I have read FLAC's "--help", the man-page, and the HTML documentaion, but there are a few things that I don't understand. 1. I'll start with the thing I'm most confused about. The --best option is synonymous with -l 12 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6. Why is that? Is not -l 32 better that l- 12? And you can have -r 0,8 without using --lax, and -r 0,16 with --lax. 2. The --lax option allows the encoder to generate "non-Subset files", but just what is a non-Subset file? The HTML documentation says that these files may not be streamable, but if I don't need streamable files, is there any reason not to use --lax? 3. I made a FLAC file without a seektable, and I could seek in it using XMMS in GNU/Linux and in Winamp in Windows. Are there any applications that require a seektable for seeking to work? 4. What does the -p option do? The HTML documentation only says "Exhaustively search LP coeff quantization", and that it's expensive and overrides any -q option. Just what is "LP coeff quantization"? I tried using this option on several files, but it resulted in larer files that without it, why is that? The documentation says that it "typically will only improve the compression a tiny fraction of a percent", not make larger files. Oskar
for the "best" compression: --super-secret-totally-impractical-compression-level takes forever on my system (athlon 2500+) and sometimes results in larger files. so i just stick with -8 -V --lax --no-padding. -V to ensure the encode was vail --no-padding to save a few more bytes, as "The encoder writes a PADDING block of 4096 bytes by default." though 4kb over 3000 tracks is ~11 megs i'm guessing --best is what it is because if -l was any higher or the settings tuned for higher compression it would become like the above option, totally impractical. if you dont' want to stream just use --lax (someone correct me if i'm wrong) I never use seektables because winamp seeks just fine. So as long as the applications your going to use flac in can handle flac files without a seek table dont' include it as its a few more bytes:) chris Oskar L. wrote:> I have read FLAC's "--help", the man-page, and the HTML documentaion, but > there are a few things that I don't understand. > > 1. I'll start with the thing I'm most confused about. The --best option is > synonymous with -l 12 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6. Why is that? Is not -l 32 better > that l- 12? And you can have -r 0,8 without using --lax, and -r 0,16 with > --lax. > > 2. The --lax option allows the encoder to generate "non-Subset files", but > just what is a non-Subset file? The HTML documentation says that these > files may not be streamable, but if I don't need streamable files, is > there any reason not to use --lax? > > 3. I made a FLAC file without a seektable, and I could seek in it using > XMMS in GNU/Linux and in Winamp in Windows. Are there any applications > that require a seektable for seeking to work? > > 4. What does the -p option do? The HTML documentation only says > "Exhaustively search LP coeff quantization", and that it's expensive and > overrides any -q option. Just what is "LP coeff quantization"? I tried > using this option on several files, but it resulted in larer files that > without it, why is that? The documentation says that it "typically will > only improve the compression a tiny fraction of a percent", not make > larger files. > > Oskar > _______________________________________________ > Flac mailing list > Flac@xiph.org > http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/flac > > > . >
Thanks for the reply!> for the "best" compression: > > --super-secret-totally-impractical-compression-levelAre there any more secret options?> takes forever on my system (athlon 2500+) and sometimes results in > larger files. so i just stick with -8 -V --lax --no-padding.Took about 20 minutes for a 3 minute long file on my old 900MHz laptop, not too impractical in my oppinion.> -V to ensure the encode was vail > --no-padding to save a few more bytes, as "The encoder writes a PADDING > block of 4096 bytes by default." though 4kb over 3000 tracks is ~11 megsIf I have understood correctly, there is no reason to use --lax with -8/--best, because -8/--best will not create any non-subset files. I don't use --no-padding because then the whole file have to be rewritten when I add tags. Instead I remove the padding with metaflac after I have tagged my files. And I like using --replay-gain too!> I never use seektables because winamp seeks just fine. So as long as the > applications your going to use flac in can handle flac files without a > seek table dont' include it as its a few more bytes:)The thing is that I might want to share my files with others, and I don't know what applications they will use to play the files. So I want to know if any of the most commonly used applications need or can make use of the seektable? Oskar