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[benn600]

I'm just curious about this posting on the FLAC site a few months back:

27-Nov-2006:

    * FLAC 1.1.3 released  Almost 2 years in the making, FLAC 1.1.3 is a major release with improved compression, improved cover art and multichannel support, better recovery for corrupted files, many new features and options in the command-line tools, and several bug fixes. For developers, the decoder and encoder APIs have also been simplified and there is a new porting guide. See the changelog entry for complete details.

Now for sctom's FLAC plugin, how does this work?  Do you update your plugin to use the new FLAC?  Also, they say the compression is better.  Would a user want to set their entire library to re-encode to the new version of FLAC?  That seems unnecessary and dangerous for a few reasons, but theoretically it could save some MB's or GB's on a large collection if the difference is meaningful.  I wouldn't think you'd want to change FLAC because it's understood to behave one way so why change it?  Then things might need to be updated to play the new version of FLAC songs?  Do songs carry a version number, lol?  The version they were encoded with?

[jgreen]

benn--

You really ought to read further on the FLAC site.  The format is described exhaustively and defintively.  Myself, I have trouble operating my TV remote, and yet after studying the FLAC description, I felt empowered with all the expertise necessary to listen to and enjoy a song encoded in FLAC. 

To answer some of your questions:  Yes, songs have version numbers.  If you select one of your FLAC files in MC and do a tag dump, you will see the FLAC version # and a lot of other really obscure stuff.  It is in reading the version # and some other tags that the playback machine is able to make sense of the data format, and switch seemlessly between Encoder versions.

So no, you should not immediately re-encode your FLAC tracks in the new format, although there is no risk to your data in doing that.  Josh just might be a little over-exuberant regarding 1.3--apart from internal album art, the changes seem more of the green-eyeshade variety to me.  I have tracks in FLAC 1.2 and 1.1 and they sound just fine and playback perfectly in all of scthom's decoder versions, including the latest, which supports version 1.3.

You know, benn, it's times like this that I regret the lack of a forum PM function.  It was disabled recently for security reasons, and at the time Alex B argued strenuously that it ought to be preserved for communication between registered forum members.  For once, I accept his (knowledgeable) advice without argument.

You see, Alex B is an recognized expert on digital audio tagging, among many other things.  If the forum PM function were still enabled, like he argued and argued for, you would be able to PM Alex B with all your questions and follow-up questions.  And not just on tagging, don't forget:

--Lossy file-format compression schemes.
--CD recording standards (Redbook).
--Digital audio theory.
--What an elephant looks like sitting on a toilet.

It's that last bit of expertise for which I also would like to PM him, but we all have to take life's opportunities as they're presented.  So good luck, benn.  maybe if you Googled "Alex B" you might get some further clue on how to send all your important questions to him.  He's mentioned he lives in Finland, is that anywhere near Iowa? 

[Mr ChriZ]

J, PM's have been back for a while, I think since the fourm was upgraded.
Also Green Eye Shadow can look good on some people in very subtle quantitys,
 I prefer it on girls than guys however.

[jgreen]

There you go, benn!  Start PMing!  (If you haven't already).

Chriz--

In my own meager defense, I said "green eye-shade".  That's a visor that bookkeepers used to wear back in the days of pencil-entry ledgers.  It's a way of saying the changes were miniscule and only technically important (IMO), not a way of saying, "Hey, I've got this sexy little outfit . . ."  For that, you guys can use the PM! 

[Mr ChriZ]

There you go, benn!  Start PMing!  (If you haven't already).

Chriz--

In my own meager defense, I said "green eye-shade".  That's a visor that bookkeepers used to wear back in the days of pencil-entry ledgers.  It's a way of saying the changes were miniscule and only technically important (IMO), not a way of saying, "Hey, I've got this sexy little outfit . . ."  For that, you guys can use the PM! 

Rofl!

[scthom]

Of course the files have a version number -- the FORMAT version.  That way, a decoder can tell if it is able to decode it before it gets in over it's head, so to speak.  Look for the Vendor String tag.  Many of mine are still in 1.1.1.

And jgreen is right, although I've already incorporated 1.1.3 into the latest versions of the plugins, the changes are pretty minor and unless you use a wierd setting (block size, bit rate, or something like that), practically all decoders, even ones which were for 1.1.2 should be able to decode it.  They'd just ignore things like the PICTURE block.

BTW, I hear 1.1.4 has some pretty good speed enhancements for encoding.