Slashdot Mirror

Here's where I get 90% of my music (the other 10% I actually go to shows). Requires a Torrent client plus Monkeys Audio, libFLAC and Shorten codecs but that's no biggy - the links are there...

Have you been living under a rock? There's FLAC, Monkey's Audio and WavPack. And those are just the good ones.

Since FLAC was already mentioned, I'll just suggest you try Monkey's Audio. It's lossless, usually compresses better than FLAC, the source is available (not sure what license though), supports tags, and basically does everything you want. It's probably not as widespread as FLAC, but that shouldn't be a problem in your case.

MAC is faster to rip, slightly smaller files and is also now open source. (Did not used to be.)

Only downloads that work on Microsoft Windows, a proprietary operating system published by a U.S. company, are available. Even the FAQ is in a Windows proprietary format (.chm). It may be faster if you're already on Windows, but is it faster than native FLAC on Wine? And is it faster inside a Virtual PC than FLAC is natively on a Mac?

Monkey's Audio itself is also not free software for the same reasons as old versions of the Apple Public Source License. The Monkey's Audio license has the same "Disrespect for privacy" and "Central control" problems mentioned in FSF's article about the old APSL.

A bit off topic, but I've also been messing around with Monkey's Audio Codec lately, and it seems to be better in most respects than FLAC. Both are lossless, so I can't really claim quality superiority, but MAC is faster to rip, slightly smaller files and is also now open source. (Did not used to be.) But I agree with other posters here, it's not either/or. I use MAC to archive my old CD's, but I convert them to MP3 befire sending them to my iPod. (iPod supports Apple Lossless, but my 4GB iPod would hold about 10-12 albums in that format, and despite being a trained musician, I don't hear much difference.)

find / \( -iname "*.mp3" -or -iname "*.avi" -or -iname "*.mov" -or -iname "*.wmv" -or -iname "*.rm" -or -iname "*.ogg" \) -delete

It would be shameful if Monkey's Audio's license became an OSI-approved license. It would point to a profound irony as well. Consider the situation from a business perspective and don't forget that the open source movement's chief audience is businesses.

According to the Monkey's Audio developer site: "If you're trying to make money, in any way, talk to me first.". This is a restatement of section 2 of the Monkey's Audio license ("2. The use of Monkey's Audio or the Monkey's Audio source code for any commercial purposes including, but not limited to, implementation in shareware packages is strictly prohibited without first obtaining written permission from the author.").

This means that you need additional permission beyond the license to do something you deserve the right to do--distribute modified or verbatim copies of the covered work for a fee; something you would have the right to do if Monkey's Audio license qualified as a free software license, which it clearly does not. The copyright holder could deny your business permission ad hoc. Choosing to deal with licensors like this means that you are choosing to build your business on sand (metaphorically speaking).

I can hardly believe I need to tell open source proponents about the value of paying attention to all computer users, including those in business. Semi-free software is insufficient. We should not exclude profit-minded users from free software. We should insist that everyone can enjoy the freedoms of free software.

So why is Monkey's Audio and so many of their users describing the software as "open source"? Because of a different shame, a failed attempt to supplant the free software movement by substituting a weaker definition tied to a different term that the OSI thought would address the ambiguity of the English word "free". Just like the FSF describes, "open source" here is probably being taken to mean the ability to view the source code. Anyone who has read the open source definition knows that merely seeing source code is explicitly not what the term "open source" means, yet this is the misunderstanding many come away with. So, now we have two movements: the older free software movement using an English word with multiple meanings provoking initial misunderstanding (which non-English speakers have no problem understanding to mean freedom not price). Free software is tied to the rights computer users need. The open source movement offers a misunderstood term (which remains misunderstood around the world), and which is tied to watered-down rights primarily aimed at benefitting businesses.

FLAC remains the easy choice primarily because it is free software. It might not compress best (but it compresses better than Shorten), but it works well enough and its inherent freedom offers a compelling case for long-term archiving.

for me. Once I tried foobar2000 there was no going back.

Features
* Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player
* Audio formats supported "out-of-the-box": WAV, AIFF, VOC, AU, SND, Ogg Vorbis, MPC, MP2, MP3, MPEG-4 AAC
* Audio formats supported through official addons: FLAC, OggFLAC, Monkey's Audio, WavPack, Speex, CDDA, TFMX, SPC, various MOD types; extraction on-the-fly from RAR, 7-ZIP & ZIP archives
* Full Unicode support on Windows NT
* ReplayGain support
* Low memory footprint, efficient handling of really large playlists
* Advanced file info processing capabilities (generic file info box and masstagger)
* Highly customizable playlist display
* Customizable keyboard shortcuts
* Most of standard components are opensourced under BSD license (source included with the SDK)

If you've ever tried writing a plugin for Winamp you'll fall in love with the fb2k SDK, its like heaven compared to the other player. ;-)

Monkey's Audio is another efficient way to compress audio without reducing the quality.
On its site is a comparision chart. MA is able to compress an album to about 53% of its size, while WinRAR does 61.9% and ZIP using WinRAR 2.7 goes all the way up to 91%.
MA is not available yet for Mac and Linux, though.

