AES Standards News Blog

The Broadcast Wave Format is a file format for audio data. It can be used for the seamless exchange of audio material between (i) different broadcast environments and (ii) equipment based on different computer platforms. 

 

As well as the audio data, a BWF file (BWFF) contains the minimum information - or metadata - that is considered necessary for all broadcast applications. The Broadcast Wave Format is based on the Microsoft WAVE audio file format. This specification adds a “Broadcast Audio Extension” chunk to the basic WAVE format.

 

An optional Extended Broadcast Wave Format (BWF-E) file format is designed to be a compatible extension of the Broadcast Wave Format (BWF) for audio file sizes larger than a conventional Wave file. It extends the maximum size capabilities of the RIFF/WAVE format by increasing its address space to 64 bits where necessary. A set of machine-readable loudness metadata is included. 

 

This revision includes a new annex I to describe a universal 'ubxt' chunk to carry human-readable information in UTF-8 multi-byte characters to support international character sets. This is compatible with EBU v2 broadcast wave files.