FLAC 1.1.4, smaller, faster, better Options

[ozmosis82]

Great job Josh. I definitely appreciate the work you've put into FLAC.

[dyneq]

I ran a quick test with Timer on a single image file (soundtrack to 'Finding Nemo') using no parameters (defaults). I have a P4 3GHz with 1GB RAM. If someone provides an optimized ICL SSE build, I'll be happy to test

CODE

Original File: 638,775,020 bytes test_image.wav

flac 1.1.3

test_image.wav: wrote 329,487,790 bytes, ratio=0.516

Kernel Time  =     3.546 = 00:00:03.546 =   2%
User Time    =    62.890 = 00:01:02.890 =  48%
Process Time =    66.437 = 00:01:06.437 =  50%
Global Time  =   130.422 = 00:02:10.422 = 100%

flac 1.1.4

test_image.wav: wrote 328,246,889 bytes, ratio=0.514

Kernel Time  =     3.625 = 00:00:03.625 =   2%
User Time    =    49.406 = 00:00:49.406 =  40%
Process Time =    53.031 = 00:00:53.031 =  43%
Global Time  =   123.281 = 00:02:03.281 = 100%

Thanks, Josh!

[jaybeee]

Excellent stuff Josh

FLAC is, and has been, my lossless encoder of choice since I started using lossless audio compression (~3yrs now).

As I always use the --best (aka -8) switch I'm gonna notice a significant improvement, so that's brilliant.

Keep up the good work

[JunkieXL]

Thanks Josh!

Appreciate all of your hard work and constant efforts to answer problems/questions posted in the forum. FLAC is still my codec of choice for my lossless encoding needs.
JXL

This post has been edited by JunkieXL: Feb 14 2007, 18:49

[culturevulture]

FLAC is my lossless codec of choice too. Hardware support is excellent (SqueezeBox in my case) and I never had a single problem with my FLAC files. Thank you Josh and please keep up the excellent work! I'm trying the new version right now and speed improvements as well as compression improvements really make my day!

[jcoalson]

thanks for the kind words everyone. I will take a look at that possible replaygain bug.

[4tified]

Another thanks from a FLAC user!! I'm excited about the increase in encoding speed. I've just started last weekend back up my CD collections and this new build will help it go by even faster!! Awesome job!

[LotharZ]

Great work jcoalson, thx.

[Haicube]

Excellent news... so it seems 114 improved everything, which is great.

Now where are updated benchmarks comparing the lossless formats ^^

Not that I care, due to free+HWsupport+established... my support is surely won and I don't really care about other formats anymore..

[TREX6662k6]

Was looking forward to this release
Thanks!

[DrGreen]

Thanks for this new release. I was waiting for it before doing a batch convertion

[aval57]

AFAIK, ntohl() is defined in <winsock.h> (actually <winsock2.h>) on all versions of VC++, so

CODE

#if defined(_MSC_VER) && _MSC_VER <= 1200

should be

CODE

#if defined(_MSC_VER)

in bitreader.c and bitwriter.c.

Thanks Josh!

On a related note: to build with mingw32 (msys) I had to comment out these #ifdefs in bitreader/bitwriter.c so that #include <winsock.h> would be visible to the compiler, and manually add -lwsock32 to the linker options.

This post has been edited by aval57: Feb 14 2007, 23:30

[emtee]

Thanks.

Now if only winamp's plugin could get a little love as well...
I've experienced problems when seeking near the end of the song. Also, apparently flac plugin for winamp doesn't support Media Library tags, preventing other plugins from reading the song info (such as albumlist, last.fm, etc...).

[DigitalMan]

Thank you, Josh. Your excellent work is very much appreciated. I have my entire collection in FLAC (200GB) and look forward to 1.1.4. Keep up the good work!

[jamesbaud]

Thank you, Josh. Your excellent work is very much appreciated. I have my entire collection in FLAC (200GB) and look forward to 1.1.4. Keep up the good work!

Just wondering... If your collection is already archived in an earlier version of FLAC, is there any reason to transcode to a newer version, other than to save some additional space?

[Bourne]

does this new version fixes this bug here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....1287&hl=bug

i was pretty disturbed with this, and the foobar guy said it's not at their end.

thanks for inputs!

[DigitalMan]

Thank you, Josh. Your excellent work is very much appreciated. I have my entire collection in FLAC (200GB) and look forward to 1.1.4. Keep up the good work!

Just wondering... If your collection is already archived in an earlier version of FLAC, is there any reason to transcode to a newer version, other than to save some additional space?

