[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]JacquesDaniels wrote: [/QUOTENAME]
Oh well. If flacs were more user-friendly, I'd be happy to support using them. For now though, I can't agree with some of your's opinion in going flac-only, if it's possible. But then, I prefer vinyls to CD's anyway...[/QUOTE]
A man after my own heart. You're right - CDs are actually pretty poor quality (compared to what's possible in the digital domain) and lots of folks complain about them sounding grainy and harsh (which they do).
Forgive me if I'm patronising you here, but I think you're getting kinda hung up with the technology side of things - a FLAC file is just a data-compressed WAV file (i.e. it's magically (!) squashed into a smaller space in order to get down your 'phone line quicker, for you to then decompress it). And even though some players do it, I'd suggest that trying to play a FLAC file is asking for trouble: what most people do is decompress it back to wav then just burn it as normal. Hope that helps, and long live vinyl!
Thread
Posts in chronological order
Oh Joy ... more whining
The owner of this site clearly allows mp3 sharing, yet the flac'ers act like they own Queenzone.
The owner of this site clearly allows mp3 sharing, yet the flac'ers act like they own Queenzone.
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]stark wrote: [/QUOTENAME]
I'd suggest that trying to play a FLAC file is asking for trouble: what most people do is decompress it back to wav then just burn it as normal.
[/QUOTE]
I never had problems playing FLAC files on my PC using Winamp. I first used the plugin suplied with FLAC frontend, but now I simpy use the native plugin that comes with Winamp in the latest version. As for burning, Nero is capable of burning directly from FLAC once you install the apropriate plugin.
If you want to decode the files to WAV I suggest using FLAC Frontend or Trader's Little Helper, both free.
My PC is an based on an Athlon XP 2400 processor currently with 256 Mb memory, so you shouldn't have any problems watsoever.
I'd suggest that trying to play a FLAC file is asking for trouble: what most people do is decompress it back to wav then just burn it as normal.
[/QUOTE]
I never had problems playing FLAC files on my PC using Winamp. I first used the plugin suplied with FLAC frontend, but now I simpy use the native plugin that comes with Winamp in the latest version. As for burning, Nero is capable of burning directly from FLAC once you install the apropriate plugin.
If you want to decode the files to WAV I suggest using FLAC Frontend or Trader's Little Helper, both free.
My PC is an based on an Athlon XP 2400 processor currently with 256 Mb memory, so you shouldn't have any problems watsoever.
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Gym Bitch wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Oh Joy ... more whining
The owner of this site clearly allows mp3 sharing, yet the flac'ers act like they own Queenzone.
[/QUOTE]
That is not the point.
The point is he probably downloaded the FLAC files from here, and we don't know what he did with them afterwards.These MP3 could come directly from the FLAC files or they could be a re-encode from a previouly burned CD sourced from MP3.
Now people who download this will probably burn audio CD's and delete the source files (Not all people, but some will do this), and if they want to share this in the future they will again re-encode the CD's to MP3, further and further worserning the recording.
Yes, Richard alows MP3 sharing, but he also requests that all shares come with apropriate information, namely: Date, Venue, City, Lineage (if possible) or source of the recording, and file format.
How many people actualy label their shared files like this?
How often do we get posts with nothing more than a torrent file or a few share links and an ambiguous title?
It is not just about FLAC being better than MP3 it's about providing the most complete information about what is being shared.
The owner of this site clearly allows mp3 sharing, yet the flac'ers act like they own Queenzone.
[/QUOTE]
That is not the point.
The point is he probably downloaded the FLAC files from here, and we don't know what he did with them afterwards.These MP3 could come directly from the FLAC files or they could be a re-encode from a previouly burned CD sourced from MP3.
Now people who download this will probably burn audio CD's and delete the source files (Not all people, but some will do this), and if they want to share this in the future they will again re-encode the CD's to MP3, further and further worserning the recording.
