lossless codecs

[Unregistered]

Shn

Razgo,

The main thing I like about SHN is the MD5 capability. This allows you to check the accuracy of your rip/download/burn with a tiny text file for the entire album or session. (.md5) This may not be useful for most purposes, but it is absolutely cool for archiving and preserving sound quality. In short () it makes it abundantly clear when you've got a pristine copy from as close to the source as possible. Shn files are a tiny bit larger than flac and ape, but this md5 checksum feature is one of a kind. I use MD5 Summer to check my shn files before archiving or burning them, and it gives you true peace of mind to know that it is 100% accurate.

[Spoons]

Re: lossless codecs

Is that Mozart effect stuff like some of those "relaxation" discs where you have a very nice piano concerto playing, but with annoying waves and bird chirps? Or is it really only the music with an accompanying read-along book?

I just can't stand those discs where they add sound effect over perfectly nice music. My dad got that thunderstorm beethoven thing. IT IS SO ANNOYING! (caps intended) I just can't stand it.

i have a potential challenge for you :D , perhaps you just haven't heard the right relaxation music peice? a close friend of mine "Christopher Buckman" has produced many of this type of music. his earlier work are all owned by MRA now but all his later stuff is more local here.

he did do a "Pachelbels Cannon" as a lot of people did, and it was the best i have heard in the sense of artists who manipulate older classical music.

however he has many which are simply all his own work. i did a sample cd i put out for him so potential customers could get a feel of his music. and here is an example of what Michael the owner of the DVD site http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Reviews/LivingReef.html had to say about the music he heard from chris on the DVD called "Living Reef" . his music is something that tends to put you to sleep very quickly.

although "living reef" may have a sudden death soon as he hasn't recieved any money/royalties for this yet. and he has 2 albums on it too.

anyhow i might put up some samples for you to check out as i would be interested in what you think.

[Spoons]

Re: lossless codecs

no one commented on the 10 days song??

[RossRoy]

Re: lossless codecs

So? Have you settled on a lossless codec Razgo?
I just decided today to rerip every classical and most jazz albums I have to a lossless format, but I am at a lost as whether to go with APE or FLAC..

Also, anybody here is using Dynamic Drives in WindowsXP Pro? I just discovered them last week and converted both my hard drive to a single long partition (well actually 1 very small, and 1 very long) and it seems to work great! Anybody has had any problems with them dynamic partitions? (other than not being able to read them in another OS or Windows version)

[Spoons]

Re: lossless codecs

i haven't decided yet. if i were to makes a decision right now it would be flac. only because the latest monkey's codec doesn't work with my win98se system. other's reported the problem at monkey's forum but i never saw it get addressed. so i am using an old monkey.

i reckon you could almost just toss a coin to decide as they both seem almost the same as each other. although the general consenses is that flac rips/converts faster. and i would probably agree there.

so i would at least do a monkey/rip album test and then a flac/rip album test and see which one went smoothly.

don't forget to defrag first though

[donny]

Re: lossless codecs

"so I'm using an old monkey"

old monkeys have more expirience

[RossRoy]

Re: lossless codecs

old monkeys have more expirience

Hahaha! Nice one


I had actually decided on FLAC, I think, in the past because of the lesser CPU usage during playback. According to HA forums, from what I've read, the quality isn't really in cause here, really just the Tags/Compression Ratio/Ease of use and other trivial stuff like that.. I might just decide to rip half my CDs in Flac and the other half in Ape.. I guess I'll do a test rip after all, and see. But I don't think I'll be able to tell any difference.

[Spoons]

Re: lossless codecs

actually in theory you should be able to just convert all your monkey's into flac without any loss of quality and without having to re rip those albums.

oh and BTW that 10 days song makes a special mention of monkey :lustig3:

[RossRoy]

Re: lossless codecs

That 10 days song is not bad as parodies go, but, I have to admit something. I didn't understand much of it! They sing quite a bit too fast unfortunately! I did understand some bits and pieces though.

[Spoons]

Re: lossless codecs

yeh they did sing it fast. you have to listen carefully. it just cracks me up every time i here it :D :D and if you don't get it i am surely not going to explain it in public :blush:

[RossRoy]

Re: lossless codecs

I will get it.. after a few linstenings cause it's the words themselves I can't differentiate :cry:

[RossRoy]

Re: lossless codecs

Alright, enough debating, I took my decision. I'm going with FLAC.

Things is, I can't use Audio CD Input because, I don't know why but, some of my CDs come out with pops and crackles when I use it for extraction. So, I had to settle on EAC for extraction and I couldn't get EAC to put the full V2 tags in APE, all I was getting was the V1 with the 30 chars limit.

So I settled on FLAC, which seems to support ID3v2 tags, at least in dAP/dMC (and honnestly, that's all I need for playback :D ).

Anybody know how widespread ID3v2 tag use on FLAC is especially on players (seeing as after reading on the official FLAC homepage, they mention that Flac uses it's own tagging system, FlacTag, but they say you can also use ID3 tags but it's not guaranteed to compatible with every player)? And, would anybody recommend using an Ogg container or should I just leave it with the minimal Flac container?

[Spoon]

Re: lossless codecs

Flac should be using Ogg Vorbis tags.

[RossRoy]

Re: lossless codecs

Does EAC automatically put Ogg Vorbis tag in FLAC files? I don't think it does.. but I may be VERY mistaken..

[Unregistered]

Re: lossless codecs

Alright, enough debating, I took my decision. I'm going with FLAC.

On unmentioned advantage with FLAC is that hardware support has begun.

http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/shop/_templates/item_main_Rio.asp?model=220&cat=53

MOTAR the imperious