WavPack 4.0 Beta Release 2, including sources Options

[bryant]

The second beta release of WavPack 4.0 includes the following:

• stable format (beta1 files okay too; beta1 decoder obsolete)
• decodes and plays legacy WavPack files (vers 1.0 to 3.97)
• sources available with new decoding library

download win32 executables plus winamp2/5 & foobar2000 plugins
download sources

This post has been edited by bryant: May 14 2004, 08:06

[xmixahlx]

excellent!

so porting to, say, libwavpack library and wavpack frontend for *NIX seems much more achievable now? i'm IN.

btw, who is interested in this porting endeavor? can i see a raise of hands?


thanx david!

[aabxx]

I tried the new asymmetrical encoding... very slow to encode, but
should according to readme not affect decode-time. Every encoder is
set to max compression.

A typical modern pop song: 34 468 604 bytes
Flac : 23 215 157 bytes (48,475% compression)
Old Wavpack : 22 776 702 bytes (51,333% compression)
New Wavpack : 20 465 194 bytes (68,425% compression)

Expect the monkey audios and optimfrogs of this world to easily beat
the new wavpack, at least at higher settings, but compared to its main
competitor and open source colleague FLAC and the old version it's looking
good! Besides it's all about the hybrid mode hehe ;)

But this could have been a fluke, of course ;) Hopefully someone will
do thorough testing on it soon, including decode-times.

[NRAninja]

Hello bryant,

I like Wavpack 4 very much. I noticed in the readme that you were planning on supporting MD5 and cuesheets. Is cuesheet support going to be like Monkey's APL or what?

I was also wondering if you planned on implementing replaygain. What I mean is something like a switch in wavpack.exe that can go through a folder and add replaygain to the tags like how metaflac and vorbisgain do it. I would like to be able to encode and replaygain in one step using UniversalFront or a perl script a friend of mine wrote.

Thank you,
ninja

[Tec9SD]

I was also wondering if you planned on implementing replaygain. What I mean is something like a switch in wavpack.exe that can go through a folder and add replaygain to the tags like how metaflac and vorbisgain do it. I would like to be able to encode and replaygain in one step using UniversalFront or a perl script a friend of mine wrote.

I too would really enjoy having Replay Gain support.
Replay Gain, native support, is along with its cuesheet implementation are major reasons which make FLAC my favorite lossless codec.

This would help me to consider a switch.

Many thanks for everything Bryant.

Take care, tec

-----
Also Bryant, would this be the thread you prefer for us to add suggestions or feature requests?

[robUx4]

We're planning to have WavPack handling natively in Matroska so ReplayGain should be handled in there (the container).

[NumLOCK]

A typical modern pop song: 34 468 604 bytes
Flac                              : 23 215 157 bytes (48,475% compression)
Old Wavpack                    : 22 776 702 bytes (51,333% compression)
New Wavpack                : 20 465 194 bytes (68,425% compression)

Shouldn't it rather be (in your notation):

Flac: 32.64%
Old Wavpack: 33.92%
New Wavpack: 40.62%



This post has been edited by NumLOCK: May 7 2004, 09:30

[tcmjr]

Hey Bryant , nice to see you again Had an Hdd crash , as lost all my .wv collection using 4 beta 1 was working flawless.

According to my testes wavpack -h is a little bit better than flac -8 being the ecoding speed MUCH MUCH faster.
-hx6 indeed takes a LOOOONG time and not much compression gain for most of my samples. -hx3 gives me times compared to flac and a little bit better compress for its time.

[mrbruno]

hi !

wavpack seems to be a very interesting encoder... but
what about tags ? does it support it ?

[Tomb]

You can tag with ID3v1, ID3v2 or APE2. I tag with APE2 as per Case's guide.

This post has been edited by Tomb: May 7 2004, 17:20

[mrbruno]

well, I'd like to tag wavpack files with ID3 tags...
In fact, if I could just copy ID3 tags from MP3 files
to wavpack files that would be fine !
(I don't use eac to create my wavpack files,
because I'm using wavpack to encode audio
that I recorded from FM radio (talk shows).

[rjamorim]

I was also wondering if you planned on implementing replaygain. What I mean is something like a switch in wavpack.exe that can go through a folder and add replaygain to the tags like how metaflac and vorbisgain do it. I would like to be able to encode and replaygain in one step using UniversalFront or a perl script a friend of mine wrote.

I too would really enjoy having Replay Gain support.
Replay Gain, native support, is along with its cuesheet implementation are major reasons which make FLAC my favorite lossless codec.

This would help me to consider a switch.

ReplayGain and CueSheet (Including CD text ) are planned for the mid-term. For short term, porting and creation of a library.

