I am wanting to transcode my flac archive into apple's lossless format. Any suggestions... I was thinking something along these lines.

1. use foobars masstagger and rename the filesname to contain title - album - artist - genre - year.
2. decode in wav format
3. import into itunes and convert selection in to apple's lossless format.
4. reinstate the tag information from the filenames or from some other source.

Step four is where I get hung up. I am not sure how do this.
I would appreciate any comments and help.

Thanks

What OS?

Windows XP Pro (with all available udates and service packs)

Well, iTunes and Quicktime 6.5.1 are the only products that can encode to ALE. You'll have to decode to WAV, then re-encode to ALE, which means losing the tag info. Perhaps if you are patient, someone will devise a better solution.

I have the same desire. I tried out ALE last night and it is a good thing. I use Red Chair Software's Anapod software to sync under Windows. I sent them a message last night asking when and if they will support encoding or transcoding to ALE. Today, I can transcode FLAC -> MP3 or decode to WAV on the fly during an iPod sync, which is nice. If I could go from FLAC to ALE that would be a nice feature I'm hoping they will implement.

Apparently going to WMA Lossless then importing into iTunes will keep the tags.

I hate how Apple (not that they are the only one!) has to make their own new format. I have SHNs, FLACs and MP3s and OGGs and a few APEs. No way am I going to transcode my lossless to the new "standard" of the week. I have better things to do witih my time. But yes, going to WMA first at least wouldn't lose the tags.

ALE may be the flavor of the week, but I am personally holding out for BEER (Better than Every Encoder - Really!).

Seriously, it does make a little sense that Apple would try this; after all, their lossy audio scheme was the basis for AAC. Unfortunately, ALE doesn't have any of the advantages AAC had over existing formats. To gain wide acceptance, it should have been significantly smaller and/or faster than existing lossless codecs. Instead, it is merely competitive... and that won't build a following.

- M.

If you weren't already standardizing on a single lossless codec, why would you now? How has the situation changed so much now that Apple has their own lossless codec?

With ALE, Apple has created a new format to compete with
WMA losless. Like Microsoft their motiviation is to lock you into
their tools/software by getting you to convert all of your music
to their format. That's why I like FLAC.

Sean

That reason makes sense. But another is that the MPEG4 standard for lossless audio compression isn't finished yet. And even after finished, it might take a lot of time until the patent licensing terms are set.

Apple probably can't wait that long.

As for FLAC... it's not a standard. Not even complete documentation on how it works is available - there's a format description page at their site, at best. So, to Apple's point of view, it's as proprietary as anything else, no matter what license is being used.

Good point. And it's not that I haven't standardized--it's that I've done so a few times.

First it was SHN because that's what I found first. Then I got annoyed that the tapers never tagged or appended seek tables (which _still_ annoys me!) Then I switched to APE because MA had a great GUI that could transcode left, right and backwards. But then I realized APE wasn't really going anywhere. While it seemed technically superior to SHN and FLAC (which I had just started looking at), FLAC was getting added to a couple of hardware players and the MA website hadn't been updated in like two years. So I /really/ decided to standardize on FLAC.

Now most of my lossless stuff is in FLAC. But the situation has changed because transcoding is a b*tch. I use the iPod a LOT. I dunno, I don't know anything about ALE except that its lossless. I don't know if Apple plans on releasing the codec code or what. If they do not, then there's no way I would switch my collection over, that would make no sense. But if they did, I might consider it.

I use my ipod alot. I like to beable to transcoding from FLAC --> QT AAC in one application.

If you start by renaming the tracks as you said to:
title - album - artist - genre - year
you can then easily after conversion to wav, use ID3-TagIT to create id3-tags from filename by using your own prefered scheme which tells the program what parts of the filename is title, album, genre and so on...
then you can import the tracks to itunes and the tags will follow

It does, and it is the method I am now using until I find a better way. It takes me about 30 minutes to transcode a DVD full of FLAC files to WMA lossless. Then about another 30-45 minutes to encode the WMA files with iTunes.

Edit: oops, sorry this thread is about encoding to Apple lossless. I was talking about encoding to WMA lossless, then to Apple iTunes m4a format. Need to read more carefully.

flac can write aiff files (flac -d --force-aiff-format <file.flac>). since aiff has his own tag standard it should be possible to decode to aiff files while keeping the tag informations. i haven't tested it but it should generally be possible to keep the tag informations. then you can easily import the aiff's in iTunes and compress as apple lossless (with tags).

BadHorsie

i wonder if masau would create a plugin for Nero to access itunes aac encoder.. That way u could encode directly from foobar2000 and the foo_nero plugin. Wouldn't be too difficult for him I reckon, his got the skeletons of the plugin created already.

flac does not write aiff tags though.

Josh

Better watch out I've already been "warned" for not "reading the entire thread".

AIFF has a tag standard? I don't think that I've ever seen it used.

Apple Loops are AIFF files with metadata, but that probably isn't what BadHorsie is referring to. Furthermore, some programs embed ID3 tags in AIFF files, but that doesn't appear to be a standard. From what I've read, the only official metadata in AIFF is marker information.

EDIT: Searching shows that iTunes embeds its own metadata in AIFF files, but I can't find out if it is any other type of standard.

The nature of these codecs being "lossless" contributes to my belief that it doesn't really matter wether there is a standard or not YET. Different to the lossy formats which deteriorate in quality as you convert them to "new standards" the lossless audiofiles don't loose any information. Am I right or not? At the moment FLAC seems to be the way to go...

Correct! You can transcode between any lossless codec without loosing audio quality.
The only possible loss is the file tags.
It all depends on which software and hardware you use. FLAC is a great compromize between compression rate and encoding/decoding speed. It also have pretty good software support.

I personally prefer Apple Lossles, simply because its the only Lossless codec that is playable in iTunes (the only decent audio player on Mac OS X). It also has pretty good hardware support, with support on Apple iPod, iPod mini and AirPort Express.

At the end it doesnt matter much what codec you choose, because you can easily switch to another codec if you find a better one...

Hi!
I have a lot of .flac files and due the incompatibility with iTunes, I have to convert them to a suitable format.
Let me show you an example: I have a track in .flac with a size of 36mb. The more time demanding variation is, to convert is to .aiff/.wav (using XLD) then to apple lossless (using itunes). The result is a 47 mb itunes compatible lossless file. That would be fine, but there is an easier solution.
The program XLD ( http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html ) can transcode .flac directly to apple lossless. With the same .flac file, in size this will result 36mb, same as the original .flac file.
But where have the rest (11mb) gone?
Almost same as the first variaton, but instead of using itunes to convert the .aiff/.wav file to apple lossless, I use only XLD, will result a 36mb file, same as the previous one.
Why are the iTunes(quicktime) decoded files bigger, than the ones decoded with XLD ? Or XLD's decoding is bad ?
Sorry if this is a dumb question or let me know if my train of thought is illogic.
Thank You!
marchello