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79 Comments
- Nezzari, on 10/12/2007, -15/+80Can't say your comment was very interesting... Stupid? Yes.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+32Sounds interesting, although I think I'll stick with FLAC.
- Pimpalicious316, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19means it's good quality as long as you don't reference the original CD's :)
- innerspirit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16sounds like a sensasionalist article, it doesnt say how much quality you lose with this 58-cds-into-1 compression ratio
- 32bitwonder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Which is what I use as well for making lossless backups of my CDs to DVDs. This way I never need to re-rip & tag my CDs again. I then use the tagged FLAC files to make high quality MP3s with LAME for "portable" use. LAME is more than capable of making high quality MP3s and they'll play on anything. I'll stay with MP3 for the time being thanks, but having the option to re-encode from FLAC is a handy option in the future for sure.
- cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Ahh yes, because only professionals can figure out the command line..
- Lorian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Who's flaming? I mean, other than you...
- TopherT, on 10/12/2007, -8/+17Everyone knows that you can downsample audio signifigantly. When I saw the title to this article I assumed that someone found a way to get compression that good with reasonable quality to play in a CD player, which would to my mind be quite an intriguing feet. If you need a computer to listen to it, why not just send it where you need it Via Bittorrent in a lossless format. That way you don't even have to lose quality. Physical media is an anacronism, why carry data around with you if you can simply send it digitally. (unless you want to keep it hidden from the NSA :D)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Thats not the point. FLAC is great for archiving your entire music collection, as it can easily be converted into any format desired without the normal loss of quality if you went from lossy to lossy.
- alexpigment, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11except that flac isn't compatible with most stuff (i.e. ipod, etc)
i've been encoding my stuff in HQ mp3 for years (256kb/s) and it's the only format that hasn't screwed me over by new technologies. i have all these open-source freak friends that swear by ogg, but now they have to buy these rediculous players to make use of their files. i also know people who used wma for their stuff (which is completely and utterly stupid) and now they can't use it on their ipods. i know people who used m4a and bought a wma-based mp3 player and can't use them. flac is the exact same thing. sure, it's high quality, but i am a musician, producer, and all around music nerd, and i guarantee you that you will rarely (probably never) find someone who can tell the difference between 256kb/s mp3 and flac or any other lossless - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7You can pretty much already do this with MP3.
That's really all this is. An updated, and possibly better version of MP3. MP3 supports bit rates as low as 32 kbit/sec.
Mpeg 2 audio allows bit rates as low as 8 kbit/sec -- which would let you sqeeze over 100 CDs onto a single disk.
Of course, all of this says *nothing* of the lossiness of any of these algorithms.
Hell, if you're comfortable with 100% loss, you can just run:
echo "" > myfile.wav
Imagine, with 0kbit/sec bitrates, you can fit an infinite number of CDs on a single CD! - lessigfan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7If 80 minutes of audio is 700mb, to get 58 albums on one cd, each album would have to be 12.1mb (rounded). Assuming an average of 12 tracks, that means that each song is about a single megabyte, or .15mb per minute of audio.
So yeah the headline is sensationalist, you'd lose tons of quality if you did this kind of compression. BUT, you don't have to compress this much, even at 128kbps it sounds pretty nice. Not to mention it is free and the CLI interface means running batches is easy as pie. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It's a buzz word audiophiles like to throw around when they don't know how to quantify something they (think they) hear.
- krinn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Nero has a history of sensationalist press releases like this, so skepticism is justified.
Anyway, 58:1 compression ratio for CD audio (1411 kbps) would be about 24 kbits/sec. It is possible to do AAC at this bit rate, but it's pretty easy to tell the difference between that and the original. - JesusFaction, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7What is "reference quality"?
- 32bitwonder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I use FLAC exclusively as a storage format. Lossless codecs are ideal for that.
- pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yea, FLAC is great for portable players and transfering over networks and compact storage...
Keep using FLAC for backups, but why not compress it for use in everything else? - isasusinfinite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Hey! I've figured out a way to compress my entire audio collection into just one bit. Here it is, for all to see and take. Please don't tell the RIAA:
1 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@regyt:
The monkey's audio (APE) losless compression is not just for Windows users. Is is also available as a plugin for gstreamer - the best open source multimedia framework available. - lane.montgomery, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Sheet music? :)
- fluoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4No, it's 1/58th the size. Supposedly, anyway. That doesn't [necessarily] have anything to do with the quality.
