WMA LOSSLESS OR FLAC

2008-09-09 07:16:50

I currently have alot of my cds archived to flac, however is there any benefit of converting my flac files to WMA Lossless. I believe some people favour WMA Lossless over flac. I would like to know the pros and cons of ripping to wma lossless.

WMA LOSSLESS OR FLAC

Reply #1 – 2008-09-09 07:25:49

I will go FLAC since it is open source and wider supported

Lots of SW/ more n more HW are supporting FLAC, eg. portable payers

WMA lossless hardly work on them.

But if you need higher compression ratio, wavpack & APE Extra high is a good option (APE is smallest and slowest)

not sure about data redundancy and corruption characteristics  someone please say more on redundancy.

WMA LOSSLESS OR FLAC

Reply #2 – 2008-09-09 08:47:17

I choose FLAC, take  look at the Lossless comparison and choose the codec which best suits your needs.

WMA LOSSLESS OR FLAC

Reply #3 – 2008-09-09 09:07:22

There may be some benefit, depending on where you are planning to play your files, but it is pretty unlikely.

NB: Check this poll regarding popularity on this board.

WMA LOSSLESS OR FLAC

Reply #4 – 2008-09-09 09:33:13

Have yourself a FLAC attack...I did. 

WMA LOSSLESS OR FLAC

Reply #5 – 2008-09-09 10:32:41

I would stay away from strictly company-owned formats like WMA and Apple Lossless (ALAC) for archiving. Support and development can be dropped without warning if some big decisionmaker sees an opportunity to save money (I know this is an extreme scenario, but it's possible).

A widely accepted open-source format like FLAC on the other hand is your best choice for long term archiving

WMA LOSSLESS OR FLAC

Reply #6 – 2008-09-09 10:59:21

Only if you plan on going strictly to Windows media player will WMA Lossless be a good option.  Everything else like lossy encoding from the files can be achieved with FLAC.