Flac - May 2007 - flac filesize limitation

hi

is there a filesize limitation for flac files because of the encoder
or decoder for some reason?

On May 12, 2007, at 16:23, Harry Sack wrote:
> is there a filesize limitation for flac files because of the encoder
> or decoder for some reason?
The maximum number of samples in a FLAC stream is 64 GigaSamples.  It  
would be impossible to convert such files with any other format  
besides CAF.  In other words, FLAC supports longer audio recordings  
than every existing file format except (Apple) CAF.

FLAC allows up to 8 channels and can theoretically support 32-bit  
samples, which would represent a 2 TeraByte file when uncompressed.   
However, the available encoders for FLAC are limited to 24-bit  
samples, which would be equivalent to a 1.5 TeraByte uncompressed file.

The actual FLAC files will be smaller since they are compressed, but  
pure noise sources will result in a FLAC file that is the same size  
as the uncompressed data.  I rather doubt that any natural recording  
would approach pure noise performance, since there is so much  
correlation between transmission channels.

If we ever reach this 64 GigaSample limit, the fact that FLAC is a  
stream should allow multiple FLAC headers to be concatenated in a  
single file - although that might be tricky.  I doubt we'll have  
issues any time soon.

Brian Willoughby
Sound Consulting

On 5/13/07, Brian Willoughby <brianw@sounds.wa.com>
wrote:
> If we ever reach this 64 GigaSample limit, the fact that FLAC is a
> stream should allow multiple FLAC headers to be concatenated in a
> single file - although that might be tricky.
I believe you can do this with Ogg FLAC.  The Ogg container manages
the multiple FLAC streams.  Theoretically, we'll never see limit
issues.

-Ivo

--- Harry Sack <tranzedude@gmail.com> wrote:
> hi
> 
> is there a filesize limitation for flac files because of the encoder
> or decoder for some reason?
there is no file size limit, that is up to the file system.  inside
the stream, the sample counter will wrap at 2^36 (like Ogg does at
2^32 I think) but this would not be a problem unless you try to use
the default seek algorithm to seek to an exact sample > 2^36; a
different algorithm would have to be used in that case.

Josh



 
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