1- what is the difference between the encoding levels? i though flac was completely lossless, is it just a matter of encoding time needed in order to produce a smaller file? ie: level8 would take longer to encode, but produce a smaller file? and level 0 would take less time to encode, but it would be a bigger file? is there any penalty in decoding?

2-does flac use the ogg tag format? is this similar to id3?

3- any good how-to guides on flac? the documentation on the website sucks...

1. basically yes. Files take about the same time to decode regardless of encoding level:

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/hvdh/lossless/All_d.png

2. yes. Similar from a user's point of view but a lot more flexible.

3. Don't know.

I'll differ with you on the quality of the documentation on the website - I think it's documented better than most of the codecs out there, especially the exquisite breakdown of the format description - try to find that for shn and you'll see what I mean. I'm sure you can find strings to use in EAC in the forums here, if that's what you're looking for - what do you mean by a how-to guide? What information are you looking for that you can't find?

yea, im looking for strings to use with EAC, and any other setup tips i can find. in the winamp plugin it sayes "read id3 tag info" can you tag flac files with id3? im also having troubble formatting the track info file output in winamp....

basically im looking for a good use page with some guides on it. EAC+LAME has all kinds of references in the stickies on this forum, but nothing for lame.

Please don't tag flac with id3 - that's more trouble than you want to get in to. I don't use Winamp anymore, so I can't help you there - but here's the EAC configuration string that I use:



The only real parameter that you need to mess with is the -8: I use -8 because I don't care about compression time. -5 should be good enough for most purposes.

Also, if you use WinAmp, make sure to pick up flac input plugin*** available from either Sourceforge or Rarewares that was written by jcoalson or x-fixer (I think it's bundled with the FLAC package). The plugin at the WA site (by Gianxxxx) will not display tag info last I checked.

PS: If you use JRiver's MJ/MC (v8/9.x/10), there is now a beta flac plugin for it.

see...
http://www.monsterfang.com/MCinFLAC/
(thanks to walter aka oblong!)

xen-uno

***edit: it is the Rarewares site (FLAC V. 1.1.0 bundle) ... http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/lossless.html
or separately here... http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/files/in_flac.zip

which one should i use?

FLAC V. 1.1.0 bundle 2003-02-01
complete - ICL6 compile - by John33 (include X-Fixer's Winamp plugin)

OR:

FLAC V. 1.1.0 bundle 2003-04-08
OPTIMISED FOR Pentium 4 ONLY - FLAC.exe and in_flac.dll - ICL7 compile

do they both contain the winamp plugin? i do have a pentium4 3.2ghz, should i use the second one? will they support winamp 5 or just winamp 2?

Yes you should use the 2nd. one, as that has specific optimizations that only the P4 can utilize (SS2 probably).

the p4 optimized pack input plugin crashes winamp when loading, gives me an error about some .dll missing, so i used the direct download plugin and that works.

do i need to worry about offset correction with flac??

Are you talking about libmmd.dll ? If you have P4, you should download that also. It is required library for many ICL compiled binaries, and that is often used way for P4 optimized binaries.

yea thats it, where do i put it once installed?

Place it in either the c:\winnt\system32\ or c:\winnt\ directories...(replace winnt with windows in the directory path if necessary). If it doesn't work in these spots then put it in the WinAmp plugins directory.

xen-uno

so i did some tests with flac, and everything is looking good. i especially like the gapless playback in winamp.. question, does replay gain affect the file itself? ie: will i still be able to get a bit-perfect decode of the original wav if i turn replay gain off?

also, can flac files have both a ogg tag AND an id3 tag? the winamp library database seems to have issues cataloging the flac tags alone, it reads the artist and album fine, but the track number and track name are missing. but when already loaded into winamp, the ogg tags are all just fine.

I have not seen any flac tagging issues with WA 2.91 and in_flac.dll (v1.0beta7).

For ripping to flac I use EAC v9b4 with the following external encoder line...
%s -6 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "comment=EAC=>FLAC 1.1=>Vorbis 1.01 @ q8" -T "genre=%m" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n"

I don't think you can have (nor should you want) ID3 tags in flac. Flac tags ARE ogg tags (vorbis comments).

xen-uno

edit: Also...make sure you turn off (uncheck) all MP3/ID3 tag options in EAC which could be a possible reason why your having the flac tag probs.

i did turn off the id3 tagging options, the winamp music database still fails to see the tracknumbers and album name. when i actually play the files, winamp reads both the tracknumber and album info no problem. i dont get it.

What version of WinAmp are you running? Flac is solid in all respects here.

xen-uno

i have both 2.91 and 5.02 and they both do the same thing... once in the playlist the tags are read fine, but if i try to load them into the media library, only the track title and artist are read... i guess the media library doesnt read .ogg tags. im gonna post this on the winamp forums and see if i get a responce.

seems like this is a problem with the flac winamp plugin, it does not pass metadata to the media library correctly. i hope this is fixed soon.

It does though (as mentioned earlier => WA 2.91 and in_flac.dll (v1.0beta7))

Do you see this when you select a file and do file info?..



The only thing that is displayed in this dialog and not in the WA's library is the Comment field (because the Comment column is not displayed). Something is funky with your setup...but what? (I do not know)

xen-uno

If the plug-in hasn't been updated to support passing metadata to the Media Library, Winamp will guess based on file name. I think the flack plug-in hasn't been updated to support this year. (The SDK to do it finally came out with 5.02).

(Also, you can view comments in the ML by right clicking on the column headers in and selecting "Customize...")

If somebody figures out how to do this, I'll take patches. I may not be able to get to it for a while.

Josh

xenno,

sawg hit the nail on the head, the input plugin reads the tag info just fine, its just that it doesnt pass the info to the media library correctly. it doesnt interfere with my playback at all, its just an inconvenience, as i like to use the media library to manage my collection. but if jcolson is a real flac developer than it appears that this issue has gotten the attention of the right people. hopefully this is a simple matter and it will be fixed soon.

I am pretty certain that there is major interest in a flac plugin for the Windows Media player. Could someone point me in the direction of any information relating to such a plugin? I'd appreciate guidance to any relevant information, as I haven't yet been successful in finding any to date.

Thanks,
Elliott

I think the Core DirectShow filters are the closest you will get. It will enable you to play flac in WMP. This and much other stuff are linked on flac homepage. Also other formats are supported in mediaplayer through DS filters. Like RadLight's DS filters for Monkey's Audio or Musepack. Several different mediaplayers now also support flac straight out of the box, but you asked for WMP, so....