The Lossless Audio Blog (The L.A.B)

We Have Moved!

2006-10-05T16:48:00.000-05:00

The Lossless Audio Blog has moved! We are up and running on the new site and getting used to the new setup.
This site will stay up to direct users but we will not add any new content to it. All new posts will be on the new site. See you at the new site!

www.losslessaudioblog.com

1 Year Anniversary

2006-10-02T22:28:00.000-05:00

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of The Lossless Audio Blog. It was 1 year ago today that we made our first post announcing the release of FLAC 1.1.2.

In and effort to improve the blog for the new year I started looking into adding some new features, but when looking into these changes all signs pointed back to the same place and that place was somewhere other than Blogger. To be able to add some of these much needed features we will be moving to WordPress with a new site located at www.losslessaudioblog.com.

Thanks for sending in your suggestions, for letting me know when a bad post was a really bad post and for returning to support this site!

Brennan

Songbird T-shirts.....

2006-09-29T13:41:00.000-05:00

The folks over at Songbird have put together some neat graphics for there t-shirt. We like t-shirts for software projects, my FLAC shirt gets worn every week!

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Philadelphia Orchestra Adds Flac Format

2006-09-23T08:18:00.000-05:00

Late this week The Philidelphia Orchestra launched a new online music store to allow fans to download a variety of concerts including historic concerts from as early as the 1960's to current 2006 events. Sometime in the near future they will begin to make each new concert available for download within days of the concert.

What is so exciting about this is that it is another instance of an online music store providing a choice, the choice between lossy and lossless formats, MP3 and FLAC. They also have a small blurb describing the difference between the two formats (very cool idea!) which will help those new to having a choice make a more educated decision. Pricing is fairly reasonable ranging from $4.99 for some MP3 recordings to $11.99 for the longer FLAC concerts.

*For a limited time they are providing The Philadelphia Orchestra: Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 in MP3 for free! Download

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Lossless Audio Editor for MAC OS X

2006-09-21T05:31:00.000-05:00

Rogue Amoeba has a new audio editor avalaible that is geared towards the lossless editing of audio files. This new project called Fission allows you to trim, split and edit your MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, etc. audio files with zero loss in quality. All of this is accomplished with an easy to use interface that allows you to quickly start editing.

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iAudio's F2, Flash Based FLAC Player

2006-09-19T04:28:00.000-05:00

iAudio has a new flashed based player on the rise, the small palm-sized F2. Below is a photograph next to a credit card to give you an idea of how small the F2 really is. And as to be expected with an iAudio product this new DAP has alot of features including support for firmware upgrades and support for a wide range of formats like MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF, FLAC, WAV. The F2 will be available available in 512/1G/2G models.

Features

MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF, FLAC, WAV, Moving Picture Playback,
FM Radio Receiver and Recording, Voice Recording, Line-In Recording
TXT (Text), JPEG (Image) File Viewer (Image Enlargement, Background Screen Designation)
Built-in Flash Memory (512MB/1G/2G)
USB 2.0 Interface
260,000 Colors 1.3 inch TFT-LCD, Resolution 128x160
Long Playback Time : Up to 22 hours playback
Multi language support
Enhanced Integrated Navigator
Various EQ and Sound Field Effect
Clock, Alarm, Pre-Scheduled Recording, Sleep Function, Power Saving Shut down.
LCD Auto Off Time Adjustment, Brightness, and Contrast Adjustments
Easy Firmware Upgrade
Supports ID3V2, ID3V1, FileName
Supports MAC OS (Data transfer only), Supports Linux v 2.2 or higher (Data transfer only)

PMP/NES Emulator w/ FLAC Support

2006-09-17T14:01:00.000-05:00

The Chinese manufacturer Odna is set to realase a new PMP with NES emulation capibilites. What grabbed our attention is the audio formats it supports which include MP3, OGG, FLAC, and WAV. For its PMP capabilities AVI, MPEG4 SP, XviD, and DivX videos are supported as well as JPG, BMP, and GIF for photo viewing. Other notable features include a FM radio, voice recorder and text viewer along with a 10 hour lithium battery. The VX737 is powered by a Freescale MC9328MXL processor and Philips UDA1380TT audio decoder. Asian manufacturers really seem to be pumping out devices with FLAC/OGG support but considering the amount of DAP's from ASIA the overall percentage is small.

Read More...

New version of XiphQT (Flac in iTunes)

2006-09-16T15:59:00.000-05:00

A new version of XiphQT (Xiph QuickTime Components) is available which brings the version up to 0.1.5. XiphQT is a plugin that enables MAC and Windows users to play Xiph formats in Quicktime applications. This translates into interesting scenarios like Flac in iTunes! We love stuff like this!

XiphQT 0.1.5

New features

Universal Binary - XiphQT now works on both PPC and Intel Macs;
FLAC - FLAC decoder and importer for Ogg FLAC (no support for native FLAC file format yet);
Theora - Theora decoder and importer; this is the youngest component - some glitches are expected.

Fixes and improvements

meta-data - XiphQT is now able to import user tags for all supported Xiph formats;
small audio decoding performance improvements:
audio samples are now decoded in larger chunks - decreased polling frequency and associated overhead,
-release binaries are bow built with compiler optimisation flags switched on;
increased offsets accuracy for chained Vorbis and Speex streams;
fixed a bug in Speex decoder that prevented many valid Speex files from being properly decoded;
fixed a bug causing audible clicks near beginning of Vorbis and Speex files.

Gapless Playback Added to iTunes 7

2006-09-13T06:51:00.000-05:00

With yesterdays announcements from Apple came two words that MAC users have been waiting for….Gapless Playback in iTunes 7. For those of you that don’t know gapless playback is the seamless playback of an digital audio formats that allows live music or consecutive tracks to be heard exactly as they are mastered, without gaps between tracks. Once you update to iTunes 7 it searches to detect whether gapless playback is possible with each file. More info on this feature to come...

WMPTSE 1.1 is out!

2006-09-11T14:41:00.000-05:00

WMP Tag Support Extender (WMPTSE) 1.1 is out! With it comes the following changes.

Corrected Registering of DLL's
Added compatibility with FLAC "Album Artist" tag. This tag is critical for albums to show up correctly in WMP and Media Center Edition.

Review of Dolby TrueHD

2006-09-10T09:06:00.000-05:00

While we have not covered alot about the new lossless codecs (Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD) for the upcoming Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats, we thought an introduction to one of these formats might be a good place to start.

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Built-in FLAC Support Coming to Leopard?

2006-08-30T06:25:00.000-05:00

According to an AAC developer, there is currently built-in FLAC audio support at the API audio layer in the new Mac OS X Leopard developer release. This new OS is expected to be released for the Mac in the Spring (Mac OS X 10.5). So any application should be able to read/playback FLAC files. This includes QuickTime, iTunes or any other audio app for the Mac. Click below to follow the discussion at the Hydrogen Audio Forums.

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Open Source Audio Player for MAC OS X

2006-08-30T06:17:00.000-05:00

For you MAC OS X users (10.4 and up), Cog is an interesting open source audio player with support for all major lossless formats. With many of the features that lossless audio junkies crave and the fact that it is actively being developed, Cog looks to be an potential alternative to iTunes.

Cog's Supported Formats

Ogg Vorbis
Mp3
Flac
Musepack
Monkeys Audio
Shorten
Wavpack
AAC
Wave/AIFF

Features

Gapless playback
Seeking
Automatic updating
Feedback form
Smart shuffle

Trekstor's Vibez

2006-08-29T15:49:00.000-05:00

DAP's with support for lossless formats have been showing up alot lately. This is a hopeful sign that manufacturers are finally realizing that users want better quality! While many of these new DAPs are only available in Asia the new Vibez from Trekstor is a European born digital audio player with a 8GB and a 15GB model going for $254 and $292.The Vibez will be released at the the Berlin IFA from September 1-6, 2006 (Hall 2.1, Stand 142)

FEATURES

Support for MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC as well as WMA DRM 9/10
176 x 132 Color TFT Display
Cover Art Support
JPEG Viewer
Built-in Microphone and Line in recording

Press Release

New FLAC Enabled Network DVD Player

2006-08-22T06:14:00.000-05:00

Ziova formerly known as Zensonic who made one of the first network dvd player s with FLAC support has a new model on the horizon. The new CS510 is a High Definition network media player with Ethernet, 802.11b/g and USB 2.0 connectivity and support for a wide range of formats! Also set for release is the CS505 which adds a DVD drive to the feature set.

