Topic: trouble with flac 24/88.2 in foobar?

[faninor]

I just recorded a show in 88.2kHz for the first time and I'm trying to make sure I do everything correctly... I'm on Windows XP and I edited the recording in Adobe Audition which converts the recording from 24 to 32 bit when opening. After editing I used file > save as with the Windows PCM format and the option 24-bit packed int (type 1, 24-bit) which is what I've successfully used before for 24/96 recordings. Then I cut the files in CD Wave v1.93.3 and saved with "use alternate 24-bit format" selected. I tried encoding them in flac frontend and it failed... tried a few things and ended up updating to the newest version of flac which then encoded the files with no problems, except for this warning: "WARNING: legacy WAVE file has format type 1 but bits-per-sample=24." When I try to play the flac files in Foobar2000 v0.9.4.5 I get a playback error saying the file is an unsupported format or corrupt. If I decode the flac back to wav again it plays fine. Is 24/88.2 flac not supported in foobar? Or is the legacy WAVE warning a likely cause, and if so how can I deal with it? Or could something else entirely be involved?

[faninor]

I got ahold of some different flac 24/88.2 files that do play in foobar... so the problem must have something to do with Audition or CD Wave.

[JasonSobel]

ended up updating to the newest version of flac which then encoded the files with no problems, except for this warning: "WARNING: legacy WAVE file has format type 1 but bits-per-sample=24."

the "legacy" WAVE file type is not the problem.  The "legacy" file type is the standard, and in fact, FLAC decodes 24 bit files to the "legacy" file format.  the "problem" is the newest version of FLAC.  with FLAC v1.2.1, 24 bit files are encoded a bit differently, which increases compression ratios significantly.  the thing is, there isn't yet much support for the new version of FLAC on the playback software side of things.  the people behind foobar say that foobar will support the lastest version of FLAC in v0.9.5.x and up, but it's not yet available for download.

there's some more discussion here:
http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,91825.0.html

specifically, this post:

I was doing a bit of searching around, because I noticed that my 24-bit FLACs compressed with v1.2.1 would not play in foobar...

here is a post from another forum from Josh Coalson (the developer of FLAC)...

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=57572&st=25

some people have had problems with 24bit files encoded with flac-1.2.1. what is happening is that the encoder is taking advantage of 1.2.x features to encode the 24bit file more efficiently. this was not supposed to be released yet to give s/w more time to update to a 1.2.x decoder, but was picked up by a CVS merge that was too broad. specifically, the files are using RICE2 partitions. 1.2.x decoders handle this fine so you can get back the original using a 1.2.x decoder if this is causing a problem.

the change to the decoder needed to support RICE2 partitions is pretty trivial; I will try and get in touch with ffmpeg about it.

Josh

basically, the way FLAC v1.2.1 compresses 24 bit audio is a lot more efficient, but not too many players/decoders are ready to handle the change.  According to Josh, it's easy to update the decoders/players, so as more and more applications get their software up-to-date, the issue will go away.  as far as foobar goes, it has already been implemented in v0.9.5.x, although that version is still in testing and not yet available.  in the meantime, VUplayer (http://www.vuplayer.com/vuplayer.php) will play back my 24-bit FLACs.

as far as the LMA, yeah, as far as I know, they are still using v1.1.2.  They really need to get it in gear and start using the latest version of FLAC.

oh, and one last thought about the new version: it's AWESOME.
last week, I downloaded a YMSB show, 24/48, in FLAC format.  the seeder had used an old version of CD Wave, and went straight to FLAC, so it was saved in v1.1.0.  After downloading, I decompressed, and then re-compressed using v1.2.1 and the overall size went down ~700 MB.  SHNtool reported an overall compression ratio of 0.49 something or other instead of 0.67 for the v1.1.0 FLACs.  that's just awesome, and a huge size difference, especially when uploading and downloading shows.  all the more reason why LMA should switch over to the new version and encourage others to do so as well

[JasonSobel]

one other thing.  it looks like a beta version of the newest version of foobar is available:
http://www.foobar2000.org/beta/index.html

I haven't yet tried it out, but in the release notes, it specifically says:
FLAC 1.2.1 support (decoding libraries and converter)