Question about dealing with .FLAC/lossless

ptrck · **Joined:** Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:55 pm **Posts:** 5568

So, if you rip a CD in .flac, its supposed to be lossless. My question is this: does ripping to .flac and then converting to V0 MP3 give you the same result as just ripping to V0 MP3?

Just a silly technical question I suppose, but one Im curious about nonetheless.

The Mayor of Simpleton · **Posted:** Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:39 pm

Saint Patrick Wrote:

So, if you rip a CD in .flac, its supposed to be lossless. My question is this: does ripping to .flac and then converting to V0 MP3 give you the same result as just ripping to V0 MP3?

Just a silly technical question I suppose, but one Im curious about nonetheless.

I'm not sure what "V0 MP3" is but doing anything with FLAC to anything else is going to be exactly the same as going from the original to the new format. FLAC just compresses the format by removing extraneous information that doesn't need to be in the file, then the FLAC program adds it back in when it's uncompressed to make it a wav file again - something like that, unlike mp3 which actually permanently removes part of the audio (mostly the very highest frequencies) to make the file smaller.

ptrck · **Joined:** Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:55 pm **Posts:** 5568

v0 is the highest quality vbr (v2 is the default for alt-pre-standard). thats what i figured.

Whiney · **Posted:** Sun Jul 16, 2006 2:14 pm

Can U FLAC on a Mac?

A Northern Soul · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:23 pm **Posts:** 3742

yes, its exactly the same thing. flac (afaik) isnt perfectly lossless, so its not "exactly" actually, but unless youre a mathematician its fine. if youre interested, btw, all the available switches are here.

The Mayor of Simpleton · **Posted:** Sun Jul 16, 2006 4:06 pm

Northern Soul Wrote:

yes, its exactly the same thing. flac (afaik) isnt perfectly lossless, so its not "exactly" actually, but unless youre a mathematician its

Sorry, wrong.

FLAC faq Wrote:

Found here: http://flac.sourceforge.net/faq.html#ge ... less_trust

How can I be sure FLAC is lossless?
How much testing has been done on FLAC?

First, FLAC is probably the only lossless compressor that has a published and comprehensive test suite. With the others you rely on the author's personal testing or the longevity of the program. But with FLAC you can download the whole test suite and run it on any version you like, or alter it to test your own data. The test suite checks every function in the API, as well as running many thousands of streams through an encode-decode-verify process, to test every nook and cranny of the system. Even on a fast machine the full test suite takes hours. The full test suite must pass on several platforms before a release is made.

Second, you can always use the -V option with flac (also supported by most GUI frontends) to verify while encoding. With this option, a decoder is run in parallel to the encoder and its output is compared against the original input. If a difference is found flac will stop with an error.

Finally, FLAC is used by many people and has been judged stable enough by many software and hardware makers to be incorporated into their products.

paladisiac · **Posted:** Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:27 pm

WhineyPTW Wrote:

Can U FLAC on a Mac?

if so, sign up the duck to promote "MACFLAC!"

Totally Wired · **Posted:** Sun Jul 16, 2006 7:08 pm

WhineyPTW Wrote:

Can U FLAC on a Mac?

You can, but options are limited. There's a good ripper called MAX that rips to flac, but as far as playback goes there's not much. Cog is a really basic app that does a good job of doing playback, but it's so rudimentary it doesn't even have a search function. Songbird showed promise a while ago, but development ground to a halt when they ran into problems with Unix based systems.

It will probably get better eventually, but right now it semes like there's just not enough demand from Mac users for alternative music players to iTunes to entice developers.

Whiney · **Posted:** Sun Jul 16, 2006 9:57 pm

Could I download and burn a CD with Toast on a mac?

south pacific · **Posted:** Sun Jul 16, 2006 11:08 pm

Can you burn the sound of buttered toast into a Big Mac?

gauchebag · **Posted:** Sun Jul 16, 2006 11:09 pm

WhineyPTW Wrote:

Can U FLAC on a Mac?

can you flawlessly compose?
can you bitch us with them hos?
can you tell us how to rahl us
can you teach em how to mawl us?
Goooooooooooooooooooooo.......WHINEY!

wenchlette · **Posted:** Mon Jul 17, 2006 1:19 am

Totally Wired Wrote:

WhineyPTW Wrote:

Can U FLAC on a Mac?

You can, but options are limited. There's a good ripper called MAX that rips to flac, but as far as playback goes there's not much. Cog is a really basic app that does a good job of doing playback, but it's so rudimentary it doesn't even have a search function.

Only playback? Can you convert flac files to mp3s or aacs or anything at all?

Question about dealing with .FLAC/lossless

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