Lossless Audio Format?
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Topic URL: http://www.neurosaudio.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2212
Printed on: 03/24/2006
Topic:
Topic author: Paul Shinn(Lossless Compression Guy)
Subject: Lossless Audio Format? I was wondering when will we get Lossless audio formats?
Replies:
Posted on: 12/30/2003 09:33:16 AM
Message:
flac.sourceforge.net
www.monkeysaudio.com
both of these are Open Source Software!!!!!!!
the R*O Ka*MA 20GB uses FLAC.....
what about us?
Reply author: Don
Replied on: 12/30/2003 09:54:21 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Paul Shinn(Lossless Compression Guy)
the R*O Ka*MA 20GB uses FLAC.....
I kinda wonder about flac on the Karma... to me the reason to have flac on a portable is so you can record things to it which you later want to edit, burn, etc. But the Karma doesn't record. For just playing back a high rate lossy should sound as good and use less battery and disk space.
One case I can think of is that you could have a hearing defect that renders the models used in lossy encoding invalid.. so you can't hear the high volume sound at one frequency that is supposed to mask the quiet sound at a different frequency.
-Don
Reply author: Paul Shinn(Lossless Compression Guy)
Replied on: 12/30/2003 10:10:06 AM
Message:
ok forget the karma
I collect music is FLAC format and it would be easier to just sync than to convert then sync?
agree?
Reply author: Don
Replied on: 12/30/2003 11:40:28 AM
Message:
It would be less operations, but more transfer time per album and
less albums held on the player.
2 good solutions for me would be a) Xiph gets peeling working for ogg
(so you can translate high rate file quickly to low rate files with no extra quality loss), or b) mpc playing as that format is very fast to transcode from flac and is relatively high quality for it's range of 128 kb/s and up.
-Don
Reply author: Paul Shinn(Lossless Compression Guy)
Replied on: 12/30/2003 11:56:32 AM
Message:
all well and good but there are 1000's of people with flac files
running around
just check http://www.etree.org
and Neuros would be adding a new market
I can hold anywhere from 15-30 live shows of Groups with 20GB
thats hours and hours of music
music that has never been destroyed by mp3 format!
people who are audio traders don't do the dirty(use mp3's for live shows)
I agree ogg is good but having FLAC as well as.. would be better!!!
for us few thousand folks!
Miles of Smiles
-Paul
Reply author: Don
Replied on: 12/30/2003 3:56:39 PM
Message:
I agree totally that lossless is better for live recording & distribution. Thus it would be a GREAT feature for Neuros.
There are a couple of local bands (Phish and Jazz Mandolin Project) that allow taping and I would do it to wav if flac isn't available.
I still don't think I would keep anything on the Neuros in Flac format past the next synch after I recorded it.
-Don
Reply author: Paul Shinn(Lossless Compression Guy)
Replied on: 12/30/2003 4:19:53 PM
Message:
you got me!!!
but still I am pro FLAC hope someone develops it!!
Reply author: Yono
Replied on: 12/31/2003 3:22:53 PM
Message:
Phish is local to you! That's awesome. Anyway, yeah flac would be a great idea just not one nessesary at this time.
[img]http://www.danasoft.com/sig/neurosaudios.jpg[/img]
Reply author: Cool4u2view
Replied on: 12/31/2003 6:33:17 PM
Message:
For lossless (and no compression) the Neuros supports WAV, hopefully in the future there will be FLAC support though.
-Jeff
Reply author: rocketman768
Replied on: 01/01/2004 6:50:21 PM
Message:
In other words, let the firmware go open source and lossless junkies who are ALSO programming junkies will jump on it.
Reply author: webkid
Replied on: 02/19/2004 1:43:53 PM
Message:
Lossless programming junkies are a rare breed.
However, I want to bump this thread, as I still want to have lossless playback on my device, too. And it may be a long, long while before the firmware is opened up.
(Edit: Before somebody catches me on it, lossless compressed playback. )
Reply author: chad(at)gambit.net
Replied on: 05/29/2004 01:00:53 AM
Message:
Another bump, as I've decided since I have to re-rip everything anyway, I might as well use FLAC instead of OGG.
On a side note, anyone have a suggestion for a ripping program that's FLAC compatible for someone who doesn't want to give up CDex? (If he added FLAC support and compressed file to compressed file conversion (FLAC > Vorbis > MP3, etc.) then I wouldn't change.
Reply author: webkid
Replied on: 05/29/2004 01:58:57 AM
Message:
Windows: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/
Also works in Linux using Wine, but that seems silly for ripping/converting.
You'll need to download dMC, and the FLAC codec.
Reply author: ALecs
Replied on: 06/02/2004 07:52:26 AM
Message:
Lossless playback would be hell on your battery life since you'd need to run your HD a LOT more than for MP3s.
I suppose some players can get away with it if they use much smaller and lower-power hard disks. The Neuros uses a 2.5" HD that draws a fair amount of current, I suppose. I vote to bite the bullet and recompress.
Under linux, you should be able to do this without having to use the extra disk space on your PC. 'flac -d -c <file> | lame [encoding options] - </path/to/neuros/filename>'
Pipes are your friends. :)
-Josh
Reply author: chad(at)gambit.net
Replied on: 06/02/2004 09:52:55 AM
Message:
Aha, but I plan on getting a 256MB Neuros II to use with my old HDD backpack and caniballizing the old head for a little side-project I have planned. (Can you say: The Ultimate Neuros Case Mod? Yeah, I knew you could!) I figure 256MB should be enough to cache a good amount of FLAC audio and keep about the same battery life I have now.
So c'mon, DI... Where's the FLAC? Give us some FLAC!
Reply author: Sean Starkey
Replied on: 06/02/2004 09:56:23 AM
Message:
Please vote:
http://open.neurosaudio.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=193
Sean Starkey - Project Manager for Neuros Database Manipulator - http://neurosdbm.sourceforge.net
Reply author: Shabbazz
Replied on: 06/02/2004 1:11:17 PM
Message:
The "lossless" issue is the only thing keeping me from buying a Neuros. I have thousands of hours of live music in shn and flac (and there are thousands of other people just like me).
I want to go completely digital with my music collection, but I refuse to encode them to mp3. And wavs are just way too damn big...
PLEASE listen to the suggestions here and support flac and\or shn. You will have digital audiophiles coming out of the woodwork to buy your product if you do.
Reply author: webkid
Replied on: 06/02/2004 2:51:19 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Shabbazz
PLEASE listen to the suggestions here and support flac and\or shn. You will have digital audiophiles coming out of the woodwork to buy your product if you do.
And don't forget Monkey's Audio.
Reply author: gentlewhisper
Replied on: 08/19/2004 06:27:00 AM
Message:
I have been lurking here for a while.. and this is my first post!
But yeah, the only thing stopping me from buying a Neuros is lack of FLAC support.
Come on, some fanboys here might come up with excuses and reasons about why not to have FLAC on the device, I'd tell them to keep their opinions to themselves :)
They are not us. Besides with FLAC support I'm sure many lurkers would emerge and buy the device! Which is something that a small company like neuros can afford to pass up on! What's the issue here? DRM? Hardware? If the device can support OGG which is so tough to decode, surely flac is no problem?
Go go! FLAC!
Reply author: Sean Starkey
Replied on: 08/19/2004 07:59:49 AM
Message:
The fanboys want flac too. 
It's a matter of resources. DI hasn't had the time to implement this code yet.
http://open.neurosaudio.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=193
Sean Starkey - Project Manager for Neuros Database Manipulator - http://neurosdbm.sourceforge.net
Reply author: American Techpusher
Replied on: 08/19/2004 08:35:35 AM
Message:
With the firmware on the brink of being opened up to the public, I be willing to bet that one of the first things you will see is FLAC implemented
Keith Ashwood
American Techpushers ( The Neuros Specialists )
www.americantechpushers.com
Reply author: Katie
Replied on: 08/23/2004 1:03:01 PM
Message:
I'm looking at buying my very first portable player. The Neuros definitely looks like a good option, but since I convert all my albums to FLAC (quality is everything, I have absolutely no use for lossy formats nor giant WAV files), support for this format would be nice. The Rio Karma so far looks like the best option since it does support FLAC, and gapless playback too. My deadline is the middle of October or there abouts. Will the Neuros II have FLAC + gapless support by then? If so I'll hold onto my money to get an 80GB Neros. If not then I'll just move on right now. Thanks all!
