FLAC Gets First Update In 6 Years 197
An anonymous reader writes "The Free Lossless Audio Codec, FLAC, loved by audiophiles for its lossless fidelity has been
updated to version 1.3.0. FLAC is an audio format similar to MP3, but 'lossless', meaning that audio compressed in FLAC doesn't suffer any loss in quality. FLAC v1.3.0 is the first update in almost 6 years and it is also the first release from the new Xiph.Org maintainer team."
Big new feature: ReplayGain works for sampling rates up to 192kHz so you can finally control the volume of your obsessively ripped LPs.
No updates in 6 years? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Informative)
The latter.
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I wonder if that because no one cared or because it was a solid piece of software...
The latter.
I would also argue a third case. With audio/video, accuracy isn't as critical as with other data. You could have a bug which means that a pixel which should have an RGB value of 14C897 instead has a value of 14C896. It is quite possible that nobody would ever notice since the precision of the output is far beyond what any normal person can discern.
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Good grief. That was all clearly stated in the summary. The comparison is used to describe what FLAC is.
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Maybe someone should have used Raison d'Ãtre instead of format.
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Informative)
No. Both are methods of compressing audio data for later playback, just with different trade-offs.
With MP3 of course you are losing fidelity, and with FLAC you are using more disk space and limiting the devices on which your audio data can be played back.
So while they are both different horses for different courses, but they both have the same goal - storage of audio, with data compression.
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Informative)
With MP3 of course you are losing fidelity, and with FLAC you are using more disk space and limiting the devices on which your audio data can be played back.
My cell phone (which doubles as the portable music player) can play FLAC, as can my computer and my network-connected home theater receiver. I think my smart TV can play it too, but I've never had a reason to check...
While you're definitely sacrificing disk space, the argument about fewer devices being able to play it is certainly not as true as it used to be. I still carry most of my music around in FLAC format, and just buy a bigger SD card for the phone, and choose some albums I don't want to carry around.
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Informative)
It's worth noting that mobile devices often decode popular compressed audio and video formats in dedicated hardware. Modern, powerful devices can play audio and sometimes video reliably in software, but they use a lot more battery power to do so in comparison, so sticking with formats natively supported by your hardware is still usually the best idea.
I think a few chips got Vorbis support and it wouldn't surprise me to find that FLAC made it in to real hardware somewhere, but there's a reason MP3 was basically the only real portable format choice for years.
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:4, Interesting)
True. However, FLAC is extremely CPU efficient for playback (decoding).
You can find some comparisons where it performs even better than MP3 in terms of CPU usage
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=92235 [hydrogenaudio.org]
It's also more efficient than any other compressed lossless codec (note: WAV/PCM is not compressed):
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=98665 [hydrogenaudio.org]
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Informative)
FLAC is asymmetric; lots of computrons to encode, but not very much to decode. I had an old iPod Video, and the battery lasted longer playing FLAC in Rockbox than it did playing MP3s in the native Apple software (or in Rockbox, for that matter). Despite being done in software, FLAC is just so stupidly easy to decode that it's nearly a moot point.
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I remember using mp3.com
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Who actually plays media directly on a car stereo any more? :P
If I'm in the car, I'm usually listening to the radio, which works perfectly well. If I want to play stuff from my music collection, I play it via bluetooth from the cell phone, which we've already discussed. :) This usually only happens when I'm on a long distance road trip in the boonies where there's no radio stations (as recently as 2 weeks ago... you know it's rural when you see a sign that reads "isolated route, next turn 223km, next gas 24
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If I want to play stuff from my music collection, I play it via bluetooth from the cell phone
Which requires having a cell phone that supports playing a music collection over Bluetooth. Among phones that I've investigated that are capable of doing that, they tend to cost more over time to operate on U.S. carriers than cell phones that just make calls and receive texts. Virgin Mobile, for example, refuses to activate smartphones on dumbphone plans, and the price difference between the cheapest dumbphone plan and the cheapest smartphone plan is over $330 per year. And that's why a lot of people still
iDevices and most car stereo's don't (Score:3)
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, FLAC is technically similar to MP3 in a sense.
It consists of an inherently lossy encoding in the frequency domain (like MP3) plus an encoding of the difference between the lossily encoded audio and the original. The first part is a bit more straightforward than MP3 because it does not do any tricks adapted to the human ear.
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Informative)
It consists of an inherently lossy encoding in the frequency domain (like MP3) plus an encoding of the difference between the lossily encoded audio and the original.
