BRSTM vs. BCSTM vs. BFSTM

[JohnTravolski]

I've been unable to find a lot of good information on the differences between all of these file types. I know that BRSTM is what the Wii uses for some (or all, I don't know) games and that BCSTM is used for some (or all, I don't know) 3DS games, but I don't know what BFSTM is for (I think, maybe, the Wii U?). Basically, this is what I want to have answered:

• Which consoles use each of these different file forms for audio?
• What are (most often) the specs of the audio contained in each (such as compression type, bitrate, sample rate etc.)
• Are there benefits of using one type over another (obviously certain systems can only understand each type that corresponds with it, but are some of these improved in terms of audio quality)?
• Are there more file types like these used by other systems? Or are these the main three that Nintendo uses?

Finally, are there easy ways to convert BCSTM and BFSTM to BRSTM? If there is, would audio quality be lost in such a conversion?

Please be sure to answer all of these questions, I want to learn as much about these as possible.

 

[soneek]

The audio data at the core is exactly the same format. If done the right way, any of these can be losslessly rebuilt as another type. It's really a matter of breaking it down to DSP channels, and recompiling them with the right structure. Check out the vgmstream source if you wanna do some digging, and also my revb source on Github. I can build all 3 of these file types from DSP files with it.

 

[JohnTravolski]

Okay, that's good to hear. So let's say that I'm looking at downloading music from Nintendo Land, a Wii U game. If you notice here, I have the option to download in BRSTM, BCSTM, and BFSTM. Let's say that I want to use the music for nothing more than background music for a narration. Would it be smarter to download in BFSTM rather than any of the other two types simply because that's the native format of the Wii U? This is assuming that I can convert all of the files, and I can.

 

[JohnTravolski]

I'd really appreciate a reply from somebody who knows what they're talking about. As trivial as this may seem to some, this is quite important to me.