Reply author: noiz
Replied on: 08/23/2004 1:10:05 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Katie
I'm looking at buying my very first portable player. The Neuros definitely looks like a good option, but since I convert all my albums to FLAC (quality is everything, I have absolutely no use for lossy formats nor giant WAV files), support for this format would be nice. The Rio Karma so far looks like the best option since it does support FLAC, and gapless playback too. My deadline is the middle of October or there abouts. Will the Neuros II have FLAC + gapless support by then? If so I'll hold onto my money to get an 80GB Neros. If not then I'll just move on right now. Thanks all!
the rio karma only has 20 gigs though, right. it seems like if you were looking for a portable audio player, you would want like 60-80 gigs. and yes, hopefully it will be able to support FLAC since the firmware source will be opened soon and then DI can have help on getting it implemented in the firmware.
-noiz
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 08/23/2004 6:00:47 PM
Message:
That's the hope, anyway...
But truly noone can predict the future, that's why companies always put forward-looking statement disclaimers on any PR they put out talking about future developments.
The best advice we can and should offer is for you to wait and see if FLAC is available or at least being worked on by the time you are wanting to purchase.
I can attest to the fact that Neuros Audio, LLC has had a solid track record of doing what they say they are going to do, even if dates are sometimes pushed back due to circumstances beyond their control. I would say it's a relatively safe bet that FLAC will be available on the Neuros in the near future, but that's just a hypothesis... Forward-looking statement disclaimers apply.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: Katie
Replied on: 08/24/2004 05:36:22 AM
Message:
Yeah, the only thing going for the Rio Karma seems to be it's playback abilities. Gapless OGG, MP3, and FLAC. That's pretty sweet, especially for someone who has lots of gapless material. The Gladiator soundtrack pops to mind for example. And it proves it can be done, so there really isn't an excuse not to have the ability. Unfortunately using the player in the car and at work, with minimal cable hassle and external power is just as important. In this regard the iPod (with Monster brand power/FM cable) and Neuros seem to be the best bets.
If FLAC and gapless ability could both be introduced on the Neuros, I think it would pretty much be the ultimate player, espeically for audiophiles. I think there are probably a lot of people out there wanting lossless/gapless abilities, especially if Hydrogenaudio.org is any indication. Of course, even with just FLAC (which would be better than nothing I suppose) you wouldn't be able to call it lossless if it can't be played back gapless.
The hard drive space is another concern too. If one is going to use a lossless format, then the more space the merrier and the Rio Karma definitely sucks in this area, with no hope for the future from the looks of it (have been looking through the Rio forums). That's why I'm interested in the 80GB Neuros at the moment. But if it's not going to be gapless then there is really no point, and one might as well get something smaller (like an iPod or iRivier) and just transcode all FLAC files to a lossy format. From my tests Nero compressed AAC seems pretty decent as far as really small files go. Ugh... why does choosing just the right player have to be so fricking hard?! ;)
Reply author: kronin
Replied on: 08/24/2004 10:08:20 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Katie
Of course, even with just FLAC (which would be better than nothing I suppose) you wouldn't be able to call it lossless if it can't be played back gapless.
Um, yeah they could. FLAC = lossless audio compression. Gapless playback has absolutely nothing to do with lossless audio files. I agree it's a nice _feature_, but that's all it is, not a requirement to stamp your player as being able to play lossless audio files.
Reply author: Katie
Replied on: 08/24/2004 10:21:35 AM
Message:
I disagree based on the opinion that lossless implies more than just how the audio is compressed. Ripping an album to a lossless format should inherently encompass how playback is handled as well, and is why these formats are gapless in nature. IE: one should be able to play back an album exactly how it was meant to be heard. You ARE losing something by not doing so. A two track song, for instance, that is not meant to have a gap, will on this player. Thus it has destroyed the lossless nature of the song by introducing a gap that should not be there.
Reply author: nxg125
Replied on: 08/24/2004 11:05:25 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Katie
I disagree based on the opinion that lossless implies more than just how the audio is compressed. Ripping an album to a lossless format should inherently encompass how playback is handled as well, and is why these formats are gapless in nature.
Well, that may be your opinion, I'm not sure many people would agree with that...
quote:
IE: one should be able to play back an album exactly how it was meant to be heard. You ARE losing something by not doing so. A two track song, for instance, that is not meant to have a gap, will on this player. Thus it has destroyed the lossless nature of the song by introducing a gap that should not be there.
No. Lossless means that you can decode the file back to its original state and all the bits will be there, i.e. none have been "lost". I'm not saying gapless playback wouldn't be great, because it would. However I don't see how it's tied to any particular format. If DI implements gapless playback for one format, they had better do it for all of them IMHO.
--Nick
Reply author: kronin
Replied on: 08/24/2004 11:16:30 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Katie
I disagree based on the opinion that lossless implies more than just how the audio is compressed. Ripping an album to a lossless format should inherently encompass how playback is handled as well, and is why these formats are gapless in nature.
I agree that playing back albums that are gapless in an environment that isn't gapless sucks, but I have to say again that it is outside the idea of lossless audio compression/decompression. If you read the FLAC features page, and FAQ, nowhere is gapless playback mentioned. Now, that doesn't prove my point, but it's a pretty strong argument.
I don't want crossfading or gapless playback to be tied to FLAC playback, because they are completely different things. I'd love to have both, but to me FLAC playback is first.
Reply author: Katie
Replied on: 08/24/2004 12:07:52 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by nxg125
Lossless means that you can decode the file back to its original state and all the bits will be there, i.e. none have been "lost".
According to your definition of lossless, if the FLAC encoder added silent bits to the end of the file like MP3 does, which is considered to be a non-gapless format (LAME being an exception), it would still be considered lossless. After all, all the bits are there, right?
Regardless, the FLAC site doesn't need to say gapless because lossless implies exactly that. If you decode a FLAC file back to WAV, it will be a bit for bit copy of the original. If the format wasn't inherently gapless, the way MP3 isn't, then you wouldn't be able to do that. And if silence was added a the end, then by the definition being put forth here in this thread, it would still be considered lossless.
Not that any of this really matters. As I said, it's just an opinion and frankly I certainly don't feel anybody has to agree with it. Actually I originally picked up on it from frequently reading the Hydrogenaudio forums and when I put some thought into it, it made logical sense.
Edit: Forgot to say that I agree that support for more audio formats is more important than gapless. FWIW, there are 42 votes for lossless and only 30 for gapless according to bugzilla, which bears this opinion out too. I also agree that all formats should be made gapless if possible, not just FLAC.
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 08/24/2004 12:36:07 PM
Message:
Katie, you are inconsistent and confused.
Lossless and Gapless are independent.
If the encoder introduced extra padding, but retained every bit of the original audio and could decode that audio to a stream identical to the original, then YES, that IS lossless since it didn't lose anything. The padding would be undesirable, but that does not make it lossy.
However, a "smart crossfader" can make even MP3 audio gapless, yet MP3 remains lossy.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: nxg125
Replied on: 08/24/2004 12:43:18 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Katiequote:
Originally posted by nxg125
Lossless means that you can decode the file back to its original state and all the bits will be there, i.e. none have been "lost".
According to your definition of lossless, if the FLAC encoder added silent bits to the end of the file like MP3 does, which is considered to be a non-gapless format (LAME being an exception), it would still be considered lossless. After all, all the bits are there, right?
Well, you bring up a good point there. It seems like everybody assumes (maybe correctly so?) that encoders will only remove bits, not add them. The situation you mentioned is not really lossless, maybe it's more like "gainful" I guess what lossless means to me is that you can go from WAV > FLAC > WAV and end up with exactly what you started with, no more, no less.
quote:
Regardless, the FLAC site doesn't need to say gapless because lossless implies exactly that. If you decode a FLAC file back to WAV, it will be a bit for bit copy of the original. If the format wasn't inherently gapless, the way MP3 isn't, then you wouldn't be able to do that. And if silence was added a the end, then by the definition being put forth here in this thread, it would still be considered lossless.
I still disagree with that. I'm not sure how decoding a FLAC file back to WAV has any bearing on whether it's gapless or not. When the Neuros moves from one track to the next, whether it's Ogg Vorbis, WAV, someday FLAC, whatever, there is a pause as the new track is cached. It's not skipping over any information, just delaying it.
--Nick
Reply author: Katie
Replied on: 08/25/2004 08:29:11 AM
Message:
I think what I'm trying to say is that while FLAC (and similar formats) are indeed lossless, that when you add gapless playback they are even more lossless (if that maeks any sense). Ok, maybe I'm crazy (probably). You don't have to agree with me and I don't expect anyone to. What it realy comes down to in the end is that gapless makes a great thing even better. The playback is more "true" to the original with gapless than without. And that's what the concept of lossless is all about, isn't it? Being true to the original. ;)
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 08/25/2004 10:44:33 AM
Message:
Well, there's a simple solution... Encode the entire album without track separations into a single FLAC file. No gaps, guaranteed.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: Katie
Replied on: 08/25/2004 1:45:18 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Chameleon
Well, there's a simple solution... Encode the entire album without track separations into a single FLAC file. No gaps, guaranteed.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Yep, that's definitely one possible solution too, especially if cue-sheet support could be added to the Neuros (I'm assuming it doesn't).
