[X4U] Which format for Music?

[Crandon David]

Well put dZ.

David


On Aug 14, 2005, at 7:33 AM, DZ-Jay wrote:

>
> On Aug 14, 2005, at 00:51, Crandon David wrote:
>
>
>> If I'm not mistaken, Apples Lossless Encoder still compresses  
>> somewhat, therefore, I  believe the AIFF encoder, which is  
>> analogous to the way CD's are recorded themselves, is the choice  
>> you want.
>>
>
> You are right in that ALEC (Apple Lossless Encoder) is compressed,  
> but the compression is "lossless", meaning that after decompression  
> you have essentially the original version.  Decompression is  
> performed on playback, so while on disk, it uses up less space.
>
> An AIFF file takes roughly 1MB of disk space for each minute of  
> audio, while an ALEC file takes about half of that.
>
> One more thing to consider:  ALEC is a closed Apple proprietary  
> format, which at least at the moment does not contain play  
> restrictions (like AAC), but there is no guarantee that this will  
> always be the case, nor is there any guarantee that it will be  
> playable on non-apple software.  There are plug-ins for playing/ 
> decoding ALEC files from third-parties (and I think even on  
> Windows), but as I understand it, they are either Apple-sanctioned  
> and controlled, or created by reverse-engineering the format.
>
> On the other hand, AIFF is an open standard for audio encoding, and  
> transends platforms and operating systems.  It just takes more  
> space on disk.
>
> So my suggestion to the original poster is:  If you have unlimited  
> space; and want the best lossless quality; and require an open  
> format to guarantee access and playback on a variaty of players/ 
> systems/platforms; use AIFF, which is close (if not identical) to  
> how audio is stored on a CD.  However, if you need to conserve disk  
> space while mantaining high, lossless quality; will mostly use the  
> files in a Mac environment; and don't see a reason to mistrust  
> Apple to hold your files for ransom in the future (and, honestly, I  
> don't); go with ALEC, same taste, less calories.
>
>     dZ.
>
> P.S. I imported my entire CD catalog in ALEC format, and am pretty  
> happy with it.  But I know that if I had the space, I would rather  
> use AIFF.
>
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