I hope Google adds (hardware) support for this to Android - it would add another option for patent un-encumbered audio formats, outside of Vorbis.
Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
21–30 of 182 posts
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#22Would be great if android implemented encoding to that format now. Its a pain to try to get the same audio formats from both Android and iOS devices because both platforms encode to completely different formats.
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#23What's the point of this over flac?
I'm not familiar with the current state of FLAC but as of a few years ago ALAC offered better meta-data in the MP4 container. Part of the reason I abandoned FLAC years ago was constant problems with meta-data. I would often end up corrupt files post-tagging or the player would simply not show meta-data I had meticulously added to my bootleg collection. I got the sense at the time that there was a lack of agreement on how meta-data was supposed to work in FLAC files.
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#24I've got all my CDs ripped in ALAC so that I can use the iTunes option to have the tracks automatically transcoded to smaller, lossy AAC when putting them on iDevices.
I welcome this open sourcing because it makes my 'archival' format slightly less oddball.
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#25Someone came up with a reverse engineered decoder 6+ years ago: http://craz.net/programs/itunes/alac.html Nice to have an encoder now too.
I worked on this with craz, taking directly "decompiled" code into a useful form. This was by far one of the most interesting things I've ever done -- if you want to get into reversing or increase your skills, do a codec! I built a stupid simple reference encoder in Python right after, but never managed to really get it right; wonder if I still have all the old code around.
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#26FINALLY!!! But what does this mean for the future of FLAC?
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
MP3 was great for its time. It’s not a crap format, there are merely better formats available today. They weren’t when MP3 came to the market. (Specifically AAC was developed as a successor to MP3.) I’m also not sure whether this tells you anything. Apple started selling AAC encoded music at a time when no† music player could play it. Many mistakenly thought that AAC was some sort of proprietary Apple codec and it mi…
Lossless music - there is an audience for it, and it creates the ability to stratify prices, which the labels/rights-holders/distributors like. See the vinyl boom, hdtracks.com, http://www.becausesoundmatters.com/ , etc. So will Apple cater to audiophiles? No. Will they cater to margins? For damned sure they will if it serves them and those they entice to sign over content. Why would they switch to 1080P otherwise? A…
>Lossless music - there is an audience for it, and it creates the ability to stratify prices, which the labels/rights-holders/distributors like.
Yeah, this kind of thinking is pervasive in the music industry which is why I make sure they never get any of my money. You're always paying for the licensing, not the delivery method (so they don't need to replace your CD at cost), unless they can make a buck by making you pay for that, in which case you are no longer paying for the license, but rather the delivery method.
As such I don't even know what the fuck I'd be paying for if I bought a song on iTunes or whatever else.
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#28What's the point of this over flac?
It plays on iPods and other iOS devices. Other than that, not much -- FLAC's compression ratio is a bit better on average, and more non-Apple devices support it. The release of this code isn't really all that exciting, as there's already a free reverse-engineered implementation in libav. (It might not support all the modes described in this source release, though.)
he means ffmpeg
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
MP3 was great for its time. It’s not a crap format, there are merely better formats available today. They weren’t when MP3 came to the market. (Specifically AAC was developed as a successor to MP3.) I’m also not sure whether this tells you anything. Apple started selling AAC encoded music at a time when no† music player could play it. Many mistakenly thought that AAC was some sort of proprietary Apple codec and it mi…
Lossless music - there is an audience for it, and it creates the ability to stratify prices, which the labels/rights-holders/distributors like. See the vinyl boom, hdtracks.com, http://www.becausesoundmatters.com/ , etc. So will Apple cater to audiophiles? No. Will they cater to margins? For damned sure they will if it serves them and those they entice to sign over content. Why would they switch to 1080P otherwise? A…
I only buy lossless music. I usually end up buying WAV/AIFF/FLAC direct from the artist, from their record label, or from Beatport. Once in a while, if I can't find something, I'll buy it on CD. Earlier today, I actually bought vinyl because I couldn't find a lossless digital version of this track anywhere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwsUfEvmKwI
Lossy formats are useless to me since I can't remix them without it sounding like crap. I also feel I'm getting ripped-off when they charge near CD price for lossy tracks.
Also, 20 years from now I'm going to want to convert my music to whatever fancy lossy codec has supplanted MP3 and AAC. By archiving in an open lossless format like FLAC (or now ALAC), I can do this without introducing artifacts.
Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)
#30FINALLY!!! But what does this mean for the future of FLAC?
Nothing much? People with lossless collections in FLAC are likely to continue building them in FLAC. And if they switch over to AAC, then there is no loss. With free lossless audio codecs, everyone wins.