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 08/25/2004 2:14:04 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Katie
Yep, that's definitely one possible solution too, especially if cue-sheet support could be added to the Neuros (I'm assuming it doesn't).
CUE sheet support is not currently available, but I did just add a new enhancement request to BugZilla, just for you.
http://bugzilla.neurosaudio.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=282
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: Ziviyr
Replied on: 08/26/2004 3:54:09 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Chameleon
CUE sheet support is not currently available, but I did just add a new enhancement request to BugZilla, just for you.
http://bugzilla.neurosaudio.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=282
If you can stick that link into the "FLAC support implemented!" thread when it appears. It'll definitely get my vote then.
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 08/26/2004 6:38:58 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Ziviyrquote:
Originally posted by Chameleon
CUE sheet support is not currently available, but I did just add a new enhancement request to BugZilla, just for you.
http://bugzilla.neurosaudio.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=282
If you can stick that link into the "FLAC support implemented!" thread when it appears. It'll definitely get my vote then.
Are you voting for Lossless Codec support?
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: Gar Bage
Replied on: 08/26/2004 6:39:46 PM
Message:
To my knowledge there is no such thing as a FLAC integer-only C library.
Maybe, I'm wrong, but FLAC makes extensively use of floating-point operations so it could be a really pain to make the Neuros *encode* to FLAC in realtime. Wich, in turn, it's the only use for FLAC i'd recommend for a portable device... taping or live recording.
-- Use the source, Luke
Reply author: fatoldpig
Replied on: 10/11/2004 3:33:17 PM
Message:
any news on FLAC playback support? when it'll be available or be available at all? I've been looking around here for a while but no luck. This is only thing holding me back. I have over 500GB of lossless (flac/shn) music backed up in various harddrived & dvds and I'm tired of burning cds (I mostly listen in my car). I have no intension of converting them to any lossy (mp3) format.
Reply author: webkid
Replied on: 10/12/2004 10:30:58 PM
Message:
There are people who are considering working on it... but don't hold your breath. If you'd like to do it yourself, by all means: http://neuros-firmware.sf.net
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 10/13/2004 3:28:39 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Gar Bage
To my knowledge there is no such thing as a FLAC integer-only C library.
Maybe, I'm wrong, but FLAC makes extensively use of floating-point operations so it could be a really pain to make the Neuros *encode* to FLAC in realtime. Wich, in turn, it's the only use for FLAC i'd recommend for a portable device... taping or live recording.
floating point is only used in the linear prediction stage. you can get 95% of the compression using the fixed predictors which are integer only (i.e. using 'flac -l 0').
about the other lossless formats, shn might be doable but seeking could be problematic. seek tables in shn are kind of a klunky add-on. the source code license is also free only for non-commercial use.
monkey's audio may not be fast enough (the neuros might be able to keep up with the lowest compression modes, not sure). there are licensing problems also, since the source may not be license compatible with the firmware license and also parts of the monkey's audio source are GPL-encumbered.
Josh
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: Gar Bage
Replied on: 10/13/2004 6:47:43 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Josh Coalson
floating point is only used in the linear prediction stage. you can get 95% of the compression using the fixed predictors which are integer only (i.e. using 'flac -l 0').
about the other lossless formats, shn might be doable but seeking could be problematic. seek tables in shn are kind of a klunky add-on. the source code license is also free only for non-commercial use.
monkey's audio may not be fast enough (the neuros might be able to keep up with the lowest compression modes, not sure). there are licensing problems also, since the source may not be license compatible with the firmware license and also parts of the monkey's audio source are GPL-encumbered.
Josh
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Now we get to a point.
The Xiph BSD style license of the FLAC codec allows us to try to merge portions of libFLAC into our open source codebase with no limitations.
And you say we can do integer-only operations for encoding.
Does that apply to decoding as well?
I guess we should make a FLAC branch of the firmware and test it out.
The sooner we start, the sooner we'll get it working.
-- Help put peace in the world. Buck Fush, Bill Kush.
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 10/16/2004 2:06:02 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Gar Bagequote:
Originally posted by Josh Coalson
floating point is only used in the linear prediction stage. you can get 95% of the compression using the fixed predictors which are integer only (i.e. using 'flac -l 0').
Now we get to a point.
The Xiph BSD style license of the FLAC codec allows us to try to merge portions of libFLAC into our open source codebase with no limitations.
And you say we can do integer-only operations for encoding.
Does that apply to decoding as well?
yes, decoding is integer only.
on the encoding side, you'd have to rip out the stuff that does lpc analysis. there is a log calculation in fixed.c that would have to be integerized, and that is it.
if it would help I could make such a stripped-down version of libFLAC for you.
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: noiz
Replied on: 10/16/2004 2:11:02 PM
Message:
quote:
yes, decoding is integer only.
on the encoding side, you'd have to rip out the stuff that does lpc analysis. there is a log calculation in fixed.c that would have to be integerized, and that is it.
if it would help I could make such a stripped-down version of libFLAC for you.
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
yeah, that seems like it would be good if you would start the work on that. since we know that the neuros would need everything in integers this would probably really help if you could make a stripped down version of libFLAC...
-noiz
Reply author: Gar Bage
Replied on: 10/16/2004 3:23:31 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Josh Coalson
if it would help I could make such a stripped-down version of libFLAC for you.
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
I'll appreciate it.
When you got it ready, please, go to http://neuros-firmware.sourceforge.net and attach that to a topic of your choice.
Let me know it there's something we can do to help you.
Thanks.
-- Help put peace in the world. Buck Fush, Bill Kush.
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 10/20/2004 3:26:39 PM
Message:
ok, I've started on this. another question though, are there any other platform limitations I should know about? e.g. does the platform support 64-bit int types and arithmetic on them?
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: Gar Bage
Replied on: 10/20/2004 5:09:24 PM
Message:
Nope, no 64 bit integers here.
See this file for some 64 bit emulation math code already present in the Vorbis decoder.
-- Help put peace in the world. Buck Fush, Bill Kush.
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 10/20/2004 5:24:48 PM
Message:
ugh, that's more work... in libFLAC, anything that has to do with a sample number (e.g. seek table) is 64bits. ok, will bite the bullet.
Josh
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: noiz
Replied on: 10/20/2004 5:39:44 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Josh Coalson
ugh, that's more work... in libFLAC, anything that has to do with a sample number (e.g. seek table) is 64bits. ok, will bite the bullet.
Josh
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
awesome, thanks for taking one for the team...
-noiz
Reply author: sfmcnally at hotmail
Replied on: 11/04/2004 8:13:54 PM
Message:
how goes the fight? Anything I can do to help it along?
flac flac please implement flac!!!
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 11/04/2004 11:55:44 PM
Message:
integerization is almost done. getting rid of the 64-bit stuff is going to be *really* hard. there are 64-bit ints used throughout the API and library, which means I have to make a struct out of the 64-bit type (#ifdef conditionalized everywhere), and handle every 64-bit operation manually.
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: Gar Bage
Replied on: 11/05/2004 01:42:42 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Josh Coalson
integerization is almost done. getting rid of the 64-bit stuff is going to be *really* hard. there are 64-bit ints used throughout the API and library, which means I have to make a struct out of the 64-bit type (#ifdef conditionalized everywhere), and handle every 64-bit operation manually.
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
As i suggested before, i invite you to take a peek at the underlaying math emulation code for Ogg Vorbis, which is already written.
Thank you again for your work.
-- Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. (Ben Franklin)
Reply author: flacifyme
Replied on: 12/12/2004 04:39:26 AM
Message:
Whoo-hoo! Just offering some moral support. I know you can do it!
Reply author: billybob77036(at)yahoo.com
Replied on: 12/26/2004 1:47:09 PM
Message:
Thanks for working so hard on this guys. Recording in FLAC is the most important function to me currently out of all the players/recorders out now.
So if I'm reading this right, you will be able to encode (record) in flac?
Thanks
Reply author: camster
Replied on: 12/27/2004 9:41:58 PM
Message:
Just wanted to say that I found out about Neuros through a music trading site, where we're all FLAC geeks, and if you get your products working with FLAC, there will be one less iPod sale next year.
thanks for listening.
cheers,
camster
doodle doodle dee, wubba wubba wubba
Reply author: BigBoss
Replied on: 01/03/2005 2:49:24 PM
Message:
My company recently launched a new electronic music service called Mindawn (www.mindawn.com) and we offer our music in both Ogg and FLAC format. We're looking for a hardware partner that we can work with to get some good penetration in to the iPod market and Neuros looks the best. We're also a software company, so we're able to do pretty much whatever we need to get things done. We have both client and CD ripping software for Linux, Windows and Mac, just check the download page on our site. I'm going to check with Josh to see how things are coming and if we can provide any help with it.
