What makes FLAC so widely used? Because it's asymmetric? Are people satisfied enough by compression ratio or is it price for high decoding speed?

Last time I start to compress my CD rips with even more asymmetric settings:
-l 12 -b 1152 -r 6 -e

Compression ratio is as of -4 preset but decode speed is higher than for -3 and 10% slower than -0. It's of course at cost of lower encoding speed than of -4 preset.

It is interesting to see, so far, that the compression level is paramount with the majority of users.

I did not vote, as I don't use FLAC; however, if I did: I would use -6, as it seems like the best compromise between compression and speed in my tests, and some others.

-8
On my side encoding speed is perfect for CD Ripping (x20, which is already faster than my drives in secure mode) and also decent for batch encoding (x40 with two cores).

-5, I've always just used this 9 (Being the default). It's considerably quicker than -8 and there barely any difference in file size

Personally I use -8 , which is even fast enough for old Pentium 3 @ 800 MHz, maybe as I rip EAC , Test & copy secure.

IIRC, decoding speed of flac is more or less always the same very fast decoding speed, independent of encoding setting, ie. once you compress to the max with slightly more encoding time, you get the flac smalles sizes, and have also the very fast decoding.

In general, I think flac is so widely used because:
- very fast encoding, if you don't use -8
- more important: the als very very fast DEcoding.
- hardware support by industry , flac was the first (free) lossless codec, I think
- same effect like mp3, as flac has the majority, it grows even quicker, though other lossless formats might have slight advantages on certain single aspects,
but flac is strong at: en- and maybe more important DEcoding speed, hardware support.
- Compression ratio differences amongst lossless codecs are slight and practically unimportant.
What might matter to end-users: speed & hardware/software/OS support.
flac was iirc the first lossless codec for all major OS like windows, unix/linux, mac ?

I use -8 now, though I was using -6 for a very long time. My 320G HD is starting to fill up fast, so I need all the extra compression I can get. Plus, versions 1.2.0 & 1.2.1 are much faster, so encoding time is not as big a deal as it used to be.

I second that. The encoding speeds just get faster and faster with each new release, so the wait is being phased out.

-8 all the way.

I never understood, what does -A tukey(0.5) -A flattop do?

Also, -8, no point in using anything less.

I've gone the other way, from 8 to 6 because I realized the compression loss was too small for me to care about. The speed gain is much greater.

-5 for me. I used to use -8 but since there is no significant compression advantage for me I can use the extra speed in compressing.

5, but maybe i'll try 6.

did you have to include the dashes?

A bit before my time (here) but wouldn't Shorten be better suited to hold that accolade? There may be even earlier codecs.

IIRC recent versions of FLAC (1.1.3 + I think) use -A tukey(0.5) by default in the higher compression settings. Using two -A switches will increase compression ever-so-slightly, but will also drastically reduce encoding speed. I really can't see the point.

I usually use -8, since even when ripping 2 CDs simultanuously I seldom have even one encoding running, my PC being fast enough to encode MUCH faster even in -8 than EAC is with testing and ripping in secure mode. So why spend more hard disk space than necessary?

I don't get this, EAC for me always rips the CD to a WAV then pauses while FLAC encodes. This is annoying because I used to use AudioGrabber which encoded the MP3 while ripping, instead of just having the CPU practically idle then the CD drive idle and so on. Anyway it means the speed of the FLAC encode stage is relevent, otherwise obviously it only really needs to be as fast as the rip in practical terms.

Is there a way of getting EAC to encode direct without the intermediate WAV?

Perhaps one of the most significant factors in FLAC's public adoption was the embrace of the taper-friendly touring band community. Shorten was, as Synthetic Soul intimated, originally the choice for trading such material, but as FLAC achieved superior speed and compression ratios - and given it's cross-platform compatibility (another big factor for live audio archivists) - it soon supplanted Shorten as the codec of choice.

Arguably, Monkey's Audio was at one point vying for the same status... but given the number of systems on which the decoding of APE files was simply too processor-intensive to be feasible on a large scale, it is (mostly) only among the fans of certain bands that Monkey's Audio is still considered a desirable trade format.

- M.

Also, p2p.
Oink recommended, and made proper guides for, ripping in flac. With tens of thousands of rippers, thats a factor.
APE+cue cd image are still widely used in edonkey and japanese p2p (winny, share). On japanese systems however, TTA+cue cd images are starting to spread as well, mainly because True Audio is developed by a japanese person I believe.

Also flac was heavily promoted by xiph.org, and now has limited hardware support, which is another factor, since people will just associate lossless audio with flac in general (despite the best tries of both Apple and Microsoft with their own lossless formats).

Ah, the golden old days, when I used ape/cue myself for archiving, and Musepack for lossy copies...

You can make EAC encode in the background while ripping if you go to EAC options, under tools, and check "On extraction, start external processors queued in the background".

-8

It encodes really really fast for me... so no reason to use anything less.

depends on what's meant by 'free'. shorten was only free for non-commecial use. ogg squish was also around before flac but not actively developed.

I never had to pay for LPAC and RKAU had also a lossy mode. But in that time lossless files were much too big for my (small) disks.

BTW only -8 when I use FLAC

Ditto Not like I'm in a rush to encode either...

No way to pipe it straight to the encoder while it rips, then?
Still a lag and wasted time as it encodes the last track, if I understand this right.

-8 here as well

In the longhelp I read that -8 and -7 have -e embedded. Exhaustive-model-search (expensive!), for what it's worth. So I take -6 as a default. It's fast enough and -8 and -7 are hardly better in compression; also harddiskspace isn't an issue for me.

Are you talking about "on the fly" encoding (like what CDex does)?

I hope Blue-Ray/HD-DVD Players come with FLAC support.

Maybe some chipmakers will go for FLAC but that won't be defined by standarts. There is Dolby True HD for lossless purpose.

Complete newbie thickie here so, apologies if this is a dumb question.. Can someone explain what the difference is with the 0-8 settings? I just took a WAV file and tried compressing it with each setting and found that "0" produced the largest file size and "8" the lowest. I thought that "8" was the best so I would have thought it would be the largest!? *confused*

@ DJdust:
The 0-8 is the compression setting. With FLAC there is no actual best, since all 0-8 settings are lossless, there is no audio data taken away. The only measurement then is the amount of compression that FLAC encoder can apply to the WAV. 0 being the least compression, 8 the most compression. Therefore, 0 has the largest files, 8 has the smallest files for FLAC. With compression there is usually a sacrifice of time. You probably noticed that the 0 setting took the least time, and the 8 setting took the longest.

Actually, it seems to take the exact same amount of time really so, I guess I'll stick with setting "8" then and get the smallest file size!

Doesn't -0 sounds warmer and fuller?

@ Damaki:
... AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!-
You nearly made me spit tea all over my damned laptop.

@ DJdust:
I am with you about using -8, same as --best. Just take "my" word that 8 takes longer than 0. I encode to FLAC images at --best and I do not care about the additional time.

I use -6. Best compromise for me between 7-8 and 5.

Default setting (-5), I don't care about 0.5% better compression of -8

i use -6, i ripped a bunch of cds last night and re-encoded some old flacs with the 1.2.1 and damn its pretty fast to encode now

Using -8 myself, why compromise? Besides with multicore systems, encoding time is a moot point. No?

As well, how come no poll option for -totally_impractical?