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Supacon
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19 Posts |
 Posted - 03/22/2005 : 11:02:54 AM
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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? |
Edited by - Supacon on 03/22/2005 11:04:05 AM |
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Chameleon
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1396 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2005 : 11:11:57 AM
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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!' |
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Josh Coalson
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Posted - 03/22/2005 : 12:37:40 PM
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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 - |
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Chameleon
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1396 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2005 : 3:11:17 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Josh Coalson
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.
I believe that is what Starkey is doing.
quote:
Originally posted by Josh Coalson
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
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.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!' |
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Supacon
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Posted - 03/22/2005 : 4:50:29 PM
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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. |
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Yono
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718 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2005 : 5:43:24 PM
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At a max, possibly 100kb/s. Not amazing, but cut it some slack, its all about the bragging rights. 
-- 'Microsoft Works is an Oxymoron' |
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Supacon
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Posted - 03/22/2005 : 7:19:29 PM
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| 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. |
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Yono
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718 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2005 : 7:35:32 PM
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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' |
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slinkoff
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6 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2005 : 05:04:33 AM
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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. |
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chad(at)gambit.net
Posting is for Closers
98 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2005 : 06:37:15 AM
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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. |
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slinkoff
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Posted - 03/23/2005 : 06:53:50 AM
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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. |
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doctorcilantro
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Posted - 03/23/2005 : 07:39:13 AM
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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 |
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chad(at)gambit.net
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98 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2005 : 07:46:14 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by slinkoff
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.
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. |
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Josh Coalson
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Posted - 03/23/2005 : 10:13:24 AM
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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 - |
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slinkoff
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Posted - 03/23/2005 : 10:58:51 AM
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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. |
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Supacon
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Posted - 03/23/2005 : 11:11:37 AM
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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.
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Sean Starkey
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Posted - 03/23/2005 : 11:51:13 AM
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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 |
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Supacon
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Posted - 03/23/2005 : 12:27:35 PM
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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 |
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The J
Posting Profoundly
184 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2005 : 9:23:21 PM
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| 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. |
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Zithromax
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Posted - 03/24/2005 : 03:47:58 AM
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| I'd say this argument is pretty well played out. |
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Lossless Audio Format?