I guess they're just stupid. Anybody can easily download music without DRM from file sharing networks. Often it's at higher bitrates and sometimes it's even in a lossless format like Mokey's Audio (APE). Furthermore I can't see how DRM can work because if you can decode it to play it then you can strip the DRM from it and distribute it. No, the software might not support that but cracking it can't be hard.

The only thing DRM really accomplishes is it annoys people who legally download music. Compare the amount of software and hardware that can play plain MP3 files with the amount that can play DRM formats. What about if you live in a country that they won't sell to? (Where's the logic there anyways?) What about if you want to move to another country and iTunes wants to delete all the music you purchased? (I remember reading about that on Slashdot.)

Simply watermarking music so the original purchaser can be tracked might be a nice un-intrusive way to protect music. However, with all the viruses and worms going around you'd probably find that some people have their music stolen through back doors and then they'd be liable for that.

Show me *any* compression format that does a better job in this scenario.

Every non-lossy compression format. FLAC, Shorten, LPAC, Monkey's Audio, WavPack, etc.

I don't think you get it. I'm saying the quality is also relevent when converting to other formats, and when buying music, I absolutely demand non-lossy formats, as lossy formats are inherently low-quality when transcoding.

Have those lossless compression afficionados no dignity?

They have to plan for the future. When CDs came out could people rip them, encode to MP3 and share on P2P networks?

Nowdays you can find lossless rips (typically Monkey's Audio) on the edonkey2000 network. Entire (non-transcoded) DVDs are also being shared somewhere. I haven't seen this firsthand but I've seen people talking about it. It's only a matter of time before those DTV shows become easy to share. In fact smaller DTV (though not high-definition) rips are already being shared (mostly music videos).

I'm not defending the broadcast flag, and I'm sure it'll get hacked and the stuff will get shared anyways, but I can see why they're at least trying to do it.

The best solution I've found for this is Monkey's Audio. You can rip an album as an .ape and .cue combo (with Exact Audio Copy, which supports Monkey natively), then use Monkey's splitter to create .apl files (which are actually just 'pointers' to tracks within the big .ape file). Best of both worlds, you can listen to individual tracks or the whole album.

Oh, and it's lossless, so you can re-create the source CD exactly. I think something similar can be done with FLAC, but I haven't played with it enough to say for certain.

Now, if someone would create a music store with downloadable .apes, that would totally rock!

monkey audio files are slightly smaller then FLAC files see this comparison on how it compares to other lossless compressions.

License issue aside, which sounds better (VBR)ogg or (VBR)Mp3? I can't tell them apart.
This seems to be all the rage on UseNet.
That Neuros device looks pretty sweet.

I'm in the process of shifting all my AV gear and the PC into the attic to free up more space. I have one of the original Prontos, which is truly excellent if you are prepared to put in the time to build the interface - see Remote Central for more.

I am going to keep the Pronto and use a simple remote control extender like this one. I use an IRMan to control the jukebox on the PC (Monkey's Audio rips of my CDs).

when I rip my CDs to a lossless format, I'm using LAME --alt-preset standard MP3s...

I believe you meant to say lossy. A lossless format would be one such as APE from Monkey's audio, or FLAC. After decoding them you get the exact original back, right to the last bit.

But I'm sure you already knew that :-D

APE is a non-lossy format, like FLAC. Generally you're lucky to average better than 50% compression with any non-lossy format.

Ogg Vorbis at q=( -0.5 ) would record around the proposed 58~62kbps rate, not with audiophile quality. It would be adequate for the sort of listener that always recorded cassette tapes with Dolby NR turned off, but I'm betting that most consumers hold "digital" sound to a higher standard, and would lose interest in the product when it got out that the sound was audibly degraded.

(Thanks for the Obligatory Ogg Post opportunity.)

Here is a table listing many lossless compression techniques, FLAC is there, but it version .1c might be an early alpha, ZIP RAR SHORTEN and most of the other interesting ones are represented here as well.

I don't see why FLAC is so cool, there has been lossless Audio Compression for some time now, in the form of Monkeys Audio Codec or MAC, it's been around for at least 2 years now, and gets the same compression ratio FLAC claims. Even better is that there is a winamp plugin to play them already. Though I will give FLAC credit, because it just sounds cool

But no Linux/Mac support yet I belive

Even better is EAC, or Exact Audio Copy. Alongside LAME, OGG Vorbis, or, for you lossless zealots, Monkey's Audio, you've got the most accurate copy of the CD that you can get.

