Hi Gregory, GM> Flac decode is VERY fast: GM> http://web.inter.nl.net/users/hvdh/lossless/lossless.htm Thank you for the link. Although I switched to flac for other reasons, these data appear to support my switch, given the hardware limitations I have. As I mentioned, I use a 400 mhz laptop in my office, and at home a qnap ts-101 running slimserver software. While quite usable, neither is exactly a processing powerhouse. So it appears that flac is an easy choice for me. Thanks again. -- Chris
Christopher Brown wrote:> Hi Gregory, > > GM> Flac decode is VERY fast: > GM> http://web.inter.nl.net/users/hvdh/lossless/lossless.htm > > Thank you for the link. Although I switched to flac for other reasons, > these data appear to support my switch, given the hardware limitations I > have. As I mentioned, I use a 400 mhz laptop in my office, and at home a > qnap ts-101 running slimserver software. While quite usable, neither is > exactly a processing powerhouse. So it appears that flac is an easy > choice for me.The computational simplicity of FLAC decoding is also one of the reasons that it enjoys more support on audio devices than any other lossless codec. Speaking of audio devices that support FLAC, your TS-101 doesn't need to transcode, since starting with v2, the Squeezebox can decode FLAC internally. -Mark P.S. Slimdevices has the white SB3 on sale for 249$ at the moment.
Hi Mark, MR> Speaking of audio devices that support FLAC, your TS-101 doesn't MR> need to transcode, since starting with v2, the Squeezebox can MR> decode FLAC internally. Thanks for this clarification. This is related to one of the reasons for my switch. As I understand it, ape files are transcoded to flac on-the-fly (on the server), which is then sent to the squeezebox for decoding. This means first decode from ape, then encode to flac, only to be decoded again by the device. So, one of the reasons I had for switching to flac was to avoid this needless server-side overhead. But with respect to the laptop, I was hoping for a further benefit in increased decoding efficiency, which I suspected (hoped?) based on my highly scientific tests (listening for the laptop fan), and which was confirmed by the link that Gregory provided. flac was a win-win. -- Chris