WAV - WAVE - Waveform Audio File Format

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WAVE or WAV, short for Waveform Audio File Format,[3][6][7][8] (also, but rarely, named, Audio for Windows[9]) is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is an application of the RIFF bitstream format method for storing data in “chunks”, and thus is also close to the 8SVX and the AIFF format used on Amiga and Macintosh computers, respectively. It is the main format used on Windows systems for raw and typically uncompressed audio. The usual bitstream encoding is the Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM) format.

Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE)
Filename extension .wav
Internet media type audio/vnd.wave[1], audio/wav, audio/wave, audio/x-wav[2]
Type code WAVE
Uniform Type Identifier com.microsoft.waveform-audio
Developed by Microsoft & IBM
Initial release 1991 (1991)[3]
Latest release Multiple Channel Audio Data and WAVE Files / 7 March 2007; 3 years ago (2007-03-07) (update)[4][5]
Type of format audio file format, container format
Extended from RIFF
Extended to BWF, RF64