While a few other lossless formats do this (mostly for backward-compatibility), FLAC does not convert the audio into the frequency domain. It either uses a polynomial or linear function: http://xiph.org/flac/documentation_format_overview.html [xiph.org]
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Well, half right. FLAC is basically lossless CELP, i.e. a LPC based first-pass at modelling a whitened version of the signal in the time domain, then a second pass in the frequency domain to mop up the residual errors left behind. With CELP (Speex etc) this second stage is incomplete/lossy, with FLAC it is lossless.
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure that flac doesn't need 3d Flash embedded object support...
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Funny)
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He does not need to worry. The person doing the sacking has been sacked.
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If there is anything that needs that, then it needs to be put out of its misery more.
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Adobe needs to update, install?
No
Adobe needs to update, install?
No
Adobe needs to update, install?
Yes
Adobe needs to update install?
Shut the fuck up.
Sorry but adobe doesn't quietly do anything
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Thatwasthejoke.jpg
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Funny)
Thatwasthejoke.jpg
I tried opening that but I get the following error:
The file is damaged and could not be repaired.
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:5, Funny)
Allow me to explain with a graph: http://i.imgur.com/nSD3ofw.gif [imgur.com]
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Adobe update (Score:2)
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Hi. There's a tagline for that.
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You missed a step:
Adobe needs to update.
Yes.
Adobe needs to update the updater.
Re:No updates in 6 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike lossy compression where you're always looking for better ways to exploit the bits a lossless compression has a hard limit in that you can't compress it down to less information than it actually contains. FLAC is pretty much as good as it's going to get, you can compare it to for example PNG for lossless pictures that is unchanged for the last 9 years. Sane with ZIP, RAR, 7Z etc. they use many of the same underlying algorithms and change very slowly.
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congratulation, you just reinvented compression in both cases (lossy and non-lossy)
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Allow me to introduce these concepts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_argument [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity [wikipedia.org]
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Wait...
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Because FLAC was already fucking awesome for 44.1kHz/16bit, which happens to cover probably 95% of use cases.
24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense (Score:5, Informative)
Re:24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sen (Score:5, Informative)
While this is mostly accurate, articles like this fail to mention where 192KHz is useful. That is, for certain types of digital post-processing and effects. Doing a digital time or frequency shift (not a re-sample, that's simple and effectively lossless) yields atrociously poor results if using 44.1 or even 48 KHz. With 192KHz, you can't hear the difference, and that is why it is used in the studio. Auto-tune is a decent example of that kind of processing. It works much better at higher bit rates.
None of this matters to the average listener though, or to the DJ who only cares about a simple speed up or slow down (or re-sample).
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While this is mostly accurate, articles like this fail to mention where 192KHz is useful. That is, for certain types of digital post-processing and effects. Doing a digital time or frequency shift (not a re-sample, that's simple and effectively lossless) yields atrociously poor results if using 44.1 or even 48 KHz. With 192KHz, you can't hear the difference, and that is why it is used in the studio. Auto-tune is a decent example of that kind of processing. It works much better at higher bit rates.
None of this matters to the average listener though, or to the DJ who only cares about a simple speed up or slow down (or re-sample).
Wrong. Article mentions it as being useful for processing. Article uses oversampling for antialiasing / cutoff as an example.
At no point would the signal have to be stored in a high sampling rate to get this benefit. Article mentions most ADCs/DACs handle this shit transparently.
"Sampling rates over 48kHz are irrelevant to high fidelity audio data, but they are internally essential to several modern digital audio techniques. Oversampling is the most relevant example [7]."
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Oversampling at the ADC level is NOT post-processing. Post means "after", in case you didn't know. If the desire is to use audio for a multitude of uses, say to play back in a sampler frequency shifted or to "correct" some awful notes (as is commonly done), it is still worthwhile to record raw audio at 192kHz. It is never worthwhile to distribute the finished product at high sample rates, unless the finished product IS in fact sample material intended to be used by studio people.
Re:24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sen (Score:4, Funny)
But this sampling rate goes to 11
the crux of it (Score:5, Funny)
My barber was saying this exact thing to me the other day. So I says to him, "Frank, come on, can't you just correct for nonlinearities?" and he laughed at me and gave me a look like he couldn't believe me. I've decided to change barbers.
The only thing I'd ever buy (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd look at the spectrals on those "lossless" files you bought. Plenty of music on bandcamp was quite clearly converted to flac from MPs.
Re:The only thing I'd ever buy (Score:4, Informative)
I'd look at the spectrals on those "lossless" files you bought. Plenty of music on bandcamp was quite clearly converted to flac from MPs.
Here is software that makes it pretty easy to check:
http://en.true-audio.com/Tau_Analyzer_-_CD_Authenticity_Detector [true-audio.com]
Re:The only thing I'd ever buy (Score:5, Informative)
Apple never sold music below 128kbps, nor as MP3. They currently sell music as 256kbps AAC.
