A multicore FLAC encoder Options

[GeorgeFP]

Hi!

Maybe you already know fpMP3Enc, my multicore MP3 encoder...

This time, I'd like to introduce my multicore FLAC encoder. You can download the binaries here.

The package contains Win32 binaries for XP, Vista and 7, and Win64 binaries for Vista and 7.

The FLAC encoder is part of my "fpStream" project. The command-line to convert a WAV file to FLAC is as follows:

CODE

FPSTREAM.EXE readfile in -f <wav-filename> + wavin wav -s in + fpflacenc enc -s wav [-<compression level>] + writefile out -s enc -f <flac-filename>

The benchmarks so far:
I used the same test suite as in fpMP3Enc (Intel Q9450, 61 WAV files, about 5 hours playing time). The compression level was 5. The files were encoded one after the other, not in parallel.

- flac 1.2.1: 3 min 26 secs
- fpFLAC x64: 1 min 13 secs

So, the speedup was 2.8x. This is quite good if you consider that this version does not contain any SSE optimizations.

What's missing:
- SSE optimizations
- Metadata support (tags, seek points etc.)
- free of bugs

And some limitations:
- Win32 version: The total WAV file size sum must not exceed 400MiB(? - not sure).
- Win64 version: The total WAV file size sum must not exceed 400GiB.
- Input: WAV 16-bit stereo, 44.1kHz

Comments and feedback are welcome!
George

[NuSkooler]

I cannot wait for this to be ready for production so to speak!

Any chance @ GPU support?

[GeorgeFP]

I cannot wait for this to be ready for production so to speak!

Well, the truth is, I don't know if fpFLAC has a future. The feedback is very, very poor.

Any chance @ GPU support?

I will add GPU support into my framework and if the fpFLAC project will be continued it will also support GPUs.

[_m²_]

I cannot wait for this to be ready for production so to speak!

Well, the truth is, I don't know if fpFLAC has a future. The feedback is very, very poor.

Well, there's some feedback I can give you. I installed it and deleted shortly after. I'm not an user, but I can tell you why.

1. For me FLAC is dead, it's too weak, so you came too late. Multithreaded wavpack or mac would probably make more sense.

2. The last command line that I used was
flac -8 -A tukey(0.5) -A flattop -r 0,8 -V
and I considered adding -p, but it was a bit too slow for the gain. Overall it's slightly stronger than -8.

If fpFLAC allowed me to compress slightly better with reasonable speed (and I wouldn't be shifting to TAK), I would use it, though probably with verification done by regular FLAC during the testing period.
However, fpFLAC doesn't accept these switches, so (I guess) it's even weaker than regular FLAC. For me - pointless.

3. Installers are annoying. Regular 7zip package would be better. Can't you make it work w/out registering these dlls? Also, I got error during registration of smth with SSE4 in the name. XP 32bit, SP3, Core 2 Duo. Program worked at least long enough to show help, seeing lacking switches, I didn't even bother to compress something.

4. No Uninstaller. That's extremely annoying. I guessed that I should use the installer, but if I didn't keep it (for these several minutes ), I would just delete the program and have rubbish left in the registry and possibly other places too. And I wouldn't assume that everybody will guess, even considering that the target audience is rather advanced.

5. FLAC is (pendrive) portable, fpFLAC - I don't know. For me, it's very important. The only non-portable program that I found worth using is Visual Studio.

[flacflac]

Well, there's some feedback I can give you. I installed it and deleted shortly after. I'm not an user, but I can tell you why.

1. For me FLAC is dead, it's too weak, so you came too late. Multithreaded wavpack or mac would probably make more sense.
etc.

Wow, really? There is close to zero hardware support out there for either of these codecs, so how would other codecs make more sense than the one used by the majority here at HA? Also, what's the rationale behind switching to TAK, a closed-source codec without hardware support? Good luck switching to the next codec that comes along... .

3. Installers are annoying. Regular 7zip package would be better. Can't you make it work w/out registering these dlls? Also, I got error during registration of smth with SSE4 in the name. XP 32bit, SP3, Core 2 Duo. Program worked at least long enough to show help, seeing lacking switches, I didn't even bother to compress something.

Man, you haven't even used it at all? I agree that this program would benefit from not coming with an installer but just an executable you can drop anywhere - but this is a work in progress and imho should not be knocked for that.

The only non-portable program that I found worth using is Visual Studio.

Haha, good one.

@George
I hope you continue your development. I can see about 40% speed increase using the command line to convert from a single WAV to a FLAC, yet I seem to be losing this advantage when turning a large WAV into multiple smaller FLACs using a CUE sheet in Foobar.

My Foobar command line:

CODE

-8 --threads 2 -P 65536 -V -f %s %d

Is it expected to not work well with multiple files? Is this my I/O limiting the speed? I am running a Core2Duo@2GHz.

Also, one more thing: I noticed that when doing a command-line encode there is no mentioning of a "-V"-verification happening - is it going on in the background? Would it be possible to make fpflac a bit more verbose and tell me the result of this verification?

Thanks for this development.

ff

[GeorgeFP]

Is it expected to not work well with multiple files? Is this my I/O limiting the speed? I am running a Core2Duo@2GHz.

In foobar2000, you have to set the number of threads to 1:

File -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Tools -> Converter -> Thread count : 1

Also, one more thing: I noticed that when doing a command-line encode there is no mentioning of a "-V"-verification happening - is it going on in the background? Would it be possible to make fpflac a bit more verbose and tell me the result of this verification?

Try to download the latest version from MY site. I've implemented this option some time ago.