WAV (WAVE) is short for Waveform and is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing audio on PCs. It is a variant of the RIFF bitstream format method for storing data in "chunks" and is the main format used on Windows systems for raw audio. The most common WAV format contains uncompressed audio in the pulse-code modulation (PCM) format. PCM audio is the standard audio file format for CDs at 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample. Since PCM uses an uncompressed, lossless storage method, which keeps all the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts may use the WAV format for maximum audio quality. WAV audio can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software.

MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) is an audio compression format. It provides a representation of pulse-code modulation encoded audio (WAV) using less space, approximately 10x smaller than a WAV file, similar to BitMap and JPEG image files. MP3 sizes can vary depending on what Bitrate the file is encoded at. (See our MP3 FAQs for more details on Bitrates).

Vorbis is an open source, lossy audio codec project headed by the Xiph.Org and intended to serve as a replacement for MP3. It is most commonly used in conjunction with the Ogg container and is then called Ogg Vorbis. Ogg Vorbis is popular with software authors as no special licenses are required for building encoders / decoders. Thomson Consumer Electronics controls licensing of the MP3 format. A license is not required for a user to own or play an MP3 file, but IS required if you intend to broadcast or stream the files oner the Internet.

WMA (Windows Media Audio) is a compressed audio file format developed by Microsoft, originally intended to be a competitor to the MP3 format.

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a popular file format for audio data compression. It does not remove any information from the audio stream and is suitable both for playback and archiving. FLAC efficiently packs audio data (like ZIP) at compression rates of 30–50%.