Re: [ARSCLIST] Prefered format for digital archiving?

["Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Spencer" <johnsp@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> It's not really that loaded.  Most organizations are recommending
Broadcast
> Wave Format (BWF) for a variety of reasons (multiple bit and sample rates,
> metadata header, etc.).
But...are .bwf files (which I've never heard of) accessible to any other
applications than the specialized program used to create them?
Accessibility,
in the sense of what application(s) can be used to open a file, is an
important aspect of digital archiving. Don't .wav files represent the
actual values (translated into binary) of the sound levels for each sample?
At the very least, this means they contain the essential data needed to
recreate the sound in question, which could be taken from the .wav file
as a group of bits and put into a new format.

For example, you can create a Word version of a document...and if a
subsequent user doesn't have word, but does have a file viewer of some
description, he/she/it can find the ASCII text contents of the file
and copy it into another format. In other cases (MS Access is the
best example) the data involved doesn't exist in the application file
in such a way it can be accessed easily...or at all.
Steven C. Barr