What's in a Broadcast wave file?

Have you ever been curious about what your recorder is putting in your BWAV files? Have you wanted to change or add some info so it shows up in your AVID system? Have you ever wanted to make a list of files with the scene and take data or rename files based on it's embedded data?

Broadcast Wave metadata is similar to the song information that is embeded in an MP3 file. But instead of the strict field limitation of Artist, Title and Genre, Broadcast wave files have a Description field which can contain any information.

More and more field recorders and DAWs embed useful metadata in the braodcast wave BEXT chunk. Including, date and time of recording, the device that recorded it, the SMPTE timecode start of the file. Some recorders even allow the input of scene and take information and notes made by the recordist.

Many archivists and librarians are making use of these data fields to store information about individual files, in those very files, as well as in a master database. For example you give someone the sound of a dog bark and this information is embedded in the file. Even if the file gets renamed, the dog bark description in the file is still there.

Our Products

BWAV Writer: Allows you to edit information in files and convert regular wave files to Broadcast wave.

BWAV Lister: Allows you to make lists based on metadata in multiple files and rename files based on their metadata. For example, making a sound report form a days worth of files. Visit the BWAV Lister page to download some tutorial videos.

BWAV Reader: a freeware app that will allow you to see the metadata in your files, no editing.