Regards,
Shawn Gordon
President
www.thekompany.com
www.mindawn.com
Shawn Gordon
Reply author: billybob77036(at)yahoo.com
Replied on: 01/03/2005 3:09:39 PM
Message:
Shawn,
It can't come soon enough.
Reply author: fatoldpig
Replied on: 01/03/2005 3:47:11 PM
Message:
anymore news on flac support and gapless playback?
if flac is not happening anytime soon, i can probably play wav format.
does neuros play wav format gapless?
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 01/03/2005 4:07:29 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Gar Bagequote:
Originally posted by Josh Coalson
integerization is almost done. getting rid of the 64-bit stuff is going to be *really* hard. there are 64-bit ints used throughout the API and library, which means I have to make a struct out of the 64-bit type (#ifdef conditionalized everywhere), and handle every 64-bit operation manually.
As i suggested before, i invite you to take a peek at the underlaying math emulation code for Ogg Vorbis, which is already written.
the actual math functions are the easy part, what's hard is hooking it up everywhere. there are a lot of places. FLAC supports up to 32-bits per sample losslessly which means there are a lot of 64-bit datapaths. and the seeking and metadata interfaces that work with 64-bit sample number are numerous.
I don't really have an ETA for this. I have not been able to start yet. I've been trying to get a handle on a bunch of PPC asm optimizations that have come in before I do something that is going to touch all the code.
out of curiosity, what part(s) of the development toolchain can't do 64-bit ints? I would think that a compiler/libc for a 32-bit uC would at least have 64-bit emulation.
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 01/03/2005 6:56:08 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by BigBoss
My company recently launched a new electronic music service called Mindawn (www.mindawn.com) and we offer our music in both Ogg and FLAC format. We're looking for a hardware partner that we can work with to get some good penetration in to the iPod market and Neuros looks the best. We're also a software company, so we're able to do pretty much whatever we need to get things done. We have both client and CD ripping software for Linux, Windows and Mac, just check the download page on our site. I'm going to check with Josh to see how things are coming and if we can provide any help with it.
Regards,
Shawn Gordon
President
www.thekompany.com
www.mindawn.com
Shawn Gordon
Hi Shawn,
Very nice to see you here.
Interesting company and ideas... I'll become a customer if I find something I like.
Anyway, you should really get in touch with Joe Born. He's the President of Neuros Audio, LLC. and will be better able to assist you.
I'm sure you can reach him via the Business Development email address listed on the Contact Us page.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: BigBoss
Replied on: 01/03/2005 7:49:34 PM
Message:
Thanks, I've already been talking with Kate Born I think it was, we have a phone meeting on Wednesday to see if we can get some better details together in working together, having Ogg already is cool, but having Flac as well is obviously way cooler :).
Shawn Gordon
Reply author: doctorcilantro
Replied on: 01/27/2005 07:47:13 AM
Message:
Just another FLAC freak lending interest & support.
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 02/06/2005 06:21:14 AM
Message:
I'm not sure how in-demand this might be, but I tend to rip most of my CDs into a single lossless file (ape or flac), and a cuesheet. The cuesheet works great in foobar2000 on my PC - basically like a playlist that can split up each track.
Would it be possible to add support for cuesheets into the neuros in much the same way that foobar2000 does? That would be great for my purposes (and would facilitate gapless playback, which is one of the motivations, aside from perfect archival).
Is there anyone interested in such a feature other than me?
P.S., I honestly don't expect the neuros to support Monkey's Audio in the near future because it seems overly technically challenging and processor intensive to do so, but perhaps a more powerful subsequent Neuros player might... who knows?
Reply author: chad(at)gambit.net
Replied on: 02/06/2005 11:40:14 PM
Message:
I mentioned this in another thread, but if there's any non-coding work I can help out with (I have a low-bandwith webserver that I'm using for a band website, some organizational skills, etc.) to get FLAC in sooner rather than later, just drop me an e-mail. I'll see what I can do.
Reply author: IWANTFLACANDGAPLESSPLAYBACK
Replied on: 02/14/2005 11:48:40 AM
Message:
We have been on the Flac-Gapless subject for over a year now.
Please tell me that the Neuros III will suport Flac-gapless playback.
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 02/15/2005 3:56:03 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Supacon
Would it be possible to add support for cuesheets into the neuros ... ?
I added a BugZilla enhancement request for CUE sheet support almost 6 months ago. It has, so far, received 2 votes.
Want it? Vote for it.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 02/15/2005 4:04:35 PM
Message:
Yee haw...
Voted. Cuesheets would be very cool, not to mention handy.
Normally I see my cuesheets as being an archival detail, but they have become very useful for playback using software like foobar2000. Foobar is all open source, like the neuros, so it'd be very neat to see the same philosophy (and featureset) in both!
Reply author: The J
Replied on: 02/15/2005 5:54:57 PM
Message:
I know the Neuros supports Windows Media Audio compressed, but there is also a *.wma lossless format that comes with the Windows Media 9 codec for dbPowerAMP. Would using the *.wma losses work or is there something I don't know (I'm fine with 192kbps *.wma files) about it? At the very least, could it be a temporary solution?
I like the idea of being able to support more formats (*.m4a, anyone?); I just thought I'd try to help and give ideas.
Reply author: will(at)
Replied on: 03/07/2005 3:48:38 PM
Message:
I'm quite new to this Neuros (only heard of it recently), but the feature list looks pretty good. The open source is very appealing as well.
I'm just another one of those people that encodes a lot to FLAC (and gets SHN bootlegs etc.) and is still looking for the right digital player (the Rio Karma has all the features I want except 20Gb is just too little). I do use a lossy format too (mp3, prefer it to ogg simply because it's more widely supported) but what I'm after is a fully featured high capacity solution (80Gb sounds a lot better). FLAC and gapless playback are very high priority for me. In the meantime I have gotten a portable mp3 player (Rio Carbon, 5Gb, mp3 only) to basically tide me over until I find what I want.
The Neuros looks very close to hitting the mark.
Reply author: doctorcilantro
Replied on: 03/07/2005 4:33:08 PM
Message:
Anyone have the lowdown on the FLAC arrival? Last we heard some work had been completed. Any general ETA we can get?
Thanks you!
Dr. C
Reply author: Don
Replied on: 03/08/2005 07:03:28 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by BigBoss
Thanks, I've already been talking with Kate Born I think it was,
If he's not sure of Kate's name, then he isn't who you might think "Big Boss" is on this forum.
quote:
having Ogg already is cool, but having Flac as well is obviously way cooler :).
I can see Flac for record, where the file will be edited, coded, whatever downstream. On playback the only thing downstream is the users ears, which are pretty well served by a high quality lossy encoding. For playback Ogg is way more useful.
On a technical note, of course, a Flac encoded song can be Ogg, since Flac is a coding format and Ogg is a container format which can contain flac.
-Don
Reply author: doctorcilantro
Replied on: 03/08/2005 07:17:50 AM
Message:
Have the OGG playback issues been resolved yet?
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 03/08/2005 2:05:45 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by doctorcilantro
Have the OGG playback issues been resolved yet?
Very high quality Ogg Vorbis files still skip a bit.
All my Ogg Vorbis music is encoded at Q6 and I have no trouble, not even on MyFi/NeuroCast.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: slinkoff
Replied on: 03/22/2005 08:33:51 AM
Message:
Sorry, can someone clear something up for me please? Why on earth would anyone want FLAC support on a portable media player? Or any lossless format for that matter?
Lossless is for archiving and for recreating CDs. Listening to music on a portable is what lossy formats where invented for. If you can hear the difference between a FLAC file and a 192kbps MP3 file then you're in about 1% of the population. If you can hear the difference between a FLAC file and a 256kbps MP3 file then you're probably a bit strange and have difficulty drowning out background noise. If you can hear the difference between a FLAC file and a 360kbps MP3 file then you're probably not entirely human, likely more bat or dolphin.
Audiophiles do make me chuckle. If you consider yourself an audiophile and connoisseur of sound perhaps you should take the test I did to my flatmate. Get a friend to blindfold you and prepare 4 or more identical sound clips encoded in different formats and at different bitrates from 128 up to 360 and chuck in a FLAC file for good measure. Then get them to play you each file in a random order twice while you write down what you think they were or how they compared to eachother. Do this on the thousands of pounds worth of professional studio grade audio equipment you have acquired. Then repeat the test on a standard hifi and finally through your Etymotic or Shure headphones on your favourite portable.
