For Forum members in Bangalore

[GeorgeO]

Folks

I'n case anyone has music ripped using loss less formats like FLAC ro Ogg, or in high quality using other formats, could you please PM me details?

Many thanks

George

 

[stevieboy]

hi george,

sent you a pm.

a general question, is a flac file the same quality as wav? cos wav is uncompressed and flac although lossless is compressed right? when you see file properties of a flac and wav file, will the wav file be more mb?

thanks!

 

[GeorgeO]

Lossy Vs Lossless is the issue-flac is lossless, as is Ogg, and .wav, though flac and Ogg compress the file-it's the gaps that go away in those formats but not the audio quality. If you use low bit rates in MP3 you compress the file significantly and in playback lose some of the quality.

Others will no doubt clarify better.

George

 

[venkatcr]

Stevieboy, a FLAC file is generally half to 1/3rd the size of a WAV file. Some notable features of FLAC files are the following (from sourceforge):

• Lossless: The encoding of audio (PCM) data incurs no loss of information, and the decoded audio is bit-for-bit identical to what went into the encoder. Each frame contains a 16-bit CRC of the frame data for detecting transmission errors. The integrity of the audio data is further insured by storing an MD5 signature of the original unencoded audio data in the file header, which can be compared against later during decoding or testing.
• Fast: FLAC is asymmetric in favor of decode speed. Decoding requires only integer arithmetic, and is much less compute-intensive than for most perceptual codecs. Real-time decode performance is easily achievable on even modest hardware.
• Hardware support: FLAC is supported by dozens of consumer electronic devices, from portable players, to home stereo equipment, to car stereo.
• Flexible metadata: FLAC's metadata system supports tags, cover art, seek tables, and cue sheets. Applications can write their own APPLICATION metadata once they register an ID. New metadata blocks can be defined and implemented in future versions of FLAC without breaking older streams or decoders.
• Seekable: FLAC supports fast sample-accurate seeking. Not only is this useful for playback, it makes FLAC files suitable for use in editing applications.
• Streamable: Each FLAC frame contains enough data to decode that frame. FLAC does not even rely on previous or following frames. FLAC uses sync codes and CRCs (similar to MPEG and other formats), which, along with framing, allow decoders to pick up in the middle of a stream with a minimum of delay.
• Suitable for archiving: FLAC is an open format, and there is no generation loss if you need to convert your data to another format in the future. In addition to the frame CRCs and MD5 signature, flac has a verify option that decodes the encoded stream in parallel with the encoding process and compares the result to the original, aborting with an error if there is a mismatch.
• Convenient CD archiving: FLAC has a "cue sheet" metadata block for storing a CD table of contents and all track and index points. For instance, you can rip a CD to a single file, then import the CD's extracted cue sheet while encoding to yield a single file representation of the entire CD. If your original CD is damaged, the cue sheet can be exported later in order to burn an exact copy.
• Error resistant: Because of FLAC's framing, stream errors limit the damage to the frame in which the error occurred, typically a small fraction of a second worth of data. Contrast this with some other lossless codecs, in which a single error destroys the remainder of the stream.

FLAC has no DRM support and is in that way completely free from any encumbrances. At the same time, it is important to understand or be aware of the original conversion. You should generally be suspicious of very small file sizes for an average song running to some 3 odd minutes. It just means that the original conversion has not been done well.

Cheers

 

[unleash_me]

I prefer wav to flac, followed by 320kbps mp3. HDDs costing so less these days, I think everyone can afford to store their music in wav format if they choose to do so.

Hope this helps - just in case one wants to dig deeper.

http://jiiteepee.fortunecity.com/pictures/comparison.html

Comparatif des formats audio FLAC - APE - MP3 - MP3PRO - MPC - OGG - WMA

Make your own inferences! Plus here is a small test

 

[stevieboy]

unleashme,

thank god i remember un peu de francais!

 

[stevieboy]

one big question, would i be able to get cover art displayed with a wav file when the album is being played?

 

[soulforged]

one big question, would i be able to get cover art displayed with a wav file when the album is being played?

That...I guess...is a feature of the player/software...AFAIK, it sure can!

I have most of my ripped music in 320VBR...

 

[stevieboy]

What specific questions do you have?

hi cranky,

thanks for those numbers! specific question is i plan to rip my music onto a hard disk and stream through squeezebox. was concerned bout losing quality in a flac file.

if its a wav file will squeezebox display album art on the duet remote which has a color display. i'm assuming i just have to save the album art in the relavant album folder or does this happen automatically like itunes getting track names from the online database?

thanks

 

[mahiruha]

Hi Steven,
when I started my journey in audio world the first dedicated audio device I got was squeezebox and ripped all my cds as .wav using windows media player and played them through SB. I used vanilla windows media player to rip the cd as .wav files in the highest quality. The thing is for the cds that has all the information in the online database windows media player just receive them and store the file accordingly. You can use all the information in the squeezebox and select music accordingly. No problem. The prblem is for all cds this information is not available. In that case there is an option in windows media player where you manually enter the track information like title , artist , genre and those informations are posted in the online database. It is worthwhile doingt it before ripping otherwise they are stored as unknown artist.Although squeezebox recognizes them but its a bit fiddly to deal with them. One example is Raaga Symphony by pandit Jasraj I have manually entered the information and posted it in online database. I am hoping if somebody rip it now using windows media player he will have the information ready.
Thanks.

