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.

This format was originally intended for voice compression and is able to change the bit rates of encoded audio data. AMR is actively used for encoding and decoding voice while its being transmitted over network channels. The format allows one to consider network capacity and adapt it to channel loads. Due to this, the voice quality is practically undiminished.