5 ms·

The format is ALAC, it’s not proprietary but an open spec. Secondly Apple has been using AAC since forever which is a successor to mp3 and an MPEG standard.

by yehaaa 5y ago

moogly 5y ago
> The format is ALAC, it’s not proprietary but an open spec True. No one else bothers with it though, because why should they when FLAC exists? That makes ALAC, in practice, largely an Apple-only format.
- yehaaa 5y ago
  To increase interoperability with existing libraries for example. The user group that has some kind of Apple device, and thus potentialy ALAC encoded audio is quite large.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  I've been storing my FLAC files as ALAC for iTunes compatibility for the past decade. Max.app on macOS, while old and creaky looking, does a fine job of transcoding them and maintaining tags.
  - moogly 5y ago
    Now imagine storing it in FLAC and playing them everywhere, without having to transcode at all.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      That's someone else's windmill to tilt, sorry.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    Oh, if you're using homebrew and you want ffmpeg to support ALAC, you can do that. brew edit ffmpeg; add `depends_on "fdk-aac"` and `--enable-libfdk-aac`, `--enable-nonfree` to the relevant sections, remove the bottle section; then, brew reinstall ffmpeg. There's probably a better way to do this that doesn't trigger a merge conflict each time they update the bottle hashes (resolved easily with brew edit ffmpeg, repeat above), but I'm lazy and ffmpeg doesn't update frequently. I have no idea if ffmpeg can maintain ID3 tags from FLAC->ALAC or not, but if you have need of this knowledge someday, say hi to that future for me! (And if compilation fails with a specific weird error about corefoundation corevideo coreaudio etc, uninstall and reinstall your macOS command line tools, because they're broken; `sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools ; xcode-select --install` will do that.)
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      > There's probably a better way to do this that doesn't trigger a merge conflict Well if you want to try Nix, https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/9dba669e8a53f00114b53d0b7ee2ee8de5f426e5/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix#L14518 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/9dba669e8a53f00114b53d... right out of the box :D
      - joshspankit 5y ago
        Though I had read about it already, your comment is the first time I’ve seen a compelling real-word reason for me to install Nix.
      - floatingatoll 5y ago
        That’s what I get for not saying “in Homebrew”!
        Ericson2314 5y ago
        I mean it was perfectly clear in context. That's why I wrote the "Well..." dependent clause; I know I'm providing the better way for homebrew.
  - thirdsun 5y ago
    I wonder why you wouldn't just use ALAC full time? As mentioned in my other comment any decent piece of software or hardware supports ALAC these days. Sure, if you don't have any use for iTunes or iOS FLAC is the obvious choice, but if you do use iTunes there's really no need to keep two formats around. Just use ALAC.
- yingbo 5y ago
  As mentioned above, ALAC is an open source format, which has all benefits as other open source format e.g. FLAC.
  - Forbo 5y ago
    > all benefits as other open source format e.g. FLAC. Except adoption. FLAC is much more widely supported, so why opt for ALAC?
    - jolux 5y ago
      Because iTunes doesn't support FLAC.
    - yingbo 5y ago
      ALAC is open source and you can feel free to contribute to it or "adopt"/use it.Apple has been using ALAC for a long time on difference devices and platform. Moreover, according to Wikipedia, "compared to some other formats, it is not as difficult to decode, making it practical for a limited-power device, such as older iOS devices". "Adoption" is not a reason, from my point of view, ask a company/app abandon an open sourced format to use another one.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      That seems to imply that there should only ever be one format for any particular application.
  - lozf 5y ago
    Apple created ALAC as a closed source project after FLAC had already been released as Open Source. They subsequently changed ALACs license to Open Source -- presumably to take advantage of further development from the community.
  - whyoh 5y ago
    >ALAC is an open source format, which has all benefits as other open source format e.g. FLAC. Technically, it's still not as good. For instance, FLAC includes a checksum of the audio data, whereas ALAC doesn't. FLAC also compresses a bit better (=smaller file sizes) and decodes a bit faster (=lower CPU/battery usage).
- thirdsun 5y ago
  My whole collection is stored in ALAC. Any half decent software or hardware player will support ALAC these days.
lxgr 5y ago
Surely it's ALAC + FairPlay DRM though, right? Making the actual lossless codec used a moot point.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Yes. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'd be surprised if any of the subscription streaming audio services let you download unencrypted, unencumbered FLAC/lossless files. That would seem to run counter to the whole concept of a subscription pricing model.