Yes, Richard alows MP3 sharing, but he also requests that all shares come with apropriate information, namely: Date, Venue, City, Lineage (if possible) or source of the recording, and file format.
How many people actualy label their shared files like this?
How often do we get posts with nothing more than a torrent file or a few share links and an ambiguous title?
It is not just about FLAC being better than MP3 it's about providing the most complete information about what is being shared.
I definitely agree that you want to see a proper announce, so that you know if you want to download what somebody offers to share, or not. :)
Now...
I do not want to get involved in any ”FLAC vs mp3” fight. I will admit that I was a bit surprised when I arrived here. I did not expect to find a serious fan site allowing sharing of mp3s, but I definitely think that the site owner has every right to decide what s/he wants to allow at a board. Peace!
So, instead of “whining” I would like to make a positive suggestion. This is based on the fact that the problem with mp3 sharing is not the files themselves. Indeed, I convert a lot of my FLAC files to mp3 for personal use, taking the music with me as I travel. They definitely have their good uses!
The problem is that a lot of music lovers are not tech minded, so they do not know why it is not a good idea to do any further conversions of mp3 files. Therefore, shared mp3 files may cause decreased quality further down the line. "We" can't stop people from sharing mp3s. "We" can't tell people what to do with their files (and it is their files once they have downloaded them, even in FLAC format.) But I think that information needs to be spread to as many music lovers as possible. If everybody knew and respected two basic facts, mp3 sharing would not be a problem.
1) It is not a good idea to convert mp3 to FLAC. If you convert mp3s to FLAC, the audio is not changed at all. All that really happens is that the files go bigger. You could say that if you create FLAC files from mp3, you are really creating over-sized mp3 files. I know some people do this out of kindness – they think that people asking for FLAC files just happen to prefer that format. The “mpFLACs” usually do not happen because evil people want to force you to spend more bandwidth and storage space than necessary. However, the fact is that it is still a bad thing to do.
2) If you convert mp3 files (or “FLAC” files made from mp3) to mp3 or any other lossy format again, some more information is lost. You may or may not hear the decrease in sound quality but believe me, it is there. Lossy formats like mp3 both compress the audio (which FLAC does, too) and delete some of the audio (which FLAC does not), and this happens every time you convert a file to a lossy format.
So, the problem is really not the mp3 files as such. The bad thing is using mp3 files for further conversions. This is why I would like to suggest that mp3 uploaders take care to inform people that it is not a good idea to change the files in any way. Ironically, you would have to add a line similar to that of many FLAC uploaders, only this time it would say:
“Do not in any way alter these mp3 files. Any conversion will either decrease quality or make the files unnecessarily big. You can NOT increase the quality by converting to FLAC or other lossless formats. Any additional conversion to mp3 (even if it is to a higher bitrate) will in fact decrease the quality. If you burn these files to CD, the quality will be decreased if you rip that CD to mp3. So, simply do not change these files.”
Or something like that…
***************
As for the problems with playing FLAC and with converting to mp3… there really shouldn’t be any problem these days. Winamp has had FLAC support out of the box for a couple of versions now. You don’t have to think about it, it simply plays FLAC. And, FLAC decoding really is not that resource-demanding. I suspect your problem lies elsewhere. One reason might be if you downloaded a Winamp version that already supported FLAC, but added the old FLAC plugin all the same. That could well cause a conflict as Winamp would get “confused” about which decoder to use: the plugin or the one already built in. The solution would be to uninstall Winamp (and the plugin, of course), then install the latest version.
(Tech comment: the decoder decompresses FLAC to WAV (or to the PCM stream embedded in WAV) in rea
Now...
I do not want to get involved in any ”FLAC vs mp3” fight. I will admit that I was a bit surprised when I arrived here. I did not expect to find a serious fan site allowing sharing of mp3s, but I definitely think that the site owner has every right to decide what s/he wants to allow at a board. Peace!
