FLAC

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File Format
Name FLAC
Ontology
Extension(s) .flac

Contents

Description

FLAC is a file format and codec for losslessly compressed audio. It can store audio with a PCM bit resolution up to 32 bits per sample and sampling rates up to 640 kHz.

The format is open and royalty-free. The reference implementation is cross-platform and dual-licensed, command-line utilities (e.g. encoder, decoder and metadata editor) use GNU GPL and code libraries use BSD.

FLAC is suitable for archiving for many reasons:

  • open format
  • support for metadata tagging
  • lossless (no generation loss if you need to convert to another format)
  • disk size effective (audio is typically reduced to 50-60% of original size)
  • data integrity
  • error resistant (bit faults are contained within a frame, typically a fraction of a second)

Playback

Hardware

  • Squeezebox
  • Transporter
  • Sonos

Software

  • Amarok - cross-platform, open source
  • foobar2000 - Windows, non-commercial
  • MediaMonkey - Windows, commercial
  • Songbird, Windows, Mac, open source
  • VLC - cross-platform, open source
  • Winamp - Windows, commercial

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