Hydrogen Audio Community:

Recently Ive undergone the daunting task of copying as many older albums on to my computer as I can. I already have a sort of minimal collection in .mp3 that I use for compatibility/file size efficiency of my MP3 player. However, I wanted to begin copying my old cd's that are worth preserving into some sort of lossless audio format so that i don't have to worry about these old albums falling apart on me. With my limited knowledge, I have come across three formats, Apple's lossless, .flac, and .wav. So, my question is, since I want to preserve my music collection for as long a time as I can, is there some universal format I should use? As in, mostly compatible with a lot of media players? what lossless format would you recommend? (Ive used apples lossless before, and I dig the fact that it has the capability of recognizing even the most obscure albums) Can I also get that same, sweet, album recognizing ability from some other format/media player combo?

Thanks in advance, and I apologize for those of you going "Oh jezz, that's the third time someone posts this question this week"

Read these as a reference:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...less_comparison

FLAC is the most widespread lossless codec out there, so as a beginner, you might want to look into that, unless you're on Apple (iPod/Mac), in which case ALAC is a valid alternative. On the other hand, don't bother too much about codec choice; since we're talking lossless, you can transcode at any time without quality loss, much unlike MP3 or any other lossy scheme.

Features like automatic tagging depend on the extraction software/audio suite you're using, such as EAC or iTunes, rather than the encoder itself. All popular lossless codecs support tagging to some extent.

It looks like you're preferring Apple Lossless because you're ripping with iTunes because it recognizes your CDs. Use a secure ripper like Dbpoweramp or EAC instead. Dbpoweramp will be better for you because it uses 4 CD databases to make sure your CDs are properly identified and each track properly tagged. iTunes only uses 1.

As for the lossless format, read up on their pros and cons to decide.

FLAC seems a pretty good choice for compatibility and future safety, although concerning the latter you probably can't beat PCM wav, because it's so simple that you could figure out how to read it just by looking at a few files (you might mix up the left and right channel though ). Unless you want to plan for planetwide disaster and collapse of global communication, FLAC should be safe for a few decades though.

What on Earth are you talking about?

I think that he's referring to the readability of PCM with no previous knowledge - in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, a survivor may be able to decipher PCM by logic alone. But they'd have no indication of right versus left channel.

Pure speculation on my part. I wanted to use the phrase "Zombie Apocalypse".

Archiving a copy of FLAC decoder source code along with your music would be a way to guarantee it'd work in the future. If you're going to be really paranoid, include an OS disk, computer, power generator, etc. in order of increasing degrees of paranoia.

Seriously though, FLAC isn't going anywhere.

...then there might be endian issues, but yeah, that makes sense. too early in the morning and i have too much to do to get in touch with my underdeveloped sense of humor right now.

OT: It is refreshing to read that I am not the only one with apocalypse fantasies when it comes to backup strategies. Total overkill, but... on the day after it would be cool to still be able to play my favourite, properly tagged albums

But seriously: When you want ensure compatibility, stick with FLAC. There are so many users of this codec that it will stay available for long enough time.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. But you probably have some more pressing concerns when the Zombie Apocalypse comes, and until then I'd say FLAC is good enough.

I'm sure by the time of the Zombie Apocalypse there will be a foobar2000 plugin to kill them.