Make Apple support FLAC in iTunes and iPods - join the Facebook group

[JensPH]

I'm not sure if this is in line with the forum rules but i think you should join the group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123018676203 if you agree that FLAC should be supported by Apple.

 

If I am out of line: Admin just delete my post.

 

Best regards,

Jens

 

[cfmsp]

 

Not sure I understand why this is such a big deal.

 

The facebook page says:

 

"Apple needs to implement support for the open source audio format called FLAC as it is superior to AAC and still holds all the relevant metadata for your music library to be efficiently managed."

 

Apple offers a lossless format. I doubt there is any logical / technical rationale for claiming that FLAC would be superior to ALAC. I can't see that Apple have any reason to support another competing lossless format, particularly one that they have no influence over, not even a vote on a standards committee.

 

I'm guessing that the meta-data issues are perhaps more difficult and time-consuming to address than just the 'music' data.

 

If ipod/itunes integration is so important, why not convert your audio files to ALAC?

 

clay

 

 

 

 

[bralk]

Storage space is so cheap now

 

cheers

 

Tom

 

[Audio_ELF]

Would occasionally be useful if iTunes would read in FLAC files and convert them as it does for WMA, however I think there's a lot of more useful features missing from iTunes before Apple start implementing FLAC - its easy to use Max, etc to convert to ALAC or AIFF first.

 

Eloise

 

[sshd]

Taking up less storage space on your primary drive is not the only advantage of lossless encoding.

 

It also takes up less storage on your backups. And allows the backups to complete faster. Transferring gigabytes still takes time over the network, over USB and expecially if burning DVD-R. You do have backups right?

 

If you like metadata, some lossless formats have superior capabilities.

 

And finally: Some lossless formats have built-in error checking. This is very important for me, as I know that data can get currupted on a hard drive.

 

 

 

 

 

[sshd]

I find it unlikely that Apple will ever support FLAC or any open source codec.

 

Just recently they refused to support ogg vorbis for HTML5 in Safari. Official they were affraid of patent issues.

 

[cfmsp]

 

"Why bother with all those bit reduced formats"

 

Storage space on an ipod or iphone remains limited, and therefore costly, especially the latter.

 

AIFF on either device doesn't make a lot of sense. And if you use AIFF / .WAV / BWF for all your music data, your're looking at having to create/maintain a duplicate file (and the attendant library mgmt issues) in a lossless or LAME-encoded format for music that you want to play on a portable device (aka ipod, iphone).

 

cheers,

clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

I completely agree with clay that compression is needed for copying the music to an iPod, etc. Thats one of my biggest "wants" for iTunes, the ability to either automatically compress music for copying to iPod / iPhone - maybe if you could specify a maximum bit-rate for individual devices (so I could say ALAC for my 80GB iPod, and 256k AAC for my iPhone.

 

[JensPH]

"I doubt there is any logical / technical rationale for claiming that FLAC would be superior to ALAC."

 

No and I do not claim that that is the case.

I am just so tired of having to maintain 2 libraries and as my primary library is in TB size (in FLAC) it would be nice to have it supported by Apple.

 

In a perfect world my main music machine would be a Mac, I would convert the lot of it to ALAC and enjoy bit perfect output from iTunes.

But a lot of my music is in dts 24-bit/96 KHz, or "wav" 24/48 and that is a challenge in iTunes and therefore my machine is a Vista running Foobar2000.

 

Furthermore even my ten year old daughter prefers lossless to AAC, mp3 and the rest of the really lossy formats so they (dts being the only exception) have no place in my world :-)

 

I do however agree that there are other shortcomings in iTunes - but none so irritating for me as this particular one :-)

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

"Thats one of my biggest "wants" for iTunes, the ability to automatically compress music FOR copying to iPod / iPhone"

 

replace the FOR with WHILE, and we're in TOTAL agreement, as usual.

 

clay

 

 

[CG]

You guys are all joking, right?

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

Well, not joking, really, but certainly a much bigger 'want' from iTunes would be to improve it such that Amarra would be a downgrade, if that was your point.

 

Per Jens' point, I don't often update the music on my ipod/iphone very frequently for reasons that it's a PITA to create separate lossless files. If I could automatically set the compression algorithm to be used while syncing with either ipod / iphone / and my Apple TV, for that matter, I'd see that as a big plus.

 

 

 

cheers,

clay

 

 

[CG]

I tend to use ALAC files on my iPod, just because it's easy. Very easy. After clicking on all the tracks I want for the iPod, it's a total of 5 mouse clicks, drags, and key strokes to make it all happen. It's very taxing, but I manage to struggle through it.

 

Even then, I have so many friggin music and audio files on the iPod that I'm not sure how I could listen to all of them.

 

In fact, I can't.

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

"I manage to struggle through it."

 

so, what do you do exactly? Maybe I'm an idiot.

 

Do you have separate ALAC versions or is conversion one of the 5 clicks?

 

thanks

clay

 

 

[jtwrace]

Audio_ELF

 

If you make a FaceBook page with your wants, I'll join as I wish for the same thing.

 

[CG]

Conversion is one of the 5 clicks.

 

If one or more track is selected, all I have to is right click on one of them and then click on "Create Apple Lossless Version."

 

But, if I did this a lot, I'd just look for a suitable Applescript on http://dougscripts.com/itunes/ Or write one myself. Applescript is really easy to use and is designed for just this kind of application. Heck; you can even add Applescripts to the Menu Bar at the top of the iTunes to make this even easier.

 

[JensPH]

Hi!

Applescript is all very well on a Mac but on a Vista/Win7 is of little use - I do get your point though ;-)

I am curious: What format do you have the music in before making a duplicate ALAC version?

- and are you seriously proposing to duplicate everything you want to put on your iPod(s)?

 

Also I would still prefer to have iTunes read my FLAC files even if it means going with your "conversion as needed" way as iTunes is unable to play dts and 24 bit material and does not even manage bit perfect output on a Win machine.

 

Does anyone here know if it is possible to make Foobar "convert as needed" from FLAC to ALAC?

If so I would rest my case :-)

 

[CG]

First, if I was using a PC for this I'm not sure I'd use iTunes for anything other than interaction with the iTunes store. There's too many other alternatives that are more native to the PC environment. I don't know much about any of them, so I'm not the right guy to ask. Maybe iTunes really is the best choice.

 

I keep everything in AIFF form. That's as close to the original as you can get and still have all the nice metadata attached.

 

When I want to load something on an iPod, I just do a conversion to ALAC and then delete it when done - last of the five clicks.

 

Again, this could all be automated with Applescript. Or even with Automator. Every bit. Isn't there something similar in the Windows world?

 

[JensPH]

I guess you are only converting to ALAC to allow more music on your iPod then. I have just realized that I have spent endless hours flac'ing everything when i should have stored it all as AIFF - which by the way was pointed out to me but only after having ripped more than 2/3 of my music...

AIFF is also supported by Foobar and the 30% more storagespace it needs is a minor concern.

 

There is one thing though; will AIFF contain dts in the same way as when it is "wrapped in wav" or should stick to flac as the container for those files?

 

The latter option would make the risk of somebody killing of my speakers by white noise less of an issue (when iTunes resamples dts it becomes white noise once the DAC has decoded it...) and I could keep playing music with Foobar and the rest of the family could go about their iPod business without my help - a perfect solution!

 

[CG]

I'm afraid I know less about DTS than I do about Mongolian traffic laws. That is to say, nothing. Sorry...