So, instead of “whining” I would like to make a positive suggestion. This is based on the fact that the problem with mp3 sharing is not the files themselves. Indeed, I convert a lot of my FLAC files to mp3 for personal use, taking the music with me as I travel. They definitely have their good uses!
The problem is that a lot of music lovers are not tech minded, so they do not know why it is not a good idea to do any further conversions of mp3 files. Therefore, shared mp3 files may cause decreased quality further down the line. "We" can't stop people from sharing mp3s. "We" can't tell people what to do with their files (and it is their files once they have downloaded them, even in FLAC format.) But I think that information needs to be spread to as many music lovers as possible. If everybody knew and respected two basic facts, mp3 sharing would not be a problem.
1) It is not a good idea to convert mp3 to FLAC. If you convert mp3s to FLAC, the audio is not changed at all. All that really happens is that the files go bigger. You could say that if you create FLAC files from mp3, you are really creating over-sized mp3 files. I know some people do this out of kindness – they think that people asking for FLAC files just happen to prefer that format. The “mpFLACs” usually do not happen because evil people want to force you to spend more bandwidth and storage space than necessary. However, the fact is that it is still a bad thing to do.
2) If you convert mp3 files (or “FLAC” files made from mp3) to mp3 or any other lossy format again, some more information is lost. You may or may not hear the decrease in sound quality but believe me, it is there. Lossy formats like mp3 both compress the audio (which FLAC does, too) and delete some of the audio (which FLAC does not), and this happens every time you convert a file to a lossy format.
So, the problem is really not the mp3 files as such. The bad thing is using mp3 files for further conversions. This is why I would like to suggest that mp3 uploaders take care to inform people that it is not a good idea to change the files in any way. Ironically, you would have to add a line similar to that of many FLAC uploaders, only this time it would say:
“Do not in any way alter these mp3 files. Any conversion will either decrease quality or make the files unnecessarily big. You can NOT increase the quality by converting to FLAC or other lossless formats. Any additional conversion to mp3 (even if it is to a higher bitrate) will in fact decrease the quality. If you burn these files to CD, the quality will be decreased if you rip that CD to mp3. So, simply do not change these files.”
Or something like that…
***************
As for the problems with playing FLAC and with converting to mp3… there really shouldn’t be any problem these days. Winamp has had FLAC support out of the box for a couple of versions now. You don’t have to think about it, it simply plays FLAC. And, FLAC decoding really is not that resource-demanding. I suspect your problem lies elsewhere. One reason might be if you downloaded a Winamp version that already supported FLAC, but added the old FLAC plugin all the same. That could well cause a conflict as Winamp would get “confused” about which decoder to use: the plugin or the one already built in. The solution would be to uninstall Winamp (and the plugin, of course), then install the latest version.
(Tech comment: the decoder decompresses FLAC to WAV (or to the PCM stream embedded in WAV) in rea
hemm... Just one question, s Windows Media Player a good thing for extracting Wav files from a disc in your opinion ? Or is this software creating spaces or clicks between tracks or something like that ? I was wondering if it was a good way.
oh, and Windows Media Player can read Flac files too, with the appropriate plug-in !! For those who are used to this software or lazy to search for another one !
thanks a lot,
Regards,
Olivier,
France
oh, and Windows Media Player can read Flac files too, with the appropriate plug-in !! For those who are used to this software or lazy to search for another one !
thanks a lot,
Regards,
Olivier,
France
For extracting audio from CD's I recomend EAC (Exact Audio Copy) if you are using windows.
Like the nane says it realy creates an exact copy of the data in the audio CD and let's you know of any copy errors.
Like the nane says it realy creates an exact copy of the data in the audio CD and let's you know of any copy errors.
I agree about the EAC recommendation. Here is a very very good guide that helps you to configure it to make perfect rips: http://www2.firehose.us:81/~jiggafellz/eac/
As you see, you can use it to rip to wave files, or you can make it go on and convert to other formats in one go, so to speak.
