| 1 | Audio File Library Development Notes |
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| 2 | Sunday, 9 May 1999 |
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| 3 | Michael Pruett <michael@68k.org> |
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| 4 | |
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| 5 | ---- |
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| 6 | |
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| 7 | Error handling code is now in place, but errors are not returned in |
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| 8 | all situations in which they should be. Furthermore the errors |
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| 9 | returned may not be the most applicable. Some work needs to be done |
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| 10 | here. |
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| 11 | |
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| 12 | Recognition of other audio files should include some of the following |
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| 13 | file formats which I discovered through the `file' command on Linux: |
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| 14 | |
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| 15 | [ 0 string,=.snd,"Sun/NeXT audio data:"] |
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| 16 | [ 0 lelong,=6583086,"DEC audio data:"] |
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| 17 | [> 8 string,=WAVE,", WAVE audio data"] |
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| 18 | [ 0 belong,=779248125,"realaudio sound file"] |
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| 19 | [> 8 string,=AIFF,", AIFF audio"] |
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| 20 | [> 8 string,=AIFC,", AIFF-C compressed audio"] |
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| 21 | [> 8 string,=SAMP,", SAMP sampled audio"] |
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| 22 | |
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| 23 | I do not know what DEC audio data or SAMP sampled audio are. I have |
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| 24 | no plans to support RealAudio since it provides quite poor sound |
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| 25 | quality (that is to say that it sucks a fat dick). |
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| 26 | |
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| 27 | Compressed data formats are not supported. I would like to add |
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| 28 | support for the non-proprietary codecs sometime soon, but I have more |
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| 29 | important issues to address first. |
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| 30 | |
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| 31 | SGI's Audio File Library implements the following formats which I do |
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| 32 | not: |
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| 33 | Berkeley/IRCAM/CARL SoundFile |
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| 34 | MPEG1 audio bitstream |
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| 35 | Sound Designer II |
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| 36 | Audio Visual Research |
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| 37 | Amiga IFF/8SVX |
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| 38 | SampleVision |
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| 39 | VOC |
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| 40 | SoundFont2 |
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| 41 | Raw (headerless) |
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| 42 | |
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| 43 | I'm planning to look into implementing BICSF. The others don't seem |
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| 44 | that interesting. MPEG is plagued with patent issues, Sound Designer |
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| 45 | II uses Macintosh resource forks, and I've never seen any of the |
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| 46 | others. If you'd like to nominate a sound file format for inclusion, |
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| 47 | drop me a line. I won't be able to do much without a solid reference, |
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| 48 | though. |
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| 49 | |
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| 50 | ---- |
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| 51 | |
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| 52 | This version of the Audio File Library has been tested under the |
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| 53 | following operating environments: |
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| 54 | mips-sgi-irix6.3 / Irix 6.3 (egcs 1.1.2) |
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| 55 | i386-redhat-linux / Red Hat Linux 5.0 for i386 (gcc 2.7.2.3) |
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| 56 | i386-debian-linux / Debian Linux 2.0 for i386 (gcc 2.7.2.3) |
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| 57 | i386-unknown-netbsd1.3 / NetBSD for i386 (gcc 2.7.2.2+myc1) |
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| 58 | alpha-redhat-linux / Red Hat Linux 5.2 for Alpha (egcs 1.0.3) |
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