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> Assuming ~650MB per CD, and the 150 CD's quoted, and ~50% reduction using FLAC, I get just shy of 50GB total storage requirements -- compared to the 63GB 'app

> Assuming ~650MB per CD, and the 150 CD's quoted, and ~50% reduction using FLAC, I get just shy of 50GB total storage requirements -- compared to the 63GB 'apple lossless' quoted. (Again, why the appeal of proprietary formats for long term storage and future re-encoding?) I did a comparison between FLAC and ALAC (a.k.a. Apple Lossless) on my CD library a few years ago (plus a few 48kHz tracks taken from DVDs), and the difference in total filesize was less than 10% so I doubt that is a major factor. I personally went for ALAC, as it has equal (EAC, VLC) or better support (OS X Finder, iTunes, Windows Explorer, Windows 10 media player, some tagging scripts, iOS) in stuff I currently use. Providing I keep a decoder with the files, its proprietary nature doesn't really bother me - I can always convert to xLAC if desired.

Jedd 11y ago
Interesting, thanks. I wouldn't use a proprietary format because I could neverbe sure when in the future I'd want to read / re-encode, and what type of systems I'd have available at that timer, other than knowing I'd always have access to free software. I have some FLAC archives, but I don't use them - so support to play that format hasn't been something I've taken much notice of. Do you normally play your ALACs, or keep an mp3 / ogg / aac version around to actually listen to?
- tjl 11y ago
  It's not exactly proprietary since Apple open sourced the ALAC code in 2011. https://alac.macosforge.org https://alac.macosforge.org Also, someone has wrapped it to build with different tool chains. https://github.com/TimothyGu/alac https://github.com/TimothyGu/alac
- stordoff 11y ago
  I normally play the ALACs directly (most of my listening is done on my PC, streaming from my NAS). I used to keep an AAC version around for my mobile devices, but never really used it so don't bother any more.
lmm 11y ago
Interesting. My sense was that FLAC was much more widely supported - in terms of my specific cases the Amazon player supports FLAC but I don't think it supports ALAC, and I'd worry about being able to play them on my Android phone.

Jedd 11y ago

Interesting, thanks. I wouldn't use a proprietary format because I could neverbe sure when in the future I'd want to read / re-encode, and what type of systems I'd have available at that timer, other than knowing I'd always have access to free software. I have some FLAC archives, but I don't use them - so support to play that format hasn't been something I've taken much notice of. Do you normally play your ALACs, or keep an mp3 / ogg / aac version around to actually listen to?

tjl 11y ago
It's not exactly proprietary since Apple open sourced the ALAC code in 2011. https://alac.macosforge.org https://alac.macosforge.org Also, someone has wrapped it to build with different tool chains. https://github.com/TimothyGu/alac https://github.com/TimothyGu/alac
stordoff 11y ago
I normally play the ALACs directly (most of my listening is done on my PC, streaming from my NAS). I used to keep an AAC version around for my mobile devices, but never really used it so don't bother any more.

lmm 11y ago

Interesting. My sense was that FLAC was much more widely supported - in terms of my specific cases the Amazon player supports FLAC but I don't think it supports ALAC, and I'd worry about being able to play them on my Android phone.