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FLAC superiority to MP3 (Score:5, Informative)
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That means we will have to get all our MP3s as FLACs. Argh. I wonder when Amazon, Apple, etc. will have their songs in that format. Is OGG dead?
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This is fantastic because I am a dog. Why does everyone overlook this? Does everyone hate dogs?
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It's the internet. No one knows you're a dog (except the NSA).
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Buy Woof Brand Dog Chow! It's The Best Tasting Dog Chow Ever!
90% Of Dogs That Try Woof Brand Dog Chow Want More! (The Others Are Dead And/Or Stupid.)
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Excellent. Now my Beagles can rock on all day long.
Human auditory sensation? (Score:2)
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FLAC is also superior because it is future-proof. You can convert to any new format that comes along later, without any loss in quality.
Also, if you invest in good-quality gear you might want to actually play out all frequencies, even if you don't hear them. The barely audible subsonic rumble will create bodily sensations. Likewise for sound so high in frequency that you (barely) hear it.
If you play your music via $20 laptop speakers hooked to your el cheap Chinese sound card D/A then by all means, you can
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It's a kind of psychoacoustic [wikipedia.org] compression, not just physioacoustic compression. It does not have the same "playback" in the range of human auditory sensation. It aims to have the same "playback" with human auditory perception. There's a difference.
Physiology is a large of it, but it's not all of it. If you compare MP3 output versus original signal with each limited to the range of human hearing you will still see differen
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You can't blame the file format for your decision to rip CDs at such a low bitrate.
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Dogs can hear higher frequencies than humans, but MP3 and FLAC have nothing specific to do with sampling frequencies. You can encode 44.1KHz or 96KHz into FLAC or MP3 if you are determined to do so.
Actually you would have to extend the MP3 spec first. The highest sampling frequency it supports is 48kHz.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-1#Quality [wikipedia.org]
Not sure why this was modded down, but that link is insightful.
It also shows why MP3 @ 320 kb/s doesn't make sense. For the best lossy compression, MP2 at that bitrate would be better.
IMHO, FLAC for home listening, and MP3 @ ~192 kb/s ("lame -V2") for mobile is the way to go.
Not everyone is allowed to make remixes (Score:2)
So sure, if all you ever do is _play_ source material by all means use mp3. But when DJs or audio engineers want to do a remix or mashup they need source material in a _lossless_ format.
Then the owner of copyright in the sound recording can distribute lossy files to the public and distribute lossless files only to people who have bought a license to make remixes.
Well.. (Score:2)
Offtopic: to people digitizing rare LPs (Score:2)
To people digitizing rare LPs and the people posting Youtube videos that show a phonograph record going round.
Please oh please fill a spray bottle with a solution of water with a tiny bit of liquid soap, and spray the surface of the record before and occasionally during recording. After, rinse and dry with fluffy-towel and lean on edge to dry completely before re-sleeving.
You will be flabbergasted with the result. Even if you do not flabbergast easily.
Give me some FLAC (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because FLAC rocks... There has been no need to update it. It's one of the huge open source/open spec success stories.
Compression (Score:2)
Wish we could see 6 years of advancement in file compression technology with FLAC. I know space is on the cheap these days, but that doesn't mean we should just keep inflating files more and more. As much as I do appreciate FLAC, when it's virtually impossible to tell the difference between a 6MB file and a 24MB file, it starts to feel a bit wasteful, especially when the source was something like a compact disc to begin with.
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With lossless compression, mathematics is unforgiving.
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I don't think the summary said anything about it being smaller -- just that higher bit-rate formats would support replay gain...
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It didn't. My post was merely wishing that it was smaller.
Not the whole story (Score:3)
"Like mp3" (Score:2)
FLAC is an audio format similar to MP3, but 'lossless'
In other words, it's like mp3, but the exact opposite.
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FLAC is an audio format like MP3 in that it is designed to make the music take less space. Unlike MP3, FLAC does this losslessly.
Happy?
*doh*!
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Opus is ONLY useful for voice and low-bitrate audio. For high-fi stuff, it's no better than anything else.
I sure as hell would never use it for music.
Re:lol, Xiph, like GNU Hurd (Score:5, Interesting)
ABX at 192kbps and I can't hear the difference, which is good enough for me. Granted I don't have the best ears.
I don't mean to be overly enthusiastic, it's just nice having a codec that serves basically all purposes.
I don't use it for music really. That's all in FLAC (storage) and Vorbis (players) already, but I do use it for video nowadays. I usually encode at 48kbps at 44.1kHz and it sounds better to me that AAC-HE-PS while using the same space. And it's a free and open codec too, so I have all the unjustified moral superiority to wave around too.
