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Topic: flac compression on Mac OS X (Read 5960 times) previous topic - next topic
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flac compression on Mac OS X

Hi everybody,
I plan to encode my CD collection to flac format on macintosh. I learned that there are three different tools available: MacFLAC, RipBeak and FLACer. So far I had success only with FLACer, but I continue to play around with the other two.
Of course I want to tag the flac files I produce and later I will encode them to mp3 for my ipod. For the latter I'll probably try the lame plugin for iTunes (haven't tried that yet). I am not sure about the best way to tag the audio files (synchronize with cddb?) on the fly.
I would prefer command line tools over GUI.

Anyone out there with experiences of ripping, tagging, encoding CD collections on macintosh? Are there any other tools I don't know about? Any recommendations on how to make the whole process easy and as scriptable as possible (besides changing CDs of course)?

Thanks for sharing.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #1 –
I found abcde, which is exactly what I was looking for (an integrated command-line tool to rip, tag and encode). It works fine for ripping a cd to .wav file, but the conversion to flac doesn't work. When I try to run flac manually: flac track01.wav -o track01.flac I get the following error:

flac 1.1.0, Copyright © 2000,2001,2002,2003 Josh Coalson
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

options: -P 4096 -b 4608 -m -l 8 -q 0 -r 3,3
WARNING: track01.wav is not a WAVE file; treating as a raw file
ERROR: for encoding a raw file you must specify a value for --endian, --sign, --channels, --bps, and --sample-rate
Type "flac" for a usage summary or "flac --help" for all options

But the input file is surely a WAV file. Any help on this? I got the same problems with flac when I tried to convert .aiff files to .flac. It then complains that the .aiff file is not a AIFF file (also not true).

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #2 –
I have just started using CDDA2WAV to rip CDs to wave files on my PowerMac G4. The version of CDDA2WAV from CDRTools Version 2 includes built in support for the paranoia library, which is why I am using it. I compiled it myself, although I believe that it is available in both DarwinPorts and Fink. (If you compile CDRTools yourself, do it on a temporary disk image formated with UFS. The case insensitive nature of HFS+ caused a problem.)

If you use CDDA2WAV, there is a good hint at Mac OS X Hints on what device names  to use. This webpage also includes good information on using CDDA2WAV.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #3 –
Thanks for your hints!
I do not really believe that something was wrong with my wav file (since other programs handled it without problems), but I will nevertheless try if flac gives the same error with a wav file created by cdda2wav.

Do you encode your wav files to flac? Which tool do you use for that?

Thanks again.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #4 –
I haven't yet used Flac with the .wav files generated by CDDA2WAV as I been testing/playing with Lame 3.96. I could give it a try later today if you like.

I do all my encoding with a very simple shell script or by hand.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #5 –
Quote
When I try to run flac manually: flac track01.wav -o track01.flac I get the following error:

flac 1.1.0, Copyright © 2000,2001,2002,2003 Josh Coalson
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

options: -P 4096 -b 4608 -m -l 8 -q 0 -r 3,3
WARNING: track01.wav is not a WAVE file; treating as a raw file
ERROR: for encoding a raw file you must specify a value for --endian, --sign, --channels, --bps, and --sample-rate
Type "flac" for a usage summary or "flac --help" for all options

I got this same warning for .aiff files with Flac but Lame had no problem with them. What I ended up doing was using Lame to convert the .aiff files to .wav files, like this:

~% lame -d track_01.aiff

This command decoded the .aiff file to a .wav file that Flac could understand. Since the resulting files was very close in size to the original .aiff, I am pretty sure that no information was lost.

EDIT: Fixed an error and command example.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #6 –
Best ripper on the mac- cdda2wav (with -paranoia)
Best for FLAC- plain FLAC or its GUIs
Best for LAME- plain LAME or the Blacktree iTunes LAME GUI

Did you try setting the endian-ness, samplerate, bits, etc. manually?

I use cdda2wav myself, but you don't need UFS... the Mac OS X specific readme (but who reads the readmes these days anyway eh?) specifically mentions this and you can simply remove/rename the "INSTALL" file. My only gripe about it is that Jorg's make system defaults to /opt/schilling and you have to set the correct user and group (root, wheel mostly) settings in the rules config file.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #7 –
[EDIT: sorry, didn't see your next posting before posting myself.. please disregard the posting below. Your hint about using lame to convert aiff to wav and then use flac on that wav sounds promising. I will try that as as soon as I get home to my mac tonight.
Thanks!]


Thanks agent, yes I would like to hear how flac works for you.

I get the same error (warning about .wav file not being a WAV file) for all my .wav and .aiff files whenever I try to use flac on them. I tried with /sw/bin/flac (part of the fink distribution) as well as with /usr/bin/flac (was installed by MacFLAC), same result.

But Flacer (another GUI tool, which I don't like but tried for testing purposes) was able to flac the file. So I am wondering if Flacer just uses other options for flac (Flacer is not open source , so I cannot validate that) or if comes with its own built in flac implementation.

What I actually plan to use is abcde (store all my CDs in flac format on an external disc and encode them with lame to mp3 for my ipod), but I desperatly need a working flac command line tool for that. I will probably go download the sources later today and re-compile...

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #8 –
Now, perhaps Apple Lossless would be your best bet

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #9 –
Quote
Now, perhaps Apple Lossless would be your best bet

I agree, Specially considering QuickTime, iTunes and iPod support. FLAC will hardly become so well supported in the MacOS platform.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #10 –
Quote
Now, perhaps Apple Lossless would be your best bet


I am going to give Apple's lossless codec a try, probably while continuing to use CDDA2WAV to use rip the tracks. I will have to wait until I get home to try it out since I did not know about the new release of iTunes/Quicktime until after I arrived at work. It looks promising, although I would like to know more details of the codec.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #11 –
same here. will try apple lossless, but I really don't like the idea of a proprietary apple format when I could get open source, platform independent flac.

here is the thread where they currently try to find out details on the "apple lossless" format:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=21139

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #12 –
i guess i'm joining this late, but how did they manage to choose a codec with WORSE compression than FLAC ???

is there any information on the decision?


...later

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #13 –
Circc,

Just to let you know, Flac has no problem with the wave files generated by CDDA2WAV.

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #14 –
agent69,
thanks for your help. It works for me too now (with cdda2wav).

Now I have to decide if I actually want to continue with flac, or switch to apple lossless...
I like flac because of the platform independence and open source. But that the ipod can directly play apple's lossless is an advantage...

flac compression on Mac OS X

Reply #17 –
Quote
agent69,
since you already helped me last time...

Have you been able to compile id3v2 on Macintosh?
(see http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=21777 )

Would be great if you could help with this one as well....

Circc,

I didn't know about this utility but I downloaded it and the library it  is dependent on. Both compiled with no problem and it works.

I hope this helps you since learning about this tool has helped me!