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How To Play Flac's On a iPod

Asked by Crazysah,

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troist

Posted
Posted

Convert them to V0 or 320kb/s MP3s and they'll stay in good enough quality... You can do that with lame.

If you want to convert them to a lossless format that the iPod supports you'll need to use Apple lossless, but I have no idea how to convert FLAC to that... never used apple's lossless format before.

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Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

Posted
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Quality wise any lossless format wins (so something like ALAC or FLAC), Then it's AAC, or MP3 at a high bitrate.

Converting wise, I can't help, but if you can get it into iTunes you can convert it to anything iTunes understands (including MP3, AAC and ALAC)

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Grand Master

Crazysah

Posted
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Posted

I can't get it into iTunes in its present format which is flac... thats why I wan't to convert it into the highest quality possible format that iTunes and iPod can support...

Which format is that and how do I convert it?

Are Lame MP3's higher quality better than AAC and ALAC?

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Grand Master

Borbus

Posted
Posted

To actually answer the question, Rockbox: http://www.rockbox.org/

No, LAME is not higher quality than AAC, and definitely not higher quality than ALAC. If you don't want to use Rockbox and want highest possible quality, use ALAC, or use AAC to save some space (Ogg Vorbis if you do use Rockbox).

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tehmemories

Posted
Posted

Convert FLAC to MP3

I wrote this somewhere else.

FLAC Frontend

Page: http://free-codecs.com/FLAC_download.htm

Direct: http://free-codecs.com/download_soft.php?d=3678&s=18

LAME Encoder 3.97 Final

Page: http://www.free-codecs.com/Lame_Encoder_download.htm

Direct: http://rarewares.poskolio.com/lame3.97.zip

Razorlame

Page: http://www.dors.de/razorlame/download.php

Direct: http://www.dors.de/razorlame/razorlame.zip

1. Unzip, install, and open FLAC Frontend.

2. Drag and Drop or click "Add Files" to search for the files you would like to convert.

3. If you would like to change where the files decode to, click the "..." button to search for a directory.

*. Make sure you have "Decode through errors" UNchecked.

4. Uncheck "Replay Gain".

*. Make sure "Verify" is checked.

lz7761203964167.gif

5. Hit the "Decode" button, and a DOS box will pop-up, and start decoding the flac, back to the original WAV.

6. Hit any key to exit the box, when done and verified.

pa3631203964506.gif

7. Unzip, install, and open Razorlame.

8. Unzip and copy Lame.exe into the Razorlame directory.

9. Open Razorlame and hit Edit > LAME Options.

*. Or click the LAME toolbar button.

10. Either you can have the wavs encoded to the same input directory or you can have it encode to another.

rt9341203965375.gif

11. Click the "Expert" tab.

12. Check "Only use custom Options".

*. Now most people would want to convert to 320kbps. So that is what I am going to use for the tutorial.

13. Type "-b 320" (without the quotes) into the custom options.

14. Hit "OK".

*. You can also save the options, if you like. Just hit the "Save Options" Button.

df8071203965085.gif

15. Click Edit > Options.

16. Click the folder button under "LAME", to search where you installed Lame.exe (which we installed into the Razrolame directory).

*. Mines installed elsewhere in the screenshot.

17. Hit "OK".

nm6001203966211.gif

18. Drag and Drop or click "Add" to search for the files you would like to encode.

19. Hit the "Encode" button on the toolbar to start encoding.

ui9451203966543.gif

Now go to the directory where you set the files to be encoded to, and either put them on your portable music device or play them instantly!

Here's some common switches for different birates:

320kbps

-b 320

220-260kbps

-V 0 --vbr-new

170-210kbps

-V 2 --vbr-new

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Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
To actually answer the question, Rockbox: http://www.rockbox.org/

No, LAME is not higher quality than AAC, and definitely not higher quality than ALAC. If you don't want to use Rockbox and want highest possible quality, use ALAC, or use AAC to save some space (Ogg Vorbis if you do use Rockbox).

If you want the highest quality (and you're not using a lossless codec), Use 320Kbps AAC (I prefer 256Kps VBR AAC, but that's just me)

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Proficient

Narlzac85

Posted
Posted

Mediacoder looks excellent for most purposes. I was just thinking that according to the list of supported codecs, ALAC isn't one of them. That would be the technically highest quality (short of installing rockbox) since its lossless -> lossless. Not that I even recommend playing a lossless codec on a portable player. Personally, I would convert to AAC for the iPod, or VBR MP3 for compatibility with other devices in which case...get mediacoder

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Enthusiast

trebius

Posted
Posted

Rockbox doesn't support all models of iPod at the moment so firstly before you even think about using it you need to check whether it is supported. You can get the current Rockbox build here and obviously if your iPod doesn't appear on that page then it isn't supported.

Rockbox is excellent in that it allows you to play a lot more audio formats on the iPod than the stock firmware offers. However it's also requires work to get it to install and get it configured as you like it. If you don't want to use low bitrate aac, vorbis or FLAC (which I wouldn't recommend on a portable device anyway, purely as the quality of the internal components alone will make hearing a difference between lossless and lossy extremely tough) then don't bother with rockbox. It'll be more effort than is worth it. Sticking with the stock firmware then you're with either MP3 or AAC, and both are more or less equal in quality so long as you use a decent encoder (Nero for aac, lame for mp3).

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with mediacoder - I use Foobar for all my transcoding needs. For my part i'll point you in the direction of the LAME, Nero AAC and Foobar guides over at Hydrogenaudio.

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