It accepts ID3v1 and APEv2 tags without problems. I'm not sure about ID3v2, but even if it's not officially supported, the decoder can easily skip them.

[robUx4]

I'm currently porting the sources to Linux (keeping Win32 compatibility). It's harder than expected but still feasable. Then I'll try to port it to big endian machines (OS X).

I'll publish the modified sources ASAP.

[emtee]

What about seeking? I remember version 3.97 had some seeking problems in winamp.

[Speek]

What about seeking? I remember version 3.97 had some seeking problems in winamp.

From the readme:
WavPack 4.0 is intended to eliminate all of the shortcomings of the previous WavPack, the most obvious of which is the slow seeking.

Added WavPack 4.0 beta 2 to my comparison.

[tcmjr]

What about seeking? I remember version 3.97 had some seeking problems in winamp.

WavPack 4.0 is intended to eliminate all of the shortcomings of the previous
WavPack, the most obvious of which is the slow seeking.

and


First of all, the new WavPack format is block oriented, which facilitates fast
seeking. Also, since each block is independently decodable, the format is
streamable and inherently error-resistant (although the decoder and winamp
plugin do not yet take advantage of this). In fact, the blocks can be separated
and embedded into another container format and still be decoded transparently
by the Wvunpack program!

[Tec9SD]

well, I'd like to tag wavpack files with ID3 tags...
In fact,  if I could just copy ID3 tags from MP3 files
to wavpack files that would be fine !

Mp3tag should be able to to do what you are interested in.

I don't believe I've tried tagging Wavpack with it before, so I'm unsure every type of tag Mp3tag will allow. It's certainly worth a try though.

Speek's Tag frontend & Tagger by Max Bureck are both front-ends to Case's Tag.

If you are planning to use ID3v2 tags, Tag is unable to write them, so you'll know.

And foobar2000 normal installer includes Wavpack support and the Masstagger which will allow tagging (only APEv2 for Wavpack, to my knowledge).

Personally, I suggest using APEv2 tags, and if ID3 is necessary, use ID3v1.1 additionally for compatibility.

Hope this makes things easier, tec

[robUx4]

The modified sources that work both under Win32 and Linux can be found on my website.

The Linux version has only one drawback, you can't use wildcards (yet). I may fix that tomorrow and hopefully make it work under OS X too.

[rjamorim]

Wonderful. Thank-you very much

@xmixahlx: Where is the Debian package?

[naturfreak]

Bug in Wavpack4 beta2 (win32 executable)?

Hello,

I did some test encodes on my PC with the new beta version. I discovered probably a bug.

After processing the program remains in the memory.

I had several instances of wavpack in the memory after encoding. Processor load stayed at 100%. I had to shutdown the tasks of wavpack manually using the taskmanager.

I'm using OS Windows2000 SP4 German.


Sorry for bad english. It's not my native language, but I'll try to improve my language skills.

Regards
naturfreak

[tcmjr]

no problem using windows xp sp1 all patches

[kuniklo]

The modified sources that work both under Win32 and Linux can be found on my website.

The Linux version has only one drawback, you can't use wildcards (yet). I may fix that tomorrow and hopefully make it work under OS X too.

Thanks for taking the time to get this working.

It's mostly working for me on my debian unstable box, but I have found two problems:

1. Wvunpack segfaults when unpacking a .wv file if it has to ask about overwriting an existing .wav file.

2. Wvunpack segfaults when unpacking a .wvc.

[den]

Now that Wavpack 4 is relatively stable, and the format is more or less locked, I'm cranking up some testing on the lossy modes. I'll come back with some comments in a few days.

Den.

PS: It goes without saying, Thanks a heap David, and to you others who have whipped up the linux version(s).

This post has been edited by den: May 8 2004, 00:22

[xmixahlx]

@xmixahlx: Where is the Debian package?

i actually had it packaged moments after he posted the sources (14:00:03 -0700) but had to leave in a hurry before i could upload them

they are there now (i'm assuming these will be test/preliminary packages so expect them to be modified/updated several times) -- the packaging itself is complete

a few notes on the *nix port (usage debian sid)

* segfaults when overwriting
* doesn't exit gracefully
* still has win32 header
* i'd like to see a library + frontend duo (i.e. frontend does encode/decode)
--> library allows for ease of plugins/etc.

GREAT WORK ROBUX4! Thanx for your efforts! *cough*monkeysaudio*cough*


later

[Pamel]

First of all, the new WavPack format is block oriented, which facilitates fast seeking. Also, since each block is independently decodable, the format is
streamable and inherently error-resistant ...... In fact, the blocks can be separatedand embedded into another container format and still be decoded transparently

In other words, the Matroska support can start.