I had a very frustrating problem not being able to view the waveform of certain .wav files which had a rather simple solution so I thought I’d post my solution.
I am using Mac OS 10.6.8 and Elan 4.1.2. I was unable to see the waveform for .wav files I extracted from video files using Final Cut Pro. I need to see them to synchronise the video with wav files I recorded separately.
In the end the solution was to set the audio file format at 16bit. Although elan usually accepts 8 bit or 24 bit for some reason in this case and with my setup it was not able to show the waveform.
My elan preferences were set to Quicktime rather than cocoa but changing this didn’t help.
Hi, the WAV file format is a container, the actual codecs can differ. To see the waveform in ELAN, your WAV file must contain uncompressed (PCM) audio. Sometimes WAV files contain for example MP3 compressed data. You can usually configure what sort of WAV you want to save as in your audio processing and recording software. Most software supports uncompressed or even has it as default anyway. Only more advanced processing software has more choice among compressed formats. Also, media players tend to support a number of compressed formats, so it might be possible in ELAN to hear but not see the audio waveform, maybe also depending on the video file audio and video codecs. Note that the DISPLAY of the waveform in ELAN always uses the WAV, not the video file.
