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Topic: Some WavPack questions. (Read 5975 times) previous topic - next topic
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Some WavPack questions.

I've been doing some searches, but haven't found anything specific so I figured I might as well ask here (hope it's the right place).

My first question is regarding how people feel about transcoding from WavPack lossy (around 384 kbps or so) to other lossy formats (MP3, AAC, etc). I know it's generally accepted as not a good idea to transcode lossy to lossy, but then again I know I've run across posts around here in the past where people have stated they do exactly that with WavPack (trying to find said posts again, since I can't really remember the specifics).

My second question is about tags. Can I use EAC to rip CD's to WavPack with APEv2 tags (ie: with the proper command line like with LAME), or do I have to add them manually afterwards?

Lastly, is there an easy way to transcode WavPack files to other lossy formats without much user intervention, and retain all tags (walk away, come back a few hours later and it's all done)?

Thanks in advance everyone!

Some WavPack questions.

Reply #1 –
You can have wavpack files tagged automatically when ripping with EAC useing a program called wapet.  If you use the search function you should find several topics explaining how to do so.  If you don't feel like searching check HERE..  I'm sure someone else can say more, but thats how I do it.  I think it only works with lossless mode though, and not hybrid.

Some WavPack questions.

Reply #2 –
You can use foobar for transcoding and it will retain tags. There are no transcoding issues to mp3 or vorbis even at 320k according to my tests.
You should be pretty secure at 384k or higher using the -h switch  e.g. -hb384

Some WavPack questions.

Reply #3 –
Quote
Lastly, is there an easy way to transcode WavPack files to other lossy formats without much user intervention, and retain all tags (walk away, come back a few hours later and it's all done)?


Frontah works very good for this.
flac > schiit modi > schiit magni > hd650

Some WavPack questions.

Reply #4 –
Thanks for the replies everyone! After much hunting I finally managed to track down who it was that had most frequently said that WavPack was good for transcoding. And the winner was... shadowking lol! Over the past several weeks your posts must have been creeping around in the back of my brain because yesterday I finally decided to look into it (and thus make this post). 384 kbps with the -h switch looks very promising. I've been using LAME -aps (and more recently -ape) for everything up until now, but I've been wanting to consider a better option for possible transcoding in the future (without having to go completely lossless), as well as gapless playback options. For the latter it's look like Foobar is the perfect solution, even with all my current mp3 files. I've resisted Foobar until now simply because I've been using Winamp for so many years and didn't want to have to learn the quirks of yet another program. Now I'm seeing what a mistake that has been!

Some WavPack questions.

Reply #5 –
Wavpack 4.0 is really very interesting , specially its hyprid mode!


But now, how can i see in future times - supposed where is no (more) *.wvc file around - if a *.wv file is fully lossless or only the lossy part?
I guess there is way to solve this by setting the md5 check sum. But i always have to decode the *.wv file first to to be able to compare the resulting md5 sum...

Winamp shows exactly the information (pressing alt+3) i'm looking for:
Source: 16bit ints at 44100Hz
Channels: 2 (stereo)
Compression: hybrid lossy (or lossless)
Average bitrate: 457 kbps
Overall ratio: 3.09 to 1

Well, it's not very handy to open every *.wv file in Winamp. It would be great to have a separate option in wvunpack or any simple command line program to check a couple of files at once like: wvtest.exe *.wv
Or is there an easier way to solve the matter above? - Thanks!

Some WavPack questions.

Reply #6 –
Quote
Well, it's not very handy to open every *.wv file in Winamp. It would be great to have a separate option in wvunpack or any simple command line program to check a couple of files at once like: wvtest.exe *.wv
Or is there an easier way to solve the matter above? - Thanks!
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=236433"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Sorry, I missed this last post!

Well, for right now you could do a wvunpack -v *.wv, which will indicate whether each file is lossy or lossless. Although this will have to go through the entire file, there are no really slow WavPack decode modes like some other compressors, so it's not that bad.

I have thought about having a "summary" mode for wvunpack for this kind of information (including creation modes, sample rate, channels, md5, version, etc). Perhaps I can squeeze this into the next release.
 

Some WavPack questions.

Reply #7 –
Hey, thanks for that fast answer! - So i'm looking forward for next release. Nethertheless i'm already happy with 4.0.

The idea behind was: I have an external backup harddisk (that is generally to small ). For this the hybrid mode fits perfect. Till now i had to transcode some of my Flac files to Ogg but now it seems much more comfortable to skip some *.wvc files when the space runs low again.