Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your BWF file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert BWF to another file type
To convert BWF audio files to another format, you need BWF MetaEdit or other Audio software.
Convert a file to BWF
To convert other file formats to the "Broadcast Audio File" file type, you need software like BWF MetaEdit or a similar tool.
About BWF files
The .BWF (Broadcast Wave Format) is a professional audio standard created by the European Broadcasting Union. It is essentially a standard WAV file based on the RIFF structure, but it contains a specialized "bext" (Broadcast Extension) chunk. This embedded metadata stores critical production information like SMPTE timecodes, loudness, and originator data, making it essential for synchronizing audio in film, television, and radio broadcasting. You can open and edit the metadata of these files using BWF MetaEdit, or edit the audio in digital audio workstations like Pro Tools and Adobe Audition. Despite its professional utility, the .BWF format has severe drawbacks for general use. Because it stores uncompressed PCM audio, file sizes are massive, often exceeding hundreds of megabytes for short recordings. Furthermore, many consumer media players, web browsers, and basic audio editors cannot parse the embedded metadata and may fail to open the file altogether or misinterpret the track length. Sharing a raw .BWF file with a client for review is highly impractical. To solve these issues, you must convert the file. For web streaming or quick email reviews, convert to MP3 or AAC, bearing in mind this will apply lossy compression. For lossless archiving with a 50% smaller file size, convert to FLAC. If you need standard editor compatibility without the broadcast metadata, convert to standard WAV. Drag and drop your file here to analyze and convert it - free, online, and without installing software.
Use Convert.Guru to open and convert your BWF file.
If you want to convert BWF file to MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG, WMA, M4A, AIFF, OPUS, ALAC, APE or WV, you can use BWF MetaEdit or similar software from the "Professional Audio Broadcasting" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MIDI, AAC, TTA, AU, WV, DTS, MID, FLAC, RA, MP3, PCM or WAV files to BWF, try BWF MetaEdit or another comparable tool in the "Professional Audio Broadcasting" category.
The BWF Converter Story
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our BWF converter.