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Topic: why isn't wavpack more popular? (Read 45884 times) previous topic - next topic
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why isn't wavpack more popular?

If you look at the FLAC comparison page, http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html, you'll see that wavpack normal compresses a few MB better than FLAC maximum, encodes in half the time, and decodes not much slower...

Wavpack is also free and open-source, just like FLAC... and it has an excellent feature that FLAC lacks: hybrid mode ("lossy" + correction file).

FLAC's advantages are that it is streamable, is more well-known (under the xiph umbrella now as well) and has better support (on a few hardware players as well).

Now there isn't perhaps that much between them, but surely wavpack deserves more recognition than it gets?

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #1 –
I don't think the difference is significant. FLAC is more established as a standard as well as Monkey's Audio. Optimfrog and WavPack is cool with hybrid mode. But if one is planning to store the loss file somewhere he can store it in lossless instead which makes more sense to me because the loss file is almost as large as the lossless encode in another format and is useless without the lossy part.

I think the two most important usability points that would make me adopt one lossless codec over another is Monkey's Audio's APL feature (bookmarking) and ReplayGaining which is not supported by either Monkey's Audio or FLAC.

If WavPack does these than I am in...
The object of mankind lies in its highest individuals.
One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #2 –
Both FLAC and MonkeysAudio support ReplayGain.
WavPack does too, if you use APEv2 tags and a player, which supports ReplayGain.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #3 –
IMO, teh biggest problems with WavPack are seeking speed, error robustness and multichannel capabilities.

Besides that (and all those issues are being addressed in WavPack 4), it has potential to smoke FLAC in almost every aspect: encoding efficiency (speed vs. compression), features (lossy and hybrid encoding), decent library API... :B

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #4 –
We are looking forward to Wavpack4 a lot .... hopefully David will write the lib such that en/decoder and the internal framing are separated from each other, as this will make the implementation job a lot easier.

I love the idea to be able to go from lossless to lossy mode and back in one and the same track, this sounds pretty interesting indeed. A superb feature was to make the encoding mode depnding from the actual spare CPU power, that way Wavpack could become the nr. 1 codec for analog capturing. Depending on the CPU power necessary for the encoding of the video, the codec could switch to lossless or lossy mode, to avoid frame drops.

Unfortunately, none of the emails sent to me from David ( and then forwarded to our lists ), asking about what we'd expect for best usability, were answered by our lazy devs  ..... grmbl .... /me goes waking them up now ....

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #5 –
Just out of interest, is there any news on when to expect WavPack4? IIRC the first alpha versions were supposed to be coming out about now?

I currently have most of my collection in FLAC format, and am thinking about going over to Wavpack once it has instant seeking...

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #6 –
E ai Roberto , tudo bom ?
hehehe

Well , I see you talking a lot about wavpack v4 , I could not found any info about it at wavpack homepage.
I am starting to rip my collection to lossless and would like to try wavpack , but I am waiting for this so talked wavpack 4.
Any guess when its coming ?
Kind Regards , Tcmjr

Aka HellSnoopy

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #7 –
Quote
E ai Roberto , tudo bom ?
hehehe

OMG! Another brazilian.

Quote
Well , I see you talking a lot about wavpack v4 , I could not found any info about it at wavpack homepage.
I am starting to rip my collection to lossless and would like to try wavpack , but I am waiting for this so talked wavpack 4.
Any guess when its coming ?


Well, I am probably partially to blame for the delay. David says that I always call him at his programming time, and since our phone calls last one hour at least, he wastes too much time talking to me

So now I'm calling less...

Anyway, he told me that, feature-wise, he plans to launch an alpha that will almost be a beta - I.E, almost all fundamental features are already implemented, and later improvements wouldn't break backwards compatibility.

And that's the reason it's taking so long for an alpha (besides my calls, of course)

Hopefully he'll have it before christmas, but I really have no idea.

