EEG data format for BIDS – any limitations with EDF vs BrainVision/FIF?

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Hi everyone,

I’m reaching out to get some community feedback on EEG data management, particularly around format choices for BIDS-compliant datasets.

Our context: we are building a multimodal dataset (EEG, MRI, genetics, clinical data) and are working on structuring everything in BIDS format.

Our current approach: we opted for EDF for our EEG data. Our reasoning is that triggers/stimuli are encoded in EDF annotations and can be retrieved straightforwardly via MNE. Channel and event information is also available in the BIDS sidecars (channels.tsv and events.tsv), which we find sufficient for analysis.

Our question: do you see any concrete reason not to stick with EDF? Have you encountered actual limitations with EDF that pushed you toward another format (BrainVision, FIF, etc.)?

Any feedback from people who have dealt with similar pipelines would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

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I think all BIDS-supported formats are generally fine, but here are some things worth considering:

  1. EDF stores EEG data with 16 bits resolution. While this is sufficient in most cases, you might be better off with higher resolutions when you are dealing with extremely large and different offsets across channels. In such cases, BDF or BrainVision might be better options.
  2. Triggers/stimuli are also retrieved automatically from BDF and BrainVision formats, so this is not an advantage exclusive to EDF.
  3. I would not recommend FIF because this format is not widely used outside of storing MEG data.
  4. I would not recommend EEGLAB either for a similar reason (not widely used and based on a proprietary MATLAB format).

Other than that, I don’t think there are additional arguments for or against a particular format, especially because you are planning to use the BIDS structure anyway, which includes all kinds of metadata in separate files (which makes the choice of the EEG file format even less critical).

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