Apple Lossless

It's all about the equipment

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lipi
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Apple Lossless

#1 Post by lipi » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:32 pm

has anyone played with apple lossless at all?

casual experimentation suggests that files are about twice the size of a 192k vbr mp3 and about a quarter of a wav. the web gives different numbers in differen places. i haven't measured very carefully, so i may very well off. at this ratio, i'm willing to switch to lossless (i need to re-rip my library after my drive crashed...oops...only partial backups), especially since ripping goes WAY faster in itunes with the lossless codec than with the mp3 one.

flac's site suggests that flac (en|de)codes faster than the apple codec, but a review in a different place (sorry -- i didn't bookmark it) showed the opposite -- so i'm curious to hear first hand experiences with flac and other codecs, too.

please, no "close formats suck" comments. i know.

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#2 Post by Mr Awesomer » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:24 am

I would think that if you're after the best quality sound, the speed at which you achieve it would not be a priority, as a "lossless" file would be useless without good error checking... and error checking takes time depending on disc conditions.
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lipi
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#3 Post by lipi » Fri Aug 26, 2005 12:09 pm

yeah, that's a good point...

i don't really know what to say to that except "i wouldn't know a good error checking algorithm if it bit me in the arse". just picking the slowest codec doesn't seem like a good option (it may just be slow because it uses a poor algorithm). i'm not sure how to compare output of two codecs for errors.

ideas?

[edit: o.k., i have one idea, but i don't feel like actually going through with it: encode the same cd or track (on a damaged cd, preferably) N times with each codec, then diff the files. the one that produces the files closest to each other probably has the best error checking. this method isn't foolproof, because: a) the files are encoded -- there's no guarantee that two files which are one bit off produce "closer" sound that two files which are sixteen bytes off -- hashes are weird; b) for all i know the codec that produces the most consistent files just does so because it "gives up" most easily on damaged parts. i don't think i have enough of a golden ear (or setup) to hear the difference, either.]

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#4 Post by CafeSavoy » Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:48 am

I haven't played with either although i have considered converting my wave archives to one of the lossless formats. There are a bunch of comparisons on-line and the various formats seem to be generally close. The main differences are in hardware support, player support, cost, os support, and whether the formats are open-source or proprietary. There is some speculation on Mac discussion boards that apple introduced it's own format because it might be planning to add DRM in the future. I am leaning towards flac because it's open source, multi-platform, and plays on a variety of platforms. Btw, the new smithsonian music website, http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/ , uses flac for its downloadable music.


A Few Comparisons:

http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2004/May/09 ... coder.html
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/ind ... opic=21229
http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html

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#5 Post by CafeSavoy » Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:37 am

After looking at lossless again I decided to convert all of my wave files to flac to save hard disk space. I decided on flac because it was open source and integrates well with Nero burner and winamp. You can also use it in conjunction with EAC as your compression tool or you can use one of those products like Mareo that will like you do a variety of compressions at the same time. I also like flac because dbpoweramp has a flac module so you can get mouse over info. so far the compression seems to vary between 30 and 55%.

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#6 Post by JohnDyer » Sun Sep 11, 2005 2:47 pm

CafeSavoy wrote:After looking at lossless again I decided to convert all of my wave files to flac to save hard disk space. I decided on flac because it was open source and integrates well with Nero burner and winamp. You can also use it in conjunction with EAC as your compression tool or you can use one of those products like Mareo that will like you do a variety of compressions at the same time. I also like flac because dbpoweramp has a flac module so you can get mouse over info. so far the compression seems to vary between 30 and 55%.
So with a library your size, we're still talking TeraBytes aren't we? I can see how having it all in one place and lossless could be very conducive to making backup CDs and mixed CDs - no loss of quality going back and forth between formats.

I just encoded an album in FLAC and reburned it using Nero. Pretty straightforward. For the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra CD, I got an overall compression of 0.63 to 1. Still will take a LARGE disk to convert everything over.

