.wav file formats

[Bartlomiej Plichta]

Linguist wrote:
> Hi all:
>  
> I am filling in a format (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) field in a 
> database about oral history recordings.
>  
> DCMI suggest using the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) 
> Audio Media-Types list to fill in the format field (see 
> http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/audio/) .
>  
> I have recordings from the Marantz PMD 660 which are PCM .wav files.
>  
> My question is which media type best describes my PCM files, using the 
> IANA list?
>  
> Any clues much appreciated!
>  
> Rachel

Dublin Core is meant to provide very basic metadata, and it is a common 
practice to use MIME to encode audio file type. You can simply use 
"audio/x-wav" in your file format field. The use of MIME in Dublin Core 
does not necessarily make the distinction between audio file format and 
audio file type. For example, you can have, in theory, an MP3-encoded 
content inside a WAVE file, or you can even have mixed encoding inside a 
WAVE container. Metadata standards such as METS offer better options for 
these sorts of issues.

Bartek

-- 
Bartlomiej Plichta
http://bartus.org