Free Lossless Audio Codec – Wood texture manufacturer – china Stone texture
History
Development started in 2000 by Josh Coalson. The bit-stream format was frozen when FLAC entered beta stage with the release of version 0.5 of the reference implementation on January 15, 2001. Version 1.0 was released on 20 July 2001.
On January 29, 2003, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the FLAC project announced the incorporation of FLAC under the Xiph.org banner. Xiph.org is behind other free compression formats such as Vorbis, Theora, Speex, and others.
On September 17, 2007, the 1.2.1 version was released.
The project
The FLAC project consists of:
The stream formats
A simple container format for the stream, also called FLAC (or Native FLAC)
libFLAC, a library of reference encoders and decoders, and a metadata interface
libFLAC++, an object wrapper around libFLAC
flac, a command-line program based on libFLAC to encode and decode FLAC streams
metaflac, a command-line metadata editor for .flac files and for applying Replay Gain
Input plugins for various music players (Winamp, XMMS, foobar2000, musikCube, and many more)
With Xiph.org incorporation, the Ogg container format, suitable for streaming (also called Ogg FLAC)
“Free” means that the specification of the stream format can be implemented by anyone without prior permission (Xiph.org reserves the right to set the FLAC specification and certify compliance), and that neither the FLAC format nor any of the implemented encoding/decoding methods are covered by any patent. It also means that the reference implementation is free software. The sources for libFLAC and libFLAC++ are available under Xiph.org’s BSD license, and the sources for flac, metaflac, and the plugins are available under the GPL.
In its stated goals, the FLAC project encourages its developers not to implement copy prevention features of any kind.
Comparisons
FLAC is specifically designed for efficient packing of audio data, unlike general purpose lossless algorithms such as DEFLATE which is used in ZIP and gzip. While ZIP may compress a CD-quality audio file by 1020%, FLAC achieves compression rates of 3050% for most music, with significantly greater compression for voice recordings. By contrast, lossy codecs can achieve ratios of 80% or more by discarding data from the original stream.
FLAC uses linear prediction to convert the audio samples to a series of small, uncorrelated numbers (known as the residual), which are stored efficiently using Golomb-Rice coding. It also uses run-length encoding for blocks of identical samples, such as silent passages. The technical strengths of FLAC compared to other lossless codecs lie in its ability to be streamed and decoded in a fast time, which is independent of compression level.
As a lossless scheme, FLAC is also a popular archive format for owners of CDs and other media who wish to preserve their audio collections. If the original media is lost, damaged, or worn out, a FLAC copy of the audio tracks ensures that an exact duplicate of the original data can be recovered at any time. An exact restoration from a lossy archive (e.g., MP3) of the same data is impossible. FLAC being lossless means it is highly suitable for transcode e.g. to MP3, without the normally associated transcoding quality loss. A CUE file can optionally be created when ripping a CD. If a CD is read and ripped perfectly to FLAC files, the CUE file allows later burning of an audio CD that is identical in audio data to the original CD, including track order, pregaps, and CD-Text. However, additional data present on some audio CDs such as lyrics and CD+G graphics are beyond the scope of a CUE file and most ripping software, so that data will not be archived.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has adopted the FLAC format for the distribution of high quality audio over its Euroradio network.
Technical details
FLAC supports only fixed-point samples, not floating-point. This is to remove the imprecision of floating point arithmetic so as to ensure the encoder is fully lossless. It can handle any PCM bit resolution from 4 to 32 bits per sample, any sampling rate from 1 Hz to 655,350 Hz in 1 Hz increments, and any number of channels from 1 to 8. Channels can be grouped in cases like stereo and 5.1 channel surround to take advantage of interchannel correlations to increase compression. FLAC uses CRC checksums for identifying corrupted frames when used in a streaming protocol, and also has a complete MD5 hash of the raw PCM audio stored in its STREAMINFO metadata header. FLAC allows for a Rice parameter between 016. FLAC supports Replay Gain.
