Prometheus - File Formats

(Updated as November 2008)

What are all those files, what will I need to have at hand in terms of licenses, applications and often hardware to enable accessing content in these file formats in the future?

The following starter list below has been supplied by various Prometheus collection area users.

Another fairly reliable source to give you some background of associations and potential dependencies for a file format is: http://www.fileinfo.com/ 

They even have a 'file format of the day' RSS feed should you like to learn more about file formats in a smaller dosage. http://www.fileinfo.com/daily_extension.rss

WIKIPEDIA - File Formats

A file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. Any list of file formats would contain both proprietary and open source.[1]

Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for different kinds of information. Within any format type, e.g., word processor documents, there will typically be several different formats. Sometimes these formats compete with each other.

File formats can be divided into proprietary and open formats.

For further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_format and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_formats


Digital Preservation knowledge base

http://pc203221/

 (note this is a temporary beta test link and may be subject to sudden change)


John T. Maguire has created two tools for generating a list of file extensions recorded when archiving in Prometheus.

Please right-click and select 'Save Target As or 'Save Link As' for the following file links to a suitable location on your workstation e.g. D:\ drive:

download workstation drive script
E_Drive_File Extensions Tool For Prometheus 

USB drive script
  USB Drive Extensions Tool For Prometheus 


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One tool is for CDs and DVDs, and the other is for USB flash drives. 

The tools create lists of file extensions in a couple of seconds and also retrieve file extensions of hidden files. They are particularly useful for media with a large number of files. You can see what they look like in the PowerShell File Extension Tools for Prometheus Digital Archiving User Manual . Contact John if you want a demonstration or installation.


Previously suggested file format extensions of interest to various collection areas


- this file format is known by the NLA Knowledge Base [accessibility yet to be confirmed]

- this file format is currently unknown by our format identification tools and should be noted within the Prometheus File Format Annotations to enable further investigation in regards to long term support and access.
Format
Extension
NLA
Supported
Collection
Areas using
Description ID Method

ADRG

Maps

National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s ARC Digitized Raster Graphics

ARC

Maps

ArcInfo ARC arc info file format

BIL

Maps

Band Interleaved by Line (image format linked with satellite derived imagery)

BWF

Music

Oral History

 BWF (Broadcast Wave Format) is a standard audio format created by the European Broadcasting Union as a successor to WAV. BWF allows metadata to be stored in the file.

CADRG

Maps

National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s Compressed ARC Digitised Raster Graphics (nominal compression of 55:1 over ADRG)

CIB

Maps

National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s Controlled Image Base (type of Raster Product Format)

DNG

Pictures

Manuscripts

Adobe Digital Negative file format

DRG

Maps

Digital raster graphic - digital scan of a paper USGS topographic map

DTED

DTM

Maps

National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s Digital Terrain Elevation Data [Digital Terrain Models – DTM]

DXF

Manuscripts

Contour elevation plots in AutoCAD DXF format

ECW

Maps

Enhanced Compressed Wavelet (from ERMapper). A compressed wavelet format, often lossy.

ESRI

 ESRI grid - binary and ASCII raster formats used by ESRI

EXE

A Microsoft Windows executable program, which within the the Prometheus context may be an installer application to either install and access the content or provide a viewer for the content type.

FLV

Web Archiving

Manuscripts

Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash format file extension, flv is related to Flash-compatible video file exported by the Flash Video Exporter plug-in (included with Adobe Flash) or other program with FLV file support.

GeoTIFF

Maps

 TIFF variant enriched with GIS relevant metadata

GML

Maps

Geography Markup Language (GML) - XML based open standard (by OpenGIS) for GIS data exchange

IMG

Maps

ERDAS IMAGINE image file format

JPG/JPEG

All Collections

A compressed [lossy] image file format.

JPEG2000

Maps

Open-source raster format. A compressed format, allows both lossy and lossless compression.

MrSID

Maps

Multi-Resolution Seamless Image Database (by Lizardtech). A compressed wavelet format, often lossy.

PDF

All Collections

Adobe PDF file format

PSD

Maps manuscripts

Adobe Photoshop file format

SIB

Music

Sibelius music file for the software for writing, playing, printing and publishing music notation.

SHP, SHX + DBF set

Maps

SHP, SHX & associated DBFs - Shapefile - ESRI's open, hybrid vector data format using SHP, SHX and DBF files

SWF

Web Archiving 

Australian Deposit

Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Shockwave multimedia file Flash movie file. ShockWave Flash, Animated Vector Format for Internet.

TAB

All Collections

Tab-delimited text files store two-dimensional arrays of data by separating the values in each row with specific delimiter characters which in this case is the TAB character. These text files  can be opened by several kinds of applications.

TAB

Maps

MapInfo TAB format - MapInfo's vector data format using TAB, DAT, ID and MAP files

TIf/TIFF

Manuscripts

Pictures

Ephemera

Adobe TIFF file format

TS.BUP

All Collections

DVD (Digital Video Disk) data file. File extension bup is commonly backup of DVD IFO file. The .BUP file extension is used by a variety of software as a backup of the IFO file found on DVDs.

TS.IFO

All Collections

DVD (Digital Video Disk) data file. .IFO files store information about DVD chapter headings, subtitles, audio settings. They also define which screen appears on start-up.

TS.AOD

All Collections

DVD (Digital Video Disk) data file. This file stores audio data on DVD-Audio discs in an MPEG format. It contains Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM) data stored in the AUDIO_TS folder.

TS.VOB

All Collections

DVD (Digital Video Disk) data file. The .VOB file extension is for DVD Video Object files (which are in practice DVD movie files). The data stored in the VIDEO_TS folder.

WAV

All Collections

WAVE audio file format


  

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