Regards;

Roberto.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #8 –
One thing FLAC has that neither Monkey's Audio nor WavPack seem to have is portability. None of them seem to be written with portability in mind like FLAC obviously was. I once tried to compile Monkey's Audio on my mac; I wouldn't say it went smoothly...

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #9 –
Quote
One thing FLAC has that neither Monkey's Audio nor WavPack seem to have is portability. None of them seem to be written with portability in mind like FLAC obviously was. I once tried to compile Monkey's Audio on my mac; I wouldn't say it went smoothly...

WavPack is 100% ANSI C! (wavpack 3 at least, not sure about 4)
So, porting it to other systems and platforms should be quite easy.

Monkey's , on the other hand, is indeed not very portable, since it relies heavily on x86 ASM.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #10 –
Quote
Quote
One thing FLAC has that neither Monkey's Audio nor WavPack seem to have is portability. None of them seem to be written with portability in mind like FLAC obviously was. I once tried to compile Monkey's Audio on my mac; I wouldn't say it went smoothly...

WavPack is 100% ANSI C! (wavpack 3 at least, not sure about 4)
So, porting it to other systems and platforms should be quite easy.

Does "#include <windows.h>" comply with ANSI C?

This software probably works on all windows systems, but that's it. What about gnu/linux, mac os, or even standalone hw players?

Quote
So, porting it to other systems and platforms should be quite easy.

If it is easy, why isn't there an xmms plugin or something similar?

One of the major disadvantages of wavpack is lack of proper portability.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #11 –
Quote
Does "#include <windows.h>" comply with ANSI C?

Argh. I don't deserve that shit.

I'm talking about the encoding routines here, smarty guy. Not the frontend.

Quote
This software probably works on all windows systems, but that's it. What about gnu/linux, mac os, or even standalone hw players?


The sources have been released few time ago. And nobody is interested in working on properly porting 3.x, as well as creating plugins and what not, since 4.0 is around the corner.

Quote
One of the major disadvantages of wavpack is lack of proper portability.


OK, define "proper portability".

Besides, I suggest you actually study the sources before running around making wild claims.

Also, a hint, since you obviously doesn't seem to know a shit of what I'm talking about: check the pack.c and unpack.c sources. There's where compression and decompression actually occurs.

Also, please learn about the usage of #ifdef / #ifndef

Kind regards;

Roberto.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #12 –
Funnily enough every time I ask David about Wavpack 4 he blames Roberto for his lateness also...

;-)

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #13 –
Quote
Funnily enough every time I ask David about Wavpack 4 he blames Roberto for his lateness also...

Shame on me

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #14 –
Quote
OK, define "proper portability".

ok, let's say a user would be able to use the software under other os/platform without having to do any significant work or have any knowledge & experience with programming. e.g. you just run an install program or script, or some usual routine, like ./configure, make, make install.

Quote
Besides, I suggest you actually study the sources before running around making wild claims.

ok, I really did just a very qiuck glance at the source, you're right about that. About windows.h... I just checked for files with that string, because that is quite common header people use. I don't have time or interest to do an extensive (re)search. If I can't get something working simply and quickly enough, I'll just look for other software that does the same.

I just made a glance at unpack.c and pack.c you mentioned. The first line is
#include "wavpack.h"
wavpack.h uses __fastcall which I can't compile with gcc (I wonder why  )

I am not some wavpack enemy, I just didn't find any way to get it all working outside windows (that includes also a player plugin, not just encoder and decoder). If wp4 will be fully supported under my os of choice, I will surely give it a try.

And in future please be more polite. You don't need to be rude just because someone disagrees with you.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #15 –
Quote
I don't have time or interest to do an extensive (re)search.

... in which case don't make remarks about things you have no interest in finding out the facts about.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #16 –
flac is supported by hardware players such as the kenwood keg (Car audio) which i'm hopefully buying this week...

i have quite a bit of my collection in flac, so i can't wait to see how it goes...

