Importing WAV file larger than 4GB is causing error

[Norman Black]

There are a couple of WAV extensions for large WAV files. The Sony W64 format (Soundforge) and the RF64 format. Sony Vegas obviously supports the W64 format but I do not think it supports the RF64 format. MediaInfo should be able to identify which WAV extension format was used.

[John Romein]

Thanks Norman.

Here’s the output from Mediainfo:
General
Complete name : R:\RAW\tape 2.wav
Format : Wave
File size : 4.00 GiB
Duration : 3h 6mn
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 3 072 Kbps

Audio
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 00001000-0000-0100-8000-00AA00389B71
Duration : 3h 6mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 3 072 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 32 bits
Stream size : 4.00 GiB (100%)

Any suggestions as to how to get the file into Vegas? Do I need to go some 3rd party converter software? I tried to fool Vegas by changing the extension to W64…didn’t work.

[Norman Black]

I was hoping MediaInfo would have said something more than WAV. Hoping for W64 or RF64. Changing the extension is not likely to do anything. Applications don’t care about the file extension. They go my what the file header tells them.

It is interesting that in the MediaInfo report the file is exactly 4GB in size. It is possible to have normal WAV format files be up to that size. Not all applications would support this. This can happen if the offsets in the file are treated as unsigned numbers, versus signed. Supposedly Vegas does support these files. There is even a preference to render up to 4GB WAV files. Unchecked by default.

I also wonder about a boundary condition problem since the file is at the exact limit if it is a classic WAV format. If so, the boundary bug could be in Vegas or the software that generated the file.

Whatever the file is, Vegas does not like it. You need to find some tool that does like it and convert to something Vegas does like. W64 or split the file into a few pieces.
Maybe the eac3to utility. “eac3to Problem.WAV Fixed.W64”

[John Romein]

It just happened that this file is 4GB. The other file of tape 1 is 4.17GB and the Mediainfo is the same otherwise. I downloaded Audicity and tried to load the file into it as a wav file….same error issue. I also tried to load the file as a RAW and it created a 13 hour file on the timeline! The file is very noisy, sloooow (explains 13 hours), 32bit float, mono. I changed the file to 24bit PCM….no change. The file should be a stereo…but I don’t think changing this would help.

You mentioned eac3to. I’ll download it and see if it can resolve this issue.

[John Romein]

Thanks Norman! This forum is great!

I downloaded the program eac3to and ran it as you suggested.

eac3to tape2.wav tape2.w64

Took almost 4 minutes to convert. Loaded it into Vegas and it works…I have a 3 hour audio track.

Thanks again!

[Norman Black]

Glad it worked. Yes, writing 4GB+ to disk takes a while. Also, don’t worry about audio quality loss. There is no loss “converting” from PCM to PCM audio.