flac dev - Sep 2004 - newbie questions re flac on win32 eac and id3v2

Firstly, a big thank-you to Josh for FLAC. Someone mentioned it in a post on 
Slashdot, so I came over to sourceforge for a look-see. This is just the 
sort of thing I've been looking for.

Can anyone relate any general tips for using flac on Windows for the purpose 
of archiving cd's? If I can nail down a solid, easy-to-use process, I'm 
happy to write it up and contribute it to the FLAC documentation section for 
the untold masses that I am sure will be soon discovering FLAC ;)

Currently, I'm using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) v0.9prebeta11 with FLAC 1.0 
specified under File:Compression Options:External Compression:User Defined 
Encoder. I'm passing %s as a command line option to FLAC (eac variable for 
the wav filename).

Checking or unchecking "Using CRC check" doesn't seem to do
anything as far
as I can tell.

However, checking "Add ID3 tags" breaks FLAC. EAC is using the default
options of "Additionally write ID3V2 tags, using a padding of 4kB".
After
ripping and encoding, metaflac reports:
    ERROR: not a FLAC file (no 'fLaC' header)
I don't know how to troubleshoot this further, so any suggestions would be 
great.

On the files that do get created correctly (either using flac as an external 
encoder for eac or using flac alone on the command line with a wave file) if 
I run metaflac on the generated flac file, I get the following error:
    ERROR: short count reading metadata block data

Actually, here's the full output of metaflac -v "Human
Behaviour.flac":
file: Human Behaviour.flac
METADATA block #0
  byte offset: 4
  type: 0 (STREAMINFO)
  is last: false
  length: 34
  minumum blocksize: 4608 samples
  maximum blocksize: 4608 samples
  minimum framesize: 14 bytes
  maximum framesize: 13922 bytes
  sample_rate: 44100 Hz
  channels: 2
  bits-per-sample: 16
  total samples: 11080860
  MD5 signature: 7bf68de924474c8bab53d93f70737c3c
METADATA block #1
  byte offset: 42
  type: 3 (SEEKTABLE)
  is last: true
  length: 1800
ERROR: short count reading metadata block data

I can play back the file fine in WinAmp using the flac plugin, but I'd like 
to eliminate the error if I can.

Thanks!




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sorry for replying so late...

--- E S <es0123@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Can anyone relate any general tips for using flac on Windows for the
> purpose 
> of archiving cd's? If I can nail down a solid, easy-to-use process,
> I'm 
> happy to write it up and contribute it to the FLAC documentation
> section for 
> the untold masses that I am sure will be soon discovering FLAC ;)
>
> ...
No one has posted such a method yet.  I use EAC for rips
sometimes but I encode separately.  I haven't tried setting
FLAC up as an external comrpressor in EAC.
> Currently, I'm using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) v0.9prebeta11 with FLAC
> 1.0 
> specified under File:Compression Options:External Compression:User
> Defined 
> Encoder. I'm passing %s as a command line option to FLAC (eac
> variable for 
> the wav filename).
that should be OK
> Checking or unchecking "Using CRC check" doesn't seem to do
anything
> as far 
> as I can tell.
this probably a left-over from MP3 encoder usage.  leave it
off to be safe so it doesn't pollute the command line.  flac'c
crc checking is always on.
> However, checking "Add ID3 tags" breaks FLAC. EAC is using the
> default 
> options of "Additionally write ID3V2 tags, using a padding of
4kB".
> After 
> ripping and encoding, metaflac reports:
>     ERROR: not a FLAC file (no 'fLaC' header)
> I don't know how to troubleshoot this further, so any suggestions
> would be 
> great.
ID3V2 tags go at the front of the file and should work with
flac.  you have found a bug with metaflac; it is not skipping
the id3v2 tag.  I'll add that to my todo list.
> On the files that do get created correctly (either using flac as an
> external 
> encoder for eac or using flac alone on the command line with a wave
> file) if 
> I run metaflac on the generated flac file, I get the following error:
>     ERROR: short count reading metadata block data
hmm... I will look into that one.  if 'flac -t' says 'ok'
to your flac file, the file is fine and the bug is in
metaflac.

metaflac is meant to be very lightweight.  it reads the
metadata directly from the file instead of passing the
stream through a decoder.  it doesn't even need to be
linked against libFLAC.  that is why you can see a
discrepency where the file decodes fine but metaflac
reports an error. the bug is probably in metaflac.

Josh


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I have checked in a couple of fixes to metaflac, one to
skip id3v2 tags, and one to correctly skip long metadata
blocks.

Josh

--- Josh Coalson <xflac@yahoo.com> wrote:
> sorry for replying so late...
> 
> --- E S <es0123@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > However, checking "Add ID3 tags" breaks FLAC. EAC is using
the
> > default 
> > options of "Additionally write ID3V2 tags, using a padding of
4kB".
> > After 
> > ripping and encoding, metaflac reports:
> >     ERROR: not a FLAC file (no 'fLaC' header)
> > I don't know how to troubleshoot this further, so any suggestions
> > would be 
> > great.
> 
> ID3V2 tags go at the front of the file and should work with
> flac.  you have found a bug with metaflac; it is not skipping
> the id3v2 tag.  I'll add that to my todo list.
> 
> > On the files that do get created correctly (either using flac as an
> > external 
> > encoder for eac or using flac alone on the command line with a wave
> > file) if 
> > I run metaflac on the generated flac file, I get the following
> error:
> >     ERROR: short count reading metadata block data
> 
> hmm... I will look into that one.  if 'flac -t' says 'ok'
> to your flac file, the file is fine and the bug is in
> metaflac.
> 
> Josh

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