Instruction Manual

1052 New Features in SONAR 7
Sony Wave-64 Support
Wave file I/O in previous versions of SONAR was based on the RIFF file
format, which references samples using a 32-bit timeline.
As you can see, using a 32-bit timeline at large sample rates provides just a
few hours worth of time before the 32-bit sample timeline limit is reached.
While this might not be an issue for typical projects, it is a big problem for
users who use SONAR for post production, video or even those who import
Broadcast waves. Often a Broadcast Wave file might be inserted at a large
sample offset if it originated from a system that was using a large SMPTE
offset.
SONAR 7 addresses these issues by switching to a 64-bit sample timeline
and fully supporting the Sony Wave-64 wave file format (see Sony Wave-64
Support).
Sony Wave-64 Support
Previous versions of SONAR wrote wave files based on the RIFF wave file
format. The RIFF format has an inherent file size limitation of 2GB.
SONAR 7 fully supports reading and writing to the Sony Wave-64 format,
which has a limit of 8,388,608 terabytes!
SONAR 7 only creates Wave-64 file when needed. The Wave-64 format
allows an application to dynamically switch from classic RIFF WAVE to
Wave-64 format even if the data was originally created as a RIFF wave file.
SONAR detects when a file will exceed 2GB and will dynamically switch to
the new Wave-64 format.
The table below shows the maximum duration for a stereo WAVE file
before we hit the 2GB limit, as well as the max duration for a stereo Wave-
64 file before we hit the 8,388,608 terabyte limit.
Sample Rate... Bit Depth... RIFF-Wave... Sony Wave-64...
44,100 Hz 16 3.38 hours 14,524,080,431 days
44,100 Hz 32 1.69 hours 7,262,040,215 days
44,100 Hz 64 50.7 minutes 3,631,020,108 days
192,000 Hz 16 46 minutes 3,335,999,724 days