The oldest lossless codec?

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The oldest lossless codec?

2020-05-01 02:33:51

I was just curious, what was the first lossless format used to store music in files? Was it WavPack in 1998? How did it all start? Since I first encountered lossless in mid 2006 (FLAC or APE cannot remember), I had for sure missed the initial wave...

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #1 – 2020-05-01 02:40:36

Shorten is the oldest codec I remember being semi-widely used for consumer music files on PCs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorten_(file_format)

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #2 – 2020-05-01 02:47:43

Wow, 1993... That is way ahead of time.

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #3 – 2020-05-01 17:12:24

Comparison of audio coding formats.

ATRAC - 1991

I remember Shorten and OptimFROG as earliest for me in early 2000s. Didn't realise Shorten was so old.

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #4 – 2020-05-01 17:21:03

Quote from: jaybeee on 2020-05-01 17:12:24

ATRAC - 1991

ATRAC was not a lossless format in 1991, I think it was the late 90's when Sony released a lossless version.

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #5 – 2020-05-01 17:37:53

Quote from: The Irish Man on 2020-05-01 17:21:03

Quote from: jaybeee on 2020-05-01 17:12:24
ATRAC - 1991

ATRAC was not a lossless format in 1991, I think it was the late 90's when Sony released a lossless version.

aahh I did wonder when I looked. I just took the earliest date you see. cheers

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #6 – 2020-07-23 10:26:51

Shorten was the oldest one in circulation for dedicated audio files I've ever seen.
I've seen people sharing PCM audio files packed with Zip or other lossless data compressors earlier though, which *technically* is also "lossless audio compression".

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #7 – 2020-07-23 12:30:52

There are 32 and 64 bit compiles at Rarewares if anyone is interested in playing with it.

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #8 – 2020-07-23 13:32:40

Several good data compressors other than zip included "multimedia" (delta, sound, picture) compression with decent ratio, but I don't know any that came before Shorten.

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #9 – 2020-07-23 16:09:50

Interesting that since Shorten there wasn't any revolutionary change in lossless compression of audio.
http://www.audiograaf.nl/losslesstest/Lossless%20audio%20codec%20comparison%20-%20revision%204.pdf

It's not surprise that now FLAC is pretty standard and as for the rest of newer lossless formats it's pretty "too little too late"

Re: The oldest lossless codec?

Reply #10 – 2020-07-23 19:33:56

Quote from: IgorC on 2020-07-23 16:09:50

Interesting that since Shorten there wasn't any revolutionary change in lossless compression of audio.
http://www.audiograaf.nl/losslesstest/Lossless%20audio%20codec%20comparison%20-%20revision%204.pdf

It's not surprise that now FLAC is pretty standard and as for the rest of newer lossless formats it's pretty "too little too late"

Rice coding is 50 years old at this point, so barring some unlikely fundamental mathematical breakthroughs, all codecs are going to be stuck on the same compression/performance curve.