.aif vs AIFF?

Hi,can anyone out there clear this confusing/worrying matter up for me? i heard somewhere that .aif files are not the same as .AIFF files in that there is a degree of compression in the former and none in the latter also that this is the default encoding in OsX when importing audio files from CD via drag & drop into the finder. In fact some apps such as recycle will not import them until they are un-compressed back into AIFF format. are .aif files basically just AIFC encoded files and if this is indeed OsX default import option is there any way I can change it without having to import every audio file using quicktime or 3rd party app?

btw are the .wav files generated in logic the same as broadcast wave files (ie with time stamp data capabilities? I'm thinking of switchin.

prob just being silly but i'z gots ta know!

thanks

AIFF stands for Audio Interchange File Format, and that format can be represented by the suffix .aiff or .aif.

I just did a little experiment with Amadeus Pro (simple waveform editor program). I dragged a file off a CD, which has the suffix .aiff, opened it in Amadeus, and saved it as a new file. Amadeus will save all of its AIFF files with the suffix .aif. Looking at the two files they are identical in size, which means they are exactly the same.

There is an option in Amadeus to compress AIFF files, and the same .aif suffix will appear. But Amadeus uses this suffix whether or not the AIFF file is compressed or not.

Here is something from Wikipedia: 'The file extension for the standard AIFF format is .aiff or .aif. For the compressed variants it is supposed to be .aifc, but .aiff or .aif are accepted as well by audio applications supporting the format.'

Here is my conclusion: there is no difference between the suffix .aiff and the suffix .aif. They are both AIFF files. That being said, you can have an AIFF file that is compressed or uncompressed, but the suffix alone, .aiff or .aif, will not tell you whether that AIFF file is compressed or not.

If the file is a 2 channel (stereo) file, and it is approximately 10mb per minute, it is an uncompressed file.

hi thanks for responding.

so basically they're the same except (Little Endian) are compressed and (Big Endian) are un-compressed? something very weird is going on here because all my old commercially released sample cd's are being imported as compressed (little Endian) aiff's and as a consequence rendered unreadable by some apps which never used to happen in Os9. Could OsX be converting them on the way in? they're showing up that way when i get info directly from the CD via the quicktime inspector.

Looks like I've been using compressed audio files all these years & not even known it.., i feel dirty now!

so basically they're the same except (Little Endian) are compressed and (Big Endian) are un-compressed

You lost me on that one man!

Anything from a CD that can play in a CD player (as opposed to a data or mp3 cd) is going to be uncompressed. If you drag a track off of a CD and onto your desktop, it will be uncompressed. Doesn't matter whether the suffix is .aif or .aiff, they're both exactly the same.

In fact, I"ve never come across any AIFF file, whether it has a suffix of .aif or .aiff, that is compressed. All audio samples, CD's, etc. that are AIFF files are uncompressed. When you bounce a file from Logic that is an AIFF file, the file ends up with a suffix of .aif, but is also a fully uncompressed AIFF file. The only time I've seen or used compressed AIFF files is when I saved them that way on purpose.

Again, if you're copying a file from a CD onto your machine, it will be uncompressed. Unless your importing a CD into iTunes, it will copy the file in the same format it's in on the CD. If an application can't open it because it has a suffix of .aif instead of .aiff, it just means that that application is confused about the tag of .aif, not that the file is different or compressed in some weird way. Just manually change the suffix of the file to .aiff if that's the problem, and you apps should be able to read them.

Conclusion: .aif and .aiff are both suffix's for the exact same type of file, an AIFF file.

hi, sorry if I lost you a bit, but that is exactly what i have always thought, an aif is an aiff is an aif.. but there appears to be two types: aiff or .aif (Big Endian) and .aiff or .aif (LIttle Endian) the latter being the problem 'compressed' file that won't import into say 'recycle.

When i get info with the quicktime inspector directly from the CD, the files are showing up as .aif (Little Endian) files. I then have to re-encode them using a 3rd party app converting them to .aif (Big Endian) before recycle will read them? welcome to the twilight zone....??

thanks for staying with me on this one

some info on endian:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/b/big_endian.htm

phew, now thats clearer. i guess this is an issue with propellerhead/recycle software and to a degree peak pro's confusing status bar which reads 'importing compressed file' when importing these files.

Thanks for all your help in clearing that up guys, looks like ill have to carry on batch converting whenever i'm using these apps. I will leave some info on the propellerheads forum on this one because tech support there seem to think this is a compression issue too.

cheers

peter