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Topic: Comparing FLAC and Monkey's (Read 17390 times) previous topic - next topic
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Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #25 –
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If you are using CDRs for backup, then the small difference in compression between FLAC and MAC is the least of your problems.

I agree.
My personal choice for CDr backup is WavPack hybrid mode. So, if I ever lose the files on my HDD, I don't even have to re-rip my CDs - just copy the lossy parts to the HDD, and copy the "correction" parts along for the tracks I love the most  - so that I have lossless playback.

No more re-ripping, re-encoding, re-tagging...

Besides, the overhead of hybrid mode over standard mode is just about 1-2%.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #26 –
is WavPack hybrid mode preferable over flack or monkey?

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #27 –
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is WavPack hybrid mode preferable over flack or monkey?

I didn't say that.

I just said that it's my codec of choice. Therefore, IMO, it's preferable over any other lossless encoder. But your preferences you should set yourself, based on your tests and comparisions.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #28 –
is WMA 9's lossless algorithm any good compared to FLAC or Monkeys Audio?  Is it really even lossless?

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #29 –
thanks for clearing that up, sorry for my previous messy post.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #30 –
Quote
is WMA 9's lossless algorithm any good compared to FLAC or Monkeys Audio?  Is it really even lossless?

WMA lossless is very good in compression and speed. But it's completely closed, as you probably already guessed.

Some good points of it are that it's readily playable on any PC with WMP9 (you don't need to download decoders and plugins, like for other formats), and there's hope that it will be supported on hardware players.

Regards;

Roberto.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #31 –
i would rather use cassette tapes in a 1985 RCA boombox than let Microsoft touch my music collection... 

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #32 –
thx for the answers. flac at the standard setting seems to be the best choice atm.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #33 –
Quote
thx for the answers. flac at the standard setting seems to be the best choice atm.

It should be interesting to see what the future brings for flac, ape, and wavpack...  I think the top3 spots will cycle between them all as they progress...

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #34 –
Quote
It should be interesting to see what the future brings for flac, ape, and wavpack...  I think the top3 spots will cycle between them all as they progress...

I agree. Flac was on the spot when it joined Xiph some time ago. Maybe WavPack will be next when David releases v4.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #35 –
So the best way to archive my CDs is to buy a huge hard drive??  (Considering how quickly CD-Rs decay...)

Blah, that's certainly dissapointing.  I was hoping for a bit cheaper of a solution.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #36 –
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Blah, that's certainly dissapointing.  I was hoping for a bit cheaper of a solution.

I believe that a 200Gb HDD is cheaper (or at least has a similar price) than the same space in high quality CDs (~280 CDs).

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #37 –
Is WMA 9 Lossless really lossless bit for bit like APE and FLAC?  Because it says Mathematically Lossless.
 

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #38 –
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Is WMA 9 Lossless really lossless bit for bit like APE and FLAC?  Because it says Mathematically Lossless.

"lossless bit for bit" == Mathematically Lossless.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #39 –
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"lossless bit for bit" == Mathematically Lossless.

Double equal, now there's a sure sign of a C/Java programmer. 

On a more related note...
Is there any media at all that will last for over a few decades?  From what I've heard, hard drives, pressed CDs, tapes, DVDs, et al will deteriorate significantly over such a time period.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #40 –
Quote
Double equal, now there's a sure sign of a C/Java programmer.  

C

Quote
On a more related note...
Is there any media at all that will last for over a few decades?  From what I've heard, hard drives, pressed CDs, tapes, DVDs, et al will deteriorate significantly over such a time period.


I read a comparision once that estimated the average lifetime of a well kept pressed CD to be about 100 years. 

Burned CDs were averaged 5 years. Other medias were mentioned, but I don't remember.

It was linked here. Just don't expect me to find that link in over 80000 posts.

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #41 –
Hrmm...
Do you know of any small CD-pressing units that sell for relatively cheap?  =p

I imagine most people are going to be disappointed (including my father) when they find out all their backed-up files on CD-R are gone after a few years.  You think that would garner some press, ya know?  And Gateway has its "Rip, Burn, Respect" campaign going on... while no one realizes their burned CDs'll be corrupt after only a few years.

Back more to the topic...
Is Monkey's Audio proprietary, or just not open-source?
And, can you confirm that one bit error does indeed corrupt the rest of a MAC file with the latest version?

