FLAC support

[funkydude]

Whilst I'm not holding my breath for MS to suddenly support FLAC in WP8 (though it would be cool, and if anything a result of Nokia pressure), does anyone know with all the new app capabilities that will be added such as native code, will apps be able to be written to playback FLAC files?

[Prince Charming]

I suppose there wouldn't be any major obstacle to it. Microsoft will not support FLAC on the Windows Phone platform, probably ever. There's just no point, it's far too fringe a format to waste engineering effort on. Might see WMA Pro Lossless in WP8.

[Melfster]

I suppose there wouldn't be any major obstacle to it. Microsoft will not support FLAC on the Windows Phone platform, probably ever. There's just no point, it's far too fringe a format to waste engineering effort on. Might see WMA Pro Lossless in WP8.

What's funny is I think more people use FLAC then use WMA Pro Lossless. So I don't think it is fringe at all.

[Prince Charming]

What's funny is I think more people use FLAC then use WMA Pro Lossless. So I don't think it is fringe at all.

Quite possible.

Still, I wouldn't say that FLAC isn't a fringe codec because it's used more than another obscure fringe codec. WMA PL just has a higher chance of being supported because it's in the WMA family, not because anybody is clamouring to get it.

[HawkMan]

FLAC doesn't make sense on a mobile media player anyway, audio quality is to low to make use of it and low storage space makes it leaven less useful.

Especially with windows 7's ability to hardware encode lossless or non supported audio when copied to devices at nearly live data copy speed. Of course this doesn't really work in Zune as far as I'm aware, just for devices that use the win7 device center/manager.

Anyway, my pointis, keep FLAC or whatever lossless codec for archive and for listening upon high end networked media players connected to an actual amp/receiver with proper speakers, and encode in lossy formats in your proffered quality for PMPs.

[HawkMan]

Also if you absoolutely think you need lossless in your PMP, the advantage is that you can convert all your FLAC to wma lossless without quality loss. When it comes to lossless it doesn't matter which format you chose, except of hardware and software support, where wma lossless wins hands down over FLAC anyway.

[Farstrider]

Also if you absoolutely think you need lossless in your PMP, the advantage is that you can convert all your FLAC to wma lossless without quality loss. When it comes to lossless it doesn't matter which format you chose, except of hardware and software support, where wma lossless wins hands down over FLAC anyway.

Sorry but this is absolutely incorrect! This from Hydrogenaudio website.

[HawkMan]

Uh, right. Now name all the pmp's that support FLAC, compared to how many support wma. On original firmware. No rock box or mer mods. Plain old original firmware. Using the built in library functions on the device.

FLAC was pretty much only supported on a few high end river devices that where way over priced as cool s they where. While every plays for sure device supported wma, which was everything not iPod pretty much. Today on phones. It's a different matter, but on without using awkward this party players that rules out FLAC as well. And let's get down to actual receivers and amps. There's a lot of them that support all kinds of wma, but no FLAC.

So I'll take that table with a grain of salt.

Also Hving done both wma and FLAC and monkey and many other encodings, I can tell you the encoding speed in that table is plain wrong. Wma breezes through encoding even on slow hardware. But then again, on today's hardware encoding speed is pretty irrelevant anyway. All of these are fast enough it won't matter.

[funkydude]

I suppose there wouldn't be any major obstacle to it.

Thanks, here's hoping some apps crop up.

Also if you absoolutely think you need lossless in your PMP, the advantage is that you can convert all your FLAC to wma lossless without quality loss. When it comes to lossless it doesn't matter which format you chose, except of hardware and software support, where wma lossless wins hands down over FLAC anyway.

WMA lossless isn't supported either. It may look like it is, but secretly it's converted to mp3 in the background during the transfer. Either that's the OS or the Lumia 800, shrug.

2 ways of verifying this: 1. The size of the file on the phone. 2. The fact that random tmp files are being generated in the Transcoded Files Cache folder.

I'd personally rather keep a single collection rather than double it anyway.

[HawkMan]

well that's the point anyway, Lossless on archive, compressed on PMP's. and network streamed lossless from archive to receivers, which are far more likely to support WMA. There's nothing double about that.

[Prince Charming]

Yeah, that's not really a bad plan, stash the audio in WMA Lossless, and it will lossy convert it at sync time in Zune. I don't really want to get into an audiophile argument, but on a phone, I don't think it's really possible to distinguish lossless from 320kbps WMA. And it will murder your storage.

Native WMA Lossless support would be cool, and like I said, might arrive in WP8, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Third party app might do it.

[tiagosilva29]

Uh, right. Now name all the pmp's that support FLAC, compared to how many support wma.

All modern Archos, Crown and Sandisk devices. Even BlackBerry.

[iKenndac]

Ignoring the sensibilities of storing lossless files on a device with limited storage and containing a DAC worth pennies at best?

Even if you can't run libFlac directly on the silicon, the FLAC codec is fairly fast to decode so there's technically nothing stopping someone writing a decoder completely in C# in WP's managed environment. It wouldn't be hardware accelerated or as efficient (since it's running in a managed environment) but if someone can write a h264 decoder in JavaScript, someone can write a FLAC decoder in C#!

[BumbleBritches57]

Whilst I'm not holding my breath for MS to suddenly support FLAC in WP8 (though it would be cool, and if anything a result of Nokia pressure), does anyone know with all the new app capabilities that will be added such as native code, will apps be able to be written to playback FLAC files?

I hope Microsoft'll include Apple Lossless decoding as well, it's Open Source, there's no reason not to.

[BajiRav]

How is FLAC with patents? That might be one of the reasons for MS not supporting it.

[funkydude]

How is FLAC with patents? That might be one of the reasons for MS not supporting it.

"Free Lossless Audio Codec", no patents involved, hence why it's the most popular lossless audio codec.

[HawkMan]

That actually doesn't mean it doesn't infringe on any patents, just that so far no one has cared to bother them about it, and that the codec itself is free to implement from them and that it's developed open source. However as far as patents go, it means nothing. And I think you'd see the patent trolls come out if it where ever officially implemented in a larger system like a major OS.

[funkydude]

That actually doesn't mean it doesn't infringe on any patents, just that so far no one has cared to bother them about it, and that the codec itself is free to implement from them and that it's developed open source. However as far as patents go, it means nothing. And I think you'd see the patent trolls come out if it where ever officially implemented in a larger system like a major OS.

Like who exactly? Just look at the amount of companies using FLAC: http://flac.sourceforge.net/news.html

You'd think it would have stirred some attention by now if music from the Beetles, Eagles and Metallica is published using it ;) What are they waiting for, they can sue these giant records labels!! Oh wait, they can't.

[BajiRav]

Like who exactly? Just look at the amount of companies using FLAC: http://flac.sourceforge.net/news.html

You'd think it would have stirred some attention by now if music from the Beetles, Eagles and Metallica is published using it ;) What are they waiting for, they can sue these giant records labels!! Oh wait, they can't.

Did we see anyone suing giant record labels for using MP3? Did we see anyone suing Microsoft for using MP3? Yes!

There is a difference.