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Topic: File formats - what do you like ? (Read 8092 times) previous topic - next topic
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File formats - what do you like ?

What about file formats

Most of my collection is in mp3

But I see some files around now in m4a.

What do you think

I like things all the same (I am a bit anal)

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #1 –
I am going to say .m4a.

First of all I like lossless, I keep lossy files only on the randoms folders (Personal, Wife and Classical).

I used to have FLAC then converted all of them to ALAC for more compatibility and personal/family commodity, don't really care about the format unless my tags are mint, perfect. I tagged almost all of them manually, I don't keep any .cue or any .log, every folder has 600x600.jpg, 800x800.jpg, 1000x1000.jpg and 1400x1400 or 1500x1500.jpg downloaded from AlbumArtExchange and double checked with the original cover (or at least the closest to the original). I don't care about scanning, never did, never will, there are experts that scan much better that what I could ever do.

Random folders, that I keep just to remember few titles, were all converted to whichever format they where to AAC. The classical's random folder is untouched, probably the only folder with few mp3s in my system.

The lossless folders were all renamed to "Artist\Year - Album Title [LSL]" (removed [FLAC], removed [ALAC]) for better renaming and backup/versioning if I change format. I also only keep live and ep albums (Artist\Live Albums and Artist\EP Albums), no compilations, no bootlegs.

That's about it.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #2 –
In terms of liking, I guess I've always had a soft spot for having .mpc files lying around.

I mean, thanks to having to re-encode most of my MP3 library a few times over (first, some old Lame 3.8x-encoded songs were starting to show their age, then in came "alt preset standard" out went -r3mix  , and so on...) I came to see those same --standard/--extreme -encoded .mpc files (I'd then thought I would be able to tell one from another) I had created back in 2001/2, as "faithful" old friends in regards to quality - as they have remained unaltered/unchallenged since. The obvious compatibility issues along the years, the creation of Rockbox meant I could give my old pals a new breath of fresh air!

As for lossless encoding, FLAC was my de facto until I discovered the joys of hybrid WavePack and started worrying about managing my music collection 'per title ', not 'per file'; as having before one FLAC version of a song, along with its MP3/AAC equivalent, proved to be a real PITA. 

Now it's just a matter of letting MP3Tagger tag/rename/place songs in pairs (withing the same artist\year - album\ structure as eahm's) and let foobar or Rockbox take care of either finding the correction file whenever present (on my PC) or just play back the HQ lossy .wv files when it is not (portable rockbox'd player). That was the end of my headaches!
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #3 –
I have mp3s myself, but I really dislike it because the tagging seems to be a mess.

Prefer FLAC for pretty much anything since storage is cheap.
"I hear it when I see it."

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #4 –
I don't like both of MP3 and M4A (you mean AAC?), although I'm using the latter.

MP3 is usually stored in the form of very simple, bare elementary stream without proper container format, therefore is not well suited for sample accurate seeking since it doesn't have index, timestamp/frame number in header, or something like that.
I also don't like it's additional inter frame dependency due to it's bit reservoir.
ID3 tags are indeed mess, and adding them to beginning or ending of bare elementary stream involves additional mess (in order to avoid part of metadata looking like sync-bytes of elementary stream or something).

I don't like AAC/M4A due to it's complexity (both of AAC family and MP4 container are VERY, unnecessarily, complex). AAC often requires almost full bitstream parsing when you want to know some very basic things like number of channels, due to it's layered structure and unnecessarily flexible  channel layout management.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #5 –
8SVX. You don't need all those extra bits anyway.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #6 –
I think there's a poll somewhere about file formats.

Personally I rip to FLAC, anything I buy that isn't available as FLAC is usually MP3. I convert to MP3 for listening on my Clip+ and in the car.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #7 –
Im a FLAC freak so........

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: probedb on
I think there's a poll somewhere about file formats.


There is.

But by the way the OP has put it, and how we've been replying to it, we're going a step further and pondering over the reasons why we use this or that format in particular.
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: includemeout on
But by the way the OP has put it, and how we've been replying to it, we're going a step further and pondering over the reasons why we use this or that format in particular.


Right - so my answer is FLAC for the "master copy" because of easy tagging (and losslessness), mp3 for portable/streaming for universal copatibility and size.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: julf on
Right - so my answer is FLAC for the "master copy" because of easy tagging (and losslessness), mp3 for portable/streaming for universal copatibility and size.
Ditto. And I've found it's surprising how many times it's useful to have a "master copy". Simple, perfect gapless support. Definitive metadata which you can transform in order to make it work with other devices. Plus the obvious ability to encode to any audio format you might need without extra quality loss.

