[linux-audio-dev] Re: open standards for file formats

[Item State]

hello,

yes, peak/overview files and metadata is two different
things. metadata should be stored in a open and
extensible format such as XML. the problem with peak
files is, different programmes rely on different
resolution and representation. to give an example, in
eisenkraut i use four peak files in four decimation
scales ; only the highest resolution (1:256 (?)) is
saved permanently, the others are created on the fly.
since i want to support floating point files, i
decided to store peak waveform in float32 format,
which is rather big ; other sound editors will decide
to not do this. also i store both peak and RMS
information, others wish to store only peak, or peak
and spectral focus or whatever. so unless two
programmes are rather similiar, i wouldn't be too
optimistic about using a uniform peak display.

also i wouldn't deal with commercial software,
honestly. if two software companies, say bias (for
peak) and emagic/apple (for logic) are too dumb to
agree on one format, i see no point why open source
software should go and beg those companies to share
their format. rather, if there are a few de facto
standard open source softwares, it would make sense
that they define a standard that they share.

for eisenkraut i use normal AIFF files als overviews,
i think that's pretty straight format, and since most
programmes will store some form of PCM data, it
shouldn't be too difficult to sync two -- if they work
in a similar resolution and representation.

there are some standards already, like SDIF for
spectral information for example.

best, -sciss-



		
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