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Topic: Native FLAC support in Windows 10? (Read 37898 times) previous topic - next topic
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Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #25 –
It's good they do it just for for the hope it becomes a standard, who cares about WMP. "Oh wow, can't wait to stop using [insert player here] to start using WMP" said no one ever.

WMP and IE are the first two software I remove after I format.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #26 –
Just make all your media files Read Only. WMP can't touch them.
EZ CD Audio Converter

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #27 –
Quote from: eahm on
... who cares about WMP... WMP and IE are the first two software I remove after I format.

I care about WMP and IE. I get along with both very well (they do what I need them to do, they don't corrupt anything since I follow soundping's advice, and they are updated through Windows Update automatically), and if WMP starts playing FLAC and MKV from next year on, I might actually start to like it.

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #28 –
I don't really get all this hype around FLAC support in Windows 10.

Users who really needed FLAC in WMP already have it's support thanks to codecs & filters sets. Others who earlier preferred mp3/aac/etc. won't even notice any changes.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #29 –
That is the same as saying: why is it such a big deal that Android plays FLAC, you can downloads apps to do that.

Out-of-the-box support is important for streaming services and on-line download stores. It's just ticking a box really. You can't ignore the difference between first-party and third-party support.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #30 –
I don't recall where but I heard that Windows 10 will be the first common platform for desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Having native support on a smartphone or a tablet might be quite useful (no need to download 3rd party media players).

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #31 –
It's still going to be a half-assed support though, I fear. For flac, they will probably not support embedded cuesheets. For mkv, probably no ordered chapters. Feel free to prove me wrong though, Microsoft.

Speaking of unified platforms, windows phone still can't play any form of lossless format except for WMAL afaik. Adding support for FLAC is a great thing. And tbh I don't know of any decent FLAC capable players on the winRT platform. Maybe something has popped up since I last looked at WP though.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #32 –
I just wanted to confirm: FLAC is indeed supported right out-of-the-box with the latest preview of Windows 10 (build 9926). Support means in this case playback and reading tags work.

- FLAC plays in Windows Media Player without any modification to the system, right out of the box
- FLAC tags are read, writing them doesn't work yet
- [edit] For some reason, it displays the bitrate as 1411kbps, instead of the actual rate
- FLAC tags are displayed in the File Explorer as well
- Embedded album art does not seem to work (it isn't displayed by WMP with the default settings)
- Cuesheets don't seem to work (but I'm not surprised by that, my favourite player, Amarok, still doesn't handle them either)
- No support for ripping to FLAC

Some screenshots

FLAC is recognized as 'FLAC audio'
[/b]


When in the 'Music' directory tree, tags are displayed in File Explorer


When in the library, WMP shows the tags
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #34 –
Quote from: ktf on
I just wanted to confirm: FLAC is indeed supported right out-of-the-box with the latest preview of Windows 10 (build 9926). Support means in this case playback and reading tags work.

- FLAC plays in Windows Media Player without any modification to the system, right out of the box
- FLAC tags are read, writing them doesn't work yet
- [edit] For some reason, it displays the bitrate as 1411kbps, instead of the actual rate
- FLAC tags are displayed in the File Explorer as well
- Embedded album art does not seem to work (it isn't displayed by WMP with the default settings)
- Cuesheets don't seem to work (but I'm not surprised by that, my favourite player, Amarok, still doesn't handle them either)
- No support for ripping to FLAC

Interesting, thanks!

I am currently diving into the mess that is FLAC tagging and was wondering if you could tell me the following about MS' reading of FLAC tags.

Does it read the standard DATE tag?
Does it read the non-standard YEAR tag?
What tag does it read for total number of tracks on the album, if any?
What tag does it read for disc number, if any?
What tag does it read for total number of discs, if any?
Does it read ALBUMARTIST?
Does it read COMPOSER?
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #35 –
This is a Most Excellent development; the more formats supported out-of-the-box, the better. I think if you asked most anyone five years ago, this would never happen while WMA was still limping along...

Congratulations to Josh, Erik and the fine people at Xiph!

