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Topic: Lossless AAC? (Read 87215 times) previous topic - next topic
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Lossless AAC?

Reply #100 –
Hell, the one thing this does do is give people a reason to buy 40GB iPods and give apple more money. I've thrown a couple of lossless songs on my 10GB but I really don't see any reason to go through and reencode your entire music library to a format that many people can't even figure out the standard behind.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #101 –
Quote
If they differ for exactly one byte at the end of the file it might be that one of them is padded incorrectly (or at least differently), either the WAV file itself or the sections within (can't remember which) has/have to be padded to an even length (insane restriction). So it could be that if you have a mono 8bit source (or a 24bit source) that the padding differs or even simply isn't present.

Hmm... I've only tested on 16/44 sources, and I can't say that only 1 byte differs, but that the first differing byte is at the end (not even sure if its the absolute last byte). I compared PCM too and they differ at the same place, does that restriction also apply?

Lossless AAC?

Reply #102 –
First time posting; thanks for the great board.

I know this new format may not be perfect, but it sounds like what I've been waiting for.

I've been looking for a lossless compression to convert all my CDs to my HD and I want to be able to use itunes and not have to mess with other converters and non-apple stuff.  Are there any drawbacks to this new codec, or will I get true CD quality in a format that itunes can do all its tricks with?

Thanks!

Lossless AAC?

Reply #103 –
Quote
First time posting; thanks for the great board.

I know this new format may not be perfect, but it sounds like what I've been waiting for.

I've been looking for a lossless compression to convert all my CDs to my HD and I want to be able to use itunes and not have to mess with other converters and non-apple stuff.  Are there any drawbacks to this new codec, or will I get true CD quality in a format that itunes can do all its tricks with?

Thanks!

From my limited testing, it is truly lossless (so it is 100% cd quality).

The only drawbacks I have stumbled upon so far is the fact that the compression isn't as good compared to other lossless codecs and the fact this is the first release. There have been some reports of little bugs here and there. Hopefully they iron out everything before the next release.

I am thinking of switching to it for the reasons you state (that you can use iTunes is a huge plus), but I might wait for another release to iron out everything.
iTunes 10 - Mac OS X 10.6
256kbps AAC VBR
iPhone 4 32GB

Lossless AAC?

Reply #104 –
Now... why couldn't apple just use FLAC?

Or... maybe release an apple lossless, but also support FLAC?

Lossless AAC?

Reply #105 –
Quote
Now... why couldn't apple just use FLAC?

Or... maybe release an apple lossless, but also support FLAC?

Maybe they don't trust the code?

Maybe they never heard about it?

Maybe they don't care that much about open standards after all, and prefer to now go the closed way - same thing Microsoft and Real did?

Lossless AAC?

Reply #106 –
Probably gets them more $$$$.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #107 –
Quote
Probably gets them more $$$$.

Nah. It makes no difference to them really, since they don't need to pay anyone to use FLAC.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #108 –
They probably are not able to DRM FLAC.  I hope its an indication that the iTunes music store will offer lossless.

On another topic.  Any news of a winamp plug-in for apple lossless?  Thanks,

Lossless AAC?

Reply #109 –
Quote
They probably are not able to DRM FLAC.  I hope its an indication that the iTunes music store will offer lossless.

Nah, most DRM can be applied to pretty much any stream.

Quote
On another topic.  Any news of a winamp plug-in for apple lossless?


I guess that will only happen if they release sources/specifications, or at least an easy-to-use QuickTime SDK.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #110 –
i'm not sure if this means anything ... but it looks like itunes supports importing to a lossless format.  i'm looking at their site right now.

this means squat to me.  it'd be excellent if itunes sold flacs (or another lossless format).  i use eac to rip, and flac to encode, and foobar to manage ... so this thing that itunes just did doesn't mean that i'll switch to it.  in all honesty, to many people using itunes, lossless just means twice the hard drive space being devoured.  it's only when you listen to digital audio on high end (and i mean the ones that are $500/speaker) systems, that you really notice the difference between lossless and lossy.

when you use traditional computer speakers or earbud style headphones you can't detect half of the audio your missing ... and most people are happy with that.  and that is who apple is appealing to.

why do you think napster (and now kazaa) were the big thing awhile ago.  it's cause people wanted the music but didn't care about the quality, or didn't realize any difference.  that's why i cant stand to use file sharing; being an audiophile (with expensive speakers mentioned above), i couldn't stand what i was hearing or what i wasn't.

thanks for the report though, it's always good to know.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #111 –
Quote
i use eac to rip, and flac to encode, and foobar to manage


Why wouldn't you use iTunes to do all this in one fell swoop.  iTunes has error correction like eac, is lossless like FLAC and as music manager Foobar falls terribly short compared to iTunes, IMHO.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #112 –
Quote
iTunes has error correction like eac

not really.

Quote
as music manager Foobar falls terribly short compared to iTunes, IMHO.


