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[Magic_Randy]

My ecosystem is Apple centric including Macs, iPads, iPhones, HomePods, iPods, Apple TV, etc.

I have my hi-res audio in FLAC format which works fine except for my Apple devices. So I'm planning on converting the FLAC to ALAC.

Should I also keep the FLAC files? The downside is duplicate storage and duplicate files to maintain.

Any comments/suggestions welcome.

Randy

[biblio]

ALAC to FLAC should maintain lossless quality? (not an expert)

If you're so deep in apple hardware that you'd convert the format to fit them why would you need to keep FLAC files as well? Better to maintain a library that works for you than to maintain 2 versions.

[Magic_Randy]

ALAC to FLAC should maintain lossless quality? (not an expert)

If you're so deep in apple hardware that you'd convert the format to fit them why would you need to keep FLAC files as well? Better to maintain a library that works for you than to maintain 2 versions.

Thanks for the input.

Just keeping one version was my thought too. Running it by others to see if I'm missing something.

Randy

[dmitch77]

When I get FLAC files (e.g. by buying them) and convert them to ALAC to play on Apple devices, I always keep the FLAC version. My take is, I believe that FLAC support (in many instances of hardware and software) will be around a lot longer than ALAC support (in Apple products, only, for the most part). Also, these days, disk space is so cheap that I decided to not waste time trying to conserve it.

[Awesome Donkey]

ALAC to FLAC should maintain lossless quality? (not an expert)

Correct, FLAC to ALAC (or vice versa) are lossless conversions. Ultimately it's up to you if you want to keep the FLAC files, since you can just as well easily convert ALAC back to FLAC without any problems.

[Magic_Randy]

I appreciate all the input.

I tend to do ongoing tweaking to my files updating the tags, fixing names, etc. I think I'll just keep the ALAC files as it will be a pain to maintain two sets. As Awesome Donkey says, I can always convert back if a need comes up.

Randy

[mwheelerk]

When I get FLAC files (e.g. by buying them) and convert them to ALAC to play on Apple devices, I always keep the FLAC version. My take is, I believe that FLAC support (in many instances of hardware and software) will be around a lot longer than ALAC support (in Apple products, only, for the most part). Also, these days, disk space is so cheap that I decided to not waste time trying to conserve it.

I simply curious as to what you know or simply think that would lead you to say this.

[Awesome Donkey]

Apple Lossless is open-source and is supported in many apps and on many devices, so it's not going to go anywhere.

P.S. I thought Apple supported FLAC in iOS starting with iOS 11? I don't believe macOS or iTunes supports FLAC though (not without third-party addons, if I recall correctly).

[dmitch77]

I simply curious as to what you know or simply think that would lead you to say this.

Apple has a well-known history of discontinuing support for technology that it has invented. FLAC is so much more widely supported - and so completely unencumbered - than ALAC, that I believe that it - FLAC - will be the longer-lasting format. I don't want to, at some point in the future, be left holding a bunch of ALAC files and realize that the last program that could read and convert them stopped working on my new hardware last year. That will happen eventually with FLAC too, but that cutoff date is much farther in the future than it is for ALAC.

On the objective side, Apple has never given ALAC any enhancements to support high res audio. The current ALAC is the exact same implementation as when the first iPods came out 17 years ago. FLAC continues to evolve. So FLAC has much better compression ratio than ALAC for high-res audio files. Sorry, I don't have the figures at hand, but some research will certainly support this claim. (I did such research at my previous job, and I don't have access to that data.)

[Awesome Donkey]

I don't want to, at some point in the future, be left holding a bunch of ALAC files and realize that the last program that could read and convert them stopped working on my new hardware last year. That will happen eventually with FLAC too, but that cutoff date is much farther in the future than it is for ALAC.

That won't happen though, like I said ALAC is open-source. Even if Apple discontinued using it for whatever reason, ALAC decoding and encoding would live on - libavcodec/ffmpeg alone guarantees that.

[Magic_Randy]

...P.S. I thought Apple supported FLAC in iOS starting with iOS 11? I don't believe macOS or iTunes supports FLAC though (not without third-party addons, if I recall correctly).

I know they are supposed to support FLAC, but from what I can figure out it is only a tick in the box feature. iTunes is the gateway to most of the Apple mainline processes. And iTunes does not support FLAC. If they ever open up support in iTunes then I would say they are serious about supporting FLAC.

Randy

[Magic_Randy]

I was converting 15,000 FLAC to ALAC when MC crashed. It had already converted ~13,000 files.

When the crash occurred the messages said it was saving tag changes. There were about 5,000 files that were not yet saved.

Anyone know what tag changes are being updated after the files are converted?

Randy

[bob]

I was converting 15,000 FLAC to ALAC when MC crashed. It had already converted ~13,000 files.

When the crash occurred the messages said it was saving tag changes. There were about 5,000 files that were not yet saved.

Anyone know what tag changes are being updated after the files are converted?

Randy

The audio data is converted then the tags are transcribed from the old to the new files if you have the option in MC turned on to save the tags to the files when the tags are updated.
Are you running the most recent build 24.0.74?

[Magic_Randy]

The audio data is converted then the tags are transcribed from the old to the new files if you have the option in MC turned on to save the tags to the files when the tags are updated.
Are you running the most recent build 24.0.74?

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes I'm using build 24.0.74.

So it looks like I missed some updates when I crashed. I also found some files with other problems, so for now I restored everything back to FLAC.

This time I replaced my existing files as part of the conversion. In hindsight I think this was a mistake. If I try this again I'll keep the original FLAC and convert another set to ALAC that I will only use for my Apple devices.

Randy

EDIT: I use Sophos for my PC protection software. When I first did the conversion in mass it identified the conversion as a possible ransomware file encryption attack and killed the process. I think it also tries to fix the data by rolling back to a prior version of the file. I think this is why some of my files were messed up.

[bob]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes I'm using build 24.0.74.

So it looks like I missed some updates when I crashed. I also found some files with other problems, so for now I restored everything back to FLAC.

This time I replaced my existing files as part of the conversion. In hindsight I think this was a mistake. If I try this again I'll keep the original FLAC and convert another set to ALAC that I will only use for my Apple devices.

Randy

EDIT: I use Sophos for my PC protection software. When I first did the conversion in mass it identified the conversion as a possible ransomware file encryption attack and killed the process. I think it also tries to fix the data by rolling back to a prior version of the file. I think this is why some of my files were messed up.

Ok, if you still have issues can you attach a log?
There were some problems with the mp4 plugin when more Apple specific tags were added IIRC and I think they are all supposed to be sorted out in 24.0.74.

[Magic_Randy]

Ok, if you still have issues can you attach a log?
There were some problems with the mp4 plugin when more Apple specific tags were added IIRC and I think they are all supposed to be sorted out in 24.0.74.

Will do