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Apple's Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) Now Open Source
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This is cool! I never expected they'd do this, but I'm glad they did.
Now, if they would also make iTunes play flac files...
Now, if they would also make iTunes play flac files...
The MPEG-1 Layer 3 audio was relevant in 1997, when most were still on dial-up. Nowadays I just don't see the appeal. AAC is slightly better, and lossless (again, much like the CD when it debuted) is better still.
Come on Apple, support FLAC, ALAC, MKV AND MPEG on all your devices.
Here is what works for me. I buy FLAC, rip CDs to ALAC, rip BR to MKV and output EyeTV into MPEG which preserves it as broadcast.
Here is what works for me. I buy FLAC, rip CDs to ALAC, rip BR to MKV and output EyeTV into MPEG which preserves it as broadcast.
There is no missing information detectable here dude. When you zoom out audio waveforms to this degree, each pixel becomes the equivalent of several milliseconds of information. Seems small, but at 44 KHz you have 44 levels per milisecond. A 30s track, shown at 1000 px width, will represent 1320 changes in intensity with a single pixel width line. Audacity visualizes these by taking an approximation of the average intensity within that period. These approximations can change dramatically simply by shifting phase; which is likely what you see. Phase shifts of several ms are sonically indetectible but would show up as varying spikes in your graph.
Try zooming in. I think you'll see that as your wavelengths increase, the differences will decrease. Each of the "spikes" you think you see (and I see as many in green as I see in blue)
Remember this is a graph of relative intensities. The higher the spike, the louder the sound. No lossy compression technique works by making music less intense -- on the contrary, it keeps the most intense bits, and dropping the least intense bits. Therefore, it wouldn't make any sense for a lossy compression technique to display what you think you see in terms of "less spiky" music (and indeed it's all chalked up to Audacity's dithering of the waveform to fit in your display window). If you want to see compression, zoom in a lot -- you should see a slight sawtoothing or squaring of waveforms. That's what lossy compression is, conversion of sonic complexity from a series of changes in intensity to a map of nearly equivalent sin waves.
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To me, XLD is the Handbrake of audio conversion, in that it does a great job of utilizing your computer's hardware to fullest extent. I haven't tried it on a 12 core Mac Pro, but on a dual core Sandy Bridge 2.7 i7, it uses all four cores. iTunes, on the other hand, only uses one at a time. Entire albums (in FLAC) are converted in seconds.
Well, FLAC doesn't work on ALL devices, now, does it? The rather large Apple platforms, I imagine.
Why doesn't Apple support FLAC? I imagine the key is in the GNU license. If they accepted FLAC, all of iTunes would belong to the Free Software Foundation, no?
Great news indeed. Hopefully the support will soon spread to many applications and platforms.
Why did Apple go it alone with ALAC rather than adopting FLAC? Number of good reasons - using standard MPEG4 file container as with their AAC files, ability to apply FairPlay DRM the same way as their AAC files and most likely algorithm heavily optimized for efficient decoding on 32bit fixed point ARM architecture of their iPods and AirPorts. The compression ability of various lossless formats varies only slightly and is of no concern really. What matters the most for practical applications is the simplicity of decoding process especially outside desktop/laptop.
ALAC is a fundamental part of AirTunes / AirPlay audio streaming, so one has to wonder whether opensourcing the format has something to do with possible opening of AirPlay to 3rd parties outside of BridgeCo who are to date still the only partner for AirPlay and all consumer products supporting it is using their platform. Perhaps doors are slowly opening for other implementers which should yield cheaper, better options.
Selling ALAC versions of albums on iTunes would be welcome by the whole audiophile community and perhaps this move is creating the foundations for later rollout of lossless content on iTMS. There are scores of people willing to pay premium for lossless or even studio quality versions of their music. Also a new way to make people buy their music yet again.
Why did Apple go it alone with ALAC rather than adopting FLAC? Number of good reasons - using standard MPEG4 file container as with their AAC files, ability to apply FairPlay DRM the same way as their AAC files and most likely algorithm heavily optimized for efficient decoding on 32bit fixed point ARM architecture of their iPods and AirPorts. The compression ability of various lossless formats varies only slightly and is of no concern really. What matters the most for practical applications is the simplicity of decoding process especially outside desktop/laptop.
