RASTABT
1
26-Jan-2003:
FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. Grossly oversimplified, it is similar to MP3, but lossless. The project consists of the stream format; libFLAC, which implements reference encoders and decoders, flac; a command-line wrapper around libFLAC to encode and decode .flac files; and input plugins for various music players
FLAC 1.1.0 released I didn't get everything in that I wanted, but it's high time for a release.
Note that the minor version has incremented, meaning forward compatibility was broken (forward compatibility means an earlier decoder can play all streams made by a later decoder). This is only because of a bug in 1.0.4 and prior where the decoder could not properly skip unknown metadata. The stream format itself has not changed and FLAC is still fully backward-compatible. All it means is that a FLAC file containing cue sheet metadata will not decode in older decoders. This bug is fixed in 1.1.0.
Here's what's new:
General:
All code is now Valgrind-clean!
New CUESHEET metadata block for storing CD TOC and index point information. Now a CD can be completely backed up to a single FLAC file for archival.
ReplayGain support.
Better compression of 24-bit files.
More complete AIFF support.
3DNow! optimizations enabled by default.
Complete MSVC build system with .dsp projects for everything, which can build both static libs and DLLs, and in debug or release mode, all in the same source tree.
flac:
Can now decode FLAC to AIFF; new --force-aiff-format option.
New --cuesheet option for reading and storing a cuesheet when encoding a whole CD. Automatically creates seek points for track and index points unless --no-cued-seekpoints is used.
New --replay-gain option for calculating ReplayGain values and storing them as tags.
New --until option complements --skip to stop decoding at a specified point in the stream.
--skip and --until now also accept mm:ss.ss format.
New -S #s flavor to specify seekpoints every '#' number of seconds.
flac now defaults to -S 10s instead of -S 100x for the seek table.
flac now adds a 4k PADDING block by default (turn off with --no-padding).
Fixed a bug with --skip and AIFF-to-FLAC encoding.
Fixed a bug where decoding a FLAC file whose total_samples==0 in the STREAMINFO would corrupt the WAVE header.
metaflac:
New --import-cuesheet-from option for reading and storing a cuesheet to a FLAC-encoded CD. Automatically creates seek points for track and index points unless --no-cued-seekpoints is used.
New --export-cuesheet-to option for writing a cuesheet from a FLAC file for use with CD authoring software.
New --add-replay-gain option for calculating ReplayGain values and storing them as tags.
New --add-seekpoint option to add seekpoints to an existing FLAC file. Includes new --add-seekpoint=#s flavor to add seekpoints every '#' number of seconds.
XMMS plugin:
Configurable sample resolution conversion with dither.
ReplayGain support with customizable noise shaping, pre-amp, and optional hard limiter.
New Vorbis comment editor.
File info now works.
Bitrate now shows the smoothed instantaneous bitrate.
Uses the ARTIST tag if there is no PERFORMER tag.
Winamp2 plugin:
Configurable sample resolution conversion with dither.
ReplayGain support with customizable noise shaping, pre-amp, and optional hard limiter.
File info now works.
Uses the ARTIST tag if there is no PERFORMER tag.
Libraries (developers take note!):
All code and tests are instrumented for Valgrind. All tests run Valgrind-clean, meaning no memory leaks or buffer over/under-runs.
Separate 64-bit datapath through the filter in libFLAC for better compression of >16 bps files.
FLAC__metadata_object_new(FLAC__METADATA_TYPE_VORBIS_COMMENT) now sets the vendor string.
The documentation on the usage of FLAC::Iterator::get_block() in libFLAC++ has an important correction
Homepage
FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. Grossly oversimplified, it is similar to MP3, but lossless. The project consists of the stream format; libFLAC, which implements reference encoders and decoders, flac; a command-line wrapper around libFLAC to encode and decode .flac files; and input plugins for various music players
FLAC 1.1.0 released I didn't get everything in that I wanted, but it's high time for a release.
Note that the minor version has incremented, meaning forward compatibility was broken (forward compatibility means an earlier decoder can play all streams made by a later decoder). This is only because of a bug in 1.0.4 and prior where the decoder could not properly skip unknown metadata. The stream format itself has not changed and FLAC is still fully backward-compatible. All it means is that a FLAC file containing cue sheet metadata will not decode in older decoders. This bug is fixed in 1.1.0.
Here's what's new:
General:
All code is now Valgrind-clean!
New CUESHEET metadata block for storing CD TOC and index point information. Now a CD can be completely backed up to a single FLAC file for archival.
ReplayGain support.
Better compression of 24-bit files.
More complete AIFF support.
3DNow! optimizations enabled by default.
Complete MSVC build system with .dsp projects for everything, which can build both static libs and DLLs, and in debug or release mode, all in the same source tree.
flac:
Can now decode FLAC to AIFF; new --force-aiff-format option.
New --cuesheet option for reading and storing a cuesheet when encoding a whole CD. Automatically creates seek points for track and index points unless --no-cued-seekpoints is used.
New --replay-gain option for calculating ReplayGain values and storing them as tags.
New --until option complements --skip to stop decoding at a specified point in the stream.
--skip and --until now also accept mm:ss.ss format.
New -S #s flavor to specify seekpoints every '#' number of seconds.
flac now defaults to -S 10s instead of -S 100x for the seek table.
flac now adds a 4k PADDING block by default (turn off with --no-padding).
Fixed a bug with --skip and AIFF-to-FLAC encoding.
Fixed a bug where decoding a FLAC file whose total_samples==0 in the STREAMINFO would corrupt the WAVE header.
metaflac:
New --import-cuesheet-from option for reading and storing a cuesheet to a FLAC-encoded CD. Automatically creates seek points for track and index points unless --no-cued-seekpoints is used.
New --export-cuesheet-to option for writing a cuesheet from a FLAC file for use with CD authoring software.
New --add-replay-gain option for calculating ReplayGain values and storing them as tags.
New --add-seekpoint option to add seekpoints to an existing FLAC file. Includes new --add-seekpoint=#s flavor to add seekpoints every '#' number of seconds.
XMMS plugin:
Configurable sample resolution conversion with dither.
ReplayGain support with customizable noise shaping, pre-amp, and optional hard limiter.
New Vorbis comment editor.
File info now works.
Bitrate now shows the smoothed instantaneous bitrate.
Uses the ARTIST tag if there is no PERFORMER tag.
Winamp2 plugin:
Configurable sample resolution conversion with dither.
ReplayGain support with customizable noise shaping, pre-amp, and optional hard limiter.
File info now works.
Uses the ARTIST tag if there is no PERFORMER tag.
Libraries (developers take note!):
All code and tests are instrumented for Valgrind. All tests run Valgrind-clean, meaning no memory leaks or buffer over/under-runs.
Separate 64-bit datapath through the filter in libFLAC for better compression of >16 bps files.
FLAC__metadata_object_new(FLAC__METADATA_TYPE_VORBIS_COMMENT) now sets the vendor string.
The documentation on the usage of FLAC::Iterator::get_block() in libFLAC++ has an important correction
Homepage