The BDF format was created based on EDF, but BDF supports 24-bit resolution. In this sense, if there is a need to convert a BDF file to a more widely used format such as the EDF, there may be loss of information. The GDF format allows several other formats to be converted to it without loss [7]. EDF yielded the best compression capability, and the GDF occupies the largest disk space. The XML-based formats (ecgML, HL7, OpenXDF) follow a pattern in which there is a hierarchical structure with attributes addressing the characteristics and configurations of the file, unlike the others, whose information is based on a sequence of data controlled by the positioning of the characters. It would be interesting to have a tool capable of providing information to manufacturers, developers, researchers of these formats, to keep their information and the characteristics updated, helping thus, future researches, problem corrections and better implementations. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS REFERENCES DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 1Aluno pós-graduação, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia - jpfolador@gmail.com INTRODUCTION The primary purpose of biomedical data acquisition is monitoring, diagnosis or research, and its recording depends on these goals [1]. Thus, monitoring of vital signs in a surgery requires immediate analysis and visualization, whereas data collection for research or diagnosis needs to store the data in the first place, dispensing real- time visualization [2]. These biomedical signals can be continuously measured in different ways depending on the underlying physiological phenomenon responsible for its generation. In any approach related to biomedical signal collection it is necessary to verify memory occupancy and the quality of stored information for avoiding data loss [1][2] A large amount of biomedical data is generated by the recording of time varying signals from different parts of the body, for instance, the electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electromyogram (EMG), electrooculogram (EOG) and inertial activity. In this context, over the years the medical industry and research consortiums have been addressing the issue of establishing the most suitable data format for the storage of biomedical time-series [3]. The search for standardization and its adoption can reduce costs, optimize joint work, and increase the quality of research results [4]. The first objective of this work was to identify the most used types of file formats employed for storage of time-series resulting from biomedical data. The second purpose was to compare distinct file formats by verifying data compression rates and suitability. MATERIALS AND METHODS In order to understand the file formats used in the recording of biomedical signals and their context today, some questions were raised: • What are the file formats used to collect biomedical signals? • What are the features and information available in these formats? • Is there a file format that is widely used and supports different biomedical signals? • Do commonly used files take up a lot of storage space? [1] Bronzino J. D. Medical Devices and Systems: The Biomedical Engineering Handbook, 3rd ed. CRC Press, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A (2006). [2] Penzel, T., Acquisition of biomedical signals databases. IEEE Eng Med Biol Mag 20:25–32. (2001). [3] Rubel, P., SCP: ECG V3.0: An enhanced Standard Communication Protocol for computer:assisted Electrocardiography. In: Computing in Cardiology Conference (CinC), 1–4 (2016). [4] Värri, A., Kemp, B., Penzel, T., Schlögl, A. Standards for biomedical signal databases. IEEE Eng Med Biol Mag 20:33–37 (2001). [5] Institute of Science and Technology: Scientific data formats. http://pub.ist.ac.at/~schloegl/matla b/eeg/. last accessed 2018/01/30. [6] Kemp, B., Olivan, J. European data format “plus” (EDF+), an EDF alike standard format for the exchange of physiological data. Clin Neurophysiol 114:1755–1761. (2003). [7] Schlögl, A. GDF