title: Interpreting WAV Data
body: <p>I'm trying to write a program to display PCM data. I've been very frustrated trying to find a library with the right level of abstraction, but I've found the python wave library and have been using that. However, I'm not sure how to interpret the data.</p>
  
  <p>The wave.getparams function returns (2 channels, 2 bytes, 44100 Hz, 96333 frames, No compression, No compression). This all seems cheery, but then I tried printing a single frame:'\xc0\xff\xd0\xff' which is 4 bytes. I suppose it's possible that a frame is 2 samples, but the ambiguities do not end there.</p>
  
  <p>96333 frames * 2 samples/frame * (1/44.1k sec/sample) = 4.3688 seconds</p>
  
  <p>However, iTunes reports the time as closer to 2 seconds and calculations based on file size and bitrate are in the ballpark of 2.7 seconds. What's going on here?</p>
  
  <p>Additionally, how am I to know if the bytes are signed or unsigned?</p>
  
  <p>Many thanks!</p>