QuickTime 4 Reference

Defining a Superset of the BICSF Functionality

This specification defines a superset of the BICSF functionality. If you want to write a processing module which "normalizes" the data it outputs, you can certainly use the slope parameter in the way you would use the BICSF maximum amplitude tag. But you don't have to.

The maximum amplitude tag in a BICSF file also helps code deal with clipping issues in floating-point-to-integer conversions more efficiently. This specification defines a separate mechanism to deal with this problem, as explained in the next section.

The BICSF format leaves the intercept parameter undefined. Most, but not all, programs assume that the zero amplitude value is 0.0, and this may sometimes lead to compatibility problems. This specification avoids these problems by making the intercept parameter explicit.

The slope and intercept parameters fill in a major gap in functionality, and also provide an improvement in performance: