HydrogenAudio

Lossless Audio Compression => FLAC => Topic started by: D2X2903 on 2003-12-26 02:00:04

Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: D2X2903 on 2003-12-26 02:00:04
I've got 20GB to fill, so I figure I'll use lossless audio.  The Karma supports MP3, WMA, Ogg, and FLAC afaik.  Will reading such large files require more HDD activity than say Ogg/MP3?  I figure that equates to shorter battery life.  Is FLAC meant primarily for compressing audio for decompression at a later date to the pure WAV file?  I'm torn between Ogg and FLAC, so your opinions are welcomed.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: atici on 2003-12-26 02:11:44
20GB will be quite easy to fill with lossless. It'll take about 60 albums. Use Ogg Vorbis or MP3, because there're other limitations with portable players imposed by the hardware quality (DAC, headphones, ...) which come into effect sooner than lossy algorithms do. A portable is not about extreme quality or achiving, it's about convenience. I have a 200GB drive dedicated for music storage and I think it's too small for lossless music.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: D2X2903 on 2003-12-26 02:42:51
Thanks for the input.  I had begun to convert WAVs to FLAC, then I figured I should probably use a smaller format for the sake of future use, so I came here. 
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: treech on 2003-12-26 03:17:44
I got my karma 2 days ago, so i haven't tryed everythingout just yet, but i can tell you this much...

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Will reading such large files require more HDD activity than say Ogg/MP3? I figure that equates to shorter battery life.


Indeed, it will shorten your battery life, both flac & ogg "punish" the karma more

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I'm torn between Ogg and FLAC

well, flac is cleary overkill for me, i'm going the very low bitrate lane with ogg...

Want to save battery life life/have it on longer?
your best bet is mp3 then, but then again the difference isen't HUGE, or so i'veread..

checkout http://www.riovolution.com (http://www.riovolution.com) for more info  (the forums are nice)
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: deej_1977 on 2003-12-26 11:49:33
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I have a 200GB drive dedicated for music storage and I think it's too small for lossless music.

Really? What size are you targetting then for such a dedicated drive? I was thinking about doing the same thing: archiving my collection lossless and coding to MP3, AAC, OGG, future formats... when I would need it.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: kl33per on 2003-12-26 14:32:35
I just got an MP3 CD Player for my car, not quite the same, but similar listenting conditions (i.e. potential background noise, lack of real attention to the music, etc.).  I'm converting FLAC files to MP3 at --alt-preset medium as it seemed about the right tradeoff between quality and filesize.  That's about 5000 songs on your 20gb hard drive.

Edit: You could also consider Vorbis at ~Q5 (although I'm not really sure on average Vorbis bitrates)
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: D2X2903 on 2003-12-26 15:46:38
A file in Ogg at 180kpbs theoretically should sound better than an mp3 at 180kbps, right?
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: DonP on 2003-12-26 16:15:04
The flac it a little odd.  To me the best reason for flac on a portable is recording for later transcription to CD or archival storage... but the Karma doesn't record.  Perhaps they (the rio empeg group) already had the code done for one of their older products with a similar processor.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: deej_1977 on 2003-12-26 16:34:29
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A file in Ogg at 180kpbs theoretically should sound better than an mp3 at 180kbps, right?

Theoretically yes, however I doubt if you will be able to tell the difference between both (unless you have very good equipment and ears).
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: blessingx on 2003-12-26 18:03:39
Are you only using the Karma portably, or are you using the dock (with line out) in a quieter place?
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: D2X2903 on 2003-12-26 19:56:00
I am using it portably.  I use Winamp when I am at my PC.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: saratoga on 2003-12-26 20:50:36
Archieve to flac, transcode to ~100-130kbps ogg for portable use using foobar.  Best of both worlds IMO.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: D2X2903 on 2003-12-26 21:18:11
Ok, can I get some opinions on bitrate for Ogg for a portable?  I had been doing 256, but here I have seen people recommend from as low as 100 to 224.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: de Mon on 2003-12-26 22:07:34
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Ok, can I get some opinions on bitrate for Ogg for a portable?  I had been doing 256, but here I have seen people recommend from as low as 100 to 224.

Vorbis Ogg is developed to be VBR codec. So use -q values. LAME APS for Ogg Vorbis lays somewhere between GT3b1 q5.0-q5.5. But it sounds very good with ver. 1.0.1 at q3. You can use GT3b1 q5.0-5,5 for archiving and ver. 1.0.1 q2-4 for  portable use (find out q value for portable by yourself) and never use CBR with Ogg Vorbis.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: indybrett on 2003-12-27 05:10:13
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I have a 200GB drive dedicated for music storage and I think it's too small for lossless music.

Agreed. Too small for lossless if you have a medium size collection. That's about 500-600 CD's. I need more than that. On the other hand, if you don't intend to have your entire collection online, then it might be more than enough.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: dewey1973 on 2003-12-29 17:27:47
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20GB will be quite easy to fill with lossless. It'll take about 60 albums. Use Ogg Vorbis or MP3, because there're other limitations with portable players imposed by the hardware quality (DAC, headphones, ...) which come into effect sooner than lossy algorithms do. A portable is not about extreme quality or achiving, it's about convenience. I have a 200GB drive dedicated for music storage and I think it's too small for lossless music.

My CD collection is now well over 500 albums.  However, I don't need all 500 with me all the time.  I think 60 albums is pleanty to keep me happy, especially with the peace of mind of lossless sound.  I plan on buying the Karma and using flac for this reason.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: Joseph on 2003-12-29 18:31:40
I noticed on the Rio website in the firmware section for the Rio Karma.  V1.25 says

-Incorporated the latest WMA decoder from Microsoft

Does the Rio Karma play Lossless & WMA Professional files?
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: m1abrams on 2003-12-30 16:54:53
I recently ripped my entire collection to FLAC.  It is only about 150CDs.  I did it mostly for archival purposes, however I now have a Squeezebox and get to use the FLAC with it.

However I do have a Nomad, so I need mp3 format for it.  So instead of reripping everything, or manually using some GUI program to transcode all my music and transfer the metadata, I wrote a perl script to convert my FLAC to mp3 using flac decoder and lame.  It works rather well and it takes about 2 days to transcode all my music ~2000 titles on an Athlon 900 with 512MB RAM.

This give me the best of both worlds, FLAC for lossless and MP3 for portablility.  Cool thing with a lossless format I can easilly modifiy my script to work with any encoding format I like.

If you would like a copy of my script I will share.
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: Joseph on 2004-01-05 05:31:06
I asked the same Question to customer support at RioAudio:

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Dear Joseph,

   Thank you for contacting Rio.  Yes, the Karma should play all types of WMA files.  If you have any further questions or need assistance please feel free to email again or call our customer service at 1-800-468-5846.

Regards-

Aaron K
Rio Email Support
customersupport@rioaudio.com


Can anyone confirm that the Rio Karma with play WMA9 Pro and Lossless files?  is this the first Hardware support for WM9 Pro and Lossless?
Title: Is FLAC what I want?
Post by: pdh11 on 2004-01-12 21:07:05
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Can anyone confirm that the Rio Karma with play WMA9 Pro and Lossless files?  is this the first Hardware support for WM9 Pro and Lossless?

Karma doesn't play WMA Pro or WMA Lossless. It's the first portable to support a lossless codec, but that codec is FLAC.

Peter