To be sure, you *can* use Windows Media Player. It will not create clicks or gaps if you rip a CD - the files on a CD are always properly aligned to the sectors.
(Sector boundary errors appear if you cut a file manually and then burn the files to an audio CD. This is why I always check unofficial recordings for the SBEs that are the cause of the gap- and click problem, using Trader's Little Helper, that can also fix the SBEs: http://tlh.easytree.org/.)
As for creating spaces between tracks: it shouldn't happen as you rip, but some burning software comes with a default setting for a 2 second gap between tracks. Needless to say, you want to disable that (just leave the 2 second "gap" before the first track), especially if you burn live recordings.
As you see, you can use it to rip to wave files, or you can make it go on and convert to other formats in one go, so to speak.
To be sure, you *can* use Windows Media Player. It will not create clicks or gaps if you rip a CD - the files on a CD are always properly aligned to the sectors.
(Sector boundary errors appear if you cut a file manually and then burn the files to an audio CD. This is why I always check unofficial recordings for the SBEs that are the cause of the gap- and click problem, using Trader's Little Helper, that can also fix the SBEs: http://tlh.easytree.org/.)
As for creating spaces between tracks: it shouldn't happen as you rip, but some burning software comes with a default setting for a 2 second gap between tracks. Needless to say, you want to disable that (just leave the 2 second "gap" before the first track), especially if you burn live recordings.
Yes, Nero has this function whereas I think Windows Media Player hasn't. I think of all the software I tried, only Nero satisfied me really, especially for that and for being clear enough.
maybe someone could start a topic here on Queenzone to explain, if you are a beginner, what software to have or install, free ones when possible, in order to benefit from the lossless and all that goes with Queenzone (I mean rapidshare, mediafire, utorrent and s on...). That way we could refer to this single thread when someone doesn't know how to proceed on something and so on. This would also be a reference for beginners and will probably make that people won't be afraid to use Flac, and quality would be available and easily usable by everyone, you know what I mean ? A sort of guide, could be made sticky, with all the information available to use lossless when we start from nil in this domain : how to download, use, grab, convert in mp3 only for personal use and so on... Something clear, easily understandable, compiling the old bits and pieces said here and there, so that you can begin on queenzone or upgrade to quality without any problem and effort.
Just a thought...
Have a nice rocking time everyone !
Olivier,
France.
maybe someone could start a topic here on Queenzone to explain, if you are a beginner, what software to have or install, free ones when possible, in order to benefit from the lossless and all that goes with Queenzone (I mean rapidshare, mediafire, utorrent and s on...). That way we could refer to this single thread when someone doesn't know how to proceed on something and so on. This would also be a reference for beginners and will probably make that people won't be afraid to use Flac, and quality would be available and easily usable by everyone, you know what I mean ? A sort of guide, could be made sticky, with all the information available to use lossless when we start from nil in this domain : how to download, use, grab, convert in mp3 only for personal use and so on... Something clear, easily understandable, compiling the old bits and pieces said here and there, so that you can begin on queenzone or upgrade to quality without any problem and effort.
Just a thought...
Have a nice rocking time everyone !
Olivier,
France.
Thanks for the tips and all, I'll give 'em a try. As for the guide thing... judging from the years I've been reading QZ forums, I wouldn't be too surprised if no one were to write such a guide. And if someone actually made such a guide, the problem would most likely occur every now and then, because most new users are too hasty and inexperienced (or stupid and blind) to find and read any guides around (even if sticky), so I can understand the lack of inspiration to do such a task.
Oh, and just in case some people (including myself earlier) might've failed to do so, thanks for the upload anyway, even if it's mp3. :P I didn't download it though, got the flacs already somewhere jammed under a cd tower.
Oh, and just in case some people (including myself earlier) might've failed to do so, thanks for the upload anyway, even if it's mp3. :P I didn't download it though, got the flacs already somewhere jammed under a cd tower.