I was wondering the other night why I only started using lossless a few years ago, rather than a decade ago. Then I realised that our current PC has 600x more storage than our last-but-one PC had (about ten years ago). A lossless collection would have more than filled the PC back then. Now it seems small compared with HD video, and I store several hundred hours of that.

Cheers,
David.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #11 –
I use FLAC for archival. The FLAC files are on a portable harddrive that I only attach occasionally. Everyday listening at home and on-the-go is almost exclusively M4A (with the odd old MP3 that I can't be bothered to re-encode from FLAC to AAC).
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #12 –
File format doesn't necessarily tell you much.  m4a could be Apple Lossless, which is as good as you're going to get from a CD source (much like FLAC, TAK, etc.).  It also could be low-bitrate stuff encoded by (ugh) FAAC.  On the other hand, mp3 could also be high bitrate and encoded by a good encoder.

Now on to personal preference:  I'm partial to FLAC for storage and aotuv-encoded Ogg Vorbis at -q 4.25 for portable listening.  I also have some high bitrate mp3s for things that either a) weren't released in lossless or b) were acquired from Amazon MP3 or Google Play.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #13 –
From 2007 or so I began to rip my discs to FLAC -5 and maintained an archive based on that. On the side, I kept AAC copies for portable listening on my commutes. However, I had to live with the occasional artifact even at very high bitrates (~256-320kbps). Besides, there is something rather "metallic" about AAC that I have always found unsatisfactory (but one does get used to it over time). 

Anyway, I discovered lossyWAV on HA and have not looked back ever since. I get to have near lossless copies of my music collection in a format I like (FLAC) at lower bitrates by lossless standards. I listen to music mostly on my Nexus 4 (via Poweramp) and find that FLAC (in this case, lossyFLAC) gives me unusually long battery life vs AAC. On a recent long-haul flight I got 13 hours of continuous playback (with EQ and Stereo X on) and still had 43% battery charge left. Of course, during the entire time the phone was on flight mode and worked merely as a music player.
lossyWAV -q H | FLAC -5 ~= 480kbps
QAAC 320kbps

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #14 –
Some great replies thanks.
Keep them coming

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Digmen1 on
Most of my collection is in mp3


Then do not transcode. Lossies should be kept the way they are - you can however re-encapsulate a lossy stream into a different container if you know what you are doing, and your thread title asks for file format and not for codec, so ...



Quote from: Digmen1 on
But I see some files around now in m4a.


"m4a" is a file suffix that many assign to an mp4 container with only audio content. Typically it is AAC, but sometimes also the lossless ALAC.





Quote from: Digmen1 on
What do you think

I like things all the same


I actually don't. Well if I could have it, then fine, but if they are not, then I want it to be clear that they aren't.

I would not use ALAC as m4a.  ALAC as m4a and AAC as m4a are different codecs, and I want them to look different: When I see an m4a in my collection, I want to know it is an AAC lossy (for that reason, I do use the "m4a" extension too - I do not want to confuse audio and video files).  Then I can use the OS' file handling too.

I use FLAC for most lossless files.  But not for the ones with pre-emphasis - the de-emphasis I apply on-the-fly with foobar2000, so it depends on a tag, and just in case I should happen to delete a tag I want to find the files back; therefore, they are WavPack-encoded.

(I annoy myself a little bit over mp2 files.  I want them to be kept as mp2's, but then my car unit won't play them.  So they are ".mp2.mp3")




Now if you really want merely one file format:
- Matroska could be one for you. You can encapsulate all your MP3s in there (anyone: will gaplessness headers etc. be carried over?) and all AACs too.
- ... and, if you live in a country where iTunes Match is available: it allows you to replace your mp3s with 256k AAC (as m4a) files.  If by coincidence iTunes has all your songs, then you can migrate.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #16 –
I still buy mostly CDs.   But sometimes I'll buy a CD, rip it, and never play it!

My collection is MP3 (13,000+ songs, mostly LAME V0).  I have copies on my iPod Classic (which lives in my car hooked-up to my car stereo), a couple of portable USB drive, 2 laptops, and my computer at work.

I chose MP3 because when I started ripping, MP3 seemed like the most universal "play anywhere" format.  But if I was starting-over, I'd probably choose AAC.    There are some advantages to AAC and it's almost as universal as MP3.  I think there are some car stereos that can play MP3 but not AAC, but since I'm using an iPod that wouldn't matter.