FLAC is implemented as the libFLAC core encoder & decoder library with the main distributable program flac being the reference program utilizing the libFLAC API. This codec API is also available in C++ as libFLAC++.
The reference implementation of FLAC compiles on many platforms, including most Unix (such as Solaris and Mac OS X) and Unix-like (including Linux, BSD), Windows, BeOS, and OS/2 operating systems. There are build systems for autoconf/automake, MSVC, Watcom C, and Xcode.
For tagging, FLAC uses the same system as Vorbis comments.
API organization
libFLAC API is organized into streams, seekable streams, and files (listed in the order of increasing abstraction from the base FLAC bitstream). Most FLAC applications will generally restrict themselves to encoding/decoding using libFLAC at the file level interface.
Software support
Encoding
Cross-Platform
aTunes
Audacity since version 1.2.5
FFmpeg
Juce
KMPlayer
VLC media player
Windows
ALLPlayer
Audio Transcoder
BonkEnc ip directly from CD to FLAC file
dBpoweramp Music Converter with official codec
Easy CD-DA Extractor
Easy Media Creator
Exact Audio Copy
foobar2000 (with external encoder)
GoldWave
GOM Player
JetAudio
Media Center since version 12.0.3xx
MediaMonkey
Nero Burning ROM with optional external filter plug-in
REAPER
Samplitude since version 10.2
Cakewalk SONAR (Producer Edition) version 7 and later
Sound Forge 9
Vegas Pro 8, Vegas Pro 9
Winamp
Yahoo! Music Jukebox
Mac OS X
Toast Titanium, beginning with version 7
xACT, not to be confused with Microsoft’s XACT audio programming library
Max
XLD
Decoding
Cross-Platform
Boxee
FFmpeg
aTunes
PS3 Media Server
Adobe Audition
Audacity 1.3.5 Beta
MPlayer
Songbird
Squeezebox
The Core Pocket Media Player with FLAC plugin
VLC media player
XBMC Media Center
Mac OS X
Fluke, for playing FLAC in iTunes
Quicktime with the Xiph QT component
Ableton Live
Cog
Plex media center
xACT, not to be confused with Microsoft’s XACT
TRAKTOR 3
TRAKTOR Scratch
Windows
Ableton Live
Adobe Premiere Pro with FLAC plugin
Aimp2
Billy (music player) since version 1.04i
DJ Decks
foobar2000
GoldWave
Media Center since version 12.0.3xx
iTunes after installing codec from Xiph (Ogg FLAC only)
JetAudio
MediaMonkey
Cockos REAPER Multitrack Recorder and Editor
Renoise supports import and export from version 1.8
Quintessential Player with FLAC plugin
SUPER
Vegas Pro 8, Vegas Pro 9
The KMPlayer
TRAKTOR 3
TRAKTOR Scratch
TVersity, using ffdshow to transcode stream to WAV
VUPlayer
Winamp
Windows Media Player and Media Player Classic with third-party plugin
Yahoo! Music Jukebox
Palm OS
CorePlayer (Shareware)
TCPMP (version 0.72rc1, open source) with free plug-in
Windows Mobile
Kinoma Play
Unix-like operating systems
Audacious
Banshee
Baudline
cmus
mpd
ogg123 (if compiled against FLAC – ogg123 is part of the ‘vorbis-tools’ package)
Xine
XMMS
GNOME
GnomeBaker
Quod Libet
Rhythmbox
Totem Movie Player
Serpentine
KDE
Amarok
JuK
Audiokonverter (from the context menu pop-up)
WinMount (Mount to a new drive)
Ripping
Cross-Platform
Songbird
aTunes
Windows
Audiograbber (with external encoder)
Audio Transcoder
BonkEnc using the FLAC.dll API
CDex included in v1.7 beta2
DBpoweramp
Exact Audio Copy using the external encoder
Easy CD-DA Extractor
foobar2000 (with external encoder)
MediaMonkey
JetAudio
Winamp
Yahoo! Music Jukebox
Mac OS X
Max (Mac OS 10.4 or higher)
Linux
ABCDE
Asunder
Banshee (music player)
Cdda2wav
Cdparanoia
Mencoder
crip
GNOME
Grip
Sound Juicer
KDE
K3b
Konqueror
Hardware support
Native
TRAXMOD Open source, open hardware portable MMC/SD player supports 44.1 kHz/16-bit stereo FLAC playback.
