There are so many diferent lossless codecs. The Curently best i have found is monkeys audio (and it rocks!), but Microsoft is also trying to make a lossless format, the wma PRO format. It's almost identically to MA ...

Are there other ones there are just as good? Which should I choose??

FLAC [Free Lossless Audio Codec] is a good choice.

Pros: -open-source & patent-free -supports many different platforms -direct transcoding to .mpc and .ogg

Cons: -a couple of percent less efficient compression

I'll let you make up your own mind

Another drawback of Flac is that it's very slow when encoding.

If you use only Windows and/or Linux, I suggest you go with Monkey's Audio.

And I suggest you check Speek's Lossless codecs comparision:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/comparison.htm

Regards;

Roberto.

And as far as I remember another drawback, is that flac isnt seekable...

very slow? the defaults or de-facto usage of flac is at -5 and MAC at 'high' when encoding. According to speek's tests:

Monkey's Audio 3.96 high 56:41
FLAC 1.02 default (5) 59:46

According to mine:

Monkey's Audio 3.96 (high) 13:59.07
flac 1.0.3 (-5, default) 13:26.74

I don't dispute MAC's better compression ratio.

Crispy,

Make sure you do enough research, especially before choosing a MS format. Read the EULA for WMA9. Search for articles about MS' DRM and Palladium. Google for horror stories from people who ripped a bunch of stuff to WMA and couldn't play it back later.

Bottom line... if you are using WIndows only, definitely use Monkey, not WMA. If you ever plan to listen to your rips on something other than a PC, use FLAC.

Josh

Hummm choose Monkey's

That's my point. If you want to get compression nearer to MAC's ratios using FLAC, you will lose lots and lots of time encoding.

FLAC, with -q5, 3529,8Kb and 59'46" to encode
MAC, high, 3372,2Kb and 56'41" to encode

For comparision:

WavPack, normal, 3521,2Kb (better than -q5) and (a little) less than half an hour to encode!

flac is seekable
http://flac.sf.net for infos...

Hmmm ... I think i'll go for MA ... It's ok and it's free (and open source) ... (and all my music is encoded in it) ...

It's not open source... It's "source available" which means that when the format has reached it's absolute peak in performance and compression, the author can easily close the project and start selling it, and none of those who has contributed to the project will get a dime...

That's not the only advantage FLAC has over APE... FLAC also has a lot lower processor usage when decoding... That's the problem with APE... It has low processor usage when encoding, but decoding requires lots of power which pretty much makes it very difficult to use on hardware players since they have a very limited performance...

P.S. Tails - kawaii...

heh. decoding MA's "high" files does not use more than 2% cpu time on my system, and that's "only" an Athlon 600.. and remember, the processing power of portable systems _will_ increase, just like the power of desktop systems etc.. MA's future is not quite as dark as you flac lovers might wish..

on my 2.53Ghz p4 system, playing my MA "high" takes negative 2% cpu usage

I did'n know that ........... that suxx!!!

It really doesn't really matter which format you choose. If you get tired of the format, just convert your files to a new format without any loss in quality.

Encoding time and minor compression ratio differences are irrelevant in my eyes.

I personally recommend FLAC. It is open source, while MAC is not. Furthermore, the source-avalible MAC decoder can only decode v3.95+ MAC files. I have 60 CD-Rs in MAC 3.80. They can only be decoded with the window application.

as you pointed out, the lower processor usage of decoding FLACs is most important when it comes to hardware support - which FLAC is already starting to pick up (flac.sourceforge.net). low cpu usage will always be advantageous esp. for portable devices in order to maximise playback times. [remember portables are only running on v.low voltages - a couple of AA batteries most often].

anyway, for me the open nature of FLAC swings it. there'll be nothing worse than to have an archive in proprietry format, & then find your use of it suddenly restricted in the future.

Exactly. The only reason I chose the Monkey was because of the tag differencies, not the compression times. APE tags suit my needs and if Matt is in a good mood he might even include the tagging in the MAC.exe cli compressor (I hope). Does recent versions of flac.exe include tagging? Then I will switch to flac. And when Matt includes it in MAC, I'll switch back. It's easy as that, because no data is ever lost. It's lossless.

Yeah, but CD-R's can potentially be wasted

You can add Vorbis tags to FLAC files using metaflac, which comes with flac, but not with flac.exe itself. If you really want to do it in one command (to call from EAC, for example), it's possible to write a DOS/Win batch file or UNIX shell script that first calls flac to encode the file and then metaflac to add the tags.

Mmm, yes if you burn your music on cd-r, "wasted" as in "not playable an a specific platform". But harddrive space is cheap nowdays and still getting cheaper, so transcoding a whole collection or upgrading it when the compression standards improve is not (should not) be an issue.

Let me elaborate: There is a function "convert" in the Monkey's Audio gui, and this can be used for upgrading to a better compression (still lossless) as compression ratios evolve. Of course a whole music collection can be converted using this, very easily with drag-and-drop using a touchy-feely-clicky gui. This "convert" function can be used to convert your whole collection to WavPack for example.

The Monkey's gui needs lots of improvement, but it works perfectly as a proof of concept. Lossless music is not locked to any format, it can be transcoded any time you change your mind. (Or change your underwear)


Yes, that is the same way I had to do it with Monkey's, some perl to encode using MAC.exe, then tag using Tag.exe which does a very good job. For some reason I can't recollect, this worked out better than with metaflac. Hmmm, why haven't they included the Tag.exe code in MAC.exe and metaflac.exe code in flac.exe? Any developers reading this? Are there political reasons?

This is fixed in flac 1.0.4, scheduled for release tomorrow night after I get the last few patches in. There is a new option to flac for adding Vorbis comments while encoding.

Josh

Great! Now it works perfectly in EAC. And now I remember why the Monkey tagging worked out better... there is no tag editor in the flac Winamp plugin. It is not configurable at all. The plugin seems to be mentioned in:
http://www.audio-illumination.org/forums/i...t=ST&f=2&t=3619
Most of the plugin features can probably be copied straight out of the in_vorbis.dll sourcetree.

Show me the patch!

I'm not trying to be curt, it's just that my TODO list is real long and this is farther down on it than a lot of other stuff.

Josh