Shockwave Audio files (SWA) are custom MP3 encoded sound files for use within Director and Shockwave applications. Unlike MP3 files, SWA files allow for cuepoints to be inserted into the file and then accessed at runtime by Director movies. For more information about cuepoints please refer to Using Cue Points in SWA files (TN 16071).

SWA files have the ability to be streamed inside Director and Shockwave movies. For more information about the differences between streaming and standard playback please refer to Inserting vs. Importing SWA files (TN 16072)

Note: SWA files can be used with both Macintosh and Windows versions of Director. The WAV to SWA converter Xtra is only available in the Windows version of Director. To create SWA files on the Macintosh, a sound editing application such as Peak or SoundEdit must be used.

WAV to SWA Xtra Dialog
To access the "Convert .WAV Files to .SWA Files" dialog box select Xtras > Convert WAV to SWA.

Use this dialog box to select which WAV files to convert to SWAs, where the converted files will be moved to and at which Bit Rate the SWAs will be converted to.

Files to Convert:
This window shows the list of WAV files that will be converted to SWA files. To add files to the Files to Convert list, click on the Add Files... button. To remove files from this list, click on the Remove button.

Compression Settings
The compression settings allow for adjusting how the SWA compressor converts the WAV files. Bit Rate determines how many bits per second are used to play back the audio. The lower the bit rate the smaller the SWA file and the faster it can be downloaded, but as the bit rate is lowered the sound quality of the file is reduced. Determining the best bit rate for a project depends on the needs of the application.

Note: The minimum recommend setting for sound quality and performance in Director is a bitrate of 32.

Accuracy determines the sample accuracy the SWA converter uses when creating SWA files. Accuracy does not affect the final size of the SWA file, but can increase the overall quality of the audio. A High accuracy can take longer to convert each sound file on slower machines.

The Convert Stereo To Mono checkbox will automatically mix the left and right channels into a single mono channel during the conversion process when selected. A stereo sound file is twice the size of a mono file and in most cases the stereo effects are not needed.

Note: Due to the added size, stereo files are not recommend unless the stereo effect is critical to the Director movie.

Copyright Info:
Use this field to add custom copyright information to the converted SWA file. Text added to this field is negligible to the overall file size.

Folder for Converted Files:
The WAV to SWA converter uses the selected directory as the location to store the converted SWA files.