ALAC is a fundamental part of AirTunes / AirPlay audio streaming, so one has to wonder whether opensourcing the format has something to do with possible opening of AirPlay to 3rd parties outside of BridgeCo who are to date still the only partner for AirPlay and all consumer products supporting it is using their platform. Perhaps doors are slowly opening for other implementers which should yield cheaper, better options.
Selling ALAC versions of albums on iTunes would be welcome by the whole audiophile community and perhaps this move is creating the foundations for later rollout of lossless content on iTMS. There are scores of people willing to pay premium for lossless or even studio quality versions of their music. Also a new way to make people buy their music yet again.
That, or call a divorce lawyer.
(In other words, reach out to share the small things, so that when big things come up you're not separated by a wide gulf.)
Either way lossless audio is still for the minority, especially when most people who own iPods use the crappy bundled earphones or some cheap tat from Argos, and the ones that buy more expensive earphones go for the "Beats" branded ones which still suck.
It also doesnt help that Apple are favouring flash storage. Really could have done with another line of iPod Classics instead of the hugely overpriced 64GB iPod Touch.
It also doesnt help that Apple are favouring flash storage. Really could have done with another line of iPod Classics instead of the hugely overpriced 64GB iPod Touch.
Probably not -- lots of closed source devices (such as the HiFiMan, Sandisk Sansa, Roka) support FLAC. The real question is, why WOULD Apple support FLAC? Apple's products are all about limiting complexity by removing needless choices. They developed ALAC for a lot of reasons, and once developed it was the lossless codec supported by their devices, iTunes and iOs. If you have one why do you need two? It's lossless, just convert the file, dang.
What does this have to do with iTunes match?!?
I find it highly unlikely that they're Open Sourcing an audio format at the same same time as iTunes match is being ramped up (released)....
Gary
I find it highly unlikely that they're Open Sourcing an audio format at the same same time as iTunes match is being ramped up (released)....
Gary
I used to think there was no discernible difference between the same song encoded to 'lossy' 320kbps AAC or 'lossless' FLAC/ALAC. I certainly couldn't tell on my iPod using stock Apple buds. Even at home on my nice stereo I was hard pushed to tell which was which.
Then I had the chance to listen and compare them on a pair of Bowers And Wilkins' flagship Nautilus speakers, powered by a ridiculous array of ten Chord Reference monoblock power amps. With the pre-amp, DAC, interconnects and wiring added the whole set-up cost over £200,000.
I heard the difference immediately. To this day I haven't heard a stereo system as good. Or look as good! Chord amps are things of exquisite beauty
Then I had the chance to listen and compare them on a pair of Bowers And Wilkins' flagship Nautilus speakers, powered by a ridiculous array of ten Chord Reference monoblock power amps. With the pre-amp, DAC, interconnects and wiring added the whole set-up cost over £200,000.
I heard the difference immediately. To this day I haven't heard a stereo system as good. Or look as good! Chord amps are things of exquisite beauty
XLD messed up the timing. Refer to my first picture for more obvious discrepancies.
By zooming in, you're doing the same thing as this:
On a graphing calculator, you have 2 similar equations graphed (say it's a curved line). You zoom in a lot on a portion until it looks straight. Both lines look straight and identical. Zoom out 10 times and you see the difference immediately, and notice that they are two different equations.
Zooming in distorts the image into looking similar. Zooming out in this case will condense the image so that the difference is much more visible.
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The problem is that the vast majority of people wouldn't have a clue what any of this audio terminology means, explain to someone that your file size is 3 times larger with no benefits in sound quality, the usual reply is whats the point forget it.
Why would you want it to kill mp3? Mp3 can produce transparency and is playable everywhere.
Moving to lossless ain't going to give people superior sound quality
It strikes me as ironic that this argument can be used on an Apple forum where, up until a few years ago, almost every Apple product was "for the minority". If all Apple sold was the run-of-the-mill product that satisfies the majority, then they'd be no Different than Dell.
I'm all for seeing lossless files available through iTunes, and I'd welcome the inclusion of some 24/96 recordings also, which are currently the domain of some boutique online stores.