Onkyo TX-NR906 Supports 16 bit/24 bit at 44.1 kHz/48 kHz/96 kHz Mono & Stereo FLAC files through external USB with metatag display support.
Pioneer SC-05, SC-07, SC-25, SC-27 and SC-09TX support via external USB (network support verified)
Denon AVP-A1HDCI, AVR-4810, AVR-4310, AVR-3310, AVR-5308, AVR-4308, AVR-3808 AV Receivers
Yamaha RX-V2065 AV Receiver
Escient
iAudio (Cowon) – A2, A3, 6, 7, F2, M3, M5, X5, U3, U5, D2, D2+, S9, native support with newer firmware.
Olive (Symphony, Musica, Opus)
PhatBox Hard Drive based in car Digital Media Player from PhatNoise
Rio Karma
SanDisk Sansa Fuze, Clip (with updated firmware), Clip+
Squeezebox and Transporter network music players from Slim Devices. Current products decode natively. Old v1 units transcode to PCM on the server.
Sonos
Meizu M6 Mini Player, M3 Music Card
VEDIA A10, B6
Pixel Magic Systems’ HD Mediabox (with firmware 1.3.4 or higher)
Embedded Waveplayer- Module with FLAC level 0-2 support, MIDI and serial interface
Teclast T29, T39, C260, C280, C290
Trekstor Vibez
T+A Music Player
Linn Klimax DS (Digital Stream) – Digital Music Player
Linn Akurate DS – Digital Music Player
Linn Majik DS – Digital Music Player
Linn Sneaky Music DS – Digital Music Player
iriver E100 , E50, E30.
NMT players
Archos Internet Media Tablets
Naim Audio HDX Hard Disk Player
Samsung YP-U5
Creative Zen X-Fi 2
Other platforms
Newer Archos devices including the Archos 5 Internet Tablet
Nintendo Wii when running the Wii homebrew app MPlayerWii or MPlayer CE
Apple TV, XBMC Media Center or Boxee
iPod – 1st through 5.5th generation, iPod mini and 1st generation iPod nano (not the shuffle, 2nd/3rd gen nano, classic or touch), using third party Rockbox firmware
Nearly all Rockbox-compatible DAPs, including the iriver and Gigabeat (Toshiba) range of devices, plus the aforementioned iPods
Any UPnP A/V / DLNA Device – – e.g. Netgear EVA700, Netgear MP101, Roku Soundbridge or Xbox 360 (when transcoded data is streamed from applications such as TVersity, which uses ffdshow)
Sound Devices 7-Series Professional Audio Recorders with “badger” firmware update (v.2.24)
Sony PlayStation Portable when running the homebrew LightMP3 application.
Samsung YP-P3, YP-Q1, YP-U5
FLAC playback is possible on Mobile devices or phones based on Windows Mobile, or Symbian OS with either S60, Series 80 or Series 90 UI platforms, can run the free open source media player application OggPlay.. Also LCG Jukebox from Lonely Cat Games is able to play FLAC audio on Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile devices.
Google Android devices running CM 3.9.6 and later or Bugless Beauty 0.8.6 / Bugless Beast 0.7.4 and later ROMs.
See also
Free software portal
Comparison of audio codecs
Meridian Lossless Packing
Monkey’s Audio
TTA
WavPack
Apple Lossless
References
^ Registration being sought as audio/flac
^ “FLAC – comparison”. http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^ a b “FLAC Website”. Flac.sourceforge.net. http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#hardware. Retrieved 2009-03-24.
