Sound file formats

[bonzodog]

I just had a thought-

Ubuntu uses .wav files for sounds right?

Why???

They are Windows Audio/Video files, and the format is proprietry. Someone really ought to think about switching to an open format for small sound files, in my opinion.

[Ramses de Norre]

wav = Waveform audio format.
And it's not only microsoft's, it's in big part from IBM. But if there is an alternative it would be nice, yes.

[ATAQ]

There are many differnt version of wave, a few I think are microsofts but there are others. there was a list I saw on it before

[chaosgeisterchen]

Why not just using Ogg Vorbis?

[Rhubarb]

An example wav format is m$ adpcm, which is lossy (and old!), it has the extention .wav
The usual format for wav is simple PCM (I think, don't quote me here - could be the case for Audio CDs not wav files).
I agree using oggs or flacs for sound files in ubuntu would be great - it shouldn't slow down old machines too much.

[BWF89]

edit: nvm

[Rhapsody]

FLAC makes a good straight replacement for WAV (being lossless) and Vorbis is also a good replacement for when files don't need to be lossless. Maybe support for both should be placed alongside WAV rather than as a replacement? FLAC is probably good as a default.