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Topic: Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons (Read 2214 times) previous topic - next topic
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Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons

Low end systems:

2006 player, 2GB flash, HQ 190k lossy

album average = 70mb

(70/1024mb/2gb) = 0.034 %


2021 player, 16gb flash, lossless cd audio

album average = 350mb

(350/1024mb/16gb) = 0.021 %

Higher end systems:

2006 player, 20GB HDD, HQ 190k lossy

album average = 70mb

(70/1024mb/20gb) = 0.0034 %


2021 player, 200GB flash, lossless cd audio

album average = 350mb

(350/1024mb/200gb) = 0.0017 %

Re: Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons

Reply #1 –
This is all well and good, but I think that most people's collection also grew between 2006 and 2021.

If I remember correctly, in 2006 my collection in 112kbps Vorbis fitted nicely on a 2GB SD card, which was the maximum size my device accepted (no SDHC yet). Today, my FLAC collection takes up 131GB, just a tad too much for a 128GB card. So, while moving to FLAC only increased the size by a factor of 7, my collection grew in total size by a factor of 56.

For me the only reason I would want the audio files on my mobile device to be lossless is to have 'just' another backup around.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Re: Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons

Reply #2 –
Quote from: ktf on
For me the only reason I would want the audio files on my mobile device to be lossless is to have 'just' another backup around.

back in ye ol' days, one reason to use flac vs mp3 on a sansa was battery life with rockbox. I remember that one update where flac decoder was updated to be very low on cpu, and you could stretch the sansa to 25 hours of battery, vs mp3 15-17 hours

Re: Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons

Reply #3 –
Yeah, https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CodecPerformanceComparison illustrates how FLAC was optimized for decoding efficiency.

Like, iPod Nano: FLAC decoding three to four times as fast as MP3 (... and Apple Lossless).
And a three-minute song of Monkey's Insane would decode in less than two hours, yay!

Re: Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons

Reply #4 –
Before, people were OK with carrying around a subset of their collection when going portable. Even mix CDs (or Tapes) were a thing. Now people want everything they own at their fingertips.

I speak for myself, but I vary my favorite genres with time, sometimes I don't want to listen to a specific album in a long time, and after some rest, I might go back to it.

Re: Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Yeah, https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CodecPerformanceComparison illustrates how FLAC was optimized for decoding efficiency.

Like, iPod Nano: FLAC decoding three to four times as fast as MP3 (... and Apple Lossless).
And a three-minute song of Monkey's Insane would decode in less than two hours, yay!

Even more impressive, take a look at my numbers here for FLAC:  https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=82125.msg713417#msg713417

7 MHz for real-time decode stereo at 44.1 KHz.  That is just 80 clock cycles per output sample.  That is so few operations you could actually sit down and start calculating FLAC sample values on pen and paper in a reasonable time frame, 

Re: Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons

Reply #6 –
Just awesome. There are some of the tests at that Rockbox link that see the "7" as well. (And FLAC -2 and -0 could even be faster.)

Does anyone feel like leaving a modern cell phone to play music long enough to drain out battery, and report differences? Might spoil the fun though :-o
 

Re: Lossless audio - we have space on todays portables. Comparisons

Reply #7 –
I think the few MHz on a several GHz processor is rounding error and you wouldn't be able to measure the difference between formats except for really slow ones like APE.  On lower power devices like Rockbox runs on, it does make a larger difference.