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It just occured to me that until someone establishes a standard way of using RIFF data, you could create a database using MSSQL, MySQL, or another binary-capable database to store the file along with your metadata. That way it would be a searchable, indexed database. (You would either design the database yourself or having a systems analyst do it.) Damien J. Moody Information Technology Specialist Library of Congress >>> [log in to unmask] 03/14/05 12:45 PM >>> > Hello all, > > I will soon begin storing .wav or .bwf files. For those of you working with electronic file formats, how much content related info can be attached to a file? For example, I often work with recordings of hour long events that have numerous different things happening in them, lectures, music, etc. Ideally I would like to store information in the files metadata about each of those different things. Is this possible? Or, can I only name the overall file and additional content related info will have to be kept separate from the file itself? > Kevin, It's easy to enter data into the RIFF, but how one does it varies greatly between software packages. Furthermore not all audio editors support RIFF viewing and editing, nor do all audio editors support .bwf files. We're currently using Adobe Audition 1.0 which does allow RIFF viewing and editing, but doesn't support .bwf. However, as far as I can tell, RIFF data can only be accessed from within the file while it is open in an editor. This limits the utility of header data somewhat. Also any text changes made to the header data require you to resave the entire file. Depending on the size and the configuration of your DAW, this can take a minute or more so it gets annoying when working with a lot of files. It's my dream to have someone figure out a way to make audio RIFF data searchable. For now, though, outside of file naming, it's the only way I can figure to "label" audio files. On another note, while Adobe Audition 1.0 won't support (or at least won't let you save) BWF files with .bwf extensions, it seems to have no trouble opening and dealing with BWF files with .wav extensions. What this means as far as the RIFF goes, I don't know. I assume it only displays the RIFF fields that are compatible with WAV and not the full suite of BWF fields. I'm also not sure that, when I resave a BWF with a .wav extension it remains as such or simply gets converted to a standard WAV. Also, it was my impression that the standards for BWF and WAV were going to be merged together at some point giving us essentially a PCM file with a BWF RIFF and a .wav extension--is this true? -- ********************************* Andy Kolovos Archivist/Folklorist Vermont Folklife Center P.O. Box 442 Middlebury, VT 05753 (802) 388-4964 akolovos @ vermontfolklifecenter.org http://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org