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[hit_ny]

Just stumbled on this while looking for something else.

TTA claims it can do lossless compresion at 30% of the original WAV !!

rough calculations put that at just twice the space reqd for lame aps mp3.

[JimH]

Please confirm that it's lossless (convert back to wav and compare) and then re-post.  It's probably not.  Other lossless formats max out around 50%.

[Doof]

Um... it says it can go as little as 30% of the original wav. Then it goes on to say that resulting files are 30%-70%.

And then on the comparison page, you can see that all of the other lossless encoders (MAC, FLAC) getting similar ratios.

In fact, if you look at the chart, you'll see that TTA's compression ratio is nearly identical to MAC's "Fast" setting. But then MAC can go even smaller by using its "Normal" or "High" settings. TTA appears to have only one setting, which, as I said, looks to get nearly identical compression ratios and speeds as MAC on its "Fast" setting.

So basically... I'm not seeing anything exciting here.

[hit_ny]

This table compares various lossless codecs.

TTA is shown to take up much more than claimed on its website.

Features	WavPack	ALAC	FLAC	Monkey's	OptimFROG	Shorten
Encoding speed	very fast	average	fast	fast	slow	very fast
Decoding speed	very fast	very fast	very fast	fast	slow	very fast
Compression*	58%	58,50%	58,70%	55,50%	54,70%	63,50%
Flexibility**	very good	bad	very good	very good	very good	bad
Error handling	yes		yes	no	yes	no
Seeking	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Tagging	ID3/APE	QT tags	FLAC tags	ID3/APE	ID3/APE	no
Hardware support	yes	yes	yes	no	no	yes
Software support	good	bad	very good	good	average	very good
Hybrid/lossy	yes	no	no	no	yes	no
ReplayGain	yes	sort of	yes	no	yes	no
RIFF chunks	yes		no	yes	yes	yes
Streaming	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	no
Pipe support	yes	no	yes	yes	yes	yes
Open source	yes	Yes (decoding)	yes	yes	no	yes
Multichannel	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no
High resolution	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no
OS support	All	Win/Mac	All	All	Win/Mac/Linux	All
Features	WMA	LA	TTA	LPAC	MPEG4 ALS	Real Lossless
Encoding speed	average	slow	very fast	average	slow	average
Decoding speed	average	slow	very fast	very fast	slow	fast
Compression*	56,30%	53,50%	57,10%	57,20%
Flexibility**	bad	average	bad	bad	very good	bad
Error handling	yes	no	yes	no	yes
Seeking	yes	yes	yes	slow	yes	yes
Tagging	Proprietary	ID3v1	ID3	no	MP4 tags	Proprietary
Hardware support	no	no	yes	no	no	no
Software support	good	bad	average	average	none yet	bad
Hybrid/lossy	no	no	no	no	no	no
ReplayGain	no	no	yes	no	no	no
RIFF chunks	no	yes	no	yes
Streaming	yes		no	no	yes	yes
Pipe support	yes	yes	no			no
Open source	no	no	yes	no	yes	no
Multichannel	yes	no	yes	no	yes	no
High resolution	yes	no	yes	yes	yes	no
OS support	Win/Mac	Win/Linux	All	Win/Linux/Sol	All	Win/Mac/Linux

* The Compression ratio is calculated with the division of compressed size by uncompressed size * 100. So, lower is better.

Encoding speed, Decoding speed and Compression ratio are based on each encoder's default settings.

** Flexibility refers to the amount of encoding choices offered to the users (Fast/low compression, Slow/high compression and everything inbetween)

[GHammer]

WavPack fills every box according to this chart.
Sure wish MC would add support for it.
Natively.

[benn600]

I find it difficult to understand why people would use anything but FLAC.  That is the most commonly used lossless format and you know it's got amazing support, especially because it is open source, and it has a lot of great features, especially on decoding.  I can decode it on any computer in my house, with next to 0% CPU usage!  The key to compatibility is for everyone to stick to one format!  If everyone thinks they need their special format then we'll never get this worked out and easily setup!  NEW RULE: everyone use flac for lossless compression.

[Doof]

Umm... no. I like APE, thanks.

[Johnny B]

...NEW RULE: everyone use flac for lossless compression.

New rule?? Calm down...
I like APE as well

[benn600]

Can someone provide me with an overview summary of APE?  I am curious to know exactly where it came from, who is behind it, and the general advantages of it over FLAC (if any exist)?