The format is ALAC, it’s not proprietary but an open spec. Secondly Apple has been using AAC since forever which is a successor to mp3 and an MPEG standard.

by yehaaa 5y ago

The format is ALAC, it’s not proprietary but an open spec. Secondly Apple has been using AAC since forever which is a successor to mp3 and an MPEG standard.

moogly 5y ago

> The format is ALAC, it’s not proprietary but an open spec True. No one else bothers with it though, because why should they when FLAC exists? That makes ALAC, in practice, largely an Apple-only format.

yehaaa 5y ago
To increase interoperability with existing libraries for example. The user group that has some kind of Apple device, and thus potentialy ALAC encoded audio is quite large.
floatingatoll 5y ago
I've been storing my FLAC files as ALAC for iTunes compatibility for the past decade. Max.app on macOS, while old and creaky looking, does a fine job of transcoding them and maintaining tags.
- moogly 5y ago
  Now imagine storing it in FLAC and playing them everywhere, without having to transcode at all.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    That's someone else's windmill to tilt, sorry.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  Oh, if you're using homebrew and you want ffmpeg to support ALAC, you can do that. brew edit ffmpeg; add `depends_on "fdk-aac"` and `--enable-libfdk-aac`, `--enable-nonfree` to the relevant sections, remove the bottle section; then, brew reinstall ffmpeg. There's probably a better way to do this that doesn't trigger a merge conflict each time they update the bottle hashes (resolved easily with brew edit ffmpeg, repeat above), but I'm lazy and ffmpeg doesn't update frequently. I have no idea if ffmpeg can maintain ID3 tags from FLAC->ALAC or not, but if you have need of this knowledge someday, say hi to that future for me! (And if compilation fails with a specific weird error about corefoundation corevideo coreaudio etc, uninstall and reinstall your macOS command line tools, because they're broken; `sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools ; xcode-select --install` will do that.)
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    > There's probably a better way to do this that doesn't trigger a merge conflict Well if you want to try Nix, https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/9dba669e8a53f00114b53d0b7ee2ee8de5f426e5/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix#L14518 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/9dba669e8a53f00114b53d... right out of the box :D
    - joshspankit 5y ago
      Though I had read about it already, your comment is the first time I’ve seen a compelling real-word reason for me to install Nix.
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      That’s what I get for not saying “in Homebrew”!
      - Ericson2314 5y ago
        I mean it was perfectly clear in context. That's why I wrote the "Well..." dependent clause; I know I'm providing the better way for homebrew.
- thirdsun 5y ago
  I wonder why you wouldn't just use ALAC full time? As mentioned in my other comment any decent piece of software or hardware supports ALAC these days. Sure, if you don't have any use for iTunes or iOS FLAC is the obvious choice, but if you do use iTunes there's really no need to keep two formats around. Just use ALAC.
yingbo 5y ago
As mentioned above, ALAC is an open source format, which has all benefits as other open source format e.g. FLAC.
- Forbo 5y ago
  > all benefits as other open source format e.g. FLAC. Except adoption. FLAC is much more widely supported, so why opt for ALAC?
  - jolux 5y ago
    Because iTunes doesn't support FLAC.
  - yingbo 5y ago
    ALAC is open source and you can feel free to contribute to it or "adopt"/use it.Apple has been using ALAC for a long time on difference devices and platform. Moreover, according to Wikipedia, "compared to some other formats, it is not as difficult to decode, making it practical for a limited-power device, such as older iOS devices". "Adoption" is not a reason, from my point of view, ask a company/app abandon an open sourced format to use another one.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    That seems to imply that there should only ever be one format for any particular application.
- lozf 5y ago
  Apple created ALAC as a closed source project after FLAC had already been released as Open Source. They subsequently changed ALACs license to Open Source -- presumably to take advantage of further development from the community.
- whyoh 5y ago
  >ALAC is an open source format, which has all benefits as other open source format e.g. FLAC. Technically, it's still not as good. For instance, FLAC includes a checksum of the audio data, whereas ALAC doesn't. FLAC also compresses a bit better (=smaller file sizes) and decodes a bit faster (=lower CPU/battery usage).
thirdsun 5y ago
My whole collection is stored in ALAC. Any half decent software or hardware player will support ALAC these days.

lxgr 5y ago

Surely it's ALAC + FairPlay DRM though, right? Making the actual lossless codec used a moot point.

simondotau 5y ago
Yes. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'd be surprised if any of the subscription streaming audio services let you download unencrypted, unencumbered FLAC/lossless files. That would seem to run counter to the whole concept of a subscription pricing model.