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Main => Audio/Jukebox/MP3 Forum => Topic started by: Chunce DeLeone on January 29, 2009, 11:26:59 am

Title: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Chunce DeLeone on January 29, 2009, 11:26:59 am
What touchscreen jukebox software supports Flac files? 
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: dhcf23 on January 29, 2009, 02:59:50 pm
Xlobby can play Flac files but that is really saying Winamp can since Xlobby uses winamp as the music player. I do not have experience with any of the other software out there but any of the others also use winamp it can play .flac files.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: unclet on January 30, 2009, 08:00:13 am
Not sure what a FLAC file is or where it comes from, but do you know whether WMP can play them?
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: HaRuMaN on January 30, 2009, 08:04:44 am
Not sure what a FLAC file is or where it comes from, but do you know whether WMP can play them?

FLAC is a lossless audio codec.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: unclet on January 30, 2009, 08:27:10 am
Does WMP play FLAC files?
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Barry Barcrest on January 30, 2009, 09:38:16 am
Does WMP play FLAC files?

With the right codecs it should. The tag information is held slightly differently than MP3's if you are going to add support for FLAC.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: unclet on January 30, 2009, 10:27:10 am
Which codec should be used to add support for FLAC file in WMP?

Is the file extension for these type of files ".FLAC" or is it something else?

No one has requested me to support FLAC files in my software yet, but I wanted to be prepared .....   :)   I would of course need someone to send me a FLAC file for testing purposes if they wanted it to be supported.

PS:  My software does not support TAGs so it being different than MP3 tags is not a concern for me.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Chunce DeLeone on January 30, 2009, 02:32:16 pm
UncleT, Flac is very popular on sites/things that cannot be mentioned here,  adding support this file extention is a must. 
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: richms on January 31, 2009, 01:03:37 am
I rip all my stuff to it, very handy.

Would be good if you would do single file rips with an embedded cue sheet, but since you are not reading the tags thats probably unlikely.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: MonMotha on January 31, 2009, 01:55:24 am
FLAC is the "Free Lossless Audio Codec".  It's pretty much replaced all the other lossless audio compression formats out there such as APE, Shorten, etc.  Preferred file extension is ".flac", but you sometimes see ".fla" to be Windows-ish since many Windows file formats have kept the 3 letter extensions despite the OS supporting longer ones for some time.

There are DirectShow (or whatever MS is calling it now) filters for it.

FLAC is also sometimes seen in other containers such as OGG containers (.ogg, which can also hold Vorbis audio, which is lossy) or Matroska (.mka for audio only or .mkv for containers that have video in them) since Matroska can hold well-nigh anything.  With the proper DirectShow filters, WMP can play FLAC in these containers.  vlc can also play all this stuff, but then vlc can play just about anything.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Space Fractal on January 31, 2009, 12:44:43 pm
MultiFE can play flac files and read these tags too.

If Uncle'T add FLAC as extension, Uncle'T Jukebox can play them too, if you using the correct codec.

For use with Freebox, you (Barcrest) propenty need to support tag reading of both flac and ogg files to get it to work (they use the same system), which is pretty easy to read (but is typical coded in UTF8 format).
Freebox use tags, and need to support flac/ogg tags (they use same tag system).

So if Uncle'T and Barcrest want to add FLAC, please do add OGG too.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Barry Barcrest on January 31, 2009, 01:09:50 pm
I have tag reading for OGG in already. So you are saying that if i just add the FLAC extension the tags are the same as OGG? I'll test it out if i can find any FLAC files.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Dermbrian on January 31, 2009, 01:44:55 pm
The final version(s) of SKJukeox play FLAC files.

Brian
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Space Fractal on January 31, 2009, 02:44:30 pm
I have tag reading for OGG in already. So you are saying that if i just add the FLAC extension the tags are the same as OGG? I'll test it out if i can find any FLAC files.

why not just rip one cd for testing or convert a wav file to flac?

for the tag, flac and ogg tag system is the same:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis_comments
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: MonMotha on January 31, 2009, 02:47:51 pm
I have tag reading for OGG in already. So you are saying that if i just add the FLAC extension the tags are the same as OGG? I'll test it out if i can find any FLAC files.

The FLAC and OGG containers are not quite the same, but they do use basically the same tagging system.  Only difference would be where in the file to look for the tags, and some tags will be present on OGG containers but not raw FLAC.  Of course, you also have to be ready to find Vorbis audio in an OGG container, and in fact that's probably more common. Putting FLAC audio in OGG containers is relatively new, though it is the "preferred" way to do it now.

Matroska tagging is different, but libmatroska should be able to read all the stuff for you.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Space Fractal on January 31, 2009, 03:08:38 pm
I have tag reading for OGG in already. So you are saying that if i just add the FLAC extension the tags are the same as OGG? I'll test it out if i can find any FLAC files.

The FLAC and OGG containers are not quite the same, but they do use basically the same tagging system.  Only difference would be where in the file to look for the tags, and some tags will be present on OGG containers but not raw FLAC.  Of course, you also have to be ready to find Vorbis audio in an OGG container, and in fact that's probably more common. Putting FLAC audio in OGG containers is relatively new, though it is the "preferred" way to do it now.

Matroska tagging is different, but libmatroska should be able to read all the stuff for you.

In FMOD which I use as engine in MultiFE, I just got a pointer returned where the tags is and can checkout the strings (in UTF8, UNICODE or ASCII format), It should not been that hard to get it to work with FLAC anyway, if you allready have OGG support. Some applications might do tag them wrong where it use small letters instead of big (or was is the other way?), so make sure to UCASE the name for checking (of course not the value it self).
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Chunce DeLeone on February 04, 2009, 10:19:20 am
Hey Barry,  Any news on Adding FLAC to Freebox? 
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: Barry Barcrest on February 04, 2009, 10:48:50 am
Hey Barry,  Any news on Adding FLAC to Freebox? 

I have added the FLAC extensions to the OGG tag reading code i had but i have still not tested it out. It has been in the last 2 of my beta releases but i have not had any feedback on if it works or not.
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: MameDownUnder on February 06, 2009, 12:10:33 am
Barry, ill test it this weekend and let you know
Title: Re: What software to Play Flac files?
Post by: MameDownUnder on February 09, 2009, 08:50:00 pm
This doesnt work on freebox yet, but ill send Barry for files to test once he figures it out