Re:I don't see the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Ten years ago, when hard drives were small and NAS systems for home use didn't really exist, I could see the point of all this ripping and converting. But now, with multi-terabyte HDs and the proliferation of NAS appliances, there is a limited need for this or any other 'compressed' music file format.
I'll give you one: metadata. WAV doesn't really support it in a standard way across applications. AIFF is a little better but it doesn't have a lot of traction on Windows. FLAC has a robust tagging scheme. Since converting to lossless is incredibly fast, and you typically save about 30% of the disk space, why not do it?
Re:I don't see the point (Score:5, Informative)
FLAC also includes error detection - each frame has as 16-bit crc and the file header includes an md5 hash of raw audio data. Doesn't help with repairing corruption but at least you can detect it and avoid playing the corrupt frames as ear-splitting noise unlike wav.
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Because people swear they can hear the missing bits of data with their SPDIF Monster cable.
Re:I don't see the point (Score:4, Funny)
Audiophilic SPDIF connectors are supposed to use cocobolo wood plugs lined with titanium for a nice "warm" bitstream.
Re:I don't see the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, because audio files are never:
I can't imagine anyone having a need for those things. *eyeroll*
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There is literally no reason not to use it.
Computational complexity....
But lets not consider the actual realities here... lets assume computation has zero cost.
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real time decoding of FLAC uses less that 10% cpu on a $25 raspberrypi (ARMv6). I can't imagine needing to decode high quality audio on a lower end CPU.
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real time decoding of FLAC uses less that 10% cpu on a $25 raspberrypi (ARMv6).
So it costs 10% of the peak power usage of the device. is your pi solar powered, or do you pay for electricity?
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If you have the pi without ethernet (model A) the total power consumption is below a watt (and i don't believe power consumption was major design goal). So yes, maybe 0.1W is a big cost for some applications, but for me that is dwarfed by the rest of my hifi.
Multiple simultaneous FLAC streams (Score:2)
real time decoding of FLAC uses less that 10% cpu on a $25 raspberrypi (ARMv6).
So once you're playing the music and four sound effects at once, you have only half the CPU left for the rest of the game.
Re: I don't see the point (Score:5, Informative)
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Vinyl may have a nostalgical value. The quality is indeed WAY worse than that of a CD, for example.
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Vinyl is almost always exempt from the loudness war, which can make it legitimately sound better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war [wikipedia.org]
Re:Latest and greatest? (Score:5, Insightful)
good example of the stupidity of the music industry.
they put the best mix on the worst (physical, playback) medium, vinyl.
the cd (or file) which can have superior specs, they give the compressed loudness-war mix.
makes NO SENSE!
the music industry is fucked up. they just are.
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On a side note, "the best mix" isn't constant, but depends on the medium used. I have been told that one of the original problems with CDs was that they used the vinyl mix on early CDs, which isn't ideal (I am sure there is some explanation
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At least when they did it with vinyl there was a cost advantage - lower dynamic range means they can get away with using less material in their pressings. With CD, there is no good reason for it. The loudness war seems to be driven more by FM radio (starting with ads, making the obvious move into payola) than anything else.
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It really doesn't have anything to do with the storage format. CDs have a dynamic range of over 90dB, compared with vinyl peaking at around 70dB on the outer grooves the first time it is played. The music that is recorded on those mediums tends to have a dynamic range somewhere between 1dB and 15dB, with modern "loudness war" output tending towards the single digit end of the scale, and audiophile wankfest recordings being deliberately mastered way above that so their owners can feel smug and claim to hea
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Jeez guys, I thought /. was for nerds ;-)
Here is your answer: They are not mixed at all, they are recorded straight to the master record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_to_disc_recording [wikipedia.org]
And for the other ACs that do not believe my GP post, I will specify that one of these cost more than 100$ and that you need a 5000$ turnable and a 30,000$ sound system, usually driven by lamps to really appreciate the difference.
But hey, history always repeats itself an even the supposedly nerds at /. are now saying tha
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This is absolutely false. People only think that LPs sound better because it's what they are accustomed to.
This is absolutely false. I and many with me argue that LP's (mostly) sound better as they generally are mastered with a greater dynamic range than their digital counterparts which tend to be remastered with as much loudness as possible. Not everybody that listen to vinyl are clueless hipsters.
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This, I believe, is the first time an acronym has been expanded in a Slashdot summary.
Don't worry - it explained a concept nerds already know and didn't bother to mention what was different in the new version. Since I've already surfed over there:
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On the compression/uncompressed scale?
It's more similar to MP3 in that it is compressed.
In the subdomain of compressed formats, it has the attribute of being
lossless, whereas mp3 is lossy.
So, similar on the scale of talking about computer music formats -- most people don't store music in WAV format when you have something like FLAC that buys you space and METAinfo w/no downside.