Then check the results.
After you've stopped crying at the thought of all the money you've wasted over the years and the fuss you've kicked up about bitrates and quality and purity and signal to noise ratios. After you've let all that sink in you can stop listening to equipment and start enjoying music again.
More lossy formats is good in a player.
Lossless formats are pointless.
Gapless playback in lossy formats with multiple format support is the goal of the DAP. Karma had/has it but Rio seem too dumb to capitalize and rumours of the Chroma seem to hint that it's just a revamped Karma (if it ever arrives), maybe just a 10GB size increase. Are marketing/research people stupid or what?
Come on Neuros, foget FLAC. OGG, MP3 plus whatever other lossles formats you can add with gapless playback and decent capacity are all we need.
Reply author: doctorcilantro
Replied on: 03/22/2005 08:59:46 AM
Message:
Good argument and I agree you have to draw the line somewhere. But, recording to a lossless format would be nice. Also, some people want to listen to their Neuros in the car or on a hi-fi system on their way to a friend's house to share some files; it's handy to have the originals on hand.
Mp3's can sound okay, but when you take a 30mb file in turn it into a 3mb file you ARE losing something. You can point at people and accuse them of elitism but you can't blame them for wanting the original; like prints vs. paintings. I will probably use OGG myself once I make the leap to DAP's.
If storage and speeds were increased to 200TB and 1TB data transfer rates we wouldn't be having this discussion; people would prefer the original.
JC
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/22/2005 09:20:54 AM
Message:
Lossless formats on the Neuros...
If the hardware is capable of handling it, and there actually are suffecient human resources that time could be devoted to it; why not? Since the firmware is open source, that doesn't necessarily need to come from within the company.
As technology improves, lossless codecs will become more and more useful. It's not that they always sound better than high-quality lossy codecs, but they are more flexible in terms of being re-encodable, and reused in many ways without generational quality loss. Because of the ever-increasing size of mass storage, and the increasing speed of computation, many more users will be using lossless formats on their computers in the near future.
Supporting lossless formats on a hardware digital audio player is a matter of convenience for such users. I suspect that players like the neuros will pave the way for the future of the DAP industry by supporting a very wide range of codecs and take it from being a rare specialty to an expected standard. FLAC support already does exist in a handful of players, so it is a useful competitive point in the marketing of this product.
A really cool ability would be encoding to flac from a recorder on the neuros. One could then transcode later on to a codec like speex, or whatever, if one wanted. For some, this might mean more than simply being able to play FLAC, but playing it is the first step.
I don't entirely disagree with your opinion, and I feel that supporting AAC, for example, would help the neuros to compete with the iPod, and give the users more options for very-low bitrate formats to use for large quantities of music. There are, however, users who can use the lossless formats.
Reply author: chad(at)gambit.net
Replied on: 03/22/2005 09:54:17 AM
Message:
For me it's more a matter of convenience.
I've lost too many CD's, so I keep the originals in storage in the living room. I rip each one as I get them to FLAC so I can re-create them if they get lost or damaged. Since I have the FLAC files on the computer anyway, I just use those for playback. Why not use them for the Neuros too instead of cross-coding to Vorbis?
Especially since my 20GB backpack just died and I replaced it with a 40GB. (I'm gonna get the 20 repaired... it looks like just a bad power jack, though the HDD itself is a little glitchy, and having 2 backpacks around would be nice. 40 for my music, 20 for my music that my friends will listen to. (All Music - Jpop, Techno, and New Age)
Reply author: slinkoff
Replied on: 03/22/2005 10:21:19 AM
Message:
I agree that if you had the choice of lossless over lossy, if there were no space issues then most would obviously opt for lossless, myself included.
However, there are space issues. For the current crop of players, most are 20/40gb with a few 60 and 80gb players available. To my mind these high capacity players are not intended for audiophiles using FLAC, 80GB of FLAC is not all that much music. They are intended for people with large collections, using lossy formats. If players were meant for FLAC users they'd need to be upwards of 250GB. Until these capacities are commonplace, FLAC support is trivial.
I agree it would be a nice perk to have FLAC encoding on the fly but it's really only a perk. Surely it is assumed that everyone who has one of these players has a digital music collection already? Especially anyone who is aware of FLAC and therefore they have a computer, which is much more suited to the job of encoding and tagging.
At the moment I really don't think Neuros should be bothering with FLAC support as a priority. Users with small music collections may benefit by being able to carry the originals around in case they want to burn CDs at a friend's house (?!) but I don't think this is a particularly valid reason for pursuing FLAC support at this time.
Reply author: Sean Starkey
Replied on: 03/22/2005 10:43:11 AM
Message:
The reason why FLAC is a high priority is that it is the highest voted bug (by far) in the bugzilla list.
Sean Starkey / Neuros Database Manipulator (NDBM) - http://neurosdbm.sourceforge.net / Open Source Neuros Firmware - http://neuros-firmware.sourceforge.net
Reply author: slinkoff
Replied on: 03/22/2005 11:01:55 AM
Message:
yes, well as i said earlier: audiophiles make me chuckle. It would be a great shame if development time was taken away from something useful on a DAP like gapless playback in favour of something ludicrous (at this point in time) like FLAC playback. Encode to OGG or Lame MP3 at 192 and you can fit on 10 times more music on your player for no discernible audio difference. Anyone who says otherwise may do so, but I will chuckle at thee, too.
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/22/2005 11:02:54 AM
Message:
In other words, people want it. It doesn't really negatively affect those who don't if it gets implemented.
There are systems where a "bounty" can be established for the implementation of certain features. People will put up money to have things they want implemented actually done. The priority of a feature equals the amount of the bounty compared to other bounties in existence.
Perhaps such an idea would be an idea for the Neuros. Instead of a pure cash bounty, however, one could place pending orders for a product that will follow through when the bounty conditions have been met. A person could secure this wil a small initial down payment of 10-25% of the purchase price, or something like that.
This might be off-topic, but how does this idea sound to people?
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 03/22/2005 11:11:57 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by slinkoff
Sorry, can someone clear something up for me please? Why on earth would anyone want FLAC support on a portable media player? Or any lossless format for that matter?
blah blah long ridiculous rant about my disdain for audiophiles blah blah...
The thing you seem to not realize is that the Neuros is far more than just another player... It records; from several different sources.
Since the firmware is Open Source, it doesn't necessarily take away developer time from implementing other features to have one or two 3rd party developers hack on implementing FLAC or whatever.
Get with the program. Drink the Open Source kool-aid.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 03/22/2005 12:37:40 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by doctorcilantro
Anyone have the lowdown on the FLAC arrival? Last we heard some work had been completed. Any general ETA we can get?
I just don't have time to work around the 64-bit problem right now. this is the only real obstacle. I'm trying to get a bunch of stuff done on the apple front for the next release.
it's conceivable that someone else could fork libFLAC to get something working, then the 64-bit workarounds could be merged back into the trunk later.
quote:
Originally posted by slinkoff
Sorry, can someone clear something up for me please? Why on earth would anyone want FLAC support on a portable media player? Or any lossless format for that matter?
to summarize:
1. for recording
2. for trading (not sure if the neuros lets two devices plug together and swap)
3. to not have to transcode/transtag/etc to take music with you
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: Chameleon
Replied on: 03/22/2005 3:11:17 PM
Message:
quote:I believe that is what Starkey is doing.
Originally posted by Josh Coalsonquote:
Originally posted by doctorcilantro
Anyone have the lowdown on the FLAC arrival? Last we heard some work had been completed. Any general ETA we can get?
I just don't have time to work around the 64-bit problem right now. this is the only real obstacle. I'm trying to get a bunch of stuff done on the apple front for the next release.
it's conceivable that someone else could fork libFLAC to get something working, then the 64-bit workarounds could be merged back into the trunk later.
quote:To address #2, the Neuros does not let you plug two devices together, however, it is theoretically possible to wirelessly transfer music digitally over an FM carrier signal. There is some discussion of that in the patent application and/or hardware schematics documentation. Although it's not implemented currently, a future firmware could possibly add that feature.
Originally posted by Josh Coalsonquote:
Originally posted by slinkoff
Sorry, can someone clear something up for me please? Why on earth would anyone want FLAC support on a portable media player? Or any lossless format for that matter?
to summarize:
1. for recording
2. for trading (not sure if the neuros lets two devices plug together and swap)
3. to not have to transcode/transtag/etc to take music with you
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!'
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/22/2005 4:50:29 PM
Message:
That's a pretty interesting idea. What kinds of transfer rates would be feasible with such technology?
