FLAC 1.1.3 released Options

[db1989]

Can you not update the download on the page and add a note saying "Releases downloaded prior to xx/xx/xx . . .", explaining? It will not be much hassle for users who wish to update their encoder, and it will be available to those outside of this fine community.

[Jose Hidalgo]

I agree : strict procedures are OK, but a bit of pragmatism is better. If there is a patch and if this patch works like Josh just said, then the patch should be available for download directly at FLAC's official site until the next minor release is out.

[Maurits]

How about a 1.1.3a?

[SoleBastard]

I wanted to check out the 'better multichannel support' of this new flac release so I did the following:

I extracted some PCM .wav files from a DVD-A disc I own, they're 24 bit 44.1KHz. I used Wavewizard v0.54b to merge the 6 .wav files according to Microsoft's standard order (L, R, C, LFE, RL, RR) into one big 5.1 24bit PCM .wav.

I then fed this file to convert using Foobar 0.9.4.2 set to preserve the bit depth and using the standard commandline: -s -8 - -o %d (even put my windows locale to English (UK)). This conversion failed and gives me the following error: Error writing to file (Encoder has terminated prematurely with code 1; please re-check parameters).

I tried feeding the same merged .wav file to the official flac frontend but it failed too, giving me both a warning (legacy WAVE file has format type 1 but bits-per-sample=24) and an error (WAVE has >2 channels but is not WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE; cannot assign channels.

I've been converting my DVD-A discs using this very same method combined with FLAC 1.1.2 without any problems before. Moreover, putting back the 'old' flac.exe (1.1.2) to the Foobar folder results in a perfect encode.

What's up with the 'better mutlichannel support'?

(Regardless of this, thank you very much for creating this nice lossless encoder!)

This post has been edited by SoleBastard: Dec 5 2006, 06:31

[Egor]

What's up with the 'better mutlichannel support'?

The new flac 1.1.3 requires multichannel wav files to be in WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE, but currently fb2k generates it in WAVE_FORMAT_EX for 'compatibility' reason.

Besides convincing Peter to add _EXTENSIBLE support to Converter, you can try the following undocumented option:

Foobar2000 generates multichannel WAV files, which are not compatible with flac.exe 1.1.3 and Windows Media Encoder. I've sent you a sample to the address at sf.net.

ok, these look like the WAV files flac used to generate too, they are 6ch WAVEFORMATEX which are technically not allowed but common.

the way I am handling this in flac-1.1.3 is an undocumented option '--channel-map=none' to let flac assume the channels are in WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE's order. note that you still have to feed flac a multichannel file that uses one of the legal channel assignments (http://flac.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*...ml#frame_header) if you want to make sure the decoded WAV later has the right channels in the right order with the right channel mask.

This post has been edited by Egor: Dec 5 2006, 06:54

[Mangix]

Besides convincing Peter to add _EXTENSIBLE support to Converter

erm, doesn't the converter feed flac.exe the raw PCM data or am i missing something here?

[SoleBastard]

Thanks Egor, that '--channel-map=none' options seems to do the trick . However, what I don't understand is that if Foobar seems to be the problem than why does the official flac frontend has the same problem? And is there any way I can create a multichannel .wav file from six mono .wav files that conform to the specification FLAC 1.1.3 demands?

/edit
Nice, FLAC 1.1.3 gives a 2% compression advantage compared to 1.1.2: respectively 1.04GB and 1.06GB on a 52 minute classical album @ 24 bit 44.1KHz.

This post has been edited by SoleBastard: Dec 5 2006, 07:26

[Egor]

erm, doesn't the converter feed flac.exe the raw PCM data or am i missing something here?

Nope, fb2k just sends wav (not RAW) data to encoder's stdin.

However, what I don't understand is that if Foobar seems to be the problem than why does the official flac frontend has the same problem?

What frontend do you mean?

And is there any way I can create a multichannel .wav file from six mono .wav files that conform the specification FLAC 1.1.3 demands?

The only freeware application was WaveWizard.

[SoleBastard]

However, what I don't understand is that if Foobar seems to be the problem than why does the official flac frontend has the same problem?

What frontend do you mean?

Well, the one that comes with the Windows Flac installer downloaded from http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html. Seems to be created by 'Speek': http://members.home.nl/w.speek/flac.htm.

[jcoalson]

note that if you use --channel-map=none, the incoming channels should be in the correct order, otherwise they might be mapped incorrectly on decoding.

Josh

[Tung]

What's the simplest way to re-encode FLAC files with 1.1.3? I'm a windows user, and FLAC Frontend will not take FLAC as input to be encoded to FLAC. I want to keep all tags, etc, just encode with newer FLAC. (also, i'm not a command line master, so..)

[me7]

The simplest way is foobar.

[ernstblaauw]

The simplest way is foobar.

What kind of improvement is expected if all FLAC files encodedwith 1.1.2 at level 8 will be re-encoded with 1.1.3 at level 8? Some bytes, or will an album be some megabytes smaller?

[jcoalson]

depends on the material but probably 0.5-1.0%

[me7]

This depends on the lenght of the album. I got an 1 MB difference on some while others gave me almost 20MB.

