| | Open Sound System |
| Do you have problems with sound/audio application development? Don't panic! Click here for help! |
This format is similar to the AFMT_S16_BE format but with different endianess. This is the native 16 bit sample format (signed short) in the wintel architecture. It's also the 16 bit sample format used in WAV files. This makes this the most commonly used audio format in the computer industry. Practically all devices support this format natively (there are few exceptions used in the RISC workstations).
This is the preferred format to be used when storing 16 bit samples in files or when passing them to some applicatiions or systems.
The AFMT_S16_LE formatted data stream should be handled as an array of bytes. Each 16 bit big endian sample requires two byte positions. The first byte stores the least significant 8 bits and the the second is used for the most significant part.
The AFMT_S16_NE endian format is recommended instead of AFMT_S16_LE as the internal sample format. It's also the best choice if the application supports just one sample format.