Good question. I think the new version has some tagging upgrades (album art, lyrics, etc.) and some other improvements (check changelogs to be sure) beyond some space saving that I may take advantage of. I'll probably transcode to 1.1.4 eventually just to save a bit of space, but 1.1.2 has worked great for me. I like to keep on the most recent version if its not too much trouble and to encourage further improvements. If I can gain a few GB of space with an overnight transcode I'll probably do it.

This post has been edited by DigitalMan: Feb 15 2007, 06:09

[user]

great!
I try soon flac 1.1.4 for encoding my next album CD.
For now, I thank in advance ! for fixing the comma-bug, and especially speed improvements on flac -8 , which i use on my P3-800MHz, I am curious how it works out !

[DJED]

For my amusement (and piece of mind), I did:

Ripped a track to WAV
Encoded to 1.1.3 via FLAC front end using -8
File size was 27.7 mb

Converted via the lil batch program to 1.1.4
File size is 27.5 mb

Used the FLAC 1.1.3 to decode to WAV
Used FC /B to compare source WAV to decoded WAV....

No differences. I am pleased and impressed.

THANKS!!!

[Zoom]

I'll probably transcode to 1.1.4 eventually just to save a bit of space, but 1.1.2 has worked great for me. I like to keep on the most recent version if its not too much trouble and to encourage further improvements. If I can gain a few GB of space with an overnight transcode I'll probably do it.

I was in the same boat, well figuratively speaking. My FLAC collection was still in 1.1.2 also. I started my conversion last night and I've been seeing some pretty decent improvements. On quite a few files from 1.1.2 to 1.1.4 I've been seeing as much as a 6% improvement. Although I must say that this is not the norm, on average I'd say the compression advantage I've observed is closer to 2% or thereabouts. 2% of 200GB is 4GB so that's a pretty decent reduction to me. YMMV.

EDIT: Instead of adding a new post, I'll just put my final results here. I ended up saving just over 5GB on my 200GB collection. Which ends up equating to 2.5%.

This post has been edited by Zoom: Feb 18 2007, 03:20

[M]

does this new version fixes this bug here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....1287&hl=bug

i was pretty disturbed with this, and the foobar guy said it's not at their end.

thanks for inputs!

No, this version does not correct that behaviour. As noted in the other thread, if this is an annoyance you can simply use "%s" in place of "-" to create a temporary file, thus avoiding the use of a pipe, and obtain normal seek tables.

- M.

[demkun]

Thanks so much, hugely appreciated.

[birdie]

Offtopic:

How does flake compares to FLAC? Is flake format compatible to FLAC (I mean will FLAC play flake encoded files)?

[smthmlk]

Some benchmarking...

Versions tested: flac 1.1.2, 1.1.3 and 1.1.4
Compiled for x86_64 GNU/Linux (2.6.18.3 smp)
Settings used: -8 -V
Benchmarked on an AMD 4200+ x2 (dual core 2.2ghz), 2GB pc3200 ram, 74GB Raptor SATA hard drive

Test1, Long track, "Tanya" from Dexter Gordons "One Flight Up" CD (RVG Edition)
-- wave file: 193776620 Bytes or 184.8MB

CODE

VER        ENC TIME      SIZE(Bytes, MBytes)        SIZE DECREASE FROM PREVIOUS VERSION
112        2m28s        124323247, 118.283        --
113        1m50s        124118163, 118.368        205084 Bytes, or 0.2MB
114        1m7s         124028937, 118.283         89226 Bytes, or 0.09MB

Test2, Short Track, "Cue" from Yellow Magic Orchestras "Ultimate Collection CD2"
-- wave file: 47886764 Bytes, 45.7MB

CODE

VER        ENC TIME      SIZE(Bytes, MBytes)          SIZE DECREASE FROM PREVIOUS VERSION
112        0m37s        29250006, 27.895        --
113        0m27s        28948188, 27.607        301818 Bytes, 0.287MB
114        0m16s        28884496, 27.546         63692 Bytes, 0.061MB

small decrease in file size (always welcome) but more importantly, a very noticeable decrease in encoding time. I would like to know how such a large decrease in encoding time was achieved (different data structure used, etc). Regardless, very well done & thanks!

[MC Escher]

I'm trying to convert to Flac 1.1.4 using Foobar's custom encoder in the convertor with the flac.exe from the Flac homepage and the following parameters:

-8 %d=%tracknumber%

But Foobar gives the following error:

Error writing to file (Unsupported format or corrupted file) : file://D:\filepath\filename.flac

Do I have some parameter wrong or is it just impossible to do what I want to do?