I mean, FLAC compresses audio to a smaller size but I'm not sure by how much. For a moment, let's just say it compresses it to half the size. That doesn't mean it's 1/2 the quality of a CD, because it's actually 100% (hence the L in FLAC standing for "lossless").
So the issue of how far it can compress audio is only one half of the interesting question.. the other half being, how much data loss is there and how does it compare to things like Vorbis, MP3, etc. - kuya, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7ah, FLAC!
- mikesum32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Besweet has a UI spawned by Satan himself.
see screenshot
http://sv1.randomcrap.net/uploads/files/0/gui1.gif - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6FLAC has a lot of other advantages over high-bitrate MP3's, not including sound quality.
- scruffmaster, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7For people like me who dont understand esoteric english:
anacronism: even google doesn't know what that is.
anachronism: One that is out of its proper or chronological order, especially a person or practice that belongs to an earlier time - rimco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Although I don't personally use FLAC, I can see one place where it would be vital... surround upmixing. I have a stereo that'll upmix to 6.1 surround, and it's the stuff that gets sent to the surround speakers (determined by phase shifting) that gets lost in compression. I use 192 VBR AAC myself and notice little difference from the original (and I'm an audio NUT, trust me), but when upmixed to 5.1, if you stick your ear near the rear speakers, you'll hear the compression artifacts... from a distance, it works, but FLAC has its uses.
- lessigfan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Good call, thanks. Fixed link: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=110789
- mikesum32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Rio Karma, Rockbox, and many IAudio devices support FLAC.
That's the problem with all these lossless codes like Monkey's Audio, Shorten, OptimFrog, RK Audio, WavPack, Lossless WMA, and FLAC;. It's hard to find a player.
If you want lossless, you might be better off using wav. :-)
FLAC is what I'm going to archive my music to and then convert to any other lossless format(probably mp3).
P.S .Please send me a music player media giants. - nerdjesus1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@TopherT: Please keep in mind that people can't always transfer information online (dial-up users). Then again, they could just get a USB JumpDrive thing or carry around an external hard drive.
- sirber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Speaking of doom9, next version of RealAnime is using the new Nero AAC encoder.
http://www.detritus.qc.ca - ahmerhussain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2you CAN play it onan iPod by using iPodLinux.
Also if you try to play the song on a high-quality car system then you WILL hear the difference between a CD and a mp3. - cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7So if I submit a story about the invention of the wheel, and it gets to the front page, it isn't old news? Right...
- sixister, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They make it sound like you'll be able to play a CD burned with music encoded with this new protocol on a regular (non-mp3 playing) CD player. Am I way out of line?
If this is true I could really use this in my car. - Solol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"...you WILL hear the difference between a CD and a mp3."
And with the engine running ? - sirber, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4is it me or you have your php sessionid in your URL?
Also AAC LC is very good at 128kbps, AAC HE at 64kbps and AAC HE PS at 32kbps ;)
even MP3 is good at 192kbps... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@pimpalicious:
Actually, saying you 'reference the original cd's' is inaccurate. You'd reference the master DAT recordings to hear superior quality, as anything transferred to a CD has incurred audio quality loss at the first step (digital clipping). - g30ph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Solo
I don't hear my engine inside my car. I don't hear the road til I get over 50mph. The only sound I have to deal with is the A/C. I drive an '05 Mazda 3. - g30ph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I encode my mp3s at VBR 256 min - 320 max and play them on my ipod in my $1500 car system and it sounds great. Thats about how much I spent, I know it's not the top of the line equipment but when I pump up the volume on those korn mp3s I have no regrets.
Originally I ripped all my CDs with itunes AAC encoder and the volume was very low in my car so I re-ripped them all to lame mp3s and there is a huge difference. I have an Alpine 9847 in my car with the ipod connector thingy. - lessigfan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Great discussion of the codec here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=566d5f76d89e6ffdb990824e40fd8d31&t=110789
I've run through a few files with 192000 BR and it is pretty good.
The consensus on Doom9 (after you get past the AMD bug that has been fixed) is that this is a pretty dang good encoder. It is CLI only, but it is pretty easy to use even if you don't check the readme. - Lorian, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Fair enough, but FLAC doesn't compress by 1/2 (usually), I don't see how it would be possible to losslessly compress something to 1/58th the original size.