Perhaps implementing bluetooth would also be an idea in the future, although either is likely to be painfully slow for data transfers. Especially if you're transferring FLAC albums.
Reply author: Yono
Replied on: 03/22/2005 5:43:24 PM
Message:
At a max, possibly 100kb/s. Not amazing, but cut it some slack, its all about the bragging rights.
-- 'Microsoft Works is an Oxymoron'
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/22/2005 7:19:29 PM
Message:
100 kilo*bits* per second? That's not even sufficient to stream low-quality lossy audio, much less transfer the contents of an 80 GB hard drive within any reasonable span of time. The technology could be useful for other things... but... there are so many other technologies around that are far more interesting. I personally can't see why this would be very useful. Far less useful than FLAC support, imho.
Reply author: Yono
Replied on: 03/22/2005 7:35:32 PM
Message:
True, but thats also probably why there is more effort towards FLAC support than file transfer. Actually, I might be mistaken, it might max out at 100 kilobytes, not bits.
-- 'Microsoft Works is an Oxymoron'
Reply author: slinkoff
Replied on: 03/23/2005 05:04:33 AM
Message:
quote:
The thing you seem to not realize is that the Neuros is far more than just another player... It records; from several different sources.
I do realize that, but maybe I don't fully appreciate the level to which this feature is used. I mean, why would you record using your DAP when you have a more powerful computer to do it for you quicker? And I would have thought FLAC users would have been more concerned with perfect rips and tags, in general, and so would go the EAC, FLAC route and make sure their music was fully tagged correctly.
And as for the idea of linking players together to swap music or being able to record so you can rip music at a friends house, wouldn't that be illegal? Is open source development now a byword for potentially illegal features development?
And similarly with transmitting via FM? Also illegal and surely defeats the whole object of the quality of FLAC in the first place?
I don't have a total "disdain" for audiophiles. There is a definite level of quality that it is reasonable to try and achieve but beyond that it just gets silly.
The only reasonable argument I've heard here for FLAC support is so that you don't have to transcode your music. My argument to that is that I think some have missed the point of why FLAC was developed and how it was meant to be used. It's for archiving, for creating a digital collection with a file size smaller than just WAV, FROM WHICH you have the option to transcode to whatever format you choose. No matter what happens in the digital music world, what formats are created, what compression algorithms get improved so that you get higher quality at smaller sizes, whatever happens you always have the source lossless FLAC files to come back to encode FROM. You don't NEED to use FLAC files in a DAP. Period.
Reply author: chad(at)gambit.net
Replied on: 03/23/2005 06:37:15 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by slinkoff
And as for the idea of linking players together to swap music or being able to record so you can rip music at a friends house, wouldn't that be illegal? Is open source development now a byword for potentially illegal features development?
And similarly with transmitting via FM? Also illegal and surely defeats the whole object of the quality of FLAC in the first place?
<SNIP>
The only reasonable argument I've heard here for FLAC support is so that you don't have to transcode your music. My argument to that is that I think some have missed the point of why FLAC was developed and how it was meant to be used. It's for archiving, for creating a digital collection with a file size smaller than just WAV, FROM WHICH you have the option to transcode to whatever format you choose. No matter what happens in the digital music world, what formats are created, what compression algorithms get improved so that you get higher quality at smaller sizes, whatever happens you always have the source lossless FLAC files to come back to encode FROM. You don't NEED to use FLAC files in a DAP. Period.
Number one, Legality of sharing is somewhat subjective. Can I run over and FileCast Dream Theater's newest album to you? No. That's not legal.
However, you have a Neuros and show up at my band's concert. You don't want the whole CD, just one track. You toss me $0.50, and I beam you the file, Neuros to Neuros. Sweet, quick, and legal.
And as for the FLAC being there to be transcoded, you'd have to ask Josh Coalson why he developed FLAC. Personally, I've had so many problems with transcoding products dropping file tags (including dbPowerAmp) that I'm done with it. I just want to archive my CD's in one format, and not have to mess with transcoding.
Reply author: slinkoff
Replied on: 03/23/2005 06:53:50 AM
Message:
quote:
However, you have a Neuros and show up at my band's concert. You don't want the whole CD, just one track. You toss me $0.50, and I beam you the file, Neuros to Neuros. Sweet, quick, and legal.
That seems to be clutching at straws somewhat.
quote:
Personally, I've had so many problems with transcoding products dropping file tags (including dbPowerAmp) that I'm done with it. I just want to archive my CD's in one format, and not have to mess with transcoding.
Probably because FLAC uses OGG Comments for its tags. If you were transcoding to MP3 they use ID3 so dBPowerAmp has trouble with the non-standard stuff (Album Artist and stuff like that). Best off transcoding from FLAC to OGG in something like Foobar2000. I think it will take you all of 3 mouse clicks. They use identical tags so your tags will be preserved, you'll have music of indescernible quality from your lossless source and you're much more likely to fit it all on your DAP than if you'd used FLAC files.
As Punch said, that's the way to do it.
Reply author: doctorcilantro
Replied on: 03/23/2005 07:39:13 AM
Message:
I do realize that, but maybe I don't fully appreciate the level to which this feature is used. I mean, why would you record using your DAP when you have a more powerful computer to do it for you quicker? And I would have thought FLAC users would have been more concerned with perfect rips and tags, in general, and so would go the EAC, FLAC route and make sure their music was fully tagged correctly.
-----You can't bring your PC to an interview or to a concert (that allows taping).
And as for the idea of linking players together to swap music or being able to record so you can rip music at a friends house, wouldn't that be illegal? Is open source development now a byword for potentially illegal features development?
----Geez, some people make there own music, record lectures, or archive out of print vinyl. If a friend of mine loses some music in his archive due to corruption, and doesn't have the cd anymore, heck I'll be the first one to copy him a new one. It's not balck and white as you imply.
And similarly with transmitting via FM? Also illegal and surely defeats the whole object of the quality of FLAC in the first place?
-----Are you sure that would be illegal. Broadcast rights I thought allowed anyone to bcst 1 mile; could be wrong or have changed, but it's an interesting question. I can record a radio broadcast and archive it for personal enjoyment.
I don't have a total "disdain" for audiophiles. There is a definite level of quality that it is reasonable to try and achieve but beyond that it just gets silly.
----I agree, but sometimes it's hard to find the line : )
The only reasonable argument I've heard here for FLAC support is so that you don't have to transcode your music. My argument to that is that I think some have missed the point of why FLAC was developed and how it was meant to be used. It's for archiving, for creating a digital collection with a file size smaller than just WAV, FROM WHICH you have the option to transcode to whatever format you choose. No matter what happens in the digital music world, what formats are created, what compression algorithms get improved so that you get higher quality at smaller sizes, whatever happens you always have the source lossless FLAC files to come back to encode FROM. You don't NEED to use FLAC files in a DAP. Period.
----Again, interesting point, but a lot of people who take the time to carefully tag and organize their lossless collections are simply repelled by this idea. Losing tags and the TIME it takes to transcode (especially Monkey's Audio to OGG) is a real pain. I still want to try OGG but the transcode time from my format of choice, MAC, makes the idea of going from FLAC>DAP refreshing.
JC
Reply author: chad(at)gambit.net
Replied on: 03/23/2005 07:46:14 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by slinkoffquote:
However, you have a Neuros and show up at my band's concert. You don't want the whole CD, just one track. You toss me $0.50, and I beam you the file, Neuros to Neuros. Sweet, quick, and legal.
That seems to be clutching at straws somewhat.
Not really. I've been in plenty of situations where I have a free (as in beer) song on the Neuros and a friend asks me for a copy. Since I often don't have a sync cable on me, I have to go home and drop it in an e-mail.
quote:quote:
Personally, I've had so many problems with transcoding products dropping file tags (including dbPowerAmp) that I'm done with it. I just want to archive my CD's in one format, and not have to mess with transcoding.
Probably because FLAC uses OGG Comments for its tags. If you were transcoding to MP3 they use ID3 so dBPowerAmp has trouble with the non-standard stuff (Album Artist and stuff like that). Best off transcoding from FLAC to OGG in something like Foobar2000. I think it will take you all of 3 mouse clicks. They use identical tags so your tags will be preserved, you'll have music of indescernible quality from your lossless source and you're much more likely to fit it all on your DAP than if you'd used FLAC files.
As Punch said, that's the way to do it.
That is the way I did it, just with dbPowerAmp and not Foobar2k.
