Hello,

the HA wiki states that still 1.1.4 is the recommended encoder for flac. Is this just an outdated information or is something (very) wrong with 1.2.1b?

I'm pretty new to lossless compression, though I've been using MP3 (with LAME) compression for quite some time (So I'm very familiar with bit-perfect rips and EAC settings etc.) I just don't wanna ruin my rips with a crappy version or something ~

Hope you can help me :>
Cheers

Nothing horrible is wrong with Flac 1.2.1b, but for compatibility sake the 1.1.4 version is what I have stuck with. I figure that I will stick with the 1.1.x line until compression improvements are made to 1.2.x

1.2.1b is not beta, as the name might suggest. It's just named "b", because it contains a tiny fix from the 1.2.1 release.

Differences between 1.1.4 and 1.2.1, bitrate-wise aren't big (if measurable), but the speed increase of encoding and encoding has improved, aside of adding other features as RIFF tag support and other miscellaneous improvements.

Keeping 1.1.4 is ok (1.1.3 would not be), but it means not wanting improvements other than filesize.

Where can I download a non-installer version of 1.2.1b? SourceForge hosts 1.2.1 only.

there isn't one. if you always use the --padding/-P option anytime you use --replay-gain, then they are the same thing.

Just looked at Sourceforge and I see why: the download ratio between .exe and .zip is 12:1. I guess the world really need installers for command-line tools .

http://www.rarewares.org/lossless.php
Check there. That's where I got it.

I am aware of that.

And is there a ICL9.1 compile of flac 1.1.4 around? Obviously rarewares don't keep their older compiles :/

perhaps 1.2.1.1 would be a better versioning...

It has two compiles:


Where is the difference?

Why is it not called it 1.2.2? I find this obfuscating frustrating. As if it would be a shame to release a bugfix release.

Triza

AFAIK the ICL compiler uses Intel SSE, you need libmmd.dll also. Can give more speed on certain processors.

Are v1.2 encodes incompatible with v1.1 decoders?

Winamp 5.35's flac decoder (which is based on flac 1.1.4) works just fine with 1.2.1 encodes.

Thanks.

no with one exception, some 24bit files encoded with 1.2.1 might not decode with <1.2.0 decoders.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=518661

As noted on this page 24-bit FLAC 1.2.x encodes could be incompatible with 1.1.x decoders. But I don't have 24-bit files.

I am sticking because my current Flac library does everything I need of it, and the only improvements I can make to the way I use my music would be reductions in space.

Above it was mentioned that there are small improvements in switching to 1.2.x for encoding speed, but this is not an advantage for me with an already existing library and only a trickle of new music being added.

Edit: Straight from the Man himself, Josh beat me to the punch.

Thank you for this valuable explanation.

the other fairly important reason to upgrade to 1.2.1 is this:

from http://flac.sourceforge.net/changelog.html

"Buffer overflow vulnerabilities reported by iDefense have been fixed."

more here:
http://labs.idefense.com/intelligence/vuln...play.php?id=608