I don't have lossless files (except for the original CDs).    If I were making lossless files (for playback or archive) I'd use FLAC.  Besides file compression, tagging for FLAC (or ALAC if you are a MAC user) is more standardized than tagging for WAV or AIFF.  So, I'd avoid WAV or AIFF.  Otherwise any lossless format is equally good, since you can convert losslessly to any other lossless format if your needs change in the future.  Or, you can convert to any lossy format of your choice at any time.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #17 –
Quote from: includemeout on
Quote from: probedb on
I think there's a poll somewhere about file formats.
There is.
Many.

Quote
But by the way the OP has put it, and how we've been replying to it, we're going a step further and pondering over the reasons why we use this or that format in particular.
That happened frequently in the aforementioned polls, too. Not that I’m going to close this one or anything, but desires like this—
Quote from: Digmen1 on
Some great replies thanks.
Keep them coming
—could probably be addressed quicker by checking the replies in those previous threads, many of which will still be applicable.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #18 –
I archive to FLAC -8. I like the compression vs. compatibility ratio, and it being lossless means I can change formats if something better comes along. If TAK went multiplatform, I'd consider switching to that. For portable,

I just copy the same FLAC tracks over to my rockboxed clip+. Purely for convenience reasons (no need to apply/rescan replay gain, conversion taking longer than copying the flac file over due to clip+'s bandwidth), and the fact that the battery life is great despite large files (as is MPC's, everything else is far behind). My playlists tend to change often and be rather short, so space isn't an issue on the clip+

Quote from: akin0780 on
Besides, there is something rather "metallic" about AAC that I have always found unsatisfactory (but one does get used to it over time).
Heh, I know exactly what you mean. One of the reasons why I prefer MP3 over AAC if I have to go lossy and keep compatibility.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: ChronoSphere on
Quote from: akin0780 on
Besides, there is something rather "metallic" about AAC that I have always found unsatisfactory (but one does get used to it over time).
Heh, I know exactly what you mean. One of the reasons why I prefer MP3 over AAC if I have to go lossy and keep compatibility.
And which sorts of bitrates are you both talking about? Any ABX results?

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #20 –
Quote from: db1989 on
Quote from: ChronoSphere on
Quote from: akin0780 on
Besides, there is something rather "metallic" about AAC that I have always found unsatisfactory (but one does get used to it over time).
Heh, I know exactly what you mean. One of the reasons why I prefer MP3 over AAC if I have to go lossy and keep compatibility.
And which sorts of bitrates are you both talking about? Any ABX results?

Oh no, don't go there, he really ABX AAC even at ~320, damn him. I am super happy with -V63.

Start here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=852263

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #21 –
For archiving: FLAC and Wavpack (lossless or hybrid); I still have some OptimFROG files (.ofr/.ofs).

For portable use: Musepack.
loquor mee menti: factus de materia, cinis elementi...

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #22 –
PC/archive:
- FLAC for most - acoustic music, full albums
- MP3 @ at least CBR 192 kbps  for some (but preferably CBR 320 kbps or CVBR V0, in some cases I can ABX between 192 kbps and higher presets) - mostly house/techno/electronic compilations and stuff from Soundcloud

Portable:
- QAAC (.m4a) CVBR 192 kbps (near transparent in ABX with FLAC source in silent listening conditions, so good enough for bike/public transport)
- MP3 if source is MP3

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #23 –
Quote from: eahm on
Quote from: db1989 on
Quote from: ChronoSphere on
Quote from: akin0780 on
Besides, there is something rather "metallic" about AAC that I have always found unsatisfactory (but one does get used to it over time).
Heh, I know exactly what you mean. One of the reasons why I prefer MP3 over AAC if I have to go lossy and keep compatibility.
And which sorts of bitrates are you both talking about? Any ABX results?

Oh no, don't go there, he really ABX AAC even at ~320, damn him. I am super happy with -V63.

Start here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=852263
256kbps actually, 320 was o-l-a-v.
I need a good day to try this with MP3 as well, but from my past experience with AAC, especially it sounding "metallic" to my ears, I decided it would be safer to go with MP3@V0. I'm not claiming I can ABX V0 (I can't), but considering AAC fails at 256kbps, I decided to not take any chances and go with V0, without looking for my optimal threshold.

File formats - what do you like ?

Reply #24 –
I try to archive my collection in FLAC whenever possible/available. There are lots of old MP3s and Itunes-bought AAC files there though. At home I stream those with foobar to my WDTV live box or to my Android tablet as needed.

For portable, I go for -V50 QAAC as I find it quite lightweight and transparent, certainly so in noisy places (bus, street and such...). Would go for Opus if Rockbox wanted to crash less frequently on my cellphone.