What is this filetype?

grooveless touque · Fri Oct 24, 2003 1:49 pm

I asked this elsewhere, but it was the end of another thread and I guess nobody noticed it...I was hoping someone could help me out.

What is .flac16? in hundredthmeridian there's a bunch of tracks (from the Sympatico broadcast) in flac format...is that audio or video? do they work like SHNs? Ive never seen thembefore...please let me know!

highlander · Fri Oct 24, 2003 2:30 pm

Neil;

It's a new lossless compression format for .wav similar to .SHN but with better compression.

Goto:

http://flac.sourceforge.net

High

grooveless touque · Fri Oct 24, 2003 2:49 pm

Thanks a lot, Darren. Two follow-up questions...does this mean I can burn FLAC straight to CD to get the giant files off my comp without converting to something else?

And 2) can they be converted? I'd like to keep them on my comp for a while to listen to but the files are massive. I convert SHNs to WAVs, burn, then convert to MP3 for storage. I'm reading the FLAC site and I don't see anything specifically for converting to MP3...

gratts99 · Fri Oct 24, 2003 4:31 pm

yes they can be burned directly to cd and yes they can be converted to wav and then mp3. But thats not recommended

grooveless touque · Fri Oct 24, 2003 5:09 pm

I see. Actually, I was just coming to say never mind because I figured out how to decode them. I don't understand why it's not recommended (coverting), but I wouldn't ever share the decoded ones anyway. I'd share the FLAC ones on the CD I would burn.

All this is a moot point anyway. I think that 06-21 was the only FLAC on the whole FTP. I thought it was a FLAC extraction of the AUD from the Sympatico broadcast, but it's an audience recording with crappy quality so I stopped DLing.

At least I know for next time...if there is a next time. Thanks, guys.

Hugh23 · Fri Oct 24, 2003 11:18 pm

I am not a computer whiz and will never claim to be one, but the information I read on the web concerning converting SHN and FLAC to MP3 is this. SHN and FLAC are lossless compression formats, ie. when a song is compressed there is no loss of data. Converting songs from SHN and FLAC to WAV and back again, results in no loss of data from the song and therefore an overall better quality recording to listen to. When a song is compressed into the MP3 format, certain parts of the data are discarded to get it into that form, resulting in a poorer quality recording when compared to SHN and FLAC. Once a song is converted into MP3, the discarded data cannot be retrieved. That is why SHN and FLAC are now more popular than MP3 within the taping and recording community. As one can see, the SHN and FLAC formats are becoming more popular among bootleg collecters.

If any of the information I stated is flawed, please correct me.