FLAC - What do you think?

[Helevitia]

Has anyone here used FLAC? If so, how does it compare to other audio formats such as OGG and MP3? I read the FAQ, but I want real world experience. Also, they claim that is a "lossless" format. How true is this? What happens if I convert this "lossless" format to say OGG?

Thanks,
Dave

[dZeus]

lossless to pcm just like huffyuv is to raw video... i.e. you preserve the exact audio information. Wether you hear a difference with lossy compression formats depends on your audio equipment (soundcard and external stuff), hearing, ripping/encoding quality of the stuff, etc

shouldn't be hard to do some double blind tests yourself if you have the time to encode some samples.

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by dZeus
lossless to pcm just like huffyuv is to raw video... i.e. you preserve the exact audio information. Wether you hear a difference with lossy compression formats depends on your audio equipment (soundcard and external stuff), hearing, ripping/encoding quality of the stuff, etc

shouldn't be hard to do some double blind tests yourself if you have the time to encode some samples.

So are you saying that is is just another format like .WAV?

I realize that sound quality is dependant on a lot of things, but I am trying to figure ot where FLAC fits in the audio compression scheme of things? Is it like WAV or like MP3?

Dave

[Wombat]

Dave,
FLAC is like compressing your audio CD to ZIP. It's lossless in that you can create a full CD from it, and it will sound just like the original. So going FLAC->OGG should give you the exact same file as CD->OGG.

That's why FLAC gives about 2:1 compression, where OGG/others give 5:1 or 15:1 or whatever.

[Tempest]

Uh..?

I've used it all right. The files are bigger than MP3 or OGG, as is to be expected. You understand that "lossless" means exactly that - if you rip a CD (digitally) to a lossless format, you will have CD quality audio. It's just like zipping a WAV file but with the added bonus of instant playability and better compression (FLAC is optimized for sound, whereas ZIP is optimized for a broader range of data). FLAC will not drop data that you (supposedly) can't hear, like the MP3 and OGG formats do.

If you convert it to OGG, it will sound the same as if you converted a CD to OGG, that is, some information is lost in the process... that's what OGG compression does.

Edit: Wombat was first Same minute though...

Edit2: So if you're one of the people who are annoyed by the loss of quality that OGG or MP3 compression results in, a lossless format would be a wise choice. Especially since modern storage solutions provide plenty of space, and of course it's nicer to have a 1:1 copy of a CD instead of a MP3/OGG "unnecessary parts dropped" version

[Helevitia]

Ahh cool, I get it, it is like SHN format. Thanks for the help

You see, I have the oppurtunity to download FLAC files but didn't want to bother if they were already compressed like MP3. Now I know I can download them, convert them to WAV, then to OGG.

Dave

edit: err...I mean, unzip it to WAV, then convert to OGG

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by Tempest
Edit2: So if you're one of the people who are annoyed by the loss of quality that OGG or MP3 compression results in, a lossless format would be a wise choice. Especially since modern storage solutions provide plenty of space, and of course it's nicer to have a 1:1 copy of a CD instead of a MP3/OGG "unnecessary parts dropped" version

I was worried that if I downloaded it, I wouldn't be able to convert it to OGG with the same quality as converting WAV to OGG.

[TnT]

I know there are FLAC -> ogg/mp3 converters for *nix, but not sure if there are ones for windows.

If I had the space, I'd rip all my CDs to FLAC. It has some nice features like cue sheets and such.

[High_Jumbllama]

DBPowerAmp and for many other formats. Just make sure to check out codec central for the various codecs.

For example, the codec from them that I have downloaded are:

Lossless:
Flac and Monkey's Audio

Lossy:
aiff, voc, au, ogg, mp2, and Windows Media audio 2, 7, 8, and 9.

It has about 39 encoders for various recent and modern formats. There are about 35 actual formats plust it can rip CDs but that and MP3s are pretty much a given.

There's a little symbol chart that says what each component can do.

[Helevitia]

HAHA! I started to download the FLAC files and decided to read the FAQ. Here is what they said about system requirements:

Unix
You probably don't need our advice.