A little background is that FLAC is the Free Lossless Audio Codec, which means that there is no loss of quality at all. So, regardless of the compression level that is chosen, FLAC will always decode into the exact uncompressed audio track (bit for bit)..
How does FLAC compression work?
By using a different compression technique that does not involve psychoacoustics, FLAC is able to avoid permanently “throwing out” any of the audio data. This is why it is known as a lossless format. Instead, the FLAC algorithm employs linear prediction which reduces the truly redundant information in the song..
What does FLAC compression mean?
Flac stands for 'Free Lossless Audio Compression'. This is because it's an audio file that has been compressed into a smaller, more manageable size than the original. However, this compression is lossless, meaning it doesn't lose any of the quality of the sound during the size reduction..
What is a typical FLAC compression ratio?
FLAC compresses files at a ratio of approximately 2:1, reducing the size of the original by 50%. Audio Codec – The term codec is derived from coder/decoder and is a device or computer programme for compressing or decompressing digital media files..
What is the best FLAC compression setting?
I recommend using compression level FLAC-4. Going higher significantly increases encoding time with marginal improvement in file size reduction (mean reduction from FLAC-4 to FLAC-8 in this test is 1.2 % with a 182 % increase in mean compression time).Aug 29, 2017.
What is the best level of compression for FLAC?
The default compression level for FLAC is Level 5, and this is where an optimal balance between file size reduction and playback performance is achieved. To read more about the FLAC compression codec, click here.Apr 8, 2014.
What is the best quality setting for FLAC?
It doesn't matter what setting you use quality wise. Choosing more compression will slow down the encoding a little, but will not affect playback. FLAC is designed so that the grunt work is done on the ENcoding end, decoding takes about the same amount of CPU power no matter which setting you use..
What is the default compression level for FLAC?
The default compression level for FLAC is Level 5, and this is where an optimal balance between file size reduction and playback performance is achieved.Apr 8, 2014.
FLAC compresses files at a ratio of approximately 2:1, reducing the size of the original by 50%. Audio Codec – The term codec is derived from coder/decoder and is a device or computer programme for compressing or decompressing digital media files.
FLAC compression levels go from 0-8. 0 is the fastest to encode, with the least compression. 8 is the slowest to encode, with the most compression. The compression gains of level 8 over the default of level 5 are often deemed to be inconsequential.
Aug 7, 2011The 0-8 is the compression setting. With FLAC there is no actual best, since all 0-8 settings are lossless, there is no audio data taken away.
FLAC 0
0.516
0.000
FLAC 1
0.541
0.025
FLAC 2
0.699
0.183
FLAC 3
0.806
0.290
FLAC compression level comparison - The Z-Issuez-issue.com › flac-compression-level-comparisonAbout Featured Snippets
What is FLAC compression level?
Compression levels in FLAC can be confusing and they often come up when you’re trying to decide what bitrate of audio files to use for your music collection. Opinions vary, but the default FLAC compression level is 5. This is where a balance between file size reduction and performance is struck. Does FLAC Compression Level Matter. Yes.
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What is the difference between a FLAC file and a compressed file?
Well, FLAC compression levels determine the file size of the compressed file. When FLAC files are compressed, there is no loss of quality because FLAC will always decode into the exact uncompressed audio track down to every single bit. The only difference between the compression levels is the resulting file size.
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Why do FLAC files take longer to decode?
In addition to taking longer to compress, higher level compression FLAC files will also take longer to decode at playback. FLAC 5 is the default compression level for a good reason. This level of compression is the optimal balance between file size reduction and playback performance.
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Why is FLAC a lossless file?
At first, one explanation was that to increase the compression, the FLAC codec discards data, so is not truly “lossless”. All information on FLAC assures me that regardless of compression level used the original WAV file can be reconstructed, bit perfect, from a FLAC file.
The Easy Solutions
Obviously: 1. If I don't care about encoding time and since space is money, I take the highest compression level FLAC-8. 2
The Difficult Solution
Where is the right middle between file size and encoding time? I stumbled upon Nathan Zachary's articleon this question but he compares just two files
Appendix
Albums
I just took the first five random CDs (listed below) that I thought of represent different field of music
How to convert FLAC 0 to FLAC 8?
Convert every file 10 times for each compression level (FLAC-0 to FLAC-8) and take the mean encoding time relative to FLAC-0 and the file size relative to FLAC-0
For this I disabled internet connection, all periodic jobs ( cronjobs) and nearly everything else so that really mostly the compression runs and as less as possible interfers
What happens if a FLAC file is compressed?
When FLAC files are compressed, there is no loss of quality because FLAC will always decode into the exact uncompressed audio track down to every single bit
The only difference between the compression levels is the resulting file size
With other compression methods, such as MP3, various aspects of the files are stripped out to save space
What is a FLAC compression level?
The compression level simply changes the resulting file size, and the compute cycles needed to, for lack of a better term, inflate the audio back to its original uncompressed state
On modern systems, the difference in resources needed to play back the FLAC file is negligible
For your needs, any FLAC compression level will be fine
Compression Options Open the CompressionOptions by clicking EAC -> CompressionOptions… Click on the External Compression tab and fill as follows Check “ Use external program for compression “. Select “ Parameter passing scheme: ” “User Defined Encoder “. Write “.flac ” in the “ Use file extension: ” field.First, at the main Window of the software, hit the Settings button. Then, please select the General tab in the Settings box. Now, with the FLAC compressing slider, adjust the compression level (most left position). Free Lossless Audio Codec uncompressed is the most left position. After that, click the OK button.Click the EAC menu and select Compression Options. Click the External Compression Tab, and put a tick in the box for use external program for compression. Change Parameter Passing Scheme to User Defined Encoder. Change Use file extension to.flac if not already that. Click the Browse button and locate the FLAC.EXE that you unzipped earlier.
From the above, we notice the following:
The best FLAC compression level with the best trade-off between file size and additional encoding time is FLAC 3, 4, or 5.
FLAC 0 to 2 encodes very fast, but the file sizes are quite large.
More items
Flac data compression settings
Lossless digital audio coding format
FLAC is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software package that includes a codec implementation. Digital audio compressed by FLAC's algorithm can typically be reduced to between 50 and 70 percent of its original size and decompresses to an identical copy of the original audio data.