You'll get very flamed by the foobar zealots at this forum

Lossless AAC?

Reply #113 –
Quote
Quote
i use eac to rip, and flac to encode, and foobar to manage


Why wouldn't you use iTunes to do all this in one fell swoop.  iTunes has error correction like eac, is lossless like FLAC and as music manager Foobar falls terribly short compared to iTunes, IMHO.

As much as I would like to agree with you, the truth is that iTunes is NOT the equal of EAC when it comes to ripping. Search on this forum and you will find many people are suspicious of iTunes' error correction. While I am not too afraid to use iTunes to rip when the CD is shiny and new, if the CD is scratched I only trust EAC. My latest procedure on a PC is to use EAC to rip to cue/wav, then mount the cue/wav with DaemonTools as a virtual CD, then use iTunes to rip and tag to  Apple Lossless (which can be easily converted to AAC for portable use).

On the Mac the situation is very bad - there is no EAC and the only thing that comes close is cdparanoia (like what CDex uses). Unfortunately I have not been able to been able to get any Mac front-ends for cdparanoia (like Firestarter FX) to work with my CD drive. If anybody has any suggestions for ripping on the Mac I would be grateful!

Lossless AAC?

Reply #114 –
Quote
If anybody has any suggestions for ripping on the Mac I would be grateful!


Try Missing Media Burner 0.6.2 -

http://homepage.mac.com/rnc/

Limited GUI but a great app. It includes cdaa2wav and Paranoia. Works well for me.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #115 –
Quote
Quote
If anybody has any suggestions for ripping on the Mac I would be grateful!


Try Missing Media Burner 0.6.2 -

http://homepage.mac.com/rnc/

Limited GUI but a great app. It includes cdaa2wav and Paranoia. Works well for me.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot!

Lossless AAC?

Reply #116 –
Are the Apple Lossless files ripped with iTunes gapless?

Lossless AAC?

Reply #117 –
Quote
Are the Apple Lossless files ripped with iTunes gapless?

The files themselves are gapless (I.E, if you decode the files, you won't see samples added at the beginning ot the end)

iPod doesn't play them back gaplessly. I don't know about iTunes.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #118 –
It just occured to me; what if Apple offers an iPod dock with spdif and something similar to ASIO or kernel streaming?

That would make the iPod a very high quality audio device...

Quote
You'll get very flamed by the foobar zealots at this forum


I know.  There are still a couple of things you can do with foobar that you can't do with iTunes.  However, IMHO, 99% of everything is more comfortably done within iTunes.

Cheers,

Lossless AAC?

Reply #119 –
Quote
iPod doesn't play them back gaplessly. I don't know about iTunes.

I don't think iTunes will play gapless. It does have a cross-fade feature that is customizable (you can select how many seconds of overlap). Not the same thing as playing back the album exactly like you would hear it on the CD, I know. Just thought I would mention it.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #120 –
Quote
Quote
On another topic.  Any news of a winamp plug-in for apple lossless?



I guess that will only happen if they release sources/specifications, or at least an easy-to-use QuickTime SDK.


By the way, this plug-in works within winamp to play Apple Lossless.

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=157572

Cheers,

Lossless AAC?

Reply #121 –
Quote
Quote
If they differ for exactly one byte at the end of the file it might be that one of them is padded incorrectly (or at least differently), either the WAV file itself or the sections within (can't remember which) has/have to be padded to an even length (insane restriction). So it could be that if you have a mono 8bit source (or a 24bit source) that the padding differs or even simply isn't present.

Hmm... I've only tested on 16/44 sources, and I can't say that only 1 byte differs, but that the first differing byte is at the end (not even sure if its the absolute last byte). I compared PCM too and they differ at the same place, does that restriction also apply?

No, it doesn't, so it's probably something else.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #122 –
With the chance of being flamed a little, I would like to ask some questions as a non-audiophile.

Lossless seems to be really neat if have plenty of space and a kickass sound system hooked up with SPDIF. But I would like to know if it really is something for the regular user to use when ripping their CDs to an iPod?

Other than the fact that lossless AAC is good for burning your favorite mix to a CD without losing quality, should one start ripping their CDs to this format for their iPod or is it a total overkill?

Lossless AAC?

Reply #123 –
Quote
With the chance of being flamed a little, I would like to ask some questions as a non-audiophile.

Lossless seems to be really neat if have plenty of space and a kickass sound system hooked up with SPDIF. But I would like to know if it really is something for the regular user to use when ripping their CDs to an iPod?

Other than the fact that lossless AAC is good for burning your favorite mix to a CD without losing quality, should one start ripping their CDs to this format for their iPod or is it a total overkill?

The major advantage of lossless IMHO is that you can use the current best codec for your portable (AAC for your iPod) but when the next big thing comes out you can easily go to the new format without re-ripping.

Lossless AAC?

Reply #124 –
I use lossless in my desktop and AAC on the iPod.  To keep them separate I created smart playlists for each kind of encoding.