This format was originally created as an alternative to mp3. The idea was to achieve a small file size with better sound quality. The first versions weren’t quite successful, but with the development of AAC, it became possible to store sound with less loss of quality, and with the same file sizes as that of mp3.

PVF is a special low-bandwidth ADPCM-based digital audio format for recording and storing human speech. A .pvf file contains digitally recorded speech in the PVF format. Such .pvf files were mainly used with legacy voice modems and software-based answering machines. Often, to be used with a specific modem, a .pvf file would have to be converted into the device-specific RMD format. Currently, PVF audio files can still be played with several major media players as well as converted into other formats (like WAV) with multi-format converter tools.