MP2,MP3,WAV,OGG Vorbis,FLAC,AIFF,LPCM,WMA,AAC-L,AC3 and DTS support.
HDMI Output with HDCP Support
WMV9/TS/MPEG-4 High Definition Video Playback
802.11g Wireless and Ethernet Networking
Windows File Sharing (SMB)
NTFS Support for USB Devices Unique
Remote Control
Incremental Pan and Zoom
Skinnable User Interface (GUI)
Firmware Recovery

First DAP's with APE Support

2006-08-20T17:28:00.000-05:00

Chinese manufacturer Gemei are set to release the X-21, cousin to the X-20. What is so special about these Asian DAP's you ask? Support for Monkeys Audio APE format! Both the X-20 which resembles a Pocket PC as well as the X-21 both support this popular lossless format. The X-21 is a 512MB flash player that includes support for WAV, APE, MP3, WMA and OGG as well as JPG and BMP viewing. Other features include an FM Tuner the ability to view text files. Nothing mindbending but it is great to see increased support for a lossless format with great compression ratios.
Read More...

Festivalink.net: Festival Recordings in FLAC.

2006-08-06T10:28:00.000-05:00

A majority of the festivals I have attended and have audio copies of are audience taped shows done by amateur tapers, some with the consent of the artist and others without but one thing that many are lacking is quality. While audience tapes do have there own feel so do high quality soundboards. FestivaLink.net mission is to provide high quality recordings of some of the best festivals from around the US while compensating the recording artist. Currently the selection is building but it is quality over quanity here. One of these being MerleFest held in Wilkesboro, NC and host to a wide variety of Country and Bluegrass greats. Each show is available on CD as well as in MP3 and FLAC. Read More...

New PMP with FLAC Support

2006-07-31T10:16:00.000-05:00

Another Chinese company has released a PMP with an interesting feature set. I love it when small unknown Asian companies come out with devices that support features that we all want but American manufactueres won't touch. One of those being lossless formats.
Green Apple has released the AP3100, a PMP with a 3.6 inch LCD that supports MP3, WMA and FLAC audio as well as AVI, DivX and XVID. It also has the ability to play Super Nintendo games right out of the box.
Read More...

Slim Devices New Transporter

2006-07-27T10:14:00.000-05:00

Pre-ordering has started for Slim Devices newest addition. The Transporter is a full sized networked audio component with all of the features you would expect and then some. The webpage does such a great job at detailing the features by each category I will not waste space doing it here. The retail price is $1,999.00 with a ship date of Sept. 18th and they are currently throwing in a Squeezebox 3 to sweeten the deal.
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Album Art Fixer

2006-07-25T10:32:00.000-05:00

There have quite a few useful audio utilities surfacing lately, one of those being the Album Art Fixer. While this utility can be used to add cover art for any media player it is targeted at MCE and WMP users. Album Art Fixer scans your audio files and then determines what needs to be "fixed", it gives you the option of fixing the cover art, album title, location and most importantly the album artist tag. Without an Album Artist tag your audio files will not display correctly in MCE.
The Thomas Hawk Digital Connection has done a great review of Album Art Fixer that is worth checking out.

Review

AudioShell, Windows Explorer Tag Utility.

2006-07-13T13:11:00.000-05:00

I came across an interesting utility made by the developers of Tag&Rename. AudioShell is a freeware Windows Explorer shell extension plugin that enables you to edit and view your tags right in Windows Explorer. Over the last year I have become addicted to applications that integrate with Windows Explorer and being a Tag&Rename user this is a nice addition. AudioShell supports all of the tags that Tag&Rename does so you can manage all of your WavPack, FLAC, WMA Lossless without executing an additional application. Did I say it was free, yea its free!

mp3 (all ID3v2 tag versions)
wma, asf and wmv (including DRM protected files)
Apple iTunes and iPod aac (m4a and m4p) and mp4 files
Ogg, flac (vorbis comment tags)
mpc , mp+ (APE/APEv2 tags)
monkey's audio (APE/APEv2 tags)
wav pack (APE/APEv2 tags)
optim frog (APE/APEv2 tags)

Roku Releases SoundBridge 2.5

2006-07-07T16:12:00.000-05:00

Roku has released an update for there SoundBridge software. Version 2.5 brings alot of new features to the table, too many to list here. The link below lists all new features and includes a guide on how to update your software.
Read More...

Roku has also been busy developing there open source media server software that enables the Roku Soundbridge to interface with iTunes. Firefly 1.0b2 has just been released and while this version works only with MAC OS 10.4 future versions are planned to be compatible with 10.2 and 10.3.
Read More...
Firefly Website

New Version of FLACReleaser (1.5) Available

2006-07-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

Based on .Net 2.0 Framework, the new version of FlacReleaser requires .Net 2.0 be installed to run properly. FlacReleaser is used to create Flac support files like SFV, M3U, NFO, etc. as well as tag.
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New Linux DAP with FLAC Support: BMP-1430

2006-07-04T19:54:00.000-05:00

Bluedot maker of mobile DVD players and Digital Cube have developed a Linux-based PMP that supports a dizzying range of formats including JPG, BMP, PNG, MP3, WMA, OGG, Dolby, WAV, FLAC, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV7/8/9, XviD and eventually DivX. Other features include a battery that can handle 7 hours of video and 10 hours of audio, 30 GB HD, FM Radio, USB 2.0 and a 4.3 inch display at 480 x 272. This PMP has the standard feature set but by being built on Linux and supporting FLAC they have set the BMP-1430 apart.

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New Experimental Version of OptimFROG (4.6000ex)

2006-07-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

The developer of optimFROG has released version 4.6000ex, an experimental version with a variety of improvements.

optimFROG 4.6000ex
New Features

the highnew, extranew, bestnew modes and --maximumcompression get slightly better compression (on average 0.1%)

added --experimental option, enabling advanced experimental compression, which is NOT backward compatible with any previous 4.5xx versions

use --experimental with any mode for greatly improved compression for some files (on average, 0.60% better compression for Audio CDs)

extranew mode speed change when using --experimental: encoding <>

experimental can be also used together with --maximumcompression

Additional New Items

the foobar2000 input plug-in now supports cue sheets (thanks to Artur for suggestions and testing)

official GUI interface using FroG is ready, it will be included in the upcoming OptimFROG installer (thanks to Daniel, the FroG author; available at http://frog.objective-view.de/ )

parsing WAV files with invalid headers is in the works

Read More...

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Apple Lossless Coming to iTunes Producer 1.4?

2006-07-01T10:48:00.000-05:00

Apple has a software package called iTunes Producer that allows artists and music producers to upload tracks to the iTunes Music Store. To get access to the program you are supposed to be a music producer or the like but iTunes Producer is currently shipping with Mac OS X Server.
The exciting news is that version 1.4 of iTunes Producer includes the capability to encode to Apple Lossless allowing users to upload there content in a lossless format. What this means for the iTunes Music Store has yet to be seen but with Apple Lossless being unable to handle DRM it will be interesting to see how Apple handles this.
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iAudio T2

2006-06-15T20:09:00.000-05:00

The makers of the recently released A6 have produced another flash based music player called the T2. As with many of iAudio's products it continues the well received tradition of supporting FLAC along with MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF and WAV.

