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Wow this is really fascinating. I’ve seen a lot of support for FLAC but I’ve never been able to get an iPhone or iPod to read them. I wonder why flac and other

Wow this is really fascinating. I’ve seen a lot of support for FLAC but I’ve never been able to get an iPhone or iPod to read them. I wonder why flac and other high end lossless file formats are not supported.

chungy 6y ago
I'd be surprised if they don't support ALAC, Apple's lossless codec. Can't say I have any iPods or iPhones to try it out myself though. Apple generally has a very strong case of NIH.
- Malic 6y ago
  I was under the impression that Apple chose to develop ALAC because it was less CPU/battery intensive to decode. This is going back to iPod Rev.1 days, mind you. Processing power for simply decoding audio CODECs hasn’t been a challenge for some time now.
  - LeoPanthera 6y ago
    ALAC (and Sony's ATRAC) can be decoded using only integer math, which makes them very power efficient. It's the reason they exist in the first place. MP3, FLAC (and I assume AAC) requires floating point math to decode.
    - didsomeonesay 6y ago
      Flac decoder does not require floating point math since 2005: https://xiph.org/flac/changelog.html https://xiph.org/flac/changelog.html Come to think of it, that still might have been one of the historic reasons for ALAC's creation. Its development started before.
    - toast0 6y ago
      mp3 doesn't require floating point to decode. In the before times, I used mpg321 on an underpowered system because it used the MAD library to decode with only integers, and was able to play my files at only 80% cpu instead of 95% with a floating point decoder. I seem to recall there being a windows player that was faster than winamp, possible because of integer decoding, might have been K-Jofol https://www.underbit.com/products/mad/ https://www.underbit.com/products/mad/
spotyoufi462881 6y ago
Maybe VLC app can read them?
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
14 years ago, when the iPod Video was popular and it had an unlocked bootloader that allowed installing third-party software, lots of tech-inclined people replaced the Apple OS with Rockbox, which had support for FLAC. Unfortunately, with the next generation of iPods, Apple locked the device down, and the only lossless format supported was Apple's own.
hctaw 6y ago
Lossless is only useful as an archival or intermediary format during production/recording where you can't tolerate lossy encoding. For listening purposes lossy codecs are all capable of being perceptually lossless for trained or untrained listeners, including MP3. MP3 gets a bad rap because low bitrate mp3 does sound awful. 320kbps or higher is sufficient for 99% of listeners, including audiophiles. Most listeners can't pass a double blind study in pristine conditions, let alone average ones. It's a lot like 192kHz 32 bit recordings. 96kHz audio bandwidth and almost 200dB of SNR has a purpose, but that purpose is not for day to day listening. Your ears, brain, speakers and amplifiers cannot reproduce or perceive the extra information.
- toast0 6y ago
  > MP3 gets a bad rap because low bitrate mp3 does sound awful. It's also the case that MP3 encoders got better over time, and if you're considering the sound of a 128kbps (or 96kbps) MP3 encoded by the Fraunhofer encoder you got from IRC in the late 90s; it's just not going to be good.
  - kruxigt 6y ago
    Though it sounden incredible then, compared to the blip blop sounds we were used to.
    - logbiscuitswave 6y ago
      I’m not sure that it sounded better - it was more that the quality was “good enough” for the amount of precious disk space that was used. Back before mp3s became ubiquitous, you could rip a CD to .wav files and it would basically sound identical to what was on the CD. But then you’d also be using some 600MB versus the same CD sounding not quite as good but only using like 40MB and at that time that was a lot of disk space to use.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  There are reasons to prefer seeking out lossless, though, even if you could just as well convert them to lossy once you have downloaded them. First of all, sometimes the lossy versions of downloads have "loudness wars" compressed dynamics, since the label assumes that anyone listening to it will be using earbuds in some loud public space. The same recording sold in lossless from an audiophile-focused source, however, will preserve the original mastering that preserves all that nice dynamic range. Also, if you want music that was recorded in 5.1 surround sound, sometimes the surround version is only available from lossless sources, while lossy sources sell only the stereo downmix.
maxton 6y ago
iOS has supported ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), I think since day one, but at least for a long while. You can convert FLACs to ALAC without any loss in quality obviously, but the coding tends to be a bit more efficient for FLAC.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
You can play ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) on your iDevices. If you have a Mac, the free XLD will convert FLAC to ALAC for you. https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html
lozf 6y ago
Apple seem to have always disliked free and open codecs. Instead of embracing FLAC, they made ALAC 00 same principle but uses MPEG compatible containers. Initially it was a proprietary (closed source) format, but they made it open source after a few years (presumably for support from the community). They never supported Ogg Vorbis, and they don't support it's successor Opus now (except in Safari where is required as part of the WebRTC spec.) Fortunately, being lossless it's safe and easy to convert between FLAC and ALAC (or vice versa). FFmpeg can do it, and also supports Apples "CAF" (Core Audio Format) as an intermediate format if required (e.g piping between different encoders) - that's handy for keeping metadata intact between formats.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

chungy 6y ago

I'd be surprised if they don't support ALAC, Apple's lossless codec. Can't say I have any iPods or iPhones to try it out myself though. Apple generally has a very strong case of NIH.

