Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license) • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#51

Post by Andys » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 2:24 AM UTC

tjpick wrote: post #8

gtrak wrote: post #2

What's the point of this over flac?

consumer products that actually support it?

Android market has had at least one FLAC player for at least 2 years now

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#52

Post by southpolesteve » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 2:25 AM UTC

b3b0p wrote: post #49

What I don't get is why don't places like iTunes and Amazon offer Lossless options for downloading? I mean, here they are bragging about 720p, 1080p, high definition video which is gigantic in size, approaching or exceeding gigabytes for a typical 2 hour movie. Yet, we can't spare the extra space or bandwidth for a higher quality audio file which is still a fraction of the size? I don't get it.

Check out www.murfie.com

They do downloads and offer ALAC and FLAC

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#53

Post by frou_dh » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 2:27 AM UTC

b3b0p wrote: post #49

What I don't get is why don't places like iTunes and Amazon offer Lossless options for downloading? I mean, here they are bragging about 720p, 1080p, high definition video which is gigantic in size, approaching or exceeding gigabytes for a typical 2 hour movie. Yet, we can't spare the extra space or bandwidth for a higher quality audio file which is still a fraction of the size? I don't get it.

That video isn't lossless either. The mostly-indistinguishable-from-lossless point has already been reached for downloadable audio, whereas video is still creeping up on it.

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#54

Post by splicer » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 2:43 AM UTC

I just tried building libalac.a on Linux using GCC 4.6.1 and it worked! There were quite a few warnings though.

To eliminate the warnings, edit /trunk/codec/makefile and add -Wno-multichar to CFLAGS.

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#55

Post by wollw » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 2:48 AM UTC

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #43

lclarkmichalek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

ALAC ≠ AAC ALAC : AAC : : FLAC : MP3

Your point that ALAC != AAC is true and all but a better comparison would probably be

ALAC : AAC :: FLAC : Ogg Vorbis

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#56

Post by Samuel_Michon » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 2:54 AM UTC

wollw wrote: post #55

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ALAC ≠ AAC ALAC : AAC : : FLAC : MP3

Your point that ALAC != AAC is true and all but a better comparison would probably be ALAC : AAC :: FLAC : Ogg Vorbis

Agreed.

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#57

Post by yuhong » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 2:59 AM UTC

ugh wrote: post #16

ethank wrote: post #9

This is fantastic. Apple uses AAC partly because of the patent royalty ( http://mp3licensing.com/ ) which they have to pay on every iPad/pod/etc sold, as well as because it is just a better format. MP3 is a total racket held by Thompson Technicolor, on top of being a pretty crap format. Hopefully this is a portends Apple offering lossless through ITMS on top of the 1080p rights they are hunting down right now.

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…

"Apple started selling AAC encoded music at a time when no† music player could play it"

Not that it mattered at the time as they were DRMed anyway.

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#58

Post by BuddhaSource » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 3:05 AM UTC

A successor to MP3.

We know there are better formats than MP3 today but getting mass adoption is difficult. Open source ALAC will give birth to new 3rd party supporting players, not to mention apple products already supports it & we have higher chances of mass adoption.

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#59

Post by codys » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 3:05 AM UTC

dmaz wrote: post #42

splicer wrote: post #31

Anyone know the URL for the repo? It looks like they're using Subversion, but I don't see any svn:// links anywhere.

http://svn.macosforge.org/repository/alac/trunk

Sweet.

And not so sweet: I get a nice failure to build the "convert-utility" on link.

It seems that there is some work to be done on this. I expect the best thing would be for the knowledge/info contained within the source to be merged into exsisting software.

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#60

Post by idspispopd » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 3:11 AM UTC

b3b0p wrote: post #49

What I don't get is why don't places like iTunes and Amazon offer Lossless options for downloading? I mean, here they are bragging about 720p, 1080p, high definition video which is gigantic in size, approaching or exceeding gigabytes for a typical 2 hour movie. Yet, we can't spare the extra space or bandwidth for a higher quality audio file which is still a fraction of the size? I don't get it.

Apple tend to shun "completeness" for simplicity to the average user. I.e. 1. Extra complexity without a significant consumer demand. 2. Licensing issues with the studios, should these be priced higher for example.