Available in 512MB, 1GB, 2GB
65K colors OLED display @ 96 x 64 pixel
USB 2.0
Built-in Li-on Polymer battery
12 hours battery life
29.0 x 52.6 x 13.5 mm, 24.5g
Microsoft Windows 98/98se/ME/2000/XP
MAC OS 9.X, 10.X (Only data transfer supported)
Linux kernel v2.2 or higher (Only data transfer supported)
Supports MP3, OGG, WMA, ASF, FLAC, WAV audio playback

MP3: MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, ~320kbps, ~48khz, mono/stereo
WMA: ~256kbps ~48khz mono/stereo
OGG: ~Q10, ~44.1khz mono/stereo
FLAC: Compression Level 0 ~ 8, ~44.1khz, mono/stereo
WAV: ~48khz 16bit mono/stereo

Features in Korean
Specs in Korean

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Slim Devices and Infrant Technologies Team Up

2006-06-10T09:03:00.000-05:00

The makers of the popular Squeezebox, Slim Devices has teamed up with Infrant Technologies who make a line of NAS devices to create an interesting bundle. The bundle consists of a Ready NAS NV that comes pre-loaded with Slim Devices SlimServer software and 2 Squeezbox 3's for a total of $1499.00. The NV model has 1.0TB (4x250GB Seagate NL35 Disks), X-RAID, 256MB memory and Gigabit Ethernet. The hard drives that come with this model are the Seagate NL35's which known for there reliability, 5 year warranty and designed for running 24/7. When two solid products like this pair up it is sure to be interesting.
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Interview With The Rockbox Team

2006-06-09T15:34:00.000-05:00

The group over at CD Freaks has interviewed the Rockbox Team as well as putting together a great article detailing the Rockbox Project. In case you are not aware of what the Rockbox project is this is a great place to learn about it.
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Fireball-PC, Escient'ts New Music Sharing Software

2006-06-02T08:15:00.000-05:00

Escient has released it's new musc sharing software Fireball-PC for both Windows and MAC OS X. This new software allows your existing Fireball Media Manager software to see files shared on your home network expanding your storage possibilites. So if you have also have a NAS, server and/or files spread across multiple PC's, Fireball-PC can use these shares with the Media Manager software. Supported formats include MP3, WMA and FLAC (DRM files are not supported).

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JFLAC: JAVA FLAC Codec

2006-05-26T13:46:00.000-05:00

JFLAC is a project that has ported the FLAC library to Java. What is exicting about this is that this allows Java Developers to write applications that use the FLAC algorithms.
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New XiphQT Quicktime Components

2006-05-23T08:16:00.000-05:00

Development of the XIPHQT Quicktime Components continues with the addition of version 0.1.5. With this version comes a FLAC decoder and Intel MAC support along with various fixes and improvements.

New features

Universal Binary - XiphQT now works on both PPC and Intel Macs;

FLAC - FLAC decoder and importer for Ogg FLAC (no support for native FLAC file format yet)

Theora - Theora decoder and importer; this is the youngest component - some glitches are expected.

Fixes & improvements

meta-data - XiphQT is now able to import user tags for all supported Xiph formats;

small audio decoding performance improvements: audio samples are now decoded in larger chunks - decreased polling frequency and associated overhead, release binaries are bow built with compiler optimisation flags switched on;

increased offsets accuracy for chained Vorbis and Speex streams;

fixed a bug in Speex decoder that prevented many valid Speex files from being properly decoded.

fixed a bug causing audible clicks near beginning of Vorbis and Speex files.

WMPTSE 1.0 Released.

2006-04-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

The first stable release of the WMP Tag Support Extender has been released. WMPTSE 1.0 supports FLAC, WavePack, MusePack, Vorbis OGG, Speex, APE Monkey, OptimFROG, AAC, iTunes files and MPEG4 audio tags in Windows Media Player.

Another addition is the ability to tag DTS, LPCM and AC3 files by adding a APEv2 tag to the end of the file which enables you to edit Metadata which was previously uneditable. Support for this is provided in the form of registry keys and can be found here.
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Download

iAudio's New Media Player iAudio A6

2006-04-05T05:58:00.000-05:00

The French site Generation MP3 has released a review of iAudio's newest offering, the iAudio A6. The A6 is the latest in a long line of HD-based mobile media players that support a wide variety of formats including OGG and FLAC. This latest offering contains a 4GB hard drive and a sports a 1.3 OLED display as well as the following features.

USB 2.0 w/ OTG
FM Radio

MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC WAV

MP3 (up to 320)

WMA (With or Without DRM)

OGG (Q10, 44Khz)

FLAC (0 - 8, 44Khz)

WAV (16 bits, 48Khz)

Live2496 adds WM 5 Support

2006-04-02T20:02:00.000-05:00

The Pocket PC 24-bit recording application Live2496 has added support for Windows Mobile 5 devices. This enables PDA's like the HP iPAQ h2200, hx2400, hx2700, hx4700, h5100, 5500-series and Dell Axim X50/X50v to be used which have some of the faster processors required by Live2496.
READ MORE...

MESSE06: New DJ Hardware from Numark

2006-04-01T08:26:00.000-05:00

The supplier and innovator of hardware for DJs has been busy this year with the release of a number of hard drive based turntables including the HDX and the CDX. Numark has recently released the MESSE06, a professional mix station with a focus on mobility. The MESSE06 features an 80GB hard drive with USB 2.0 connectivity to both MAC and PC. The built-in CD drive allows you to rip directly to the hard drive in MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG and FLAC and a 3-channel mixer. With the pace that Numark has kept in coming up with new and innovative offerings they will be an interesting company to watch in coming months.
READ MORE...

Command Line Tool for Tagging Lossless Files

2006-03-29T16:21:00.000-05:00

While there are a few popular tagging tools available everyone has a preference on how they like there tagging application to work. With this in mind we will continue to list any new applications that may help managing your lossless audio files a little better.

Tag
Based on the tool Tag created by Case this modified version allows you to tag large amounts of audio files using a variety of tagging schemes. Supports ID3v1, ID3v2, APEv1, APEv2, Vorbis and Flac.

Wapet
Another tool originally created by Case but modified. Wapet allows you to encode and tag with support for APEv2 or APEv1.

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Max for Macs

2006-03-18T10:18:00.000-05:00

Max is MAC application that combines the error correcting of cdparanoia with open source formats allowing MAC users to create files in 20 different formats. Formats supported include FLAC, Ogg, Apple Lossless, Speex, AAC to name a few. Freedb is also implemented to retrieve CD information and metadata output is supported for MP3, FLAC, Ogg FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC and Apple Lossless. As an alternative to iTunes limited encoding capabilities Max is worth a look.
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Smithsonian Offers Lossless Audio Downloads

2006-03-17T18:21:00.000-05:00

Smithsonian Global Sound offers music from around the world allowing you to sample high quality audio from an enormous variety of cultures. The browsing structure is simple allowing you to start by choosing from 6 main areas around the world. You can then get as specific as certain cultural groups. You can also browse by musical instrument. Downloads are .99 and available formats include MP3 and FLAC.

READ MORE...