^ a b c “FLAC – news”. http://flac.sourceforge.net/news.html. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
^ Xiph.Org Foundation (2003-01-29). “FLAC Joins Xiph.org”. Xiph.org Foundation. http://www.xiph.org/press/2003/flac/. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
^ Emmett Plant. “FLAC Joins Xiph!”. Xiph.org Foundation. http://xiph.org/ogg/flac.html. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
^ “FLAC – faq”. http://flac.sourceforge.net/faq.html#general__samples. Retrieved 2009-01-25.
^ “FLAC – format”. http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html#frame_header. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
^ “FLAC – faq”. http://flac.sourceforge.net/faq.html#general__tagging. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^ Audacity development team (2006-10-30). “Audacity 1.3.2 a 1.2.5 released”. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/news?id=2006-10-30/1.3.2-release&lang=en. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
^ Pid=340 “DENON UK”. http://www.denon.co.uk/site/frames_main.php?main=prod&ver=&MID=3&sub=1&action=detail& Pid=340. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^ “Supported Digital Music Formats & Tagging Requirements” (PDF). Escient. p. 2. http://www.escient.com/support/supportdocuments/DigitalMusicFilesFormats.pdf. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^ Korean firmware V2.13[dead link]
^ “Olive”. http://www.olive.us/products/preloadterms.html?PHPSESSID=23dfebfa0. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^ “Sansa Fuze updated to support Ogg and FLAC”. http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/04/sansa-fuze-updated-to-support-ogg-and-flac/. Retrieved 2008-10-18.
^ “Sansa Clip Firmware 01.01.30 Released”. http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/10/sansa-clip-firmware-010130-released.php. Retrieved 2008-10-18.
^ anythingbutipod.com: SanDisk Sansa Clip+ Plus Review
^ “T+A E-Series Music-Player”. http://www.taelektroakustik.de/eng/ta2/e_system/music_player.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^ “iRiver E100”. http://www.iriver.com.au/iriver/index.cfm?pageID=2&sID=1&prodID=23&#.
^ “Archos 5 and Archos 7 – Firmware Changes”. Update.archos.com. http://update.archos.com/6/archos5-7/changes_firmware_archos5-7.html. Retrieved 2009-03-24.
^ “Naim Audio HDX”. http://www.naim-audio.com/products/hdx.html.
^ “Samsung”. http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/mobile/mp3-players/mp3-players/YP-U5JQB/XAA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=spec. Retrieved 2009-10-08.
^ “Wiibrew Wiki entry for MPlayerWii”. http://wiibrew.org/wiki/MPlayerWii. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
^ “Data Compression and Reduction Options for 7-Series Recorders”. http://www.sounddevices.com/notes/recorders/file-formats/compression-reduction/. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^ “File Details-LightMP3-v1.7.1-(FLAC-bugfix)-PSP-Homebrew-Applications”. Dl.qj.net. 2009-03-13. http://dl.qj.net/LightMP3-v1.7.1-(FLAC-bugfix)-PSP-Homebrew-Applications/pg/12/fid/15529/catid/151. Retrieved 2009-03-24.
^ Leif H. Wilden. “Symbian OggPlay”. Symbianoggplay.sourceforge.net. http://symbianoggplay.sourceforge.net/. Retrieved 2009-03-24.
