<file format> Sound. Computers (and audio compact discs and digital audio tape) handle sound by storing a sequence of discrete samples. The continuous sound waveform from the original source is sampled tens of thousands of times a second. Each sample represents the intensity of the sound pressure wave at that instant. Apart from the sampling frequency, the other parameter is the digital encoding of each sample including the number of bits used. The encoding may be linear, logarithmic or mu-law.
Sound is one component of multimedia.
Filename extension: .au (Unix), .snd (MS-DOS, MS Windows).
See also Audio IFF.
Usenet newsgroups: alt.binaries.sounds.*.
A FAQ on audio file formats is available. Part 1, Part 2.