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Topic: loss of quality when transcoding between lossless? (Read 5445 times) previous topic - next topic
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loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Is this true or false?

"1st off, I am going from *.ape or *.flac to *.wav to *.m4a (Apple Lossless). There is NO loss of quality."

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #1 –
true, no loss hence lossless

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #2 –
I would just add that if you go to WMA lossless instead of WAV, you can preserve your tags all the way through to the final Apple lossless.
flac > schiit modi > schiit magni > hd650

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #3 –
Surely there must be some loss of quality when transcoding between lossless formats.  Wouldn't certain codecs add artifacts maybe?

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #4 –
Quote
Surely there must be some loss of quality when transcoding between lossless formats.  Wouldn't certain codecs add artifacts maybe?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=266523"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

No, because as the name says, they are lossless.
Microsoft Windows: We can't script here, this is bat country.

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #5 –
Quote
Surely there must be some loss of quality when transcoding between lossless formats.  Wouldn't certain codecs add artifacts maybe?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=266523"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


They don't, hence the name lossless 

The only thing that can possibly happen is that some null samples are (p)added to a file, for structural alignment reasons. I forgot which formats do this though, probaly AIFF...  but at 44 KHz that's 1 millisecond or so

Edit: heh beaten by Peter. I am honoured.

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #6 –
Quote
Surely there must be some loss of quality when transcoding between lossless formats.  Wouldn't certain codecs add artifacts maybe?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=266523"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


It is just as converting between .zip -> .rar -> .sit -> .tar etc.. The file is bit-by-bit identical once you unwrap it.

Since it just compress the data, the audio stays the same.

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #7 –
Quote
I would just add that if you go to WMA lossless instead of WAV, you can preserve your tags all the way through to the final Apple lossless.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=266456"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
That depends what OS he is using!
MS Windows >>  Yes
Mac OS X >> No

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #8 –
Quote
Surely there must be some loss of quality when transcoding between lossless formats.  Wouldn't certain codecs add artifacts maybe?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=266523"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

You're thoroughly wrong here.
The only thing I can imagine is the difficulty to decode a special format when playing. Maybe one codec is much more compressed than another (maybe ape insane and wav, wav is a lossless codec in my terminology), it will then be more difficult to decode, hence could cause too much load for the processor and lead to errors, while the uncompressed format does not. This could result in audible differences.
But wav->losslessly compressed->wav will always be bit-identical (no measurable difference), if no special error occurred.
Your claim is true for lossy codecs, you have to distinguish between them.
I know that I know nothing. But how can I then know that ?

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #9 –
Quote
You're thoroughly wrong here.
The only thing I can imagine is the difficulty to decode a special format when playing. Maybe one codec is much more compressed than another (maybe ape insane and wav, wav is a lossless codec in my terminology), it will then be more difficult to decode, hence could cause too much load for the processor and lead to errors, while the uncompressed format does not. This could result in audible differences.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=266544"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

To not be missunderstood by non-tech people, you forgot to add that this increased load can only affect bad hardware like under estimated processor heat sink/fan. This way the heavy load lead to heat increase that lead to "hardware" fail due termal inefficience.

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #10 –
What do people think is the best way to transcode between lossless formats?

Would it be to decode to wav and then re-encode to the lossless format of choice (or does this happen anyway?)

or

going from say FLAC to Wavpack is just as it sounds - select the FLACs and convert (if using Foobar say) to Wavpack? 

Will the tags be keep in these scenarios? Does it depend on the format of the lossless files as to whether the tags are keep or not?

Thanks

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #11 –
foobar2000 will keep the tags between just about any two formats that support tagging provided that your encoder preset is set to tag.  Going from FLAC to WavPack in foobar2000 will preserve all your tags
Nero AAC 1.5.1.0: -q0.45

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #12 –
I did try this last night with Foobar, and transcoding between lossless is indeed lossless, and results in bit-identical files.  Apologies for asking a silly question - I couldn't test it out at work, but couldn't wait for the answer... next time I'll wait 

Quote
foobar2000 will keep the tags between just about any two formats that support tagging provided that your encoder preset is set to tag.  Going from FLAC to WavPack in foobar2000 will preserve all your tags
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I did notice that when transcoding from FLAC to Wavpack that Foobar didn't show any tags the otherway round was fine), but [a href="http://www.mp3tag.de/en/]Mp3Tag[/url] does show them.  Is that just a setting I need to amend in Foobar?  So, it seems to have preserved them, but why didn't Foobar show them?

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #13 –
I haven't had that problem.  My tags from a FLAC to WavPack conversion are still visible in foobar2000.  As long as the WavPack files have APEv2 tags I would think foobar2000 could read them; then again I could be wrong.
Nero AAC 1.5.1.0: -q0.45

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #14 –
"true, no loss hence lossless" 
 
I agree. 
So much that one doesn't break the chain of the lossless, the lossless=lossless. 
But as soon as one records on a CD one of the Lossless files for to be converted in lossless format: Lossless = lossless or not?
 

loss of quality when transcoding between lossless?

Reply #15 –
Lossless as long as it was in a 44.1khz 16 bit lossless file format before burning to a cd.