^ SourceForge.net – OggPlay
External links
Official website
Detailed FLAC format specification
Comparison of lossless formats in terms of encoding/decoding speed and compression ratio, from the FLAC website
Comparison of lossless formats by Hans Heiden (somewhat outdated)
v d e
Multimedia compression formats
Video compression
ISO/IEC
MJPEG Motion JPEG 2000 MPEG-1 MPEG-2 (Part 2) MPEG-4 (Part 2/ASP Part 10/AVC) HVC
ITU-T
H.120 H.261 H.262 H.263 H.264 H.265
Others
AMV AVS Bink CineForm Cinepak Dirac DV Indeo OMS Video Pixlet RealVideo RTVideo SheerVideo Smacker Sorenson Video Theora VC-1 VP6 VP7 VP8 WMV XVD
Audio compression
ISO/IEC
MPEG-1 Layer III (MP3) MPEG-1 Layer II MPEG-1 Layer I AAC HE-AAC MPEG-4 ALS MPEG-4 SLS MPEG-4 DST
ITU-T
G.711 G.718 G.719 G.722 G.722.1 G.722.2 G.723 G.723.1 G.726 G.728 G.729 G.729.1
Others
AC3 AMR AMR-WB AMR-WB+ Apple Lossless ATRAC DRA FLAC GSM-FR GSM-EFR iLBC Monkey’s Audio -law Musepack Nellymoser OptimFROG RealAudio RTAudio SHN SILK Siren Speex TwinVQ Vorbis WavPack WMA True Audio
Image compression
ISO/IEC/ITU-T
JPEG JPEG 2000 JPEG XR lossless JPEG JBIG JBIG2 PNG WBMP
Others
APNG BMP DjVu EXR GIF ICER ILBM MNG PCX PGF TGA TIFF
Media containers
General
3GP ASF AVI Bink DMF DPX EVO FLV GXF M2TS Matroska MPEG-PS MPEG-TS MP4 MXF Ogg QuickTime RealMedia RIFF Smacker VOB
Audio only
AIFF AU WAV
See Compression methods for methods and Compression software implementations for codecs
v d e
Data compression software implementations
Video compression
(Comparison)
MPEG-4 ASP
3ivx DivX Nero Digital FFmpeg MPEG-4 HDX4 Xvid
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
CoreAVC Blu-code DivX H.264 Nero Digital AVC QuickTime H.264 x264
Lossless
CorePNG FFV1 Huffyuv Lagarith MSU Lossless SheerVideo
Others
CineForm Cinepak DNxHD Helix DNA Producer Indeo libavcodec Schrdinger (Dirac) SBC Sorenson VP7 libtheora Windows Media Encoder
Audio compression
(Comparison)
Lossy
Freeware Advanced Audio Coder (FAAC) Helix DNA Producer l3enc LAME TooLAME libavcodec libcelt libspeex Musepack libvorbis Windows Media Encoder
Lossless
FLAC ALAC Monkey’s Audio OptimFROG TTA WavPack
Archivers
(Comparison)
Free software
7-Zip Ark bzip2 compress File Roller gzip Info-ZIP KGB Archiver lzop PAQ PeaZip The Unarchiver tar Xarchiver
Freeware
7zX DGCA Filzip IZArc LHA StuffIt Expander (decompression only) TUGZip UHarc/WinUHA Zipeg ZipGenius
Proprietary
ARC ALZip Archive Utility ARJ Astrotite JAR MacBinary PKZIP/SecureZIP PowerArchiver Squeez StuffIt WinAce WinRAR WinZip
Command line
ARC ARJ JAR Info-ZIP LHA lzop PAQ PKZIP RAR UPX UHarc tar
See Compression methods for methods and Compression formats for formats
v d e
Xiph.Org Foundation
Ogg Project
Vorbis Theora FLAC Speex Tremor OggUVS OggPCM Ogg Writ CELT
Other projects
XSPF Annodex Xiph QuickTime Components cdparanoia Icecast IceShare
Related articles
Chris Montgomery CMML Ogg page Ogg Squish Use of Ogg formats in HTML5
Categories: Xiph.Org projects | 2001 introductions | 2001 software | Lossless audio codecs | Free audio software | Free multimedia codecs, containers, and splitters | SourceForge projects | Cross-platform softwareHidden categories: All articles with dead external links | Articles with dead external links from March 2009 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from December 2009
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