Malic 6y ago
I was under the impression that Apple chose to develop ALAC because it was less CPU/battery intensive to decode. This is going back to iPod Rev.1 days, mind you. Processing power for simply decoding audio CODECs hasn’t been a challenge for some time now.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  ALAC (and Sony's ATRAC) can be decoded using only integer math, which makes them very power efficient. It's the reason they exist in the first place. MP3, FLAC (and I assume AAC) requires floating point math to decode.
  - didsomeonesay 6y ago
    Flac decoder does not require floating point math since 2005: https://xiph.org/flac/changelog.html https://xiph.org/flac/changelog.html Come to think of it, that still might have been one of the historic reasons for ALAC's creation. Its development started before.
  - toast0 6y ago
    mp3 doesn't require floating point to decode. In the before times, I used mpg321 on an underpowered system because it used the MAD library to decode with only integers, and was able to play my files at only 80% cpu instead of 95% with a floating point decoder. I seem to recall there being a windows player that was faster than winamp, possible because of integer decoding, might have been K-Jofol https://www.underbit.com/products/mad/ https://www.underbit.com/products/mad/

spotyoufi462881 6y ago

Maybe VLC app can read them?

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

14 years ago, when the iPod Video was popular and it had an unlocked bootloader that allowed installing third-party software, lots of tech-inclined people replaced the Apple OS with Rockbox, which had support for FLAC. Unfortunately, with the next generation of iPods, Apple locked the device down, and the only lossless format supported was Apple's own.

hctaw 6y ago

Lossless is only useful as an archival or intermediary format during production/recording where you can't tolerate lossy encoding. For listening purposes lossy codecs are all capable of being perceptually lossless for trained or untrained listeners, including MP3. MP3 gets a bad rap because low bitrate mp3 does sound awful. 320kbps or higher is sufficient for 99% of listeners, including audiophiles. Most listeners can't pass a double blind study in pristine conditions, let alone average ones. It's a lot like 192kHz 32 bit recordings. 96kHz audio bandwidth and almost 200dB of SNR has a purpose, but that purpose is not for day to day listening. Your ears, brain, speakers and amplifiers cannot reproduce or perceive the extra information.

toast0 6y ago
> MP3 gets a bad rap because low bitrate mp3 does sound awful. It's also the case that MP3 encoders got better over time, and if you're considering the sound of a 128kbps (or 96kbps) MP3 encoded by the Fraunhofer encoder you got from IRC in the late 90s; it's just not going to be good.
- kruxigt 6y ago
  Though it sounden incredible then, compared to the blip blop sounds we were used to.
  - logbiscuitswave 6y ago
    I’m not sure that it sounded better - it was more that the quality was “good enough” for the amount of precious disk space that was used. Back before mp3s became ubiquitous, you could rip a CD to .wav files and it would basically sound identical to what was on the CD. But then you’d also be using some 600MB versus the same CD sounding not quite as good but only using like 40MB and at that time that was a lot of disk space to use.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
There are reasons to prefer seeking out lossless, though, even if you could just as well convert them to lossy once you have downloaded them. First of all, sometimes the lossy versions of downloads have "loudness wars" compressed dynamics, since the label assumes that anyone listening to it will be using earbuds in some loud public space. The same recording sold in lossless from an audiophile-focused source, however, will preserve the original mastering that preserves all that nice dynamic range. Also, if you want music that was recorded in 5.1 surround sound, sometimes the surround version is only available from lossless sources, while lossy sources sell only the stereo downmix.

maxton 6y ago

iOS has supported ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), I think since day one, but at least for a long while. You can convert FLACs to ALAC without any loss in quality obviously, but the coding tends to be a bit more efficient for FLAC.

LeoPanthera 6y ago

You can play ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) on your iDevices. If you have a Mac, the free XLD will convert FLAC to ALAC for you. https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

lozf 6y ago

Apple seem to have always disliked free and open codecs. Instead of embracing FLAC, they made ALAC 00 same principle but uses MPEG compatible containers. Initially it was a proprietary (closed source) format, but they made it open source after a few years (presumably for support from the community). They never supported Ogg Vorbis, and they don't support it's successor Opus now (except in Safari where is required as part of the WebRTC spec.) Fortunately, being lossless it's safe and easy to convert between FLAC and ALAC (or vice versa). FFmpeg can do it, and also supports Apples "CAF" (Core Audio Format) as an intermediate format if required (e.g piping between different encoders) - that's handy for keeping metadata intact between formats.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]