 

[doors666]

use a software called Exact audio copy (EAC), its freeware. Its supposedly the best out there. You will need to tweak the settings, there are guides available on the net and its not very complicated. What EAC does is that it reads the same data multiple times from the CD and compares and then stores, this avoids a lot of errors and the rip is relatively perfect.

Once you have the wav files, add these to FLAC frontend (freeware) and hit convert. It will give you flac files.

Hard disks are cheap these days, but I still wouldnt waste it by storing wav files

 

[vinod_david]

one big question, would i be able to get cover art displayed with a wav file when the album is being played?

Hi:

No you can't embed cover art in WAV files. But, as you said, you can create a file called Folder.jpg or Cover.jpg and put it in the folder along with the WAV files. That will achieve the same end, but it only works at the ALBUM level, not the track level, so you can't have different artwork for each track.

Go with FLAC. The file size is typically 55-65% of the respective WAV file. You get proper tag support as well. And it's just as lossless as WAV. It's a no-brainer, really.

 

[soulforged]

I think you can directly rip into FLAC using EAC...of course, you'll need the flac plugin...

Steven, EAC is perhaps the best ripping s/w available at the moment...

 

[stevieboy]

thanks guys,

doors, yes i do use eac

soul, yes eac can rip direct to a flac file.

there's also a flac plug in for itunes as i've discovered, so i could play flac files through itunes but not sure of flac support for ipod.

mahiruha, do switch to eac for ripping. better quality.

vinod, album art is more than enough for me cant imagine picking up the remote for every track to see a pic hehe GRIN, though i admit its a useful feature.

what i was planning is:

1. store music: on an external hard disk (flac or wav)

2. music on laptop pc or might pick up a mac (edit: apple lossless format)

3. ipod (edit: apple lossless, syncing with the music on laptop)

so basically two versions of rips for all music. one from cd/lp onto a disk used for streaming to squeezebox and then import into itunes (apple lossless format for syncing with ipod).

now i've got to decide wav or flac. somehow i tend to go with cranky so far also more importantly cos with wav i can convert to apple lossless for ipod easily.

now one more question:
if i decide to store as flac, can i import a flac file into apple lossless in itunes? with wav its pretty easy, can just drag all the files and hit convert and go have coffee.

thanks!

 

[thevortex]

Hmm.. I am curious, why is this thread addressed to forum members in Bangalore?

As for the subject under discussion, Cranky has done the needful as always . The latest version of Foobar too does a very good job of ripping. Try it out. And there is always Bonkenc as an alternative to EAC.

 

[GeorgeO]

Stevie

I am sure you should be able to convert-I am converting a whole bunch of m4A( that's a format that Apple uses), which I cant playback opn my SB into MP3. I checked on the web and dowloaded a converter and though its a manual process and a bit painful, it works.

George

 

[stevieboy]

Hmm.. I am curious, why is this thread addressed to forum members in Bangalore?

As for the subject under discussion, Cranky has done the needful as always . The latest version of Foobar too does a very good job of ripping. Try it out. And there is always Bonkenc as an alternative to EAC.

i think i'm the guilty party. it started off as a 'who has music in bangalore' thread by george and then went off into a format quiz

apologies for the hijack george though i guess that's why these are called threads, one thread of thought leads to another and another...

 

[stevieboy]

Stevie

I am sure you should be able to convert-I am converting a whole bunch of m4A( that's a format that Apple uses), which I cant playback opn my SB into MP3. I checked on the web and dowloaded a converter and though its a manual process and a bit painful, it works.

George

did a little due diligence here's what i found. i'd still like answers from users here who have done so, with their experience. always something to be learnt even if its a small point

How to Convert FLAC to Apple Lossless (MP4) on Mac OS X Psychohistory

the m4a format is apple lossless which the SB does not support.

regards

 

[stevieboy]

IIRC iPods didn't support FLAC till generation 3/4, don't know about the new Gen5 iPods. iTunes will support the same formats as iPod, and no more.

hi cranky,

there is a downloadable plug in for itunes which allows flac playback.

http://blowintopieces.com/fluke/

re the ipod, i think gobble had posted a hack for playing flac on ipod sometime back on the forum...

regards

 

[stevieboy]

Stevie

I am sure you should be able to convert-I am converting a whole bunch of m4A( that's a format that Apple uses), which I cant playback opn my SB into MP3. I checked on the web and dowloaded a converter and though its a manual process and a bit painful, it works.

George

hi george,

not sure if this is cos yours is an older sb but online forum users are streaming apple lossless to the sb. the sb converts the lossless file into wav, flac or mp3? (dont remember the last one) one can choose between these three in the sb software/interface that one downloads on the comp.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=947502

there was another link that i just can find right now.

regards

edit: the specs for the sb duet mentions it can playback apple lossless

so now why wav/flac etc? just simply rip in one format only is what am thinking... apple lossless!