Popularity
Uncompressed WAV files are large, so file sharing of WAV files over the Internet is uncommon. However, it is a commonly used file type, suitable for retaining first generation archived files of high quality, for use on a system where disk space is not a constraint, or in applications such as audio editing, where the time involved in compressing and uncompressing data is a concern.
More frequently, the smaller file sizes of compressed but lossy formats such as MP3 are used to store and transfer audio. Their small file sizes allow faster Internet transmission, as well as lower consumption of space on memory media. There are also losslessly-compressed formats but there is no ubiquitous standard among these for either professional or home audio.
The usage of the WAV format has more to do with its familiarity and simple structure. Because of this, it continues to enjoy widespread use with a variety of software applications, often functioning as a 'lowest common denominator' when it comes to exchanging sound files among different programs.
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Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)