Why’s FLAC ‘the’ lossless codec? Is it future-proof(able)? Comparisons, [TOS #6: was “Future proof lossless audio/codec” in General Audio] Options

[eahm]

I am trying to understand why is FLAC standardizing in the lossless world? Reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...chnical_details isn't True Audio more future proof? All these channels and huge range, isn't it the "best" option for the next "100 years"?

If one day everyone will start using FLAC, will there be a way to expand the number of channels available? For expample the "new new" 12.1 Surround System or whatever they will come up with.

Just some thoughts, don't want to get anyone upset, I use FLAC and I love it.

Thanks.

This post has been edited by eahm: Jun 23 2012, 18:03

[eahm]

I use and prefer WavPack for its features.

I strongly believe a lossless codec should be ONLY lossless, no other forms/situations.
In my opinion True Audio literally kills the competition.

I don't know about the channels, but flac is in constant development. FLAC has become standard, one because it's open-source, two it's future proof, you will always be able to find a FLAC decoder and all future FLAC decoders are backwards compatible.

FLAC is excellent, it's versatile, it has very good compression and it encodes very quickly. You can convert it into anything without losing quality and this is the reason everybody is moving to FLAC. It was understandable before that people used mp3, and mp4, the sizes of their hard drives didn't allow for a lossless copy. I can carry my CD collection in lossless in a backup drive and have a high fidelity lossy copy of ogg vorbis or AAC in my phone or in my computer.

Also with FLAC you only have to rip once and you have all the codecs you need, if a new one comes along that you want to convert it too, you can without transcoding lossy to lossy.

Hope that helps.

Yes, I do the same as well and you didn't get my question. What you are trying to annoyingly explain is easily doable with other lossless codecs, my question was why FLAC since mathematically speaking there are better lossless codecs.

This post has been edited by eahm: Jun 23 2012, 20:51

[skamp]

In my opinion True Audio literally kills the competition.

Technically speaking, TAK rules all, IMO. It's (much) faster and compresses (significantly) better than pretty much anything else that's remotely comparable. But being closed source with very little support and no hope for progress on those fronts, it has no chance whatsoever of becoming a "standard" (a codec/format being very different from, say, music playback software, e.g. foobar2000).

[IgorC]

Technically speaking, TAK rules all, IMO. It's (much) faster and compresses (significantly) better than pretty much anything else that's remotely comparable.

Is 3% compression gain significantly better? ( TAK vs FLAC)
Less than 3% for profiles with the same decoding speed.
An encoding speed isn't issue with today hardware. I don't see anybody talking about speed issues and FLAC. Not even closer.

People prefer TAK less and less
2012 ripping/encoding general poll
2011 ripping/encoding general poll

LA is better than FLAC by laughable 5.3%. Big unbelievable deal?
http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/comparison...sion&Desc=0

This post has been edited by IgorC: Jun 23 2012, 23:24

[skamp]

Is 3% compression gain significantly better? ( TAK vs FLAC)

If compression factor is a priority, then yes.

An encoding speed isn't issue with today hardware. I don't see anybody talking about speed issues and FLAC. Not even closer.

If your point is that FLAC is fast enough for most people, then I agree.

People prefer TAK less and less

Like I said. The way things are, TAK can't possibly grow its user base to the point of dethroning FLAC.