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The README is very light on content. Any discussion of lossless audio should include a FLAC comparison. FLAC is already sadly undersupported (ahem, Apple). C

The README is very light on content. Any discussion of lossless audio should include a FLAC comparison. FLAC is already sadly undersupported (ahem, Apple). Could the submitter shed some light on what makes SELA different from its predecessors? Personally I wish we could see Lossy FLAC support from all distributors and players, it's the smartest encoding I've seen. But also totally ignored in format discussions.

przemoc 11y ago
About what "Lossy FLAC" you're talking about? Do you mean perhaps [1]? If FLAC would ever gain a lossy mode, it would be a disaster, because it would be instantly (ab)used and it would be misleading to a lot of users. "FLAC is not Lossy" [2] and it will hopefully remain that way forever. (Of course it doesn't prevent people from encoding audio into FLAC from lossy formats, but it's a completely different matter.) [1] http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=55522 [2] https://xiph.org/flac/features.html
- TD-Linux 11y ago
  In addition, Xiph also has two lossy codecs, Vorbis and Opus, which are actually designed for lossy encoding. Opus is also currently the best available codec for music compression, among both free and nonfree competitors: http://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm http://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm
- ValentineC 11y ago
  If I wanted a hybrid format, WavPack [1] would have been great, if only there was more ecosystem support for it. http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=WavPack http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=WavPack
ekianjo 11y ago
Simple, dont use Apple products for your audio needs. Or are you refering to itunes?
- thirdsun 11y ago
  Well, there's nothing wrong with ALAC which works flawlessly in Apple's world and any player worth its money. And since all of this is lossless, it's not as if you're locking into a format.
- doublerebel 11y ago
  FLAC could have led early on except for Apple insisting on their proprietary and nearly identical but DRM-possible ALAC format. Nobody adopted ALAC but the damage was done. Only then did Apple open the ALAC format.
krick 11y ago
Exactly. And it's not like FLAC is the only alternative: there're plenty of good lossless codecs: wavpack is great, TAK is really strong and probably could be considered even better than FLAC in the technical sense, but it's closed source so fuck it. There's really a lot of codecs with their pros and cons, and it's nice combination of features (good design, popularity, some hardware support) that make FLAC so great. So one more "free codec" with no mention what is it and how does it compare to the existing ones is really worth nothing. I wonder why it made it to the front page at all.

przemoc 11y ago

About what "Lossy FLAC" you're talking about? Do you mean perhaps [1]? If FLAC would ever gain a lossy mode, it would be a disaster, because it would be instantly (ab)used and it would be misleading to a lot of users. "FLAC is not Lossy" [2] and it will hopefully remain that way forever. (Of course it doesn't prevent people from encoding audio into FLAC from lossy formats, but it's a completely different matter.) [1] http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=55522 [2] https://xiph.org/flac/features.html

TD-Linux 11y ago
In addition, Xiph also has two lossy codecs, Vorbis and Opus, which are actually designed for lossy encoding. Opus is also currently the best available codec for music compression, among both free and nonfree competitors: http://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm http://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm
ValentineC 11y ago
If I wanted a hybrid format, WavPack [1] would have been great, if only there was more ecosystem support for it. http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=WavPack http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=WavPack

ekianjo 11y ago

Simple, dont use Apple products for your audio needs. Or are you refering to itunes?

thirdsun 11y ago
Well, there's nothing wrong with ALAC which works flawlessly in Apple's world and any player worth its money. And since all of this is lossless, it's not as if you're locking into a format.
doublerebel 11y ago
FLAC could have led early on except for Apple insisting on their proprietary and nearly identical but DRM-possible ALAC format. Nobody adopted ALAC but the damage was done. Only then did Apple open the ALAC format.

krick 11y ago

Exactly. And it's not like FLAC is the only alternative: there're plenty of good lossless codecs: wavpack is great, TAK is really strong and probably could be considered even better than FLAC in the technical sense, but it's closed source so fuck it. There's really a lot of codecs with their pros and cons, and it's nice combination of features (good design, popularity, some hardware support) that make FLAC so great. So one more "free codec" with no mention what is it and how does it compare to the existing ones is really worth nothing. I wonder why it made it to the front page at all.