[JimH]

All lossless encoding is more or less similar.  They all provide bit perfect playback.

APE is well supported my many programs.

Matt wrote it.  Matt is also the leader of the MC team.  So MC supports APE well.

After that, at this point, there isn't a lot of difference.

[sonicbox]

Yes, Lossless is Lossless.  It's pretty much personal preference.  At the end point, you get the exact same bits back for playback.

FLAC probably has the most use and is Open Source.  Monkey's Audio (APE) is not, and is somewhat weighted to the Windows crowd.   (And, obviously, JRiver Media Center.)

WMA Lossless and ALAC also get some mileage, just because they are bundled and directly supported by Microsoft and Apple products... both very proprietary.

[Matt]

There are lots of good lossless encoders.

Monkey's Audio has some advantages, like having the highest efficiency of any lossless codec. (space used for a given CPU usage)  It also has freely available source that isn't covered by a restrictive, viral license.  However, it has some disadvantages, like that stupid monkey picture.

So, take your pick -- you probably won't go too far wrong.

[GHammer]

I find it difficult to understand why people would use anything but FLAC. That is the most commonly used lossless format and you know it's got amazing support, especially because it is open source, and it has a lot of great features, especially on decoding. I can decode it on any computer in my house, with next to 0% CPU usage! The key to compatibility is for everyone to stick to one format! If everyone thinks they need their special format then we'll never get this worked out and easily setup! NEW RULE: everyone use flac for lossless compression.

Well...
Not >THE< most common. Ever look at lossless music on the Internet? flac is in third place. APE rules there and WavPack is moving up fast.

I for one do not equate open source with quality. You may get quality, you may get a pig. The devs may or may not be around next week. "Ooooh but you can get the source!" Yeah, I can get the blueprints to my house too. Doesn't mean I intend to add a 3rd floor myself.

I kinda like the "O-S" crowd. Always wanting to limit my choices by insisting I do things their way.

Would I like to see the top 3 have native support in MC? Yep. Will I cry if it doesn't happen? Nope, I have been quite happy with APE since I started with lossless. Even happier if a certain developer would get out of this forum for awhile and stir the 4.0 pot awhile!

[hit_ny]

That table has been quite enlightening, i was not aware there were that many lossless codecs out there. As to which lossless codec is the best, in terms of lossless there are all pretty much that.

Support on various platforms and tools could be a deciding factor. But it appears each format has its own eco-system, so as long as you stay within it then there won't be much difference. On a PC i doubt it matters much which format you use.

What about portables ? performance on a portable, faster decoding speed helps here. Very little available in terms of hw support. Other than FLAC no other lossless codec is supported (except WAV but who uses that or maybe that's the only reason to use it). 

Again the hw vendors would be asking themselves the same question, why support one lossless codec over the other and take a risk, would it not be better to support as many as possible instead. or do they say we only have the budget to support one, properly

i guess Wavpack, FLAC & APE (default) would prolly be leading candidates here, going by the very unscientific method of observing how much noise ppl make for them on this board

[Doof]

The way I see it... Until I buy some hardware device that supports any of the lossless compressors, I'm not going to worry about it. I got started using APE, and I see no reason to switch over to FLAC. In fact, given the times I've seen MC undergo some changes that caused the FLAC plugin to puke and wipe out files, I see a lot of reason to NOT switch to FLAC. This is not meant as any offense to the FLAC plugin author, just pointing out that as long as MC isn't supporting FLAC natively, it's a big reason to not use FLAC for me.

[runemail]

Well...
Not >THE< most common. Ever look at lossless music on the Internet? flac is in third place. APE rules there and WavPack is moving up fast.

Link to the Lossless-format-on-the-internet-charts please?

I see .flac a lot more than .ape, but maybe im looking in all the wrong places?

And isnt .wma the most supported lossless format?

[jgreen]

There is a poll somewhere over on Hydrogen, hardly scientific but a good indication of the sentiment on Hydrogen.  FLAC outnumbers APE 4 to 1. 

"Wavpack coming up fast?"  Yeah, I guess you could say that.  It's certainly doubling it's usage every time somebody else tries it (and then gives up).  It's probably the most talked-about format around, if only because it's so incredibly complex.