I agree with shying away from anything that smells like DRM. Just more hoops to jump through, and a closed format that isn't up for scrutiny makes my nervous.

I just wish the online download services provided FLAC encoders instead of having to burn to CD first :(

There seem to be a number of artists making their works available in FLAC format though - with or without a type of DRM, I'm not sure.
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#7 Post by JohnDyer » Fri Sep 23, 2005 8:47 am

Rayned, are you converting to FLAC yet? I found out that the Yahoo Music Engine (yet another online music subscription/pay service) will encode to FLAC, so I started using it to encode my collection. During a spot check of a Charlie Barnet disc, I noticed artifacts when playing it back in WinAmp. Played it back within the Yahoo Engine - same artifacts in the same place. Re-encoded with the FLAC frontend (from the FLAC website), replayed it - no artifacts. UGGGGGHHH!

Have you tried Mareo yet, and if so, how's your experience with it?
John Dyer, Denver CO

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#8 Post by CafeSavoy » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:15 am

JohnDyer wrote:Rayned, are you converting to FLAC yet? I found out that the Yahoo Music Engine (yet another online music subscription/pay service) will encode to FLAC, so I started using it to encode my collection. During a spot check of a Charlie Barnet disc, I noticed artifacts when playing it back in WinAmp. Played it back within the Yahoo Engine - same artifacts in the same place. Re-encoded with the FLAC frontend (from the FLAC website), replayed it - no artifacts. UGGGGGHHH!

Have you tried Mareo yet, and if so, how's your experience with it?
I converted all my wave files to flac. I used the windows front-end for flac that you can get from sourceforge. I didn't notice any problems but i only checked a few files. I haven't used Mareo yet; was too lazy to figure out how to configure it. Instead i used a two stage process: EAC to rip waves and mp3, and then flac front-end to convert to flac.

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#9 Post by JohnDyer » Fri Sep 23, 2005 12:04 pm

CafeSavoy wrote:
JohnDyer wrote:Rayned, are you converting to FLAC yet? I found out that the Yahoo Music Engine (yet another online music subscription/pay service) will encode to FLAC, so I started using it to encode my collection. During a spot check of a Charlie Barnet disc, I noticed artifacts when playing it back in WinAmp. Played it back within the Yahoo Engine - same artifacts in the same place. Re-encoded with the FLAC frontend (from the FLAC website), replayed it - no artifacts. UGGGGGHHH!

Have you tried Mareo yet, and if so, how's your experience with it?
I converted all my wave files to flac. I used the windows front-end for flac that you can get from sourceforge. I didn't notice any problems but i only checked a few files. I haven't used Mareo yet; was too lazy to figure out how to configure it. Instead i used a two stage process: EAC to rip waves and mp3, and then flac front-end to convert to flac.
Yeah, I was doing that too for awhile (to wave first), but didn't like the 2 step process. After freaking out about having to redo all of my "A" artists, I think I figured out how to use EAC with FLAC. You point EAC to an external encoder (flac.exe) and then fill in the command line arguments. Seems to work perfectly, and compresses much better than the Yahoo Music Engine. So how much hard drive space did you save going to FLAC?
John Dyer, Denver CO

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#10 Post by CafeSavoy » Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:09 pm

JohnDyer wrote:Yeah, I was doing that too for awhile (to wave first), but didn't like the 2 step process. After freaking out about having to redo all of my "A" artists, I think I figured out how to use EAC with FLAC. You point EAC to an external encoder (flac.exe) and then fill in the command line arguments. Seems to work perfectly, and compresses much better than the Yahoo Music Engine. So how much hard drive space did you save going to FLAC?
You are right. If i was reripping, i'd figure out Mareo, or something similar. But i was mostly just converting already ripped wave files. I might still get around to configuring Mareo. It's essentially the same as the process for using flac in eac. I think the compressed files are about 50% of the originals.

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