Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.

Poll

Monkeys Audio
[ 83 ] (55.3%)
LPAC
[ 8 ] (5.3%)
FLAC
[ 46 ] (30.7%)
WAVpack
[ 9 ] (6%)
Other
[ 4 ] (2.7%)

Total Members Voted: 196

Topic: Best lossless codec? (Read 15547 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Best lossless codec?

Reply #25 –
Quote
Originally posted by floyd

For the real purpose of lossless (archival, and/or lossless playback on pc), MAC is by far the most robust.  Other codecs are still having problems with tagging, seeking, compression, encoding speed, where MAC leads in each category. I will be interested to see where development in MAC heads, as there aren't any major weaknesses.


This is simply not true.  MAC is not more robust than any of the other major lossless codecs.  The MAC GUI is good, compression is very good, but it has drawbacks, namely higher decode complexity than FLAC (1.5x - 4x), portability, license encumberance.  However, if all you ever use or will use is Windows, MAC is the clear codec of choice right now.

Quote
Originally posted by Frank Klemm


Some question about FLAC:

- I was not able to compress files with more than 8 channels.
  Nonsense? At the IFA 2001 there was a 64 channel demonstration.
  That other programs only support 1 and 2 channels is not an excuse.


FLAC supports 1 to 8 channels.  There are some reserved bits left for special channel assignments but that would break forward compatibility (i.e. current decoders could not play some future streams).

Quote
Originally posted by Frank Klemm

- I was not able to compress a 8 bit 1 channel 70 GByte PCM file.
  It looks like there is a limitation to save some bits in the FLAC header


There is a sample/frame number in the frame header.  For fixed-blocksize streams it is a frame number; for variable-blocksize streams it is a sample number.  In the common fixed-blocksize case, with a blocksize of 4608 samples, the limit is 4608 * 2^31 ~= 1e13 samples.

At the stream level the frame numbers are irrelevant; they can roll over without any problem.  In seekable files it matters.

The current command-line encoder "flac" is still subject to 2G file limits in many places.  It is probably that limitation that is keeping you from compressing large files.

Josh

Best lossless codec?

Reply #26 –
Quote
Originally posted by jcoalson


This is simply not true.  MAC is not more robust than any of the other major lossless codecs.  The MAC GUI is good, compression is very good, but it has drawbacks, namely higher decode complexity than FLAC (1.5x - 4x), portability, license encumberance.  However, if all you ever use or will use is Windows, MAC is the clear codec of choice right now. 

Decode speed: as has been stated before, MAC uses basically the same resources to decode as mp3.  If FLAC is indeed lower than this, great, but even ancient computers are enough to run mp3's fine, and thus .ape files.  Decode speed is somewhat like comparing 2d winmarks in with today's computers; irrelevant benchmark.

Portability: apparently MacOS and Linux versions are on the way, maybe already out. Licence: Doesn't look like you can sell MAC; I don't see how this affects an end-user.

The nice thing about lossless codecs is the subjectivity of lossy codecs is absent.  The "ogg just *sounds* better", or "aac has more well-defined bass" kind of comments aren't valid, and it all boils down to numbers, and features.  MAC has the best *relevant* numbers, and the best features (seeking, tagging, gui).

Best lossless codec?

Reply #27 –
Quote
Originally posted by floyd
Decode speed: as has been stated before, MAC uses basically the same resources to decode as mp3.  If FLAC is indeed lower than this, great, but even ancient computers are enough to run mp3's fine, and thus .ape files.  Decode speed is somewhat like comparing 2d winmarks in with today's computers; irrelevant benchmark.


True, but nobody cares about playback on desktops, there's more than enough processing power for that.  This is for those that want to get lossless decoders in hardware.  Pretty much every mp3 player has a dedicated, specialized decoder chip (some of which don't support the full mp3 spec, which is why some portables puke on things like VBR files) that can decode much more quickly than a general purpose chip.  It might be possible to program a DSP to decode ape files, but you'd need a more powerful chip, which means more power, which means less battery life.

Look at vorbis as an example: I don't know what kind of processing power is required for Xiph's integerized codec, but most of the other "portable vorbis" projects seem to have hit a wall somewhere around 75 MHz for processor speeds.  I'll admit to not watching these projects extremely closely, so if I'm completely off my rocker, let me know.  Vorbis's complexity is comparable to mp3 though -- so if it got a handy decoder chip like mp3 does, it too could have all those cool advantages.

flac's low decoding complexity makes it more attractive for people trying to get it into hardware.  In fact, it's already been done.  You can find more info from flac's homepage.

Best lossless codec?

Reply #28 –
Quote
Originally posted by floyd

Decode speed: as has been stated before, MAC uses basically the same resources to decode as mp3.  If FLAC is indeed lower than this, great, but even ancient computers are enough to run mp3's fine, and thus .ape files.  Decode speed is somewhat like comparing 2d winmarks in with today's computers; irrelevant benchmark.


Completely wrong. APE is Integer only (like all lossless packers), MP3
is a mixture of 80% Floating point and 20% integer.

Computational complexity of APE decoding depends heavily on compression level,
for MP3 it's nearly constant.
--  Frank Klemm

Best lossless codec?

Reply #29 –
Going back to topic, and as said million times, for lossless you should get the one that switches you best.

Decisions to switch one over another vary like vary the requierements each person expects from it.

Best compression : optimFrog
Best overall (compression/speed) : MAC
Best format design (seeking, streaming...) : FLAC
Most known (till recently): Shorten
Most curious : Wavpack with hybrid mode


Even when 3% of 700MB is 21MB, It is not really that big of a difference to choose just because it is the one it compresses the most, and since all them sound equal (lossless), it's up to the people to find "the standard".