Subject:Maximum file size for AIFF files

Posted by: camper

Date:10/5/2008 9:45:39 AM

Through some painful trial and error, I have discovered that Sound Forge (9.0e) has a file size maximum of 2GB for AIFF files. Apple says that AIFF has a 4GB maximum file size. ( http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MusicAudio/Reference/CAFSpec/CAF_overview/chapter_2_section_2.html )

"...Whereas AIFF, AIFF-C, and WAV files are limited in size to 4 gigabytes, which might represent as little as 15 minutes of audio, CAF files use 64-bit file offsets, eliminating practical limits. A standard CAF file can hold audio data with a playback duration of hundreds of years...."


How can I get Sound Forge 9.0e to support the full 4GB capability of AIFF?

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:10/5/2008 11:16:29 AM

What is your disc file system, FAT-32 or NTFS?

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:10/5/2008 3:02:27 PM

Wav files are limited to 2GB in the Microsoft world. This isn't an issue with the file system; it's due to the fact that Microsoft uses 31 bits for the length of the file, not 32.

Sound Forge has a .w64 format which uses 64 bits. This format allows files with durations in the decades range. Unfortunately it's not compatible with much of anything else except Vegas, ACID, etc. However, you should be able to open up the .aiff file in RAW mode if you know the appropriate parameters and then save it as .w64. Not sure how you'd go back to .aiff afterwards though, unless you saved it in pieces.

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:10/5/2008 7:33:36 PM

Thanks for setting me straight on this, Kelly. I tried "Save As" AIFF with a >2GB file on NTFS and confirmed your observation.

On some Sundays I seem to be in "auto-reply" mode.
;?)

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: camper

Date:10/6/2008 2:30:01 PM

Windows 2000/SP4 using NTFS. I have data files on the disk that are over 8GB is size.


(edit for clarity)

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: camper

Date:10/6/2008 2:35:12 PM

> Wav files are limited to 2GB in the Microsoft world.


That's what I thought until yesterday when I rendered a project to .WAV and it was 2,803,243,748 bytes in size. I could not render that same project to .AIFF because it would have exceeded the maximum file size for AIFF. (2^31 ~ 2,147,483,648)

So now I am wondering what the real limit for .WAV is?

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:10/6/2008 3:09:01 PM

Can you open or play all of that 2.8GB .wav file? I'll bet everything after the 2GB point is invalid or null data. I've noticed that Vegas would render a .mpeg file larger than 4GB on a FAT32 system and happily finish the process, but everything after the 4GB point was empty. Trying to access it crashed the whole OS.

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: MarkWWWW

Date:10/7/2008 5:24:31 AM

I'm not sure about 4GB AIFFs, but ticking "Options|Preferences|General|Allow Wave renders up to 4GB" will allow you to use (strictly illegal, but fairly commonly found) WAVs of between 2GB and 4GB in size. The same setting may work for AIFFs too. (I can't check because I'm not at my SF9 PC at the moment.)

Mark

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: camper

Date:10/11/2008 8:33:44 AM

> Can you open or play all of that 2.8GB .wav file? I'll bet everything after the 2GB point is invalid or null data.


Yes, it plays fine. Also, I moved the file over to my OS-X computer, and iTunes was able to load the file, play the entire file, and also convert the file to Apple Lossless format.

I think that I did not have the problems you experienced because I use NTFS (under Windows 2000 SP4) and not FAT32.

Subject:RE: Maximum file size for AIFF files

Reply by: camper

Date:10/11/2008 8:35:08 AM

> I'm not sure about 4GB AIFFs, but ticking "Options|Preferences|General|Allow Wave renders up to 4GB" will allow you to use (strictly illegal, but fairly commonly found) WAVs of between 2GB and 4GB in size.


Thanks, that looks like the reason. That checkbox must be on by default, because I do not remember ticking it. The option does not seem to affect AIFF files, only WAV.