Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Flac seeking problems (Read 11757 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Flac seeking problems

Reply #25 –
Quote
Someone correct me if I'm wrong or missed one of MA's notable strengths somewhere.  I just don't understand why MA is still even viable as an option with FLAC on the table, but I'm no expert so maybe I'm missing something.


MA supports embedded cuesheets with PERFORMER and TITLE information.

Flac seeking problems

Reply #26 –
I wasn't questioning your point, just kind of amazed at the fact.  Maybe MA is attractive to all the PETA and animal lovers on HA.

As for using FLAC on a portable you are entirely right; with current HD densities and FLAC file sizes it isn't really practicaly to use a lossless codec on a DAP.  I actually was originally attracted to the Rio Karma because I thought I would use AFLAC on it.  However, after finding I could only fit 40 or so albums on a 20gb drive I switched to OGG for use on the portable (at 192kbps I can fit just about my whole collection on the Karma).

That said, I CAN easily see a day in the future when DAP drive densities will increase to the point where carrying lossless music around will be completely practical.  At the current rate I would guess we'll see the first 100gb mini-drive inside of 2-3 years or so, and then you have the MASSIVE storage options we'll see when all the holographic media research begins to pay off (figure 5-10 years).

So down the road having a lossless archive will leave you well situated to take advantage of evolving tech.  That said, I do still have a current use for FLAC as the "core" of my music system.  I keep a full FLAC archive stored on a network drive for use on all my home devices, including my computer, my stereo, etc.

To the future, HAZAH!

-rt

Flac seeking problems

Reply #27 –
Quote
MA supports embedded cuesheets with PERFORMER and TITLE information.


Is that as opposed to external CUE sheets which I'm assuming (have no idea) you need to use with FLAC?  Don't all CUE sheets have the ability to include the normal ID data for the album or files?

Seems like a gross oversight if not, and even Performer/Title seems kinda limited (year?  genre?).  I mean if you can't include normal ID data for the albums I can't imagine I would ever elect to go with a single file over separates.  Doesn't that really suck when playing back the albums in something like Winamp?

-rt

Flac seeking problems

Reply #28 –
Quote
Quote
MA supports embedded cuesheets with PERFORMER and TITLE information.


Is that as opposed to external CUE sheets which I'm assuming (have no idea) you need to use with FLAC?  Don't all CUE sheets have the ability to include the normal ID data for the album or files?

Seems like a gross oversight if not, and even Performer/Title seems kinda limited (year?  genre?).  I mean if you can't include normal ID data for the albums I can't imagine I would ever elect to go with a single file over separates.  Doesn't that really suck when playing back the albums in something like Winamp?

-rt

Yes, that's as opposed to external cuesheets. I'm just going to refer you to the FLAC FAQ for more information.

I like to have a single FLAC file for archival purposes. It plays back perfectly in foobar2000 (my preferred player). I don't know about Winamp and others.

Flac seeking problems

Reply #29 –
Quote
Several people around here have experienced bugy seeking with flac when playing cue sheet single file rips.  MOst changed to Monkey's audio, which is also free.  The other alternative is to rip to separate files.  I keep asking why anyone would want to compress an entire album to a single file, as opposed to separate files plus a cue sheet, but have not been able to make sense of the answers.

Hi Eagleray,

Your comment is interesting. I thought I did not experience the bug probably because I rarely seek, but perhaps because I store every track in a different file.

I also would like to thank for Josh for the clarification. I still surprised that Audio_Spyder did not have problems when he encoded several problematic samples in Linux, but in a way you explained that the FLAC file format have some flexibility in the format (floating point representation) so I take it that the variant used in Linux just happens not to exhibit this problem.

A bit of digression

I am in Eagleray camp full-heartedly. This one file per disk seems to be totally unnecessary and considering the difficulties with it I do not get what people wish to achieve. I have every file as a separate track without removing the gaps (gaps appended at the end of the track) and I also save the CUE sheet although I know that apart from the totally useless INDEX00 info I could resurrect the CD correctly even without CUE sheet.

Finally I did very careful consideration when I chose FLAC and the little bit of bigger filesize does not bother me. Robustness, free open SW, and the principles such as it remains pure lossless and free from DRM and thorough testbed for regression testing and fast decoding is what is important. Good work, Josh. Just please keep it pure as it is.

Flac seeking problems

Reply #30 –
Quote
Quote
Someone correct me if I'm wrong or missed one of MA's notable strengths somewhere.  I just don't understand why MA is still even viable as an option with FLAC on the table, but I'm no expert so maybe I'm missing something.


MA supports embedded cuesheets with PERFORMER and TITLE information.

I don't think MA supports that, it's a feature of the fb2k plugin isn't it?  the same thing could be done with FLAC.

Josh

Flac seeking problems

Reply #31 –
True...it is a fb2k feature. But FLAC won't let me store a cuesheet with that information so what tag would fb2k read?

Flac seeking problems

Reply #32 –
FLAC doesn't prevent it.  tags are only one type of metadata in FLAC.  cuesheet is another, and that doesn't store title/artist/etc.  but you could put the cuesheet in the tags the same way they are put in MA tags.

Josh

Flac seeking problems

Reply #33 –
Quote
A bit of digression
I am in Eagleray camp full-heartedly. This one file per disk seems to be totally unnecessary and considering the difficulties with it I do not get what people wish to achieve. I have every file as a separate track without removing the gaps (gaps appended at the end of the track) and I also save the CUE sheet although I know that apart from the totally useless INDEX00 info I could resurrect the CD correctly even without CUE sheet.

It may be difficult with the native FLAC framing, but it certainly istn when Ogg or MKA are used as containers. Personally i dont have any use for single songs, as i will always listen to a complete album ( maybe because of my preferred music styles, Jazz and Classic ) and for me the one file = one album solution is clearly the way to go.
Please leave this decision to each user, and avoid to generalize based on your personal preferences ....
 

Flac seeking problems

Reply #34 –
Quote
Quote
A bit of digression
I am in Eagleray camp full-heartedly. This one file per disk seems to be totally unnecessary and considering the difficulties with it I do not get what people wish to achieve. I have every file as a separate track without removing the gaps (gaps appended at the end of the track) and I also save the CUE sheet although I know that apart from the totally useless INDEX00 info I could resurrect the CD correctly even without CUE sheet.

It may be difficult with the native FLAC framing, but it certainly istn when Ogg or MKA are used as containers. Personally i dont have any use for single songs, as i will always listen to a complete album ( maybe because of my preferred music styles, Jazz and Classic ) and for me the one file = one album solution is clearly the way to go.
Please leave this decision to each user, and avoid to generalize based on your personal preferences ....

ChristianHJW,

I always listen to complete albums and almost never individual tracks. I have no compilations as of today not even in a playlist form. Yet I use separate file for each track. Personally I do not want to bother with Ogg or MKA container. Rather I would like  to keep it simple stupid (KISS) in FLAC. With my comment I try to help. Ogg and MKA might be nice, but it has more limited support than plain FLAC and I am convinced that a large number of newbies who constantly bombard HA with the same question would benefit if somebody would tell them that one file per album has no advantages, but it has disadvantages. Even you failed to name one (real) advantage.

Triza