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #17 –
Before everyone gets their panties in a bunch, let me make a few comments about portability. 

WavPack was written to be "easily" ported to other platforms. If you don't define the macro __WIN32__ you don't get "windows.h" and it won't use the Windows versions of most system calls. This is how the real DOS mode version is compiled because when DOS was invented Microsoft had not yet learned the value of just being different for different's sake. 

However, one of the things I wanted for WavPack was to have an intuitive interface (for a command-line program, that is) because during development I have to use it a lot. So, it will accept wildcards in filenames; it displays the progress on the console title bar; it displays the elapsed time when completed; it warns about overwriting and asks for confirmation; when you ^C during a conversion it deletes the partially created file before exiting; you can preserve the input file's time in the output; etc. There is also quite a bit of ugly code in there whose only purpose is to make sure that WavPack runs as fast as possible on various flavors of  Windows. The problem with these kind of features is that there is no portable way of implementing them, so all the work has to be (at least partially) duplicated for each platform (and it also helps to be familiar with the platform before starting).

When I released the source code for WavPack I supposed that some Linux programmer would jump on this and we'd have a Linux port in a few months (I knew that the big-endian/little-endian thing would make a MAC port less likely). Well, at least 3 people have created Linux port "hacks" for their own use by simply taking out all the bells and whistles that don't compile (and this takes just a few hours), but to date there has not been an effort to do a "real" port (which would probably take a few days). And now, of course, anyone who wants to do this should wait until WavPack 4.0 is ready.

As for WavPack 4.0 status, it is in alpha test now and I believe that we are still on schedule for release in January, although multiplatform (and hardware) support will certainly be later. The code for WavPack 4.0 will be designed for even easier portability, but if a Linux version doesn't appear I will probably put together a Linux system and do it myself (because I want to have a Linux system anyway). But I am not buying a MAC... 

Thanks for the support, guys!

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #18 –
Baleeted!!!!

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #19 –
Quote
ok, let's say a user would be able to use the software under other os/platform without having to do any significant work or have any knowledge & experience with programming. e.g. you just run an install program or script, or some usual routine, like ./configure, make, make install.

OK, please let me try to make myself clear this time.

I said that wavpack is portable, not that it has already been ported.

Also, I said that "porting it to other systems and platforms should be quite easy". I never said it has already been easy.

But, comparing to other formats that never had porting in mind (like Monkey's Audio), that heavily rely on the x86 architecture or something like that, porting it should be quite fast.

Besides, I agree with seanyseansean's post. Why are you criticizing it if you didn't even had teh time to research properly first?

Regards;

Roberto.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #20 –
FLAC API discussion moved here.
Microsoft Windows: We can't script here, this is bat country.

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #21 –
I'm interested in having a Wavpack Linux version (at least a x86 version). I'm not a really great coder or programmer, but i work as one  , and i have ported a couple of programs between Linux and Windows.

I'm sure Wavpack is not so difficult to port. I'll try to do a complete (how risky sounds that...) Wavpack Linux version as soon as some alpha code gets released. Well, as soon as I have some free time, and that means probably Christmas.

Looks like it's time to PM bryant. 
Just a thought...

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #22 –
Quote
I'm sure Wavpack is not so difficult to port. I'll try to do a complete (how risky sounds that...) Wavpack Linux version as soon as some alpha code gets released. Well, as soon as I have some free time, and that means probably Christmas.

Great, thanks for your interest

BTW: if you want to contact David by e-mail, you can find his address at http://www.wavpack.com/
 

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #23 –
I will.

Thanks.
Just a thought...

why isn't wavpack more popular?

Reply #24 –
I think basically WavPack needs more advertising of some sort.. I mean, you can have the greatest product in the world, but if no one uses it, who's going to know?

Perhaps a Slashdot frontpage announcement or something of the like would do just fine when v4 comes out