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WavPack on Windows 64

2006-03-14T16:03:00.000-05:00

Two people have successfully built WavPack for Windows 64 based on WavPack 4.31.
A poster over at the Hydrogenaudio Forums has successfully built a native Windows 64 version of WavPack 4.31.
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Download

Peter Pawlowski has made a Windows 64 build available over at Rarewares.
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Download

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Cowon A2 Firmware Upgrade Adds FLAC

2006-03-12T11:21:00.000-05:00

Cowon has released a firmware upgrade for the A2 that adds support for Flac with compression 0-8. The newest firmware release 1.61 provides a fix for Flac as well as adding the ability to view images while listening to music.
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Realtek Releases ALC885 Lossless Audio Codecs

2006-03-11T10:00:00.000-05:00

Realtek has released a new high definition audio codec aimed at providing lossless audio with content protection for DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. The ALC885 features 7.1 +2 High Definition Audio with a 106dB DAC SNR and a 101dB ADC SNR and it can perform lossless audio streaming at 96kHz/24 bit or higher. The ALC885 is the latest in a long list of HD codecs like the ALC861, ALC880(D), ALC882, ALC883 and the 2-channel ALC260 and 262. This new codec has reportedly shown up on two motherboards in Asia and I would bet with Realtek's extensive partnerships we will be seeing much more of this codec in the near future.
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Press Release

The State of Lossless Audio

2006-03-05T10:36:00.000-05:00

Over the last few months there have been an increasing number of articles focusing on the online music industry's (iTunes, Napster and Yahoo) use of low bitrate audio files and the problems that users may face once they start playing these files through there home stereo systems, media centers and other high end audio components.
The articles also point out that many users are not aware of the difference between lossy and lossless formats when purchasing there music online and that these users are typically playing these files through portable media players using low end headphones. Because of the method that these online files are played users do not notice the low quality of the sound.
One such incident has occured between the British Federation of Audio (BFA) and the the UK's specialist AV consumer electronics trade body. The BFA is concerned that consumers aren't getting what they deserve from their portable music devices or hi-fis and are blindly paying a premium for low bitrate audio. Back across the water in the USA my hope is that as we gather digital files from all sorts of sources and start playing these files through our Media Center PC's and home stereos we will come to the realization that we have been paying a premium
for a low quality file. But over two years ago The New York Times published an article detailing the pitfalls of purchasing music online and made some interesting comparisons on cost of CD's vs. lossy and lossless audio files and we still didn't pay attention.
What I hope is that this grumbling is a sign of what is to come. With end users starting to become educated not just on audio file types but also bitrates and the quality of what they are downloading they may begin to demand better quality formats like FLAC and WavPack. With more end users demanding lossless formats the hardware companies will have to include support for these formats.

Articles

"Acquiring Digital Music" from Connected Home Media

"Online Music Lovers Frustrated'" from BBC

"Get ripped off at iTunes store for low quality 128bit" from ComputerWorld blog

"What's Wrong With Digital Music Stores?" from PC World

"Can Surround Sound Save MP3?" from Wired

"BFA condems low bit-rate music" from AV Review

"Music lovers trading quality for convenience" from SouthCoast Today

"From a High-Tech System, Low-Fi Music" from NY Times

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OptimFROG 4.520b has been released

2006-03-04T11:08:00.000-05:00

A new version of OptimFROG has been released as well as a new SDK (1.210b). Future development

What is new in this version 4.520b:

successfully ported to Linux/amd64 as well as Darwin/ppc (PowerPC G3)

many internal source code improvements

all the newly created compressed files are completely backwards compatible (can be decoded with previous 4.50x versions)

added ID3v2 tag support

slightly faster encoding and decoding with exactly the same compression

compression improved very slightly when using --optimize best option

improved compression (0.1-0.3%) when using --maximumcompression

Olive Unveils Opus

2006-03-01T17:43:00.000-05:00

The makers of the Musica and Symphony have released an audiophile grade CD player that includes a quiet 400GB hard drive. Inside are 4 Burr-Brown 24-bit/192 kHz DACs with custom made temperature-compensated crystal oscillator to eliminate jitters and a processor based on the 32-bit IBM PowerPC. Currently the Opus can encode to AIFF, WAV, FLAC and MP3 and plays AIFF, WAV, FLAC, OGG, AAC and MP3. The available connections include a 4 port 10/100 switch, RCA Input/Output, Optical Out, Coaxial Out, 2 USB 2.0 ports and a 802.11g connection. The Opus also supports Apple's Bonjourand the UPnP protocol , allowing you to stream your music to and from iTunes as well as listen to Internet radio stations. Because Olive spent time insuring that the OPUS was a low heat and low noise device the Opus should feel at home in your AV rack but tht comes at a price. The Opus retails for $2,999.00.
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1st Linux Desktop with Built-in Online Music Service

2006-02-24T07:16:00.000-05:00

Mandriva who is the developer of the Mandriva Linux OS and the online music distribution service Mindawn announced a partnership that will provide the first Linux desktop with a built-in online music service. Mindawn has provided support for Linux for the last year as well as MAC OS X and Windows. Artists are also welcome at Mindawn so if you use Ardour, Rosegarden or another Linux recording application Mindawn provides a avenue to distribute your tunes. As far as audio content is concerned Ogg Vorbis and FLAC are welcome sight and the pricing is structured accordingly.

Mindawn Pricing Structure

$0.99 per 10 minutes of lossy compression (Ogg) (each 10 minutes in length is another $0.99)

$1.24 per 10 minutes of lossless compression (FLAC )

$6.99 per album for lossy compression (Ogg)

$8.99 per album for lossless compression (FLAC)

This will be an interesting OS to watch.

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Flac Releaser: New Tool for Creating Flac Support Files.

2006-02-23T06:39:00.000-05:00

Flac Releaser is tool that allows you to create support files such as .nfo, skv, m3u for your Flac encoded audio. In addition it also has tagging capabilities. Currently the release version is 0.9.
Read More...

Uses for Support Files

.NFO - NFO files are used in place of README.TXT files and typically contain release information.

.SFV - SFV files are used when to detect the integrity of a file by comparing a hash that
has been associated with the file.

.M3U -M3U files store multimedia playlists.

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Rockbox for 4G Ipod

2006-02-22T21:52:00.000-05:00

The Ipod Rockbox project now has a build for the 4G Ipod's. While the support for the 4th Generation Ipod is not listed in the Ipod FAQ builds are showing up in the Daily Build section.
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Portland Library's Offers Online Books.

2006-02-18T12:04:00.000-05:00

While this is a bit off topic it's an interesting concept. The Multnomah County Library in Portland Oregon is offering audio books that can be downloaded online. This means no more returning books!
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Connect360: Mac iLife on your Xbox 360

2006-02-17T19:03:00.000-05:00

Nullriver Software makers of a variety of media oriented software has recently released Connect360. Connect360 allows your Xbox 360 to communicate with your Mac and automatically indexes your iPhoto and iTunes libraries. Your media can then be controlled on your Mac using the Xbox 260 Dashboard. Another cool feature is the ability to use Shoutcast by streaming live radio to your Xbox. Support for both the built-in Xbox network adapter and Xbox wireless is included.

Supported Formats

MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF and Apple Lossless
JPEG, RAW, GIF, PNG, BMP, PSD and TIFF

Read More...

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WMPTSE 0.9.9.3 Released

2006-02-14T09:42:00.000-05:00

A new version of the WMP Tag Support Extender (WMPTSE) has been released. The new version 0.9.9.3 adds the following features.

Multi-Tagged Write Support
MPEG4 Tagging Draft Support
Memory Enhancement

Wavpack4Wavelab plugin for Wavelab v. 5 and 6

2006-02-12T08:38:00.000-05:00

The Wavpack4Wavelab plugin is an input/output plugin that works with both version 5 and the recently released version 6 of Steinberg's Wavelab. W4W supports Wavpack files up to version 4.x as well as ID3v1 and APEv2 tags.
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SongBird, the Open Source Media Player.

