Re: [ARSCLIST] .wav file content information

[Damien Moody <dmoody@xxxxxxx>]

It just occured to me that until someone establishes a standard way of using RIFF data, you could create a database using MSSQL, MySQL, or another binary-capable database to store the file along with your metadata. That way it would be a searchable, indexed database. (You would either design the database yourself or having a systems analyst do it.)

Damien J. Moody
Information Technology Specialist
Library of Congress

>>> akolovos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 03/14/05 12:45 PM >>>
 > Hello all,
 >
 > I will soon begin storing .wav or .bwf files.  For those of you
working with electronic file formats, how much content related info can
be attached to a file?  For example, I often work with recordings of
hour long events that have numerous different things happening in them,
lectures, music, etc.  Ideally I would like to store information in the
files metadata about each of those different things.  Is this possible?
  Or, can I only name the overall file and additional content related
info will have to be kept separate from the file itself?
 >


Kevin,

It's easy to enter data into the RIFF, but how one does it varies
greatly between software packages.  Furthermore not all audio editors
support RIFF viewing and editing, nor do all audio editors support .bwf
files.

We're currently using Adobe Audition 1.0 which does allow RIFF viewing
and editing, but doesn't support .bwf.

However, as far as I can tell, RIFF data can only be accessed from
within the file while it is open in an editor.  This limits the utility
of header data somewhat.  Also any text changes made to the header data
require you to resave the entire file.  Depending on the size and the
configuration of your DAW, this can take a minute or more so it gets
annoying when working with a lot of files.

It's my dream to have someone figure out a way to make audio RIFF data
searchable.  For now, though, outside of file naming, it's the only way
I can figure to "label" audio files.

On another note, while Adobe Audition 1.0 won't support (or at least
won't let you save) BWF files with .bwf extensions, it seems to have no
trouble opening and dealing with BWF files with .wav extensions.   What
this means as far as the RIFF goes, I don't know.  I assume it only
displays the RIFF fields that are compatible with WAV and not the full
suite of BWF fields.  I'm also not sure that, when I resave a BWF with a
.wav extension it remains as such or simply gets converted to a standard
WAV.

Also, it was my impression that the standards for BWF and WAV were going
to be merged together at some point giving us essentially a PCM file
with a BWF RIFF and a .wav extension--is this true?

--
*********************************
Andy Kolovos
Archivist/Folklorist
Vermont Folklife Center
P.O. Box 442
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 388-4964
akolovos @ vermontfolklifecenter.org
http://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org