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flac lossless compression
 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-19 18:44 [#01196585]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker



flac.sourceforge.net

i recently bought a bunch of CDs and the first thing i
wanted to do was back them all up and burn copies so that i
could keep the originals from getting all fucked up. i
decided to back them up in FLAC format. being opensource,
free, lossless, and not WMA were all considered reasons for
choosing flac.

comparing my madvillainy mp3 cd to the one i burnt from the
flac files i can definately tell a difference in quality.
the mp3s were 192kbit, and they sound noticably less sharp.

filesizes are obviously bigger though. Figaro is 2:25 long,
the 192kbit mp3 is 3.414 MB, the flac file at highest
compression is 13.334 MB. roughly 4 times larger.

still though, i think i'm gonna back up all of my original
CDs using flac. storage space is really cheap now, and
backing up without losing any quality at all is worth it
imo.

 

anyone else using FLAC, or have thoughts about it? will it
still be around in 3 or 4 years?

oh, i'm using CDex to rip and nero to burn.


 

offline Q4Z2X on 2004-05-19 18:47 [#01196586]
Points: 5264 Status: Lurker



"hmm.." interesting.. but it makes me think, how can there
ever really be such a thing as lossless
compression..?


 

offline ecnadniarb on 2004-05-19 18:50 [#01196589]
Points: 24805 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



yes i have been using flac for a while now.


 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-19 18:55 [#01196593]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker | Followup to Q4Z2X: #01196586



it's like a zip file.

crazy mathmatical algorithms and shit... but, all the data
is still there.


 

offline Jon Beilin from United States on 2004-05-19 18:56 [#01196595]
Points: 86 Status: Lurker



Q4Z2X - ever tried zipping a text file? when you unzipped
it, was there missing information?

high compression and lossless _are_ incompatible terms when
it comes to media. 50% compression and lossless are very
obviously possible. try ripping a CD to an uncompressed wav,
then encoding that wav to a flac, then decoding the flac to
a wav, then comparing them... you'll notice that they're
identical. the flac encoder even hashes to make sure of
that.

I use flac as I am a GNU/linux junkie. it's been around for
a while, and will remain for a while. it's computationally
inexpensive to play back, easily manipulable with opensource
utilities, and offers pretty damn good compression (about
56% vs uncompressed). Personally, I wouldn't use anything
else.

For reference, I have a direct digital out of my laptop -->
bel canto dac2 --> ppa --> ety 4S... if an algorithm were
lossy, i reckon it'd be apparent.

epohs - note that windows' internal mixer resamples all
audio which is no good for sound quality. consider using
foobar2k with kernel streaming to bypass the mixer or
switching to linux and using ALSA to handle the audio. or if
you're lazy, using OSX.

sorry if i come off as a pedant in this post but uh i'm a
nerd.


 

offline JivverDicker from my house on 2004-05-19 18:58 [#01196596]
Points: 12102 Status: Regular | Followup to Q4Z2X: #01196586



maybe if the answer to an equation is output through the
speakers rather than just static data. Say 101001010 cubed
by 1001101110111 = the full data of the track you want to
hear.

youl'd only need to store the question not the result.


 

offline Q4Z2X on 2004-05-19 18:58 [#01196598]
Points: 5264 Status: Lurker



"hmm.." again, interesting..
so it's not like a file that a software "player" can play..?
it needs to be extracted and everything, before it can be
played or burnt?
if that's the case, it makes total sense.


 

offline Q4Z2X on 2004-05-19 19:00 [#01196600]
Points: 5264 Status: Lurker | Followup to Jon Beilin: #01196595



ah. okay. i see now.


 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-19 19:03 [#01196604]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker | Followup to Q4Z2X: #01196598



there is a plugin for winamp, and it works great


 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-19 19:04 [#01196605]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker | Followup to Jon Beilin: #01196595



i run SuSE linux on a another machine (and love it), but my
XP box is quite a bit faster. :)


 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-20 06:39 [#01197290]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker



so the moral of the story is that everyone should be using
flac!

:)


 

offline sneakattack on 2004-05-20 06:43 [#01197298]
Points: 6049 Status: Lurker | Followup to epohs: #01197290



and vorbis


 

offline mappatazee from ¨y¨z¨| (Burkina Faso) on 2004-05-20 06:47 [#01197308]
Points: 14294 Status: Lurker



Sounds cool, a little large for my setup though. Will this
replace MP3's eventually? And do you think there will come
a point when compression isn't even needed? (10 years?)


 

offline fleetmouse from Horny for Truth on 2004-05-20 07:03 [#01197340]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker



Flac is excellent, but I have a hard time telling Lame VBR
MP3s from the original CDs. With 192k CBR, yes, you can hear
a difference, but if you encode with --alt-preset standard
to produce VBR files, probably not. And they're not much
larget than 192k files if at all.