2006-02-09T05:56:00.000-05:00

Songbird is a Proof of Concept (POC) open source media player that was born from the Mozilla Project and uses (XUL) XML User Interface Language which is the same language used for Firefox's UI. What makes Songbird really standout are a few features which should be familiar to Firefox users. One of those is the ability for user created extensions. User created extensions is one of the many reasons Firefox is so popular and gives the user the ability to create there own experience in the application. Another interesting angle is how Songbird presents the purchasing of online music. Instead of constraining the user to one service Songbird works with any online music service like iTunes, Amazon, Connect, Audible, eMusic, etc. As far as formats are concerned Songbird supports a whole slew of lossy and lossless froamts including MP3, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WMA and more. While Songbird is currently a Proof of Concept it will be something to watch out for.
A Songbird roadmap has also been posted that details some of the new features to to be included.
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Rockbox International Developers Conference 2006

2006-02-04T10:08:00.000-05:00

The Rockbox International Developers Conference 2006 will be held in Stockholm Sweden during the weekend of March 19-19th 2006. All are invited to the 2 day session of Rockbox developers and Rockbox enthusiasts.
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Rockbox for the Ipod and Nano

2006-02-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

The Rockbox firmware (RB) for the Ipod is now working and while it is still in development many have reported successfully flashing there Ipod with the new firmware. Like other RB projects the Ipod project is still in development and new builds are a daily occurrence. And in case you didn't know the developers of RB actually listened to there supporters and there is a up to date list of feature requests. The amount of features is too long to even begin to list and discuss here but there are two that standout. The Ipod RB adds support for a wide variety of formats including MP3, Ogg, Wavpack, FLAC, ALAC, AAC and MPC. It also gets rid of the dependency on iTunes for transferring files to the device. These two features alone are and incredible leap for Ipod users. *But remember as with most firmware there is no guarantee so flashing your Ipod is done at your own risk!

Currently the Rockbox firmware has audio support for the Ipod Color/Photo and the Nano but the plan is to eventually support all Ipod models.

Rockbox Ipod Firmware
-On the go playlist creation.
-No software dependencies (iTunes)
-MP3, Ogg, Wavpack, FLAC, ALAC, AAC, MPC support
-Customizable fonts, while playing screen, and background images.
-Gapless playback in formats that support it (including LAME encoded and tagged MP3s)

Ipod Rockbox FAQ
Ipod Installation Guide

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New Version of WMPTSE (version 0.9.9.1)

2006-01-28T11:19:00.000-05:00

A new version of WMP Tag Support Extender has been released! Version 0.9.9.1 fixes the issue with FLAC tags. Version 1.0 is on the horizon so keep your eyes peeled!

To Upgrade
Go to ADD/Remove Programs and remove the current version.
Download and install version 0.9.9.1.

*If you are still not able to view Artist, Album, Genre, etc. then you will need to upgrade WMP 10 version 10.00.00.3802. The previous versions of WMP 10 do not have Extended Media Library Support.
Download WMP 10

WMPTSE Forum
HA Thread

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Iwod G10 PMP

2006-01-23T07:54:00.000-05:00

The Iwod G10 PMP has many features that you would expect from a PMP but a feature you wouldnt expect is a NES Emulator. This new PMP allows you to load NES Roms onto an SD card and play your favorite games. It also has support for MP3, WMA, FLAC, MPEG-4, and AVI as well as having a TV-Out port.

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Media Monkey 2.5 Has Been Released

2006-01-22T18:28:00.000-05:00

MediaMonkey 2.5 has been released and as we told you in the previous article there are a host of new features. One of those features has turned out to be one of the best features I have seen this year! 2.5 has the ability to syncronize with a variety of mobile media players including the Ipod and both the iRiver H3XX and H1XX series. One of the syncronization settings allows you to convert your lossless files to MP3 or OGG when syncronizing to the mobile device. I typically don't like to give too much of an opinion on software here at The L.A.B but this is one cool feature if you ask me! For more information on Media Monkey 2.5 visit there website.
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Audio Converter for Mac OS X 10.2 Users

2006-01-20T18:54:00.000-05:00

Switch is an audio convertion utility for you Mac users that can handle most lossless formats but is only supported in OS X 10.2 and up. There is also a Windows version but was developed primarily for Mac users. Switch supports wav, mp3, ogg, flac, aac, wma, au, aiff, ogg, msv, dvf, vox, atrac, gsm, dss and other formats into mp3 or wav. It can also handle up to 32000 conversions in one batch. And last but not least its free! There is a Plus version offered for $19.95 but the free version can accomplish the basic functions needed for converting your audio files.

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The RIO Cubic (Carbon C)

2006-01-19T23:10:00.000-05:00

The Rio Carbon was an extremely anticipated audio player that never made it to market. Like the other Rio players it had FLAC,OGG, MP3, WMA support and a 30GB HD with 30 hours of battery life. A former employee of Rio has provided Engadget pictures of the now defunct Rio Carbon along with the Carbon manual. The Engadget article has more pictures in one article than all the previous articles combined. RIP Carbon.
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Monkeys Audio 4.01 Beta 1 Beta!

2006-01-18T15:18:00.000-05:00

There is finally some activity in the development of Monkey's Audio. A new beta has been released and the only portion that is still in beta is the user interface. The compression and decompression is fully stable.

Changes

New user interface
New interface supports external codecs using simple XML configuration scripts
Changed: MACDll.dll is unified to include SDK, Winamp & CoolEdit support in one component
Fixed: Corrupt / invalid APEv2 tags could cause problems in some cases
Fixed: APL creation could use track boundaries that were off by 1/44100th of a second in some cases
Fixed: APL creation would not properly report errors when the CUE file didn't point to an existing APE file
Fixed: In very rare cases, decoding an old APE file could cause an invalid decompression error
Fixed: When converting from APE -> APE, the APEv2 tag could get appended as WAV data to the new file

Download

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Sonos Releases New ZonePlayer (ZP80)

2006-01-11T12:02:00.000-05:00

Sonos now offers a cheaper version of there popular Z100 ZonePlayer. The Z80 does not have a internal amplifier so the idea is that you can connect it to your receiver via one of the many digital or analog outputs or any other amplified device. As you can see from the image above the new Z80 is quite a bit smaller than the Z100 and provides a good alternative for those that already have a home stereo setup that they want to use.
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Toshiba's New Gigabeat Line Supports WMA Lossless

2006-01-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

Toshiba has announced its new line of Gigabeat HD players. The new S series comes in a 30GB (MES30V) and 60GB (MES60V) version and is using the new Freescale i.MX31 processor. The new units also have support for video, Xbox 360 and run Windows Portable Media Center.

Features

FM radio tuner
Extended battery life (20 hrs of audio 5 hrs of video)
Supports .wmv, .wav, JPEG, and MP3
Recorded TV download from TiVo Series2
Metallic Blue/Piano Black/Piano White
Read More...

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It Came From CES: Oyster Wifi Speakers

2006-01-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

It's the time of the year where we get to see all of the bleeding edge, innovative and sometimes plain weird electronics that are showcased at CES. This year there are many new products that have support for some of the more popular lossless formats and in this post we will introduce a new brand of Wifi speakers that are anything but ordinary. The Oyster Wifi speakers made by Avega are the first UPnP enabled speakers with built-in 802.11a/b/g, amplifier and surround sound decoding. The Avega Oysters can be connected to your PC or Media Server via Wifi or to a Ipod or CD/DVD player. The speakers also have built-in decoders that support PCM, WAV, FLAC, OGG, AAC, WMA, MP3 as well as a host of Dolby formats (Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, Prologic IIx, DTS ES, 96/24 and NEO.
Read More...
PDF...

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Sonos Adds Support for Apple Lossless

2006-01-06T17:35:00.000-05:00

Sonos the maker of the Sonos Digital Music System released version 1.3 today. The most notable additions that this upgrade brings is support for Apple Lossless, full screen album art and fixed line-out support for home theatre integration.
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Version 1.3 Notes

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DVD Audio Extractor Now Supports FLAC

2006-01-05T17:14:00.000-05:00

DVD Audio Extractor the DVD Audio extraction and ripping tool has released a new version. The new version 3.5.0 has the following new features.

New feature: Added support to FLAC format. Now you can extract to FLAC to save space and get around the 4G size limit of Wave files.
Now possible to save Audio CD Image in FLAC format.
Improved online-help. Press F1 in Step 2 will go directly to the detailed help page of selected format.
Uses less run-time memory than before.
Updated OGG/Vorbis libraries to version 1.1.2.
Other minor enhancements.