- iskatebad914, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1is there any program similar to this that is free for the mac? this looks awesome.
- mikesum32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Anyone got a mirror?
- bshensky, on 06/22/2009, -0/+1I've been playing with the HE-AAC codec over the last week, and I can testify to its quality.
At 24kbps HE-AAC, you get full frequency response, 30hz all the way to 15+ khz. There's a tiny bit of grainyness to the audio quality, as if you were playing the track as a 45RPM record. Stereo separation is quite reasonable.
Artifacting is roughly equivalent to what you'd hear out of an MP3 encoded at 96kbps - frequency response is there, but the audio sounds noticably "processed", and would turn off even casual audio purists.
The artifacting story gets more interesting when you pump a compressed stereo signal through a Dolby Surround 5.1 decoder. Often times, artifacting becomes more noticable in the surround channels and really detracts from the music. I've noticed that even 192+kbps encoded MP3s sound *awful* when pumped thru a Dolby Surround decoder. On the other hand, when AAC-encoded material is played through the same, the surround channels are quite listenable indeed, even at lower bitrates. In this case, a 24kbps HE-AAC signal is still quite listenable when pumped thru the Dolby Surround decoder, as compared to even a 192+kbps MP3.
The stream metadata information reports the coding as "AAC+SBR+PS", meaning it's an AAC stream at its core (no different than any other AAC-encoded iTunes download), with the sideband replication and parametric stereo "add ons" that define the "HE-" in "HE-AAC". You *can* play the stream in iTunes, QuickTime, and on your iPod, but it will be monophonic and with NO high end whatsoever, and sounds horrible! This is because current Apple products do not support the HE-AAC codecs yet.
There is a confirmed report that Snow Leopard WILL support HE-AAC. This infers that iTunes > 8.2, iPhone, and the iPod Touch will all eventually get HE-AAC support. There's no telling if Apple will extend this to legacy iPods (like my 5G iPod Video). WinAmp, Nero, VLC and my BlackBerry Curve all support HE-AAC decoding. WinAmp and Nero (win), and XLT and Max (OSX) support HE-AAC encoding. The alternative Rockbox firmware Web site suggests support for HE-AAC decoding currently, so there's hope for you early adopters itching to free up space on your iPod.
Make no mistake, you would *not* want to archive your music at 24kbps. The artifacting is undeniable, but the music is still very listenable. This codec makes for killer Internet Radio streaming (imagine full frequency stereo across GPRS!), and I've been lobbying Orb.com to add it to their product. For me, the thought of moving 65Gb of music off my iPod and onto my BlackBerry Curve with a 16Gb MicroSD card is palpable. If you're interested in stuffing the sonic equivalent of an elephant into a foot of drainpipe, this codec is for you. - The_Decryptor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'll stick with the nice *universal* mp3 format."
It's only universal because it's the lowest common denominator :p
And eventually you will see more AAC playing devices, AAC was designed to replace MP3, so eventually people will get sick of the problems with MP3 and move on. - poipoipoi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i did - at 48k, it was nearly identical to a well-encoded 128k~160mp3. Really neat, but... no portable device'll play it!
I'll stick with the nice *universal* mp3 format. - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Fair enough, but FLAC doesn't compress by 1/2 (usually)"
Actually it averages 40%. The WAV format is _very_ inefficient.
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison - SkinnerIJA, on 03/10/2008, -0/+1OMG, of course. Ogg is the best audio file format ever! Too bad this codec is not implemented on the iPod. It would be sweet if iPods now supported OGG's!
- poipoipoi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"It's impossible for the human ear to tell the difference when an mp* is encoded with very high quality"
Totally true. (But the people that don't trust their ears can't admit this simple fact. Shhhh! They are very sensitive to criticism.) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't understand why Nero is trying to do the same thing that Apple did with AAC and Mpeg4, the industry is still using MP3 in home stereos (with 5 mp3 disc trays), cd mp3 players (that cost 30 dollars), and DivX players (that cost 100 dollars). Why because MP3 has become the standard for digital music, It's like AOL when they entered the ISP market, they did it too late and now they are paying the consequences. What Nero should try to fix is it's Nero 7 suite that really sucks when making MP3 disks or converting Xvid Video to DVD, I think I will not use a new Nero product until they do something better than Convertx to DVD. And i'll stick with Nero 6 for MP3 disks.
- hitman47, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1anyone used aacplus before ?
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