[Emanuel]

What's the simplest way to re-encode FLAC files with 1.1.3? I'm a windows user, and FLAC Frontend will not take FLAC as input to be encoded to FLAC. I want to keep all tags, etc, just encode with newer FLAC. (also, i'm not a command line master, so..)

Cut and paste the following script (author unknown to me) into a text editor and name it something like "convert.cmd". Put in in the root of your flac directory. Doubleclick. And do something great of your day while reencoding.

CODE

@echo off
set encoder="C:\Program\Sound\Coding\Flac\flac.exe"
for /r "." %%d in (.) do (cd %%d & for %%f in (*.flac) do %encoder% -8 -V -f -A "tukey(0,5)" "%%f")

Note: Of course you change the directory path of flac.exe to your specific.
Script takes care of the dot/comma bug.

EDIT: And it preserves the old tags.

This post has been edited by Emanuel: Dec 6 2006, 12:48

[esa372]

What's the simplest way to re-encode FLAC files with 1.1.3?

The simplest way is foobar.

Cut and paste the following script (author unknown to me) into a text editor...

You could also use Speek's Multi-Frontend.

[Cartoon]

, which I am hesitant to do for a bug which has such a simple workaround (adding an option).

The workaround is simple but the impact is large:
1. It affects a large portion of the user base.
2. It requires the users to read the known-bugs section.
3. It requires the users to verify what the decimal seperator is on the system, and then take action accordingly.
4. If they change locale, they must remember to change the FLAC parameter too.

Many people will be affected by this bug without knowing it. Many people will think they are affected and set the parameter to a faulty value.

That is the last I will say about that.

[Jose Hidalgo]

I'd even say "Many people are currently being affected by this (small) bug without knowing it". I won't say more.

[Triza]

This bug is not called out with regards to other versions (notable 1.1.2, 1.1.1) Can I safely assume that this section of the website is accurate, so earlier versions are free of this bug?

Triza

note there is one known bug that will affect the compression ratio for some locales but there is a workaround; see known bugs.

downloads at http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html or http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=13478

MD5 sums:

CODE

1986cf97d7a04d8b425d9c61fe6b52b3  flac-1.1.3-devel-win.zip
de9771830c6b879632ce50ce0052b830  flac-1.1.3-linux-i386.tar.gz
ad00df28be05eaa773854cf5da31f208  flac-1.1.3-osx-ppc.tar.gz
9badf34f5f717426babd2d9da4715aa4  flac-1.1.3-win.zip
b084603948b60ee338e0c29978cc580c  flac-1.1.3.tar.gz

SHA-1 sums:

CODE

b5229a913b2c860fcd879bdacb6a9b797bd44e0d  flac-1.1.3-devel-win.zip
e8ad3debe240eb329d8a186e8066e08681679c62  flac-1.1.3-linux-i386.tar.gz
3c0e10dba0da045364b0cc23c3694a201a2d87c0  flac-1.1.3-osx-ppc.tar.gz
3f048d915c95e4c9478e9e7249bc508a66245247  flac-1.1.3-win.zip
e19c92bebe536b69dd14d54de76c1f626b83b295  flac-1.1.3.tar.gz

[GeSomeone]

Cut and paste the following script[..] into a text editor and name it something like "convert.cmd".

Does it preserve the tags?

[Emanuel]

Cut and paste the following script[..] into a text editor and name it something like "convert.cmd".

Does it preserve the tags?

Yes it does.

[me7]

This bug is not called out with regards to other versions (notable 1.1.2, 1.1.1) Can I safely assume that this section of the website is accurate, so earlier versions are free of this bug?

Triza

Yes they are BUT you should not switch back to an older version. The bug will not damage your files or do them any harm. The only issue is that the compression will not be as good as it could be, but it will still be as good as 1.1.2 (maybe a little bit better).
You still profit from the enhanced tagging features and the updated decoder.

This post has been edited by me7: Dec 6 2006, 14:01

[ernstblaauw]

What's the simplest way to re-encode FLAC files with 1.1.3? I'm a windows user, and FLAC Frontend will not take FLAC as input to be encoded to FLAC. I want to keep all tags, etc, just encode with newer FLAC. (also, i'm not a command line master, so..)

Cut and paste the following script (author unknown to me) into a text editor and name it something like "convert.cmd". Put in in the root of your flac directory. Doubleclick. And do something great of your day while reencoding.

CODE

@echo off
set encoder="C:\Program\Sound\Coding\Flac\flac.exe"
for /r "." %%d in (.) do (cd %%d & for %%f in (*.flac) do %encoder% -8 -V -f -A "tukey(0,5)" "%%f")

Note: Of course you change the directory path of flac.exe to your specific.
Script takes care of the dot/comma bug.

EDIT: And it preserves the old tags.

If I use this script under Windows XP and I run this inside a map with FLAC files (no sub directories), then FLAC first encodes all files, but then starts again with the files it has already encoded. Am I doing something wrong?
BTW, it saves me 900KB of 300MB of files, so the improvement is not that much :-).

[WaldoMonster]

(Moved to a new topic)

This post has been edited by WaldoMonster: Dec 11 2006, 10:30