From the Maximum Compression home page:Is it true and if so legal?

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Dc

EDIT: Post icon + guestbook part.

Yes, it's true. I've downloaded the beta and indeed it produces Wavpack files (compression: optimize for maximum compression).

EDIT: WavPack is published under the BSD license, so I'm pretty sure it's legal.

If my memory serves me right didn't wavpack use a BSD license which would suggest that commercial use of the code is not illegal?

BSD and GPL licensing info A snippet from the original text :

I guess the only thing they are legally obliged to do is to acknowledge the original authors work (which they're possibly not doing at the moment so, yes, that part would be illegal).

@Bylie: Exactly!

Eh? So it creates files with an extension of .zip, yet which are in WavPack format? Boy, that'll go down well with people who haven't heard of WavPack . . . or am I missing something?

The archives use the zip format, but the compressed data which is inside is in Wavpack format. While existing zip programs can browse the "new" zips WVUNPACK can, under some circumstances, skip the ZIP header and decode the wavpack data. However foobar2000 cannot play the files.

sounds like a good idea to me!

It is indeed perfectly legal. Are they crediting "Conifer Software" somewhere? That's the only meaningful requirement in the license.

That's not completely true. When the extension is not ZIP but WV, foobar2000 will (try to) skip the PK header, too.

Hehe... now that you mentioned it. It's interesting that WavPack isn't mentioned anywhere on their website or the documentation that comes along with the software... instead we can read stuff like this:
Also the MS help files that come along with the Packer don't acknowledge WavPack or its creator at all. You can check for yourself. Just in case they silently add the Acknowledgement, the MD5 of the installer is: D0AE7158522F12E20953F1C88D1A9CCC (wz110beta.exe - Build 7291)

IMHO, that's hardly legal. It doesn't matter if it's not yet final, even a beta release is a release. David Bryant should contact them, so it can be fixed. I don't think it's a big deal when they agree to include his name. But nevertheless, the total absence of "Wavpack" or "Bryant" in all documentation and also the way of introducing the new audio compression feature leaves me with a very special feeling that they wanted to sell the new "special algorithm" that "compress[es] .wav files smaller than ever" as their very own creation.

Thanks for the heads-up on this, it's very interesting to say the least!

The BSD license obviously allows them to use the code if they include the copyright notice somewhere in their distribution. However, also according to the license, they're not supposed to use my name (or perhaps even the name "WavPack") to endorse or promote their product without my permission. Of course, if it turns out to be a "buggy" implemention of WavPack, I'd rather not have everyone knowing where it came from!

Anyway, they're obviously not trying to be sneaky because they made no effort to hide the fact that it's WavPack. I'll shoot off an e-mail and see what's up...

David

Awesome stuff..

They also say:

It's a good idea, but the above explanation is slightly insincere, as true music lovers don't and shouldn't use ZIP this way to compress standalone .wav. "A must-have for music lovers who don't want to compromise the file integrity or sound quality" is, obviously, not WinZip but WavPack or other lossless compressors.
Imho this new approach of WinZip would work best for game lovers when they compress some kind of a game ISO image, so called mix-mode, which consists of track1.iso+track2.wav+track3.wav+...

And, if 7-ZIP, WinRAR, etc. are going to try to be compatible with WinZip, the WavPack algo might be spread internally on many different apps all over the world.

Which begs the question: does Winzip actually search for pcm algorythms when using the wavpack compression, or will it only use wavpack when it encounters a wav file? Because if it actually compresses based on code and not file header/extension, it could be a powerful tool for zipping bin/cue images with audio tracks (raw pcm).

Well, that's missing at the moment.

Ah, so this explains the fact that Wavpack wasn't mentioned anywhere. In fact they neither said it was yours nor it was theirs. Then I take back all my allegations I made before concerning selling it as their own. Because that's probably not going to happen...

Haha, I can understand that. And I guess it's what the abovementioned BSD license term is about...

On the other hand, if they do it right... maybe this will be good publicity!

I renamed a wav file to iso and Winzip used PPMd instead of Wavpack for compress it, so it's based on extensions.

Which leads me to the question... have you tried the opposite? The result might be interesting.

The only correct course of action for Corel (owners of WinZIP) would be giving credits somewhere (about box?) to "Conifer Software".

^ Well, there's the first evidence of a mention . . .

Still, I don't like the way that they have called it a "new" algorithm and other spiel; it's not all that new at all.

WinZIP contacted me early today before I was even able to send off an e-mail. They have no plans to ignore the license and wanted to get my permission to credit me publicly. So, all is fine.

Now I just need to test their implementation.

That's great! Then fantastic pubblicity it is!

THat's pretty cool, having WavPack be more widespread is always a good thing.
It's also good that they e-mailed you about it.

Congratulations, David!

Indeed. A nice bit of well-deserved publicity for WavPack hopefully. Congratulations David.