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 03/23/2005 10:13:24 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by slinkoffAnd as for the idea of linking players together to swap music or being able to record so you can rip music at a friends house, wouldn't that be illegal? Is open source development now a byword for potentially illegal features development?
that last question is ridiculous. even if all music trading were illegal, branding all open source development is baseless.
the fact is, in some countries it is legal to share music with friends even without the copyright holder's permission. even in the US many bands allow taping and trading of live shows. what if you met your buddy at a concert or something, you both had DAPs, and you jack in and trade sets d/l'ed from etree? there is a whole community of enthusiasts to tap into that would probably love that feature (if it was fast enough, 100kbps FM isn't).
Josh
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: slinkoff
Replied on: 03/23/2005 10:58:51 AM
Message:
Sharing files is definitely a feature worth considering, although why is this the main focus in this thread now? We were talking about the usefulness of FLAC support on a DAP....
If anything FLAC support is actually a hinderence to the file sharing argument. Who wants to hang around for a 30MB file to transfer, or a 350MB album when you can transfer files a 10th of the size and still have roughly the same audible quality? As I've been saying all along, FLAC support just isn't practical or necessary on a DAP player.
quote:
-----You can't bring your PC to an interview or to a concert (that allows taping).
----Geez, some people make there own music, record lectures, or archive out of print vinyl.
Again, this is missing the point of the FLAC format. None of these situations requires a lossless audio format. You think you're going to get professional quality recordings through your DAP such that you would want them in FLAC format because otherwise you could hear all the audio artefacts and a flatter sound envelope when you use a lossy format? I dont think so.
quote:
Losing tags and the TIME it takes to transcode (especially Monkey's Audio to OGG) is a real pain.
I would agree with this, it does take a long time to transcode a large collection, but I can't see it as justification for FLAC support. It would be if transcoding was something you needed to do every week, or even every month. It isn't. It's something you need to do once. Do it right and you won't lose your tags either. If there was a format that I could encode to from FLAC that gave me tiny file sizes but great quality such that I could store 20000 songs on 10GB of space I'd wait a fortnight for it to transcode if it needed it! It's not like I have to do it every week.
And using your DAP as your primary source for encoding and storing your FLACs? Dangerous. DAP goes tits up and you've lost your music collection. Store it on a computer, back it up too if you have the space. Transcode and carry those around instead.
FLAC FLAC FLAC. Great for streaming to your Squeezebox or other home audio solution where you can store your 400GB+ of music on a mediaserver, not so great and plain unnecessary on a DAP. I'm still waiting to hear a decent argument for why a DAP should have FLAC support when they don't have the capacity to warrant it.
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/23/2005 11:11:37 AM
Message:
slinkoff:
About the recording, personally, I am not interested all too much in recording "high quality" AM radio, or the like. But a DAP can be very useful to me as a voice recorder. In general, I suppose MP3 could be sufficient for this, but if I can use FLAC to encode it, I can fit a *lot* more on the DAP than with a raw wave... voice compresses losslessly much more than does music. And then I can later archive it to a format that makes sense in a particular context... like speex, if I wanted to put it in my audio diary, and keep it around for the rest of my life.
Reply author: Sean Starkey
Replied on: 03/23/2005 11:51:13 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by slinkoff
I'm still waiting to hear a decent argument for why a DAP should have FLAC support when they don't have the capacity to warrant it.
Because its the highest voted for bug in the bugzilla list. This one fact is justification enough to put effort towards putting FLAC into the device.
Sean Starkey / Neuros Database Manipulator (NDBM) - http://neurosdbm.sourceforge.net / Open Source Neuros Firmware - http://neuros-firmware.sourceforge.net
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/23/2005 12:27:35 PM
Message:
80GB Isn't enough capacity? For years we had tape players that would play 60 minutes of music, and they sold well, and everyone was happy. When MP3 players came out, they had 32MB of flash memory, that couldn't even hold an entire album.
A full CD at 74 minutes usually compresses into a file smaller than 500MB. On even the 20GB model, that allows you to hold more than 40 CDs. I don't even carry that many with me in my car. That's not enough?
Granted, some people expect to store their entire music library on their DAP, but reall... at ony one time, isn't having more than a thousand songs sufficient?
Obviously if it was only possible to hold a handful of songs, like fewer than ten, or less than a full CD, I would understand that argument. But these things' hard drives and memory capacities aren't getting smaller
Reply author: The J
Replied on: 03/23/2005 9:23:21 PM
Message:
I'm no audiophile nor do I record music onto my player. In fact, when I rip a CD, I use Windows Media Player 10 and rip it to 192kbps wma or mp3. I personally couldn't hear a difference in a higher bitrate in my speakers (Cambridge MegaWorks 550) or my earphones (Sony MDR-EX71SL); however, there are a lot of people here who want FLAC. I don't plan to use it, but since so many others do then why not implement it? I think that just the fact that quite a few people would love to see FLAC, and would use it, is reason enough to.
Reply author: Zithromax
Replied on: 03/24/2005 03:47:58 AM
Message:
I'd say this argument is pretty well played out.
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/24/2005 6:05:00 PM
Message:
If FLAC is more supported by players like the neuros, that is probably a factor that will inspire future users to start using it more. And that will ultimately make it more of a "standard" feature in this industry. It's all about progress :)
I'm playing with a whole other idea in audio encoding, based on the idea of using a codec like WavPack hybrid mode. This allows you to create a high bitrate file ~384kbit/s along with a correction file. You can keep the correction files and the lossy files on your computer for true lossless audio, or take the lossy files with you on your portable for transparently encoded music at a more manageable bitrate.
Another advantage of wavpack lossy 384+kb/s is that it can be transcoded to other codecs without a discernable loss of quality compared to the original source.
This could be another nice codec for the neuros to implement, but for now, FLAC is much more popular and I'd love to see it.
Reply author: Sean Starkey
Replied on: 03/25/2005 09:41:43 AM
Message:
Looking at the wavpack decoder code, it is very simple.
Sean Starkey / Neuros Database Manipulator (NDBM) - http://neurosdbm.sourceforge.net / Open Source Neuros Firmware - http://neuros-firmware.sourceforge.net
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/25/2005 2:01:51 PM
Message:
What are you saying, Sean? That there is a reasonable chance of somebody implementing this codec in the neuros in the near future?
I haven't caught on to WavPack yet, but if the neuros used it, I'd happily transcode everything I've got to WavPack hybrid mode (with the correcton files). It's the perfect codec for something like the Neuros!
Reply author: Sean Starkey
Replied on: 03/25/2005 2:08:03 PM
Message:
I am not committing anything at this time.
Sean Starkey / Neuros Database Manipulator (NDBM) - http://neurosdbm.sourceforge.net / Open Source Neuros Firmware - http://neuros-firmware.sourceforge.net
Reply author: Entwined
Replied on: 03/30/2005 02:46:03 AM
Message:
Although it would be great to have any lossless codec play on the Neuros, IMO Wavpack would be the best. It compresses better (roughly 5% better) than FLAC, and although it is less than Monkey's Audio, it makes up for it by having much faster encoding and decoding speeds (even uses a little less cpu power than FLAC) and supports Replaygain and Hi-res audio, two important features IMO, that Monkey's Audio doesnt support. Supacon already commented on the advantages of Wavpack's Hybrid mode as well.
Neuros Wishlist: Gapless Playback + Wavpack Support + Replaygain = Bliss.
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/30/2005 12:22:33 PM
Message:
Entwined, you are correct, except that as far as I can tell, you usually don't get smaller filesize with WavPack than FLAC at the same time as faster encoding/decoding speed. FLAC still has an advantage in decoding speed (important on a portable) being an asymmetrcial codec. (WavPack also does have an asymmetrical mode using the -x options though).
But nonetheless, WavPack is a very flexible codec and can give the user a lot of choice that way, and is still very competitive in all respects, any way you slice it. In my opinion (now that I've just gotten to know and love it) WavPack is currently the coolest lossless codec around. And 4.2 will be released in a matter of days too
http://www.wavpack.com/
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 03/30/2005 1:33:42 PM
Message:
this flexibility in decode complexity can be a disadvantage outside the PC. if some device "supports" wavpack but cannot handle all the modes because some require too many mips, and this is not clear to users and the decoder, there are going to be customer support problems.
this is why with FLAC I put almost all the complexitity and variability in the encoder.
Josh
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/30/2005 1:38:21 PM
Message:
You've got a good point, Josh. FLAC is going to be easier to support. Bryant doesn't yet know if portables will have a problem with WavPack -h mode, because it does take some amound of processing power, and it is possible that some portables might not yet be sufficient to handle it. If that is the case, one would have to re-encode all their WavPack files again, in a faster decode mode (i.e. wavpack -fx4).
I still think that FLAC is the best choice for a first lossless codec, is it's "safer" from the perspective of being easy to decode. Nonetheless, it would still be nice to see what WavPack can do.
