This is my first post and I would like to thank all for tips regarding compression and all other issues audio related.
I just got my 80 IPOD Classic and I'm really amazed with it. But after ripping my entire collection with ALAC(Apple lossless codec) I felt in my bones what I usually read in a lot of foruns: ITUNES is really a mess.
The first thing I realize is that is a really buggy software, and does not allow to costum many things. Second, it always mess with the name of my files. The third is that after trying to decode a ALAC file with other software than IRUINES(THis should be the name of ITUNES) I always get about 3K file difference between the original WAV and the decoded one(yep I updated the IRUINES to the latest version).
So after reading and trying a lot of compression formats I found a really nice one and I believe a not so used codec for wav compression. The ARC compression format. You can use PEAZIP to compress a file in that format is a nice software.
When I first compressed it I could not believe. It shrinked a 36 MB file to 18 M in a reasonable encoding time about 15 seconds with default settings (I my notebook with 2GB and TL-60 dual AMD.) so for backup it's marvelous. Why am I not going to lossless? Because I would like to keep my original wav file and the lossless formats are changing a lot every time appear something better. So keeping a wave file is easy to compress to other formats and the way I want to.
The only side effect that you have to rip a file with the most data possible about the album. To straight things out I suggest TAGSCANNER it really awsome software.
Thats all.
Thanks again to all moderators and users to making this forum marvelous.

PS. Sorry for my english (it's not my main spoken language)

The formats do not change, just the encoding/tagging options. You could make the same statement about PeaZip.

However, whatever. As long as you are happy.

Thats weird. I personally prefer alac format and i've made a few test: ive always got back the original wav files. Even checksums were same.

I tried to decode one ALAC file using a free codec and I got the a different size.

Sounds like a problem with that codec.

why not use iTunes decode?

BraZ: I am not sure what are you trying to say with your post

A) ALAC is not lossless
B) Some unkown free ALAC decoder (note that such thing is a *reverse engineered* software) is not decoding properly.
C) You feel you're smarter than anyone else using a general purpose codec for archiving audio.

So i'm gonna comment on all those points.

The first is so absurd that i preffer to ignore it (and even i recall some tests, and its similarities with the FLAC codec)

The second is a possibility, but just as is a possibility, i would like to know what did you generate the .WAV files with, and if such a program would add special tags to .wav files or what.
Next, it is much more valuable to say "it misses the last 0.1seconds" than "the files are different by 3KB".
The first of those explanations actually says something.

For the last point: General purpose codecs are more and more using dedicated encoding schemes for specific types of files ( Winrar used to have "multimedia compression", and Winzip, since version 11 or so, uses precisely the WavPack codec to compress audio), so it indicates that the audio codecs are the way to go, not the other way around.

[Edit:typos]

In the interests of fairness it should be pointed out that earlier in the history of ALAC, the Windows version of QuickTime/iTunes did indeed create files that when decompressed were non-identical with the uncompressed originals. Was a while back though...

But the question is nonidentical in what way? Was the decoder writing a slightly different WAV container? Was it writing a BWF with some sort of additional data (could very well account for a 3KB discrepancy).

And are the decoded files 3KB smaller or 3KB larger, BraZ? Either may not actually warrant alarm.

When .wav is compressed to .arc PeaZip uses:
FreeARC, which uses:
MM compression library, which uses:
TTA lossless compressor (True Audio)

http://freearc.org/
http://www.encode.ru/forums/index.php?acti...1&topic=443 (MM compression library)
http://www.true-audio.com/
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...less_comparison

If Wikipedia is correct ALAC is lossless compression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless


Quit normal, depending on the complexity of the music, a lossless compression reduces size 40% - 60%.


I don't use iTunes but as most of these players feature more or less the same options; often you can choose if filenames en directory structure should be equal or not to names of the artist, the album title, the song. So they reflect the result of your tagging. Check if you can put this on/of.

There's absolutely no question that ALAC as it is now is lossless but I just wanted to point out that once upon a time the Windows version was not, so it wasn't completely absurd to suggest it.

Hey JAZ,

Well I'm trying just to share my experience and my mistakes and my humble conclusions. So:

A) If you are right there are millions that are wrong. Even the hydrogen Wiki.
B) MEdiacoder use NERO CODEC. I have not read anything about it.
C) If you are supposing I'm smarter than anyone. That is what you think and if your assumption A is wrong this is also wrong.




Tks for the info



Yep I know. But I suppose if this a just noticible problem probally there are some others that can not been seen.


I forgot to say that I'm using EAC to generate wav files.

IMO, it is a very bad idea to check whether the codec is lossless by comparing filesizes of original .wav vs .wav decoded from .alac; 3KB difference is quite small and certainly isn't not relevent to actual audio data.

It is much more more useful to bit-compare the actual audio streams in original wav vs. alac (using foobar2000 bit-compare plugin, for example).

Since you haven't provided us with the 3kb data block that you say is different, there's not much we can do with it. Perhaps your encoder deletes trailing silences.

ALAC is lossless and any attempts to say otherwise amount to nothing more than trolling and the thread should be shut down if that's what it's about.

Compressing to a non-media format is senseless. You can't play a zip file. As synthetic soul pointed out, there's every bit as much chance that the wave file is being changed by your PeaZip program as it is by ALAC; they're both lossless. But ALAC can be played as media. Use Wavepack or FLAC if you truly have issues with ALAC.

Taken from the Hydrogenaudio Foobar2000 WIKI...

I agree that there's not much point in doing it on purpose, but it can be done.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

I didn't fully remember it, but i wanted to avoid talking about it, since the OP seemed to suggest it was the current version.



Apologies for "C", although i couldn't understand why would anyone mention a general purpose compressor as a solution where other audio-related solutions exist.

