flac compression level

[nandac]

one of the members of this group suggested that for FLAC i use "Flac - 0 % Compression".

in dbpoweramp, i can see encoding options which says "lossless level" 0 to 8 and "lossless uncompressed".

so which of these is considered '0% compression'?

appreciate the feedback.

 

[max123_ind]

one of the members of this group suggested that for FLAC i use "Flac - 0 % Compression".

in dbpoweramp, i can see encoding options which says "lossless level" 0 to 8 and "lossless uncompressed".

so which of these is considered '0% compression'?

appreciate the feedback.

lossless uncompressed

Also read this :

dBpoweramp's FLAC Lossless Uncompressed | AudioStream

"To sum up simplywhen trying to decide which file format is best for your ripping, saving and playback of music files, I'd recommend Apple's AIFF for iTunes/Mac users and dBpoweramp's Uncompressed FLAC for everyone else. The combination of uncompressed sound quality and embedded metadata makes for a winning combination."

 

[marsilians]

0 is considered the lowest compression and 8 the highest. Note that compression has nothing to do with the audio quality and impacts the file size on your drive during storage. Another bigger impact with compression is that during streaming with certain players, higher compression compression will have a negative impact as the streamers will not be able to decompress/decode sufficiently quickly. This leads to a lot of drops during playback.

Though lot of people are fixated about 0% compression, I would leave it at default, (5 I believe). A bigger advantage is to store your media on solid state devices and have the max amount of RAM and to play digitally encoded files.

 

[nandac]

thanks for the info guys. i have been rippin with lossless uncompressed from yesterday.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

i can't see the point of using a compressed format if one doesn't compress. Might as well stick with WAV!

(No, wait, there are other advantages, I guess, like supporting tagging).

Most of these things come from technical misunderstandings. It's hardly surprising if low-bit-rate MP3s have left people with a horror of compression. Not surprising, but not correct either. Losless compression is lossless!

Compression/de-compression is a fairly intensive task for a computer. It does seem possible that lesser-powered machines might have difficulty in keeping up. Proof of the pudding is in whether it works or not!

 

[jls001]

i can't see the point of using a compressed format if one doesn't compress. Might as well stick with WAV!

(No, wait, there are other advantages, I guess, like supporting tagging).

Most of these things come from technical misunderstandings. It's hardly surprising if low-bit-rate MP3s have left people with a horror of compression. Not surprising, but not correct either. Losless compression is lossless!

Compression/de-compression is a fairly intensive task for a computer. It does seem possible that lesser-powered machines might have difficulty in keeping up. Proof of the pudding is in whether it works or not!

Yes, support of metadata is the biggest gain over plain ole .wav format.

Compress/decompress is very intensive task for the computer. For example, Monkey's Audio can give as high as 45-55% lossless compression but even on a normal desktop PC, it takes a hell lot of time to do it for one track, and certainly not in real time or near real time. May be that's the reason why this algorithm is not incorporated into any music playing application (at least not that I know of). It's more suited for archival.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I always used to save WAVs. It is because I have started to use the tagging thing that I have started to use FLAC for music storage.

Do you mean that when very high levels of compression are used it can't be uncompressed in real time? I have never paid much attention to the FLAC compression setting, because, although economising on disk space is nice I have more than I need anyway --- but most of us are playing FLAC in realtime surely? I think (not 100% sure) that FLAC is "native" on Squeezebox, too, so only the compressed data has to be sent over the wifi.

The music players I use certainly play FLAC. I have a FLAC player for my phone (experimental. I don't really intend to use the phone for music). Not sure about my portable Cowan --- but when saving files to that I do go for space-saving compression and use ogg or mp3.

 

[kumarab]

A level 8 Flac takes only about 5-6% CPU usage from your measly smartphone ARM procs. That's hardly intensive for a normal PC/Laptop these days, even netbooks.

 

[alpha1]

i can't see the point of using a compressed format if one doesn't compress. Might as well stick with WAV!

(No, wait, there are other advantages, I guess, like supporting tagging).

Most of these things come from technical misunderstandings. It's hardly surprising if low-bit-rate MP3s have left people with a horror of compression. Not surprising, but not correct either. Losless compression is lossless!

Compression/de-compression is a fairly intensive task for a computer. It does seem possible that lesser-powered machines might have difficulty in keeping up. Proof of the pudding is in whether it works or not!

What about the people who can make out the dullness in FLAC files and fullness in original CDs?

 

[jls001]

Do you mean that when very high levels of compression are used it can't be uncompressed in real time? I have never paid much attention to the FLAC compression setting, because, although economising on disk space is nice I have more than I need anyway --- but most of us are playing FLAC in realtime surely? I think (not 100% sure) that FLAC is "native" on Squeezebox, too, so only the compressed data has to be sent over the wifi.