Of course, if it's N'Sync, it won't really make a difference -- it's crap no matter which CD ripper you use.

When you have 200 gigs of space its not like you are going to run out any time soon. I personally have more than 250 albums, and 5000 songs sitting on my hard drive right now -- nearly all lossless. How much do they take up? About 50 gigs, but I have another 150 or so left to spare. And sure transfering them over the internet takes a bit longer, but it is well worth it for the improved sound.

Some say they can't hear the difference. Some said the same thing about CD's verses cassettes. Likely you have a poor pair of speakers, or in some cases a poor set of ears. Or maybe you don't care, thats a valid reason. But if you don't fall into those catagories I'd recommend moving to lossless compressed codecs. Compression for lossless tracks has come down to about double a 320 mp3, which is pretty darn good.

Check out Monkey's Audio or FLAC, two of the best, -- your ears will thank you.

(now all I need is a iTunes-compatible OS X port...anyone?)

Yeah, Monkey's Audio is slightly less Free than FLAC, but not by much, and it does a better squeeze job.

--

Offer it in multiple different formats. Some Monkey's Audio for a lossless copy, some VBR MP3 encoded with LAME using the --r3mix tag, some Shorten lossless audio for those that prefer it, some OGG Vorbis for those that prefer the ultimate in open-source audio, and perhaps an AIFF. Makes sense to me.

Of course, you wouldn't download it uncompressed.

The track Brothers in arms by Dire Straits is seven minutes long and 70.7Mbyte. Using Monkey's Audio (for instance, there are others) it compress to 32.31Mbyte.

A typical "radio edit" track of about 3-4 minutes will compress to around 20Mbyte.

If I'm to buy music online it would have to be a more flexible scheme, ranging from a lossless encode to lossy of my choice (I use Ogg Vorbis 'quality 6' for all my encoding at home).

A 128Kbit/s encode using some unknown codec using unknown settings? You've gotta be kidding me.

But what's wrong with lossy compression in general? You forget that even "raw" music data is sampled at a certain frequency and bit depth. Think about how bad 8-bit/22kHz uncompressed mono audio sounds in comparison to a 128kbit/sec joint stereo mp3 sampled at 44kHz/16bit -- well guess what, 8bit/22kHz/mono raw works out to 176kbit/sec. There's obviously a tradeoff, i.e. in order to get the best sound for a certain bitrate you want some amount of lossy compression rather than just taking the highest samplerate/depth that fits in your size limit. Now if I wanted to carry 5 hours of music around on quarter-size 500mb discs I might opt to carry around two discs and use a higher bitrate than 128k, but this prejudice against lossy compression is foolish. Good lossy compression can be very good for the sound of your audio.

Just don't count on me to be the guy who buys the CD to rip it for you. :)

If it was designed by a monkey, then we'd all be in good hands.

1. Cross platform. Monkey's Audio runs only on Windows. This is unacceptable to me. While I currently listen to my music on Windows, one day I might not. Plus, one of these days I'm going to write a streaming mp3 server for my Linux fileserver that converts from FLAC to mp3 on the fly. Can't do that with Monkey's.
2. Longevity. What if you have converted your entire 700 CD music collection to Monkey's Audio, and then the author quits coming out with new versions for new operating systems? Or he starts charging $10/month to use ("subscribe to") his software?
3. Technically competitive. There isn't that much of a performance difference. Keep in mind that the performance comparison on the Monkey's Audio site uses a very old version of FLAC (0.1, the first version from Dec 2000; FLAC is now on 1.0.2). The compression ratios are rather comparable (or so close as to not matter to me). Yes, Monkey's Audio is faster for the high quality settings, but if you look at the comparison on the FLAC site, you see that FLAC's default compression is pretty competitive in terms of compression ratios and kicks Monkey's ass in terms of speed.

Another popular lossless compression codec is called shorten.

The flac site has a feature-oriented comparison of various lossless codecs. The Monkey's Audio site has a performance-oriented comparison (they compare an older version of flac, unfortunately).

no no! go with the Monkey for your lossless audio needs!

Of course, with a drive that size, you could go all-out and use Monkey's Audio, lossless audio compression (you can decode to get *exactly* the same WAV file that was encoded. Compression ratio of only 2:1 or so, but again...what's the 100 GB drive for?!! Get on Google and search around for some comparisons, and make an educated choice.

For Lossless Compression what about .ape from monkey's audio.

if you have 160GB of wav files, why dont you use one of the multitude of lossless compression algorithems out there? If you prefer cross platform, open source, FLAC is what you want. If your windows only, programs like Monkeys Audio and RKAU provide slightly more compressed results. These all seem to vary from the .5 to .75 compression area, turning that 160G into more like 110G.

Do these patents cover lossless compression as well?