 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-20 07:04 [#01197343]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker



this kind of lossless compression will always be around.. or
at least for the forseeable future.

i mean, since it doesn't really need to be decompressed to
be played, and since no quality is lost it seems like the
best of both worlds. smaller filesize - same quality.

and, i'd say CDs will be obsolete before long and
distributing digital music directly like iTunes & bleep will
become mainstream.. so some sort of file format will stick
around.


 

offline Ceri JC from Jefferson City (United States) on 2004-05-20 07:17 [#01197360]
Points: 23533 Status: Moderator | Followup to epohs: #01197343 | Show recordbag



"and, i'd say CDs will be obsolete before long and
distributing digital music directly like iTunes & bleep will

become mainstream.. so some sort of file format will stick
around."


*Raises eyebrow*

Not everyone is uber-1337 like us IDM fans: the largest
growing market segment for record sales (for albums) is
people in their 30s. Even if tech-savvy youth go all out
MP3, the oldies will still want their CD/DVD/Whatever audio.


 

offline bill_hicks from my city is amazing it is calle on 2004-05-20 07:20 [#01197366]
Points: 4286 Status: Lurker | Followup to epohs: #01196585



i have no idea what the hell you are talking about


 

offline xf from Australia on 2004-05-20 07:22 [#01197368]
Points: 2952 Status: Lurker



GNU is for hippies like RMS


 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-20 07:23 [#01197370]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker



yeah, it ain't going to happen tommorow or anything. but
i'd say the success of iTunes is undeniable, and more and
more people are becoming comfortable with burning CDs.

it may not ever completely take over, but it's definately
gonna grow and take a big bite out of the audio hard copy
market.

and, anyway the upper edge of IDM fans are creeping into
their 30s now.. i turn 26 next week, and i jumped on the
bandwagon late.


 

offline xf from Australia on 2004-05-20 07:26 [#01197381]
Points: 2952 Status: Lurker | Followup to epohs: #01196605



you're probably running gnome, kde, or another overbloated
windowmanager. they're neat, but there's definite bloat
issues that have to be looked at. gnome's been rather
successful, 2.6 is quite zippy, apparently.


 

offline pf from Finland on 2004-05-20 07:27 [#01197382]
Points: 3316 Status: Lurker



Its nice that the mp3's are worse quality than CD/LP.
Because I've noticed when some diffrences in some sounds
when I buy the release as a CD/LP, so its nice in my opinion


 

offline xf from Australia on 2004-05-20 07:28 [#01197389]
Points: 2952 Status: Lurker



and i'd probably use flac if i didn't have so many damn
mp3's. i'm up to 280gig or something now.


 

offline fleetmouse from Horny for Truth on 2004-05-20 07:31 [#01197398]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker | Followup to epohs: #01196605



You gotta try Gentoo. Maybe it's the custom kernel, maybe
they know better optimizztion flags to complile the Gnome
and KDE components, I dunno - but it's the fastest, most
responsive Linux distro I've ever used for a desktop system.
Gnome was almost as responsive on a 500mHz celeron as
Windows 2000 on a 2.4 gHz P4. And KDE was, like, wow


 

offline xf from Australia on 2004-05-20 07:34 [#01197408]
Points: 2952 Status: Lurker



eh. better things to do then wait 10 days for kde to
compile.

and i'm a debian zealot :-)


 

offline fleetmouse from Horny for Truth on 2004-05-20 07:40 [#01197420]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker | Followup to xf: #01197408



I didn't compile anything except the kernel - didn't even
want to bother with that but that's the way it is. I
downloaded the stage [whatever] install packages that were
all precompiled.


 

offline Sempoo from Barlinek (Pluto) on 2004-05-20 07:52 [#01197449]
Points: 621 Status: Regular



xltronic vibes compilation should be in flac or higher mp3
bitrate compressed - it is not of high quality sound yet :(


 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-20 08:11 [#01197509]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker | Followup to fleetmouse: #01197398



the problem with fucking around with linux too much is that
i'm on dial-up at home, which makes downloading different
distros pretty much impossible. hopefully dsl will become
available to me soon and i'll get to tinker around more.

even installing new programs on linux is a bitch at home.
tracking down vague rpm dependancies isn't fun. how the
fuck do i know where to get azzluv3.1-6?


 

offline epohs from )C: on 2004-05-24 09:20 [#01204170]
Points: 17620 Status: Lurker



slashdot has an article comparing different lossy codecs... i wouldn't normally link
to it, but it mentioned Sony's new ATRAC-3 codec. looks
like it came in last.

They don't mention FLAC in the comparison, but since it's
lossless i'd imagine there's not really a need to compare.
it should be identical to the original.

another thing i've noticed that i love about flac is that it
doesn't have those little gaps of silence at the beggining
and end of tracks that mp3s have. so you can burn CDs
whose tracks flow seamlessly together.


 


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