Among current lossless formats, there is no clear winner, as each have certain advantages, already cited in this thread.  I would like to point out a clear loser: WMA lossless.  As I discovered not too long ago, WMA lossless will not support 48 khz tracks--it will transcode them all to 44.1.   So if you have concert recordings in WAV and you convert them to WMA, you will lose data.

[dlone]

out of curiosity i've just done a p2p search for 'flac' and' ape'

ape seems to be used more

[runemail]

out of curiosity i've just done a p2p search for 'flac' and' ape'

ape seems to be used more

Depends on where you search. On the most popular p2p site for sharing music (oink) its 183 .ape against 4267 .flac right now...

[BullishDad]

As discussed in this thread it would be great if the APE file contained the lossy file within.

Of course, Matt probably has enough on his plate without having to add a major rewrite of APE.  But given that "All lossless formats are about the same", this would be a fantastic differentiator.

[newsposter]

Whatever 'lossless' encoding that you settle on be sure that its tagging capabilities are flexible and rebust enough to cover present and reasonably expected future uses/needs.

As we all know, it is trivial to rip audio into whatever format necessary.  With reliable disk space and DVD backups (you are backing up to optical, aren't you??) rapidly approaching 'free', is there any reason to argue about saving 10-15kb (insert your favorite SWAG here) per rip when even high-end audio equipment can't reproduce the differences and our ears can't hear them?

The real thing that gums each and every one of us up is the tagging.  All of the internet tag repositories aren't worth a hill of beans if we can't properly capture, store, edit, and manipulate the needed tags.

In my own world, I'd prefer a universal use of ID3vXX and MP3/4 tags as well as the optional use of format-specific data tags.  Ideally this meta-data would be embedded into each of my audio files but I could easily live with external, linked files.

[glynor]

There are lots of good lossless encoders.

Monkey's Audio has some advantages, like having the highest efficiency of any lossless codec. (space used for a given CPU usage)  It also has freely available source that isn't covered by a restrictive, viral license.  However, it has some disadvantages, like that stupid monkey picture.

So, take your pick -- you probably won't go too far wrong.

Generally I agree fully...

However, there is currently no APE support for any OS other than Windows.  For me this is a dealbreaker -- game, set, match.  Also, whether you consider a viral license == restrictive license depends on your point of view.  I would view any license that does not explicitly grant me rights to re-use the source to be restrictive.  Since any application I would ever write would be given away free and also Open Sourced, I could care less about the Viral "clauses" of the GPL (and if I was concerned, there's plenty of stuff available under both the LGPL and the BSD licenses, which don't have anywhere near the viral implications of the regular GPL).  However, if I intended to use the work in a commercial software release, like MC, I might be more wary of them.

As far as the monkey.... I think that's an advantage.  But of course, I like monkeys.

[voice=monkey]ooh, ooh, ooh[/voice]

From everything I've read, the most common lossless format out there would be WAV (not WAVPack, just regular old WAV), followed by SHN.  Not because they're better (they're not) but because they're older.

For newly encoded media, all I ever see available online (like at Lossless Legs and Etree) is FLAC and SHN files.  I've never seen an APE available online for downloading, but that's just me. Of course, as I've said before, my ears can't hear the difference between a FLAC/APE/SHN/or-whatever-the-heck-lossless-format and a "preset extreme" VBR LAME MP3.  I just use MP3 for my stuff.

[hit_ny]

As discussed in this thread it would be great if the APE file contained the lossy file within.

So not only do you have to pay 3 times as much to store lossless, add 1 more for lossy as well. 4 times reqd for transmission & 8 times for saving. oh, im sure it would be convenient if you had a smallish library to start with but scalable ?

When you get 1TB drives at under $100, i'll believe HDs are cheap ...prolly within the next 10 yrs as only 300GB is at that price point now.

With reliable disk space and DVD backups (you are backing up to optical, aren't you??) rapidly approaching 'free', is there any reason to argue about saving 10-15kb (insert your favorite SWAG here) per rip when even high-end audio equipment can't reproduce the differences and our ears can't hear them?

HDs are not that reliable, less with the big ones, so its safer to use more than one. Easiest setup i found is mirror to an identical set that goes offline after the backup. Optical is not practical nor scalable, takes forever to save & restore and less reliable than HDs.