Reply author: Entwined
Replied on: 03/30/2005 4:40:27 PM
Message:
I ran a quick test to see how fast and efficient the modes were, to hopefully clear up some misconceptions:
Computer: AMD Athlon 2000+ (old, I know)
Software: Foobar2000 - Diskwriter
Album: Radiohead, OK Computer, (53:27, 539MB)
Results:
Codec Encoding Time File Size Decoding Time
------------------------------------------------------------------
FLAC Q5 | 2:26/21.97x | 361MB/67% | 1:17/41.65x |
FLAC Q8 | 12:32/4.26x | 359MB/66.6% | 1:07/47.89x |
WAVPACK | 2:08/25.05x | 359MB/66.6% | 1:10/45.81x |
WAVPACK -h| 2:49/18.98x | 352MB/65.3% | 1:43/31.14x |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is what i concluded as the best total efficiency to the least:
Wavpack Normal > Flac Q5 > Wavpack High > Flac Q8
Interestingly enough, it looks like Flac Q8 would be fastest to decode.
FLAC in lossless mode seems to be on par with WAVPACK.
Id get ecstatic to see any of these codecs be implemented in the Neuros.
Neuros Wishlist: Gapless Playback + Wavpack Support + Replaygain = Bliss.
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 03/30/2005 4:50:06 PM
Message:
diskwriter timings may not be indicative because so much of the time is spent writing to disk.
flac.exe has a test mode which will be a little more accurate, but it also does MD5 checks which are not used in a player. and depending on where you got it, it might have 3dnow optimizations. and it's built for x86 which is very different that the neuros cpu.
not sure if wvunpack.exe has a test mode.
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/30/2005 7:34:07 PM
Message:
FLAC Q5 | 2:26/21.97x | 361MB/67% | 1:17/41.65x |
FLAC Q8 | 12:32/4.26x | 359MB/66.6% | 1:07/47.89x |
WAVPACK | 2:08/25.05x | 359MB/66.6% | 1:10/45.81x |
WAVPACK -h| 2:49/18.98x | 352MB/65.3% | 1:43/31.14x |
Wow. Those times for Wavpack are really impressive! I didn't think that it would be even close to the decode speed of FLAC, especially not at the same compression ratio. Of course, this is only one album. A better test would involve a few types of music.
Entwined, what version of WavPack are you using for this? 4.1, or one of the 4.2 betas?
Reply author: Entwined
Replied on: 03/30/2005 10:57:47 PM
Message:
I used Wavpack 4.1... are there any proported advantages in using the beta?
Neuros Wishlist: Gapless Playback + Wavpack Support + Replaygain = Bliss.
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/30/2005 11:02:57 PM
Message:
I believe that there are some speed advantages when decoding, using the latest beta. WavPack 4.2 will be released very soon, however. There are a handful of new features, including built-in ape tagging abilities, and some advanced options.
The results you achieved especially seem good considering that you are using 4.1. I'm wondering if you happened to have a rare case where for whatever reason, WavPack performs exceptionally better and maybe FLAC isn't at the top of its game.
I'm going to wait a couple of weeks, and hopefully I'll have a nice, comprehensive test of my three favorite lossless encoders - FLAC, WavPack, and APE (which seems to be fading fast, but still has good compression).
Reply author: Entwined
Replied on: 03/30/2005 11:30:06 PM
Message:
hmmm, well, im running the official binaries, so i dont know about any 3dnow or SSE optimizations, but if diskwriter indeed takes most of the time writing the files, it might have fast times because im running on a RAID 0 array.
Neuros Wishlist: Gapless Playback + Wavpack Support + Replaygain = Bliss.
Reply author: Josh Coalson
Replied on: 03/31/2005 12:18:27 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Entwined
hmmm, well, im running the official binaries, so i dont know about any 3dnow or SSE optimizations, but if diskwriter indeed takes most of the time writing the files, it might have fast times because im running on a RAID 0 array.
probably not. take the example
prog A: runs in 10s
prog B: runs in 8s
=> prog B is 20% slower
subtract 6 seconds i/o time that will not be in a player
prog A: 4s
prog B: 2s
prog B is now twice as slow.
you will need a more accurate test like I described to get good a performance estimate.
- Josh Coalson - FLAC developer -
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/31/2005 01:15:33 AM
Message:
Hmm... maybe I should bug David to add something like that to 4.2. Is it a complicated thing to add in, Josh? I'm not sure exactly how it works on a technical level. This kind of stuff is probably better suited to a thread at HydrogenAudio.org though.
Reply author: Entwined
Replied on: 03/31/2005 01:17:59 AM
Message:
wouldn't
wvunpack -m -v
do the same thing as
flac -t
Neuros Wishlist: Gapless Playback + Wavpack Support + Replaygain = Bliss.
Reply author: Entwined
Replied on: 03/31/2005 01:29:24 AM
Message:
as suggested, i ran the files using "FLAC -t" and then, for fun, ran "WVUNPACK -m -v", -m checking the md5 checksum and -v verifying the file.
decoding results:
FLAC Q5: 0:47/68.23x
FLAC Q8: 0:41/78.22x
WAVPACK: 0:59/54.36x
WAVPACK -H: 1:17/41.65x
of course, i do not know if using those Wavpack arguments do the exact same test as the FLAC one, but FLAC is the surefire winner there...
Neuros Wishlist: Gapless Playback + Wavpack Support + Replaygain = Bliss.
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/31/2005 12:01:56 PM
Message:
That's what I'd expect. FLAC is definitely more optimized for decoding. I'm noticing that you haven't been testing WavPack's -f mode, however. That could possibly be faster than FLAC.
Reply author: Entwined
Replied on: 03/31/2005 3:45:01 PM
Message:
Encode File Size (WVUNPACK -M -V)
---------------------------------------------
WAVPACK -F: 2:10/24.67x | 367MB/68.1% | 0:50/64.14x
Still falls behind in filesize and decoding time...
Neuros Wishlist: Gapless Playback + Wavpack Support + Replaygain = Bliss.
Reply author: Supacon
Replied on: 03/31/2005 3:50:33 PM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Entwined
WAVPACK -F: 2:10/24.67x | 367MB/68.1% | 0:50/64.14x
Still falls behind in filesize and decoding time...
Well way to go Josh, in that case :)
I notice that the encode time for WavPack -f is just slightly faster than FLAC -5 though.
Reply author: Don
Replied on: 04/04/2005 11:49:56 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by Entwined
FLAC in lossless mode seems to be on par with WAVPACK.
What the heck does that mean? Isn't FLAC *ALWAYS* lossless?
-Don
Reply author: Entwined
Replied on: 04/04/2005 11:39:24 PM
Message:
yes, i meant Wavpack in lossless mode.
Neuros Wishlist: Gapless Playback + Wavpack Support + Replaygain = Bliss.
Reply author: chad(at)gambit.net
Replied on: 11/07/2005 11:22:33 AM
Message:
Okay, while I realize that Josh is working hard on getting actual FLAC support in the firmware, an idea came up.
Why don't people implement a call to OggDrop into the sync managers?
dbPowerAMP was inserting odd audio artifacts into the OggVorbis files I was making off of FLAC to put on the neuros (Skipping, hiccoughing, pops, snaps, the whole 9 yards.) so I started using OggDrop today to do the conversion and it seems to run fairly well, and oggdropXPd even has FLAClib built into it for the input files....
Reply author: Don
Replied on: 11/15/2005 06:07:57 AM
Message:
quote:
Originally posted by chad(at)gambit.net
dbPowerAMP was inserting odd audio artifacts into the OggVorbis files I was making off of FLAC to put on the neuros (Skipping, hiccoughing, pops, snaps, the whole 9 yards.)
I've never heard of any such problem with dbpoweramp on audio message boards like hydrogenaudio. Are the skips there playing on the PC, or just on the Neuros?
My best guess is that you have dbpoweramp and oggdrop set up to use different ogg encoders. It has been reported here that the aoTuV encoder plays better on Neuros (higher Q value before skips appear) than the basic one from vorbis.com. The issue is some resource constraint on the Neuros rather than one or the other encoder being defective.
Edit: I have dbpoweramp set up to use the aoTuV encoder. I haven't been hearing any skips, but I don't generally don't encode for the Neuros at over about Q4.5.
-Don
Reply author: chad(at)gambit.net
Replied on: 11/18/2005 10:27:36 AM
Message:
It's worse than just skips.
It will jump back and forth inside the song by 2-20 second jumps. And it's in the source file, not a playback issue with the Neuros.
I've tried purging and re-installing dbPowerAmp, and that doesn't fix it, but OggDrop works fine on the same system.
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