Read More...

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New Lossless MPEG 4 Standard: MPEG-4ALS

2005-12-31T21:24:00.000-05:00

The new lossless audio encoding standard MPEG-4 ALS has recently been approved by the ISO/IEC committee, the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). This new standard originated as LPAC which was developed by Tilman Liebchen and submitted by the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) and chosen as the reference design for the new MPEG4 standard. With companies such as NTT and Real Networks contributing various improvements and technologies to create what is now the new MPEG-4 standard. Some of the intended applications are archival systems (broadcasting, studios, record labels, libraries, studio operations (storage, collaborative working, digital transfer), high-resolution disc formats, internet distribution of audio files, online music stores and portable music players.

Some of the features include:

General support for virtually any uncompressed digital audio format (including wav, aiff, au, bwf, raw)
Support for PCM resolutions of up to 32-bit at arbitrary sampling rate (including 16/44.1, 16/48, 24/48, 24/96, 24/192)
Multi-channel / multi-track support for up to 65536 channels (including 5.1 surround).
Support for 32-bit IEEE floating point audio data.
Fast random access to any part of the encoded data.
Optional storage in MP4 file format (allows multiplex with video).
High flexibility of codec parameters for various applications.

DVDM-522: Escient's Multi-Zone Media Manager

2005-12-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

Escient has released the DVDM-522, a multi-zone media manager for your DVD, CD and digital media files. With a built-in 500GB hard drive there is plenty of space for starting a media collection but if that's not enough you can also attach external CD/DVD changers to the unit to add additional content. The DVDM-522 can also be used with the Mp200 remote media player to access to your media collection from anywhere in your house and like many of the other Escient products supports WAV, MP3 and FLAC. This is the second media manager that Escient has released this year.
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Toast 7.02 Update

2005-12-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

Roxio has released an update for Toast 7.0. The new version 7.02 includes a lot of anticipated fixes including correctly enabling the Flac and Ogg Audio Export feature.

7.02 Update
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Merry Christmas from The LAB!

2005-12-25T12:49:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to all those around the world that visit The LAB! We have recently added Mapstats, which allows you to see where visitors to The Lab are coming from. Click below to see today's results.

Visitors to The LAB

I hope everyone has a safe and prosperous New Year!

DTS-HD Demo at CES 2006

2005-12-24T11:25:00.000-05:00

At CES 2006 this year DTS will demo the new mandatory format for Blu-ray Disc (BD) and High Definition Digital Versatile Disc (HD-DVD). The format labeled DTS-HD is the only technology that can provide lossless surround sound for these new disc formats. The demonstrations will be held on January 5-8, 2006, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, North Hall Room #N242.
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X plosion Soundcard: Hardware DTS Encoding

2005-12-23T20:13:00.000-05:00

*In the interest of achieving the best sound possible from your audio files we will occasionally have posts regarding hardware and software that are top of the line and come highly recommended.

From the makers of the X mistique 7.1 sound card comes the X plosion 7.1 DTS. This new card is based on the C-media CMI8770 chipset which is an upgrade from the C-media CMI8768. It is also the first soundcard to bear the DTS Connect logo which signifies it can do encode DTS in realtime. It can also handle Full Bit Rate DVD's at 1.5 Mbps. They also have another new card that is DTS only, the Xraider 7.1 DTS. Both have been advertised to be available in January but I found it for $121.99 on backorder at ZipZoomFly.
Read More...
List of Full Bit Rate DVDs

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Media Center Edition 2005 with Flac & Ogg

2005-12-22T18:56:00.000-05:00

You are currently viewing the old site. You can visit the new Lossless Audio Blog at
LosslessAudioBlog.com

Windows Media Center Edition 2005 does not provide native support for FLAC, APE or many other popular formats but by using one of the FLAC/Ogg Directshow Filters and the WMPTSE plugin you can now not only play your FLAC files in MCE 2005/2004 but they can also be added to the MCE library with support for meta data. Currently this guide works for WMP 9, 10 and 11 as well as MCE 2004 and 2005.

MCE/WMP GUIDE

1. Download and Install one of the FLAC Directshow Filters. These filters allow you to play FLAC files in Windows Media Player. The most popular being the Illiminable Directshow Filter.

Illiminable Ogg Directshow Filter

Core Flac Directshow Filter

2. Download and Install WMP Tag Support Extender: This plugin allows Ape, MPC, WavPack, OptimFROG, AAC, Flac and Ogg (read only) tags to be used in Windows Media Player and added to the library in Windows Media Center Edition. Be sure to use the latest version.

WMP Tag Support Extender

3. Configure the WMPTSE Plugin: Open WMP and go to Options. Click on the Plugin-Ins Tab and then choose the Background category. Then make sure there is a check in the box for the WMPTagSupportExtender Plugin and choose Properties.

Once in the Properties you can configure how the plugin refreshes the media library as well as additional Read/Write options. There is also a Refresh Now button for refreshing your library.

4. Open MCE/WMP and add new files to your library. Better results are obtained by using Add Folders instead of Scan for Media.

5. Enjoy!

*MCE/WMP Tips*

First Car With Support For FLAC & OGG

2005-12-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

Volvo has worked with the designers of PhatNoise to create the Volvo Digital Jukebox, a jukebox system that allows you to sync your audio files from your PC to the car and then control then via the head unit located in the Volvo's dashboard console. The permanent "Master Unit" is located in the trunk and then a portable cradle is used with 20GB DMS cartridge so you can sync with your PC via USB 2.0. The system currently supports MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC and OGG. The Digital Jukebox is available for the S60, V70, XC70 and S80 models with a RTI after September 2001.
Read More From Volvo...

Read More From Phatnoise...

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OptimFROG Turns 4!

2005-12-20T10:33:00.000-05:00

On Dec. 16th 2001 OptimFROG 4.0b was released into the world providing at the time, the best lossless compression available.
The upcoming release of OptimFROG due out in the next few weeks will have the following features:

significantly improved compression [done, integrating into mainstream OFR]
creation of self extracting archives, 30kB only SFX code for Windows [90%]
ID3v2 tags support [90%]
utility for gapless joining of multiple OptimFROG files [50%]

Future Features:

multichannel support
cue sheet support
Darwin/MacOS and PocketPC port (*OptimFROG was successfully ported to HP 4150 PPC)Adobe Audition plug-in
integrated GUI interface and automated installer with plug-ins
recovery of data from severely broken files

Read More...

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iTunes to Meedio Playlist Converter

2005-12-19T17:42:00.000-05:00

MITPlaylists is a utility that enables you to convert your iTunes playlists to Meedio playlists by matching your iTunes audio files with the same Meedio audio file and then creating a playlist in Meedio.
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MediaMonkey: Media Jukebox and Organizer

2005-12-18T10:17:00.000-05:00

Ventis Media is the purveyor of MediaMonkey, a full featured media jukebox and music organizer. MediaMonkey is able to tag,organize, encode, decode, play and synchronize your audio files and works with a wide variety of lossless formats.
The tagging capabilities include the standard ID3 editor (ID3v1 & ID3v2) as well as an APE2 editor, WMA editor, WAV editor and OGG editor for both OGG and FLAC tagging. There is also a built-in Auto-Tagger which pulls info from Amazon. I found that tagging was much easier and alot faster than the application I was using previously, Tag&Rename. It also worked alot fast across my network as all of my audio files are on a media server. And if you have a large collection that is spread out over multiple folders, the Auto-Organize feature can help you organize files by allowing you to choose your own filing system such as \Artist-\Track. This is accomplished by entering a destination mask (*See image below) which makes it much easier for 1st time taggers.