The real thing that gums each and every one of us up is the tagging.  All of the internet tag repositories aren't worth a hill of beans if we can't properly capture, store, edit, and manipulate the needed tags.

In my own world, I'd prefer a universal use of ID3vXX and MP3/4 tags as well as the optional use of format-specific data tags.  Ideally this meta-data would be embedded into each of my audio files but I could easily live with external, linked files.

You can do this now with any media whether it supports tags or not, add your own custom tags too, if you are prepared to go tagless. ie..save tags only in MC's library and not in the file.

[scthom]

The way I see it... Until I buy some hardware device that supports any of the lossless compressors, I'm not going to worry about it. I got started using APE, and I see no reason to switch over to FLAC. In fact, given the times I've seen MC undergo some changes that caused the FLAC plugin to puke and wipe out files, I see a lot of reason to NOT switch to FLAC. This is not meant as any offense to the FLAC plugin author, just pointing out that as long as MC isn't supporting FLAC natively, it's a big reason to not use FLAC for me.

None taken 

But your point is good.  The main reason I wrote the plugin to begin with is because of the Squeezebox I own.  Plays flacs but not APEs.  I saw enough writing on the topic here to know it was unlikely to be internally supported, so I took it on.  Same with WavPack, though it's not nearly as far along as of yet.

[GHammer]

There is a poll somewhere over on Hydrogen, hardly scientific but a good indication of the sentiment on Hydrogen. FLAC outnumbers APE 4 to 1.

Wait, wait, it's coming...

"Wavpack coming up fast?" Yeah, I guess you could say that. It's certainly doubling it's usage every time somebody else tries it (and then gives up). It's probably the most talked-about format around, if only because it's so incredibly complex.

Heehee. Incredibly complex?

Using your source we find WavPack being pretty widely used. For a "new" format.
Survey says:
WavPack or FLAC

As I discovered not too long ago, WMA lossless will not support 48 khz tracks--it will transcode them all to 44.1. So if you have concert recordings in WAV and you convert them to WMA, you will lose data.

Doesn't make WMA Lossless a bad format.
Resample is the proper term.
I had a few tracks here that came to me as 48 K.
Replaced them though.

[Alex B]

Actually, WMA lossless supports 48 kHz and also e.g. 96 kHz 5.1, but MC and WMP 10 have only the standard 44.1 kHz/16-bit option available.

MS Windows Media Encoder has these additional options. The 48 kHz option is labelled as 48 kHz 24-bit, but it does not alter a 48 kHz 16-bit content. (I have tested this. The decompressed audio was identical with the source.)

[hit_ny]

I saw enough writing on the topic here to know it was unlikely to be internally supported, so I took it on.  Same with WavPack, though it's not nearly as far along as of yet.

Right, each vendor has their preferred format which only makes it harder for any lossless format to dominate in the forseeable future.

I took the easy way and settled on lame mp3 aps, im willing to give up oh 5-10% better sound that lossless offers in exchange for low(er) disk space, unparalled convenience and ubiquity on any platform.

[benn600]

The only reason I want one to come out on top is so we can have better support.  As said earlier, companies aren't willing to support tons of extra formats, I guess, especially because when something is open source, like FLAC, they can't really count on exactly knowing everything that they may need to know and it could require a lot of research and development.

Isn't it really dumb that new mp3 players today, like the Sandisk Sansa, supports MP3 and WMA.  How can you settle on two formats?!  It doesn't even say WAV.  I haven't tried it, though, so it could work (and should) but I don't really care anyway.  The biggest problem with lossless and portable players, especially with 6GB -- or even a 60GB iPod is that using lossless would be foolish in a way because you couldn't fit a whole lot of music on it-- a 1GB player would hold about 3-4 CDs.

I'm wondering if the crashing problems I've been noticing are caused by the FLAC plugin discussed earlier.  Perhaps there are some bugs that show up more on certain computers because my personal desktop crashes much more than my sisters computer, and our family room computer has never crashed that I know of.  I think I might create a test library and import my old 8K MP3 song library.

I'm planning on keeping a running MP3 collection synced with my laptop.  I can only wonder how long converting 7K FLAC songs will take...hmmm!?  I know a few hundred takes about an hour or so.  I don't want to use the faster encoding, either, because that would just lower the quality a bit more.

This threat has a lot of great information because I said something controversial.  Let's try it again:

Media Center is the best media player available on planet Earth to date.