EDIT: Is there a FLAC plugin for WinAmp 2?
EDIT 2: Does FLAC support (and properly decode) multichannel & greater-than-16bit audio?

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #42 –
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I imagine most people are going to be disappointed (including my father) when they find out all their backed-up files on CD-R are gone after a few years.  You think that would garner some press, ya know?  And Gateway has its "Rip, Burn, Respect" campaign going on... while no one realizes their burned CDs'll be corrupt after only a few years.

Keep in mind that 5 years was the average. Depending on brand, you can have burned CDs that last much more (Taiyo Yuden, Mitsui...) and much less (CMC, Gigastorage...)

Quote
Back more to the topic...
Is Monkey's Audio proprietary, or just not open-source?


It IS open source!
(Or, to please the GNU freaks, the sources are available)

Quote
EDIT: Is there a FLAC plugin for WinAmp 2?


Yes, It's available at the FLAC page. Take a look there.
(http://flac.sourceforge.net)

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #43 –
Cool, I thought MAC was closed-source.  So both FLAC and MAC are open. 

And thanx for directing me to the plugin... I definitely overlooked it since the sourceforge page isn't unfamiliar to me.

One thing I would like to know that didn't get answered...
1) Does FLAC support surround-sound ( >2 channels)?
2) Does FLAC support 24 & 32-bit?

I believe MAC does, and I would suspect FLAC does too, but I'd like to know for sure.

EDIT: Actually, I still can't find the WinAmp 2 plugin.  The only reference to WinAmp on flac.sourceforge I see is to an unreliable WinAmp 3 plugin.

EDIT2: Okay, I found it now, but where to download it really isn't that apparent.  "Releases are first made through SourceForge and can be found here", which I took to mean all FLAC encoder releases... since that's virtually everything that is there, except the WinAmp2 plugin sticking out of the middle of all the Windows FLAC encoder versions.

EDIT3: After getting everything set up & encoding some of my MACs to FLAC, I have a couple questions:
Does applying ReplayGain to FLAC files change the playback using the WinAmp2 plugin?  Also, wouldn't it be simple enough to modify the FLAC plugin so you can change & view FLAC tags from WinAmp?

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #44 –
Quote
Quote
is WMA 9's lossless algorithm any good compared to FLAC or Monkeys Audio?  Is it really even lossless?

WMA lossless is very good in compression and speed. But it's completely closed, as you probably already guessed.

Some good points of it are that it's readily playable on any PC with WMP9 (you don't need to download decoders and plugins, like for other formats), and there's hope that it will be supported on hardware players.

Regards;

Roberto.

WMA9 Lossless is neither fast nor efficient, compared to FLAC or APE ... and it cannot be decoded easily (cannot be decoded at all in my environment).
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #45 –
Quote
EDIT3: After getting everything set up & encoding some of my MACs to FLAC, I have a couple questions:
Does applying ReplayGain to FLAC files change the playback using the WinAmp2 plugin?  Also, wouldn't it be simple enough to modify the FLAC plugin so you can change & view FLAC tags from WinAmp?

Apologies for any confusion, I had installed an old version of the plug-in, not knowing that the most recent version *comes with* the FLAC encoder package.

flac.sourceforge.net could be a bit more specific about that for newbies to the format, like me...  =p

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #46 –
One last question (sorry to be such a bother)... can ReplayGain be applied to FLAC files after encoding?  Or is the only way to re-encode the FLACs with the --replay-gain line?  (I used the "-5" command)

I've seen a "sweep.exe" mentioned before, but I don't know if that only applies to the MPC ReplayGain...

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #47 –
Quote
One last question (sorry to be such a bother)...


Hey, don't worry, man, that's what forums are there for.


Quote
... can ReplayGain be applied to FLAC files after encoding?


Yes, using the MetaFLAC utility (metaflac --add-replay-gain).

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #48 –
What about tags.  It looks like EAC and FLAC play well together as far as tags are concerned but you need a special program (wapet) to make sure EAC passes tags to Monkey's.  Can someone comment on this?

Comparing FLAC and Monkey's

Reply #49 –
Quote
Yes, using the MetaFLAC utility (metaflac --add-replay-gain).

Is there any frontend for MetaFlac?  I'm using WinXP, and the command-line box is hell to use when you're trying to apply replaygain to multiple files.