MM 2.4 also has encoding support with a OGG Encoder, LAME encoder, WMA Encoder and in the upcoming version 2.5 a FLAC Encoder has been added as well. Due to the fact that many Winamp plugins are supported the possibilities are endless (*see image below). So if the format you want to transfer to doesn't have a built-in encoder then you can download the plugin. The website has a list of input/output, DSP, and visualization plugins that can be downloaded from the Winamp website.

Another interesting feature is MediaMonkey's ability to synchronize with portable devices. Supported devices include the Ipod, most USB MASS Storage devices and the iRiver 1xx and 3XX HDD Players. A really cool synchronization feature of the upcoming version of MM 2.5 is the ability to encode to the format of your choice as you are synchronizing (*See image below). Currently all of my files are in FLAC so when synchronizing my girlfriends iRiver H320 MM will automatically encode my FLAC files to OGG while transferring them to the H320. The rest of synchronization features are what you would expect, you can specify to synchronize everything or on sync specific Artists, Albums or Playlists.

Another interesting item is the Wishlist Forum where users can post items that they want supported in MM. Along with the wishlist forum is The Official Wishlist thread where the developers list the order of importance for different features as they are developed! Too bad all developers don't do this.
MM offers a Gold version for $19.95. The Gold Version gives you the following additional features:

File Monitor (automatically updates library)
Advanced Searches and AutoPlaylists
Advanced Portable Device Synchronization
Unlimited MP3 encoding
Virtual CD
Filters
Previews
Sleep Timer

Future Versions

2.5 (beta)
2.5 Lossless Updates
-New framework that allows anyone to develop an encoding plugin.
-A FLAC encoding plugin using the new framework

2.6
-Ape Encoder (potential)

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VitalStream partners with MusicGiants, Inc.

2005-12-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

VitalStream, Inc. a global provider of streaming audio and video services and has agreed to provide distribution of lossless audio for MusicGiants, Inc. MusicGiants is the first to offer the entire catalogs in lossless audio format for major labels like Sony, Universal Music Group, EMI Music and Warner Music Group. The only format available is DRM-protected WMA Lossless files.
Read More...
And More...

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Escient Fireball SE-D1 DVD/CD Music Manager

2005-12-13T11:32:00.000-05:00

Escient has released the Fireball SE-D1 a DVD and CD Manager that can be used with Sony DVD/CD changers. The SE-D1 supports both FLAC and MP3.
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Ape,MPC, Flac, Ogg Tags in Windows Media Player

2005-12-11T00:11:00.000-05:00

Currently Windows Media Player cannot handle Flac tags but with the WMP Tag Support Extender ( WMPtagsupportextender) WMP can handle Flac, Apple and Ogg Vorbis metatags such as Artist, Album,etc.

Currently Supports
- Monkey's audio (*.ape)
- MusePack (*.mpc)
- WavPack (*.wv)
- OptimFROG (*.ofr)
- FLAC (*.flac)
- Vorbis Comments (*.ogg) <- READ-ONLY Read More...

Sony's Lossless Format

2005-12-08T17:26:00.000-05:00

Sony has developed a new lossless format called Advanced Lossless Technology or ATRAC. Support for ATRAC has appeared on the MZ-DH, MZ-RH and MZ-DN series of MD players as well as the MD Player/Recorder MDS-JE480. This new format has two types of data Atrac3 and Atrac3plus and uses something called "scalable compression". With "scalable compression" the device determines whether to use compression or not. This enables a user who wants lossless audio and has a portable device to have just one file type instead of having to create a lossless version and a lossy version.

Read More...
Sony's ATRAC Listening Tests

MEDIA RAGE: MAC OS X Media Tools

2005-12-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

Media Rage by Chaotic Software is a set of 17 media tools for MAC OS X and is geared towards those with large media collections. Media Rage can handle MP3, AAC\MP4, FLAC, AIFF, WAVE, BWF and OGG Vorbis as well as Exif data from digital images.
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Grateful Dead Lossless Archives Removed From Archive.org?

2005-12-01T23:44:00.000-05:00

The Internet Archive website reacted to a request by the Grateful Dead to remove the GD archives and make it available for streaming only. But based on this post it seems that the Internet Archive reacted too quickly in trying to comply with GD's request. Instead of wanting all of the GD archives taken down the Grateful Dead representatives just wanted the soundboard recordings removed and made available as streaming media and the audience files available as both downloads and streaming. For those of you who are not familiar with the Internet Archives vast archive of music they have a lot of Shorten and FLAC encoded audio for free that is meticulously handled and seeded. There is a petition going for those that don't agree with GD demanding the removal of the soundboards.
Read More

Sign Petition

UPDATE: Phil Lesh has also just posted a message on Phillesh.net. Click on the 11.30 Update Message at the top of the screen.

Flac with Itunes?

2005-11-30T20:19:00.000-05:00

Xiph QuickTime Components (XiphQT) is a project that is working on plugins that will allow Xiph formats to be played in Quicktime based software such as Itunes. While XiphQT is in the beginning phases it is currently the only actively developed solution for playing Ogg and Flac in Itunes on both PC and MAC
Read More...
Downloads

Support New Orleans Recovery with Lossless Music?

2005-11-29T08:55:00.000-05:00

Nugs.net, a live music download service has gathered a group of musicians together to provide tracks that will benefit New Orleans charities that aid local musicians. The artists involved are some of the greatest improvisional bands to date including Widespread Panic, Trey Anastasio of Phish, Jerry Garcia Band, David Grisman Quintet, New Riders of the Purple Sage and the list goes on. Many of the tracks available have never been released and are available in both MP3 and FLAC.
Read More...

New Lossless Format from Kenwood

2005-11-23T14:21:00.000-05:00

Kenwood has a new HD-based audio player due out sometime in December labeled as the HD30GA9. What is interesting about this release is the refernce to a new proprietary lossless format called Kenwood Lossless. As of this posting I have been unable to find any additional information on this lossless format. If you know anything about it please post of e-mail me and I will add it to this post. The press release on the HD30GA9 dubbed the "Music Keg" does have some information but the Babelfish translation didn't make much sense.
Read More...

Press Release (babelfish)

Features:

Size:61×104×17mm
Weight: 140 g
2.2 QVGA Screen
30GB HD
USB 2.0
RF-shielded chassis
WMA 48kbps - 192kbps
MP3 32kbps - 320kbps
WAV
Kenwood Lossless

Turntable with Hard Drive & Lossless Audio

2005-11-22T19:04:00.000-05:00

The Nurmark HDX is the next generation in turntables sporting a removable 80GB hard drive, CD player and support for FLAC, WAV, OGG, WMA and MP3. With a hard drive you don't have to worry about hauling milk crates of vinyl all over town but at 22 pounds its not exactly light either.

Other Features

Onboard Gracenote CDDB database
USB Connectivity
PC & MAC
Midi In/Out
Digital Output
RCA In/Out
PS2 QWERTY Keyboard

Video Demo Stream: Large or Small

Video Demo Download: Windows Media or Quicktime

Rockbox Coming to the iRiver H300 Series?

2005-11-21T15:49:00.000-05:00

Rockbox is an open source operating system for music players that started in 2002 and was initially developed for the Archos DAP. Since then a port for the iRiver H100 series (110,120,140) has been developed and received alot of attention. More recently the port for the H300 series has begin to appear in the current build list on the Rockbox website and while the developers of RB have not announced a completion date you can follow the builds and feature completion lists on there website.One of the most exciting features of the Rockbox H300 port is it's ability to add support for additional audio formats. This is attributed to the way the Iriver handles the decoding which is all done in the software. The H300 port will bring support for FLAC, WavPack, AAC, Shorten, Apple Lossless, WAV, Musepack and AC3. For more information on the additional features of the H300 port you can visit the Rockbox website.
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Codec Status
History of Rockbox

TrueHD, Dolby's New Lossless Format for HD-DVD

2005-11-19T11:28:00.000-05:00

At the recent CEDIA Expo Dolby announced a new lossless audio format to be used on the upcoming Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs. This new format called TrueHD is touted as a update for the MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) format that was developed by Meridian and currently used on DVD-Audio discs. Dolby TrueHD also supports the new speaker locations set by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and has been chosen as the mandatory format for all HD-DVD discs but an optional format for Blu-ray discs.

