Long-term archiving of analog original
(Use lower set of specs for speech.)

WAVE/BWF (.wav)
(Win & Mac)/
Uncompressed

AIFF (Mac),
FLAC,

MPEG-4/ALS,
MPEG-4/ACC/
Lossless

48 kHz (max. = 96 kHz*)

max.

24-bit/
2 (stereo)

none

Stored on 2 media: CD, DVD Audio, DAT (Digital Audio Tape), spinning disk

44.1 kHz
(DVD quality)

196 kbps

16-bit/
2 (stereo)
8-bit/
1 (mono)

Creating derivatives

Same as AM.

Same as AM.

Same as AM.

-Artifacts and flaws reduced
-Filter distortions

If kept, same as AM.

High bandwidth delivery

MP3,
MPEG-4/ACC,
RealAudio (.ra)

Ogg Vorbis/
Lossy

22 kHz
(CD quality)

128 kbps

16-bit/
2 (stereo)

8-bit/
1 (mono)

-Downsampled from WM;
-Broken up into multiple segments

Spinning disk and backup tape

Low bandwidth delivery

RealAudio (.ra),
.m4a

11 kHz
(low quality)

64 kbps

8-bit/
1 (mono)

-Super-downsampled;
-Broken up into multiple segments

for clicking

GIF or JPEG

N/A

N/A

Downsample an image file to no larger than 160 (w) x 120 (h) pixels