Due to the growing size of my audio collection, I'm considering CD-R archiving using FLAC rather than CDA. Currently, I convert the FLAC to WAV and use Veritas Record Now to write to CD-R as a 80 minute music disc. It is appealing that I could get 700mb of FLAC files rather than 80 minutes of CDA if I start creating FLAC 'data' discs. I understand that I will not be able to 'play' the FLAC CD's on a regular CD player.

My question, is there any risk associated with archiving with FLAC as opposed to CDA format?

Thanks for any input

There is only one risk - you might want to play it in your CD player!
(if it plays data loud... AUCH! )

I'd also consider adding PAR protection to FLAC files.

PAR2 with a block size equal to the CDR block size would seem to be a logical choice here.

It would be nice to have an alternative CD filesystem like XCD, only aimed at being more secure rather than less so (XCD forgoes most of iso9660's error correction as a tradeoff to get more space). It would need to be well supported to better good old iso9660+par2 though...

There're risks associated to archiving on CD-R/RW discs because they die. Other than that FLAC is lossless as you probably know. So there's no difference apart from the fact that you need a decoder/FLAC player... You may also consider using APE: making a single image file out of an entire disc and using APL system to access each individual track. That'd be gapless. Also include the CUE sheets in your archive disks, you'd need them to produce the exact layout of the original CD.

You can also rip a whole CD to a FLAC file and import the cue sheet, and play back from that in fb2k, or winamp+mp3cue.

I second the use of some error-correction step (i.e. PAR, rsbep) if archiving to CDR.

Josh

...just found Astral Storms recommendation and downloaded and testet the brandnew "Quick Par 0.5" (includes PAR2). B) B) B)
Great program and very useful for my needs because I planned to save my flac collection to DVD as well, but since this is the first time I use such kind of programs, I´m a little confused about the options. Unfortunately the documentation that comes with the program does not help me very much to get the most out of the additional data when used for DVD.

1. Could s.o. please advise which values should be entered for DVD(-R) use:
options/preffered Block size/exact = .... ?
Source Block Count = ....?

Block Size = .... (I noticed the efficiency to rise while the needed time rises when the block size shrinks)

Should "Restrict block size to multiples of UserNet article size" be checked ?

2. What "Redundancy"-percentage is recommended to protect against scratches caused by a drop of the DVD and maybe occasional material caused dropouts (if necessary). I don´t want to overdo it, but it should still be a reasonable protection.

3. what to prefer: save the recovery data on the same DVD, or should I have one recovery DVD for maybe 10 flac DVDs (when 10% redundancy is used). Both has pros and cons.

4. What to prefer:
... save the redundant data in each folder (i.e. each flacified CD) or one file(set) in the root directory containing the recovery data of the whole DVD

5. How many recovery volumes? Is one enough or should it be split to more

I know that some of the values depend on personal needs and taste how much safety is enough, but I like to have a some clues what values (especially for DVD use) experienced users would choose.

Suggestions and advise are highly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

There's already a longish though somewhat unresolved discussion of par2 and cdr/dvdr at this HA thread, covers some of these points. Probably better to have that discussion there than in the Lossless Audio forum.