I have never used a standalone flac codec so I really don't know how fast it does its job. But even assuming it's slower than real time, buffering can be built into the player itself.

I refuse to use any compression for discs I rip on EAC and usually regret when I run out of hard disk space. For now I am fairly comfortable as I recently bought a 1 TB, but I am now thinking of manual mirroring to avoid complete disasters.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I'm afraid I don't have the patience for the likes of EAC unless it is a problem disc to begin with. I can appreciate it in principle, though.

I do, on the other hand believe in backups. I just lost a 1Tb disc ... and did not have the backup I thought I had. Since Christmas. Massive blushes.

What about the people who can make out the dullness in FLAC files and fullness in original CDs?

Them? I say, Buffering is too good for them ... let them stick to vinyl!

:yahoo:

 

[yrk1969]

I have never used a standalone flac codec so I really don't know how fast it does its job. But even assuming it's slower than real time, buffering can be built into the player itself...

A media algorithm must be able to de-code in real-time or faster, otherwise it would be pointless.

For such algorithms encoding can take much longer but decoding has to be fast by design.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Ah, yes, thanks. Makes sense. Should have thought of it.

 

[jls001]

A media algorithm must be able to de-code in real-time or faster, otherwise it would be pointless.

For such algorithms encoding can take much longer but decoding has to be fast by design.

That's the theory. Download Monkey's Audio and try compressing and decompressing from wav to ape and back. Use the best PC configuration you have access to. Check if it's real time.

Do similar exercise for FLAC.

 

[yrk1969]

That's the theory. Download Monkey's Audio and try compressing and decompressing from wav to ape and back. Use the best PC configuration you have access to. Check if it's real time.

Do similar exercise for FLAC.

It will probably prove that ape was poorly concieved. Isn't it dead already beacause of slow decoding?

What do you expect with flac? It decodes real-time for me.

 

[jls001]

It will probably prove that ape was poorly concieved. Isn't it dead already beacause of slow decoding?

What do you expect with flac? It decodes real-time for me.

No compression/decompression happens in real time. Media players that incorporate them mask the delay in some way or another. How bad is the delay? is the question here. Is it too bad that it can't be incorporated into a media player, is the question. I'm not trying to defend the infirmities of the Media Monkey. Just putting across my real-life observations. Having said that, 45 to 55% compression on lossless is not shabby by any metrics.

Yes, Media Monkey never made it big. But then some good technologies never made it big. That doesnlt in any way take away their inherent goodness.

Anyway, we're going serious off track and derailing the topic at hand.

 

[jls001]

Duplicate post - deleted

 

[yrk1969]

No compression/decompression happens in real time. Media players that incorporate them mask the delay in some way or another. How bad is the delay? is the question here. Is it too bad that it can't be incorporated into a media player, is the question. I'm not trying to defend the infirmities of the Media Monkey. Just putting across my real-life observations. Having said that, 45 to 55% compression on lossless is not shabby by any metrics.

Yes, Media Monkey never made it big. But then some good technologies never made it big. That doesnlt in any way take away their inherent goodness.

Anyway, we're going serious off track and derailing the topic at hand.

Sorry for being off topic but the first statement about real-time is not correct. Here's a comparison of some codecs :

Comparison of lossless audio compressors

This was done by someone in 2005 and all codecs were faster than real-time, some many many times over, both in encoding and decoding. Monkey audio is also there and surprisingly its faster than real-time too. You can extrapolate even higher speeds with today's computers.

Don't want to argue with experience with media players since I have no idea how they deal with delay.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

How are people defining "real-time?"

FLAC decodes in realtime in that there is no noticeable delay. Well, I have never noticed it: has anyone? If it could not decode as fast as playing, the entire piece would have to be decoded, and then played: that would be the absolute opposite of realtime.

Of course, although slightly tangentially, nothing happens on a PC in real time. It is not a real time computer.

 

[marsilians]

FLAC decodes in realtime in that there is no noticeable delay. Well, I have never noticed it: has anyone? If it could not decode as fast as playing, the entire piece would have to be decoded, and then played: that would be the absolute opposite of realtime.

Technically flac is not a realtime decoder but that conversation will turn to religious proportions very quickly so I will stop at this point. :sad:

The smallest 'piece' that flac decodes is a subframe and a number of these are assembled to create a frame. One or more of these frames is then played as they represent the audio data. Of course lots of other things happen for eg., channel separation for stereo sources or error correction... during this time.

Thats why its important to have a fairly powerful PC and sufficient memory for these to complete in due course and buffer effectively.

Of course, although slightly tangentially, nothing happens on a PC in real time. It is not a real time computer.

Absolutely true.