But about "B", nero does not decompress alac. That's wrong. The decoder that mediacoder may be using for that is the one listed here: http://rarewares.org/lossless.php



AFAIK, that features was first and foremost coming from the fact that old (tracker) modules could be compressed in those formats ( .s3z .xmz .mdz, .itz,... ), and playing back those without uncompressing was a nice feature (and popularized by the then famous modplug player/tracker).

If that applies to any fileformat, and specifically the suitability for .wav files, is questionable, since i guess it first uncompresses it into memory. (and thus, increasing loading time)

You're perfectly correct. I tried it out on a compressed archive of four albums out of curiosity and there was a distinct pause between requesting a track and the beginning of playback of that track. I just wanted to point out that it is possible with Foobar2000 even if the results may be less than ideal.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

Only Winrar and perhaps some exotic archive formats (UHA?) have serious implementation of Audio compression. The WinZip case is a joke. While Winrar can be told to detect audio in any file (such as when archiving games), according to tests WinZip only applies WavPack to known audio files: where it's pointless to use an archiver in the first place.

I agree with your remarks about Apple software and ALAC, but why not use any of the free audio compression formats around?

I did not provided a file because I did not have time to do it, and I`m affraid of legal issues about sharing a mp3 file.
Also Cutor I just wanna back up a file. Im not interested in playing or anything else. So for me it`s not senseless. After reading the hydrogens wiki I realize that lossless codecs are improving every year, like everything computer related... If I go for Wavpack I will miss some feature... If I choose TAK I will miss other one... So I decided to keep wav files intact(at least it`s checksum) and also compressed.
Besides all this I don`t know whats the next move of JOBS. The latest thing I know is that he is trying to blow mp3 by putting an old decoding version of mp3 files, as pointed some place in foruns. Why he did that I don`t know.
But the point is that I wanna to backup my wav in the smallest size possible and in a reasonable compress and decompress time. So my answer to this today is ARC. If anyone find anything free that is better please tell me.
Tks for all responses.
Jaz apoligies accepted.

If "reasonable compress and decompress" is your main criteria, then please take a look at FLAC, Wavpack & TAK. These three easily fall into the "reasonable" range and are backwards compatible should newer versions be introduced. All are free, as well. Give all three a try and see which one meets your needs.



Edit: Shortened the quote.

Not wishing to stir the pot any further, but are you suggesting that the developers of, let's say FLAC, are incompetent and wasting theirs and our time because you think you know better?

Cheers, Slipstreem.

Why would you care about his moves? Use any free codec and show him the finger.

I think that I will have to change my nick to Mr.Misunderstood . The first post is about my findings and reading only about that. I starting to think that I should never posted this topic... If some moderator think thats a unusefull post just delete it...


To
drbeachboy

If I choose WavPack(I have done it before but with arc I gain 1.5 megas for each song) or FLAC it wont give the compression rate I wanna (thats is the main purpose of my backup). TAK wont give Multichannel support.
Thanks for the input.

Well, there is not much to add to this thread if your goal is only to archive. Plus, my response was based on your word "reasonable". You are looking for more than reasonable. The great thing about Lossless Codecs is the fact that they can be both archived and played, and you have tagging, in which wav files do not. As brought up many times in this forum, why is ultimate (versus reasonable) compression so important to you? Storage is fairly cheap these days. Most audiophiles are happy with the compression & decompression speeds of lossless audio codecs, as well as with the compression percentage. This being an Audio forum, I doubt that few, if any members will recommend archiving your files in the way that you propose. Good Luck.

I see no mention that Mediacoder supports ALAC on their web page:
http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Are you sure that was not an AAC file?


What problem are you talking about, the WAV file has 3K difference? If it was really an ALAC file that can be explained by non-audio data. The resulting WAV is probably as good as the original. No reason to slap the software unless you can hear a difference (a waveform comparison with the original would be useful)

No differences between lossless archive and the original are permited, audible or not. Otherwise the archive is not lossless anymore and is a waste of space. There are albums with noisy gaps between tracks, not to speak of actual gapless albums. Precise length is important.

QUOTE(BraZ @ May 5 2008, 08:38)

If I go for Wavpack I will miss some feature... If I choose TAK I will miss other one... So I decided to keep wav files intact(at least it`s checksum) and also compressed.

What feature are you missing with Wavepack? What feature are you missing with TAK? They reproduce the wave file EXACTLY!! And you can add tags making them better than the original. You're saying all you want is a wave file intact and compressed... that's what a lossless audio file is!!

QUOTE(BraZ @ May 5 2008, 08:38)

Besides all this I don`t know whats the next move of JOBS. The latest thing I know is that he is trying to blow mp3 by putting an old decoding version of mp3 files, as pointed some place in foruns. Why he did that I don`t know.

Besides not knowing what you're talking about here, it appears to have nothing to do with losslessly compressing wave files.

QUOTE(BraZ @ May 5 2008, 08:38)

But the point is that I wanna to backup my wav in the smallest size possible and in a reasonable compress and decompress time. So my answer to this today is ARC. If anyone find anything free that is better please tell me.

FLAC, WavePack, TAK, Monkey's Audio. There's 4 answers for you.

Agreed, the length of the track is an audible difference. To check that a codec is really lossless, you should see that the audio data has the same exact length and matches exactly (eg. substract the track in Audacity)

You could use shntool's cmp function, either from the command line, xACT in Mac OS X or AFAIK Trader's Little Helper in Windows. It only analyses PCM data within any supported audio file so there's no need to decompress in order to compare.

why finger at Jobs? You can easily use whatever free format is there and recode that into the latest apple 'invention' whenever you feel like...