Now if only we could get native support for my old MPC rips 

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #36 –
- The column Album artist is fed from the ALBUMARTIST tag if it is available, otherwise it is taken from the ARTIST tag
- Disc numbers are not recognized
- I don't know about total number of tracks and discs, is there any de facto standard for this?
- It does not recognize the YEAR and COMPOSER tag, despite looking for those
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
- No UTF-8 support apparently


The following screenshot is from a multi-artist mix CD. Every track is from a different artist, but as Tiësto mixed them, he is considered the album artist. Still, viewing the individual track details, no artist shows up.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #37 –
Quote from: ktf on
- I don't know about total number of tracks and discs, is there any de facto standard for this?


I've seen both TOTALTRACKS and TRACKCOUNT, with the former being a little more common in my experience. PowerShellAudio writes TOTALTRACKS. Not sure about discs.


I sure hope they add UTF-8 support, since it's not really optional.
 

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #38 –
foobar2000 has the following setting:
Code: [Select]
Vorbis & FLAC Metadata writing mode:
    More compatible with various software - ALBUMARTIST, TRACKTOTAL, DISCTOTAL
    Compatible with old foobar2000 versions - ALBUM ARTIST, TOTALTRACKS, TOTALDISCS



About Unicode: IIRC tags in mp4/m4a files are stored in UTF-8, so there should be no problems with FLAC tags.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #39 –
Quote from: ktf on
- Disc numbers are not recognized
- I don't know about total number of tracks and discs, is there any de facto standard for this?
There is no standard for any of these yet, unfortunately. Only de-facto standards because a few big players use the same, see lvqcl's Foobar example. It's likely that whatever MS would choose for this would be the new standard within two years.

Quote
- It does not recognize the YEAR and COMPOSER tag, despite looking for those
Good, nobody should be using the YEAR tag. COMPOSER could always be added later.

Quote
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
Are you sure? I do see the year 2005 in one of your screenshots which I'd expect to come from the DATE tag.

Quote
- No UTF-8 support apparently
Why do you think that? Surely most FLAC files use UTF8 tags so I'd expect the metadata in your screenshots to come from UTF8 tags.
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #40 –
Quote from: Maurits on
Why do you think that?

Because of "Tiësto" instead of "Tiësto"? ...But again, it's only a preview version of Win10.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #41 –
Quote from: lvqcl on
Quote from: Maurits on
Why do you think that?

Because of "Tiësto" instead of "Tiësto"? ...But again, it's only a preview version of Win10.

Good spot. That is indeed interesting. But as you say, quite a few things will still be fixed before final.
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead
 

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #42 –
Quote from: Maurits on
Quote
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
Are you sure? I do see the year 2005 in one of your screenshots which I'd expect to come from the DATE tag.

It came from the same place the albumart came from: I clicked 'get album info' or something similar, which fetched data from the internet. All other albums have Unknown Year.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #43 –
Are there filed reports in the Windows Insider program for these problems?

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #44 –
I don't know, where could I find/file them?
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #45 –
I think all bug reports are mashed together with the suggestions - in the feedback app.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #47 –
Quote from: ktf on
Quote from: Maurits on
Quote
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
Are you sure? I do see the year 2005 in one of your screenshots which I'd expect to come from the DATE tag.

It came from the same place the albumart came from: I clicked 'get album info' or something similar, which fetched data from the internet. All other albums have Unknown Year.

Hhmm... you'd hope that they at least implement the minimal standard tags before they go final otherwise we'd have massive incompatibilities on our hands. And FLAC tagging is a mess as it is, having the world's most used OS create yet another flavour would be a nightmare.
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #48 –
Reading the comments here made me cringe. A lot.

Native FLAC support in Windows 10?

Reply #49 –
from those comments :

Quote
No, if you play FLAC and it remuxes into PCM it doesn't matter how much bitrate you have, you're aren't listening to lossless. You can't just install an app and it 'plays' lossless, you need to know if the OS allows for bitstreaming, Windows is notorious for not bitstreaming.

For the same reasons people who play FLACs on Android are just wasting their time and storage. Sony has a 'Hi-res' USB audio out function, specifically because Android can't bitstream lossless.


so , FLAC  is not lossless unless it's decoded outside of Windows.