apple. Inc, the QuickTime file format is a popular
type of video sharing and viewing format amongst Macintosh
users, and is often used on the Web, and for saving movie and
video files.
• In recent years, Apple came up with a newer version called
QuickTime X, currently available on Mac OS X Snow Leopard,
Lion and Mountain Lion.
13 of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• WMA -Windows Media Audio
14 of 17
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• It was first released in 1999 and has gone through several
evolutions since then, all while keeping the same WMA name
and extension.
• In terms of objective quality, WMA is better than MP3.
• It’s a proprietary format created by Microsoft.
• Not many devices and platforms support it.
15 of 17
Suggested Further Readings & References
• Belavadi, V. (2013). Video Production. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
• Donald, R., & Spann, T. (2000). Fundamentals of Television
Production. Wiley.
• Millerson, G. (1999). The Technique of Television Production.
London: Focal Press.
• Zettl, H. (2005). Television Production Handbook, Cengage
Learning.
Source
• of Images: Google images
16 of 17
Thank you
17 of 17
