When "saving as" to FLAC, there is a long list of attributes like "High 16-Bit Stereo" and "Maximum 24-Bit Stereo". I am assuming that high, medium, low, maximum etc. are indicating bit rates, but does anybody know what they correspond to?
On the other hand when doing batch conversion to FLAC, you get the same list but also get a "rate" box to fill the bit-rate in. Is this just an override to the high, low etc. attribute prefixes?
Or am I getting this all wrong?
Thanks for any help
iangs
Saving vs Converting to FLAC
Re: Saving vs Converting to FLAC
The "High," "Maximum," etc. refer to compression levels... FLAC offers quite a few compression levels (8, I think) that determine how much the digtial data is compressed. More compression saves space, but takes more time; Less uses more space but goes faster. In any case, FLAC is lossless, meaning that sound quality is identical to the original, regardless of the compression level. FWIW, I use "High" in GW, and level 6 in other programs.
Bit depth is different altogether. It is nothing specific to FLAC; it applies to digital audio in general. It is the number of bits that make up each digital sample, which basically governs the dynamic range -- the range between softest and loudest -- that can be reproduced. 16 bit is what's used with CDs, so there's really no reason to go greater than that for material from CDs. There are some other sources, such as downloads, that offer higher bit depth, so you'd probably what to keep these are their original setting to preserve all the quality. FWIW, I leave the bit depth the same as the way I got it.
Bit depth is different altogether. It is nothing specific to FLAC; it applies to digital audio in general. It is the number of bits that make up each digital sample, which basically governs the dynamic range -- the range between softest and loudest -- that can be reproduced. 16 bit is what's used with CDs, so there's really no reason to go greater than that for material from CDs. There are some other sources, such as downloads, that offer higher bit depth, so you'd probably what to keep these are their original setting to preserve all the quality. FWIW, I leave the bit depth the same as the way I got it.
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Re: Saving vs Converting to FLAC
Jack is right, but I want to add a few additional things to his statement.
Higher compression levels on flac only take additional time during the ENCODING process. The decoding process is about the same regardless of level.
On the subject of bit-depth...if it started as 16-bit, keep it 16-bit. If it's destined for CD format...make it 16-bit.
But, for the thing he glossed over:
Higher compression levels on flac only take additional time during the ENCODING process. The decoding process is about the same regardless of level.
On the subject of bit-depth...if it started as 16-bit, keep it 16-bit. If it's destined for CD format...make it 16-bit.
But, for the thing he glossed over:
That's just kind of left-over from lossy encoding. FLAC is purely VBR and lossless...so it doesn't have any kind of use for a bit-rate. You can enter it but I'm pretty sure it'll just go to the default level. It COULD somehow allow you to key in a manual compression level as the command line options do, but I've not played with FLAC in goldwave other than open and one-off savings.On the other hand when doing batch conversion to FLAC, you get the same list but also get a "rate" box to fill the bit-rate in. Is this just an override to the high, low etc. attribute prefixes?
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Re: Saving vs Converting to FLAC
The Rate box in Batch Processing is for the sampling rate. As DewDude420 mentioned, you cannot set the bitrate for FLAC because is uses variable bitrate encoding. The actual bitrate depends on the content of the file. A section of silence will have a much lower bitrate than a section of complex music. The Low/Medium/High/Maximum setting tells the encoder how much time and effort it should use to make the file as small as it can. Always use Maximum to make the file as small as possible.
Chris
Chris