MLP
9.6-13.8Mbps bit rate
Support for 6 Full-Range Channels at 24-bit/96kHz

TrueHD
18Mbps bit rate
Support for HDMI
Support for 8 Full-Range Channels at 24-bit/96kHz
Dialog Normalization Between Other Dolby Sources
Extensive Metadata

WavPack 4.3 Released

2005-11-14T09:07:00.000-05:00

WavPack Releases 4.3

4.3 Features

Compatible with virtually all PCM audio formats including 8, 16, and 24-bit ints; 32-bit floats; mono, stereo, and multichannel; sampling rates from 6 to 192 kHz
Multiplatform support including Windows, Linux, and OS X
Instantly seekable and streaming capable
Error-tolerant block format conducive to hardware decoding
Optional "asymmetrical" mode for improved compression
MD5 audio checksums for verification and identification
Unique hybrid mode (provides high quality lossy + "correction" file
Hybrid mode now operates as low as 2.25 bits/sample (or 196 kbps for CD audio)
Free and open source with easy to use library interface and unrestrictive license (BSD)
Intuitive command line interface (with wildcards and destination directory)
Small, efficient executable (no large programs or dlls to install)
Fully backward compatible to WavPack 1.0
Self-extracting archives (Windows only)
Complete piping support

Meedio 1.38 Released w/ Updated Music Player

2005-11-13T09:26:00.000-05:00

While I am still putting together a more detailed overview of Meedio's lossless audio features Meedio released version 1.38. With this upgrade comes a very welcome update for the BASS sound engine. Bass Sound Engine 2.2 includes native support for AC3, FLAC, ALAC, APE, MPC, WV and SPX! Meedio previously supported Flac, WavPack and Ape with plug-ins but now it is native. (Thx Bora Bora)
Another feature added in this release is support for ASIO in the Bass Music Player. For those of you who don't know what ASIO is....... ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) and KS (Kernal Streaming) allow you to bypass the Windows Kmixer and work directly with the soundcard. The reason why you want to bypass Kmixer is because it resamples audio which degrades the sound quality. To benefit from ASIO you need a soundcard that supports ASIO and there are many to choose from.
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*Following this post will be a 2 part article on how to achieve bit perfect output.

MS300 Music Server

2005-11-12T10:41:00.000-05:00

McIntosh Laboratory, Inc. makers of high-end AV components has released the MS300 Music Server. The MS300 is a 300GB music server with wide range of features that allow for computer like control in an AV component. Control can be managed via the included wireless keyboard, remote control or the web-based interface anywhere on your network. The built-in CDRW allows for encoding to both FLAC and MP3 and there is also a connection for external changers enabling you to connect your 400 disk CD changer and rip until the sun comes up. Another interesting feature is the ability to stream audio files across your network using the built-in Ethernet port or a wireless connection. To connect the MS300 to a wireless network a Ethernet to Wireless Bridge must be used. McIntosh laboratory has also stated that an upgrade available sometime in late 2006 will enable users to connect 2 MS300's in a Peer-to-Peer network. While the MS300 is not cheap it certainly has a lot of features for a single component.
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Xbox 360 and the Ipod.

2005-11-08T10:26:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting article from The Register regarding Apple's lack of cooperation with Microsoft to add support for the Ipod and Itunes to work with the Xbox 360. The final word in the article states a few reasons why the Xbox 360 will still be able to work with the Ipod and Itunes.

The AAC audio format is part of the MPEG 4 standard.

Open source Apple Lossless decoders.

Third-party utilities that show how tracks are stored on the Ipod.

Another Pocket PC Player w/ FLAC Support.

2005-11-07T08:59:00.000-05:00

Conduits who is the maker of many popular PPC applications has released a new version of its audio player, Pocket Player 2. New to version 2.61 is support for FLAC. The details on FLAC support have not been released but as soon as I can get them I will update this post.
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Feed Issues

2005-11-06T10:32:00.000-05:00

Feed should be working correctly now. Thanks to those who notified me of this!

iAudio U3: First Flash-Based Player w/ FLAC Support.

2005-11-05T17:07:00.000-05:00

Cowon who is famous for there iAudio M3 and X5 HD-based players is preparing to release the flashed-based iAudio U3. While the U3 is not currently listed on the US website the Korean ite is showing the U3 with support for MP3, WMA, Ogg, ASF, Xvid Mpeg4 and FLAC (0,1,2). Based on a Babelfish translation there will be a 512, 1 and 2GB models available in Noble White and Platinum Black. The other features are similar to the iAudio family of music players like line -in recording, FM radio, voice recording, etc.

Specifications

OS: Linux

Codecs:
MP3: MPEG 1,2,2.5,3 layer, ~320kbps, ~48khz, mono/stereo
WMA: ~256kbps, ~48khz, mono/stereo
OGG: ~Q10, ~44.1khz, mono/stereo
FLAC: Compression Level 0/1/2, ~44.1khz, mono/stereo
WAV: ~48khz, 16bit, mono/stereo
Xvid Mpeg4 with 160x128 @ 15 fps

Files:
JPG, PNG, BMP, TXT

Display:
1.2" 160x128 pixels, 260,000 color TFT LCD

Battery:
20 Hours for Audio

Storage:
512, 1 and 2GB

Size:
31.5 x 72.0 x 18.0 mm

Weight:
32.5g

Connections:
USB 2.0

Pocket PC Player w/ Flac Support

2005-11-04T16:47:00.000-05:00

iPlay is a client audio player and recorder for the Pocket PC that has both client and server applications available. There is also a Smartphone version currently in development that should be available soon. iPlay has a wide variety of features and capabilites for a Pocket PC player but why we are so interested in it is because of its ability to play some lossless audio files as well as its support for true gapless playback.

Some of the More Interesting Features:

Plays Mp4 files from ITunes store.

FLAC cover art support.

QVGA and VGA Display Modes.

True Gapless playback for FLAC, WAV and Ogg.

Decoders for MP3, MP4/M4A, AAC, Ogg, WAV and FLAC.

Wifi and Bluetooth Streaming using Server Application.

ID3, Meta-data, Itunes tag display and embedded album art.

*Smartphone Users: iPlay is not currently supported for use with Smartphones but there is an alternative until development is completed.
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Toast 7 Titanium w/ FLAC & Ogg Vorbis Support.

2005-11-03T11:37:00.000-05:00

Roxio has released its latest version of Toast. Toast 7 Titanium finally includes Native Support for Ogg Vorbis and FLAC and so far early reports are good. Another great feature is support for Disc Spanning allowing you to write large amounts of data across multiple CD/DVD disks. This is a feature that many CD/DVD applications are lacking and can be a very helpful feature when backing up lossless audio files onto DVD's.
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And More...

Automated Lossless Encoding to Olive's Symphony & Musica.

2005-11-01T16:29:00.000-05:00

Olive offers two versions of there wireless digital music center. The Symphony (80GB) and Musica (160GB) both allow you to insert a CD into the built-in CD player and encode to a variety of lossless formats including WAV, AIFF and FLAC. You can also connect a external devices such as a tape player, record player, etc and encode to the format of your choice. Ad the Sonata Wireless Receiver and you can have music playing throughout the house but it is not cheap at $1100.00. The Symphony comes in black and the Musica is a brushed metal silver.
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And More...

A New Kind of Record Label?

2005-10-31T15:01:00.000-05:00

Magnatune is an experimental record label. The idea is that Megatune provides an alternative to the big record labels. Magnatune offers albums in FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, and VBR MP3 and all files are DRM free. Albums start at $5.00 and once downloaded can be transferred to CD, mobile audio players or file sharing networks.
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