Does the compressor use the switch improving the ratio on mono material? If it's not the case, may David suggest to the editor to support it immediately (I guess it's not too late and that way there won't be any future incompatibility issue between different WinZIP implementation)?

but is 4.4 considered to be stable already? using the most up-to-date WavPack would be obviously the best, but maybe the official, final (non-alpha, non-beta) new WavPack release should be the first. Besides, such a 'new' zip created by WinZip 11 will be incompatible with other archivers anyway, for the time being at least, and the similar problem could occur every time when WavPack is updated in the future, to 4.5, 4.6, ... ,5.0... In reality, most probably they (WinZIP devs) will update the WavPack part less frequently than WavPack is updated, and as long as both WavPack encoder and decoder in WinZip remain the same version, there will be no incompatibility issues.
anyway, I too would like to say congratulations

IMO that's not a problem; most WinZip users are not familiar at all with WavPack and will just go 'goshwow' that their .wav's are suddenly compressed smaller than before. They wouldn't care if a newer WavPack compresses 1% smaller than before, as WavPack already compresses waaaaaay better than plain old WinZip can ever achieve.

Oh, and congrats too, David! It's nice to see these advanced free algorithms make it into the mainstream.

Although I wonder... is it possible that there's a Corel guy lurking in the forums, which explains how they managed to contact David before he managed to send and email to them...

Oh, yes! Very likeley!

Congrats, David. Thumbs up to WavPack, "the best"!

Sergio

I was thinking the same, HA.org apparently receives more attention than it seems on the surface. Anyhow, the WinZip/Corel guys also could have felt it's about time to contact David because of the blog articles mentioned in the first post...

But it's great now that WavPack has it's first major "mainstream" adaption, too. Hopefully there will be much more to come... there's some catching up to do with FLAC...

Gratz, David. Maybe you can get free Corel software now?

Maybe a free copy of WinZip. Anyways, I hope WinRAR adopts this in order to remain compatible.

I think WinZIP should have used .wv extension, not .zip, in order to just remain compatible with the rest of the planet.

Well, then it would be nothing more than a front-end for wavpack.exe

Hmm, then an ideal variant would be .wv in .zip with "store" compression. WinZIP could recognise .wv in zip container and show the original .wav instead, and other archivers will show a wv-in-zip (and maybe a short .txt instruction how to unpack, etc.). Compatibility is a very important thing!

That's a pretty good idea Egor!

You know, Sebastian, you sound like you're the Corel lurker

No way, I'm a WinRAR fan.

Even better would be if they incorporate Wavpack into the RAR format too, with detection for PCM. RAR already compresses pcm audio far better then any norml archiver, even 7z.

I am hopeful that other programs will adopt WavPack to remain compatible, and I am going to write up the procedure so it's easy to integrate the WavPack library with zip tools (or into other formats). I worked with WinZip on getting some bugs out of the beta and they have given WavPack (and me) credit on their website now that the final product is available:

http://www.winzip.com/ppmd_info.htm

I have not yet, however, seen the promised WinZip mug and T-shirt...

RE: http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Press.jsp?mo...tterToCustomers

Here's another interesting development: with Corel's acquisition of InterVideo David's brilliant work might find its way into one or more of their multimedia apps!

Just the thought of H.264 video coupled with WavPack audio makes me salivate ... yeah, yeah, never gonna happen and the MKV conatiner is unlikely to be adopted by'em... but I can dream...

What I hope this inspires is that other backup tool producers listen up and use Wavpack(or Flac) for compressing audiofiles in an archive.

I use Wavpack as a primary archiving tool for audio that has extra data chunks like Broadcast WAV info embedded. Wavpack doesn't mess with them. It seems that Winzip may be a good answer to my Protools(on PC) backup needs. The speed difference is just awesome when comparing Wavpack to anything like pure ZIP, RAR or StuffIT.

Seems that WinRAR is not interested into adding WavPack in their product.

Well, maybe Igor Pavlov from 7-Zip could be convinced to add Egor's idea as he is going to add multimedia filters anyways.

This way the 7-zip would stay compatible with older versions:

A proposed new 7-zip version would pack wav files to a .7z.wv file and add this to the 7z archive.
The new version would unpack it to a wav file again.
An old version would unpack it to the .7z.wv file, thus basically to a wv. file, which has to be extracted by a dedicated unpacker then.

Good luck, I tried to talk him into it several times. LZMA is a great compressor, but it righteously sucks for audio data. Still, he shows no interest in adding wavpack or any other decent lossless compressor into it.

That is a shame, since now Winzip will be the only one to feature the speed of a lossless audio compressor.

I know what I'm talking about, as the music for our show (40 minute TV series) is delivered as a WAV, compressed with StuffIT. I did some tests, and Wavpack was about 15-20 times faster, never mind the compression ratio it had over StuffIT.

An archiver that can put it all in to file using Wavpack for the audio would be brilliant for archiving projects, just for pure speed reasons.

Well, I didn't know that. Well, that's bad.

Pavlov is currently taking into serious consideration selling the 7-Zip name and relative webiste (see here), anyway the LZMA GNU LGPL license will allow others or Igor himself to keep on using and developing the code, that said he's proven to be pretty reluctant to include the works of others into his projects so far.

David,

You got the mug & t-shirt yet?

I did, about a month ago!

I was actually only guessing that there was going to be a mug. and there wasn't. However, it was two t-shirts (pretty nice ones too) plus 2 baseball caps and several pads of WinZip Post-it notes.

It was great because my wife is constantly complaining that I never get anything for my work on WavPack and so now I can show her this!

She's probably impressed and expect youtube deal like billions from you!