WAV is Microsoft's uncompressed audio container, built on the RIFF chunk format, and the de facto interchange file for masters, stems, and editing. Inside it is almost always linear PCM, bit-for-bit what the ADC captured, which is why WAV is lossless and large. The classic format has a 4 GB ceiling because its size fields are 32-bit; the RF64/BWF extensions lift that for long multichannel recordings and add broadcast metadata like timecode. WAV is the safe lingua franca between tools — every DAW, encoder, and analyzer reads it — but you compress to AAC, Opus, or FLAC before anything ships.
The book · Volume 4 of 7
Audio for Video: A Complete Guide to Sound in Video Products: From PCM and Codecs to Loudness, Accessibility, and Real-Time Voice Processing
WAV is the default master and stem format, yet its 4 GB ceiling and header variants still break long recordings. Volume 4 covers WAV in detail with PCM sampling, bit depth and dynamic range, channels and layouts, and how lossless masters feed AAC and Opus encodes for delivery. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
Struggling with oversized or broken WAV masters in your media workflow?
Tell us how audio moves through your pipeline and we will recommend master formats, bit depth and conversion steps that keep quality and stop files from failing. 250+ video products shipped since 2005.
