Summary
- Free Lossless Audio Codec
- Best Lossless Audio Codec
- Free Lossless Audio Codec Player
- Free Lossless Audio Codec For Mac Download
- Free Lossless Audio Codec Download
![Audio Audio](/uploads/1/1/7/8/117804387/556976429.jpg)
Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is an audio compression codec which employs a lossless data compression algorithm. A digital audio recording compressed by FLAC can be decompressed into an identical copy of the original audio data. FLAC-Free Lossless Audio Codec FLAC is a free lossless compressed audio format which supports streaming and archival. The FLAC project maintains the format and provides a reference encoder/decoder and input plugins for several popular audio players.
![Free Lossless Audio Codec For Mac Free Lossless Audio Codec For Mac](/uploads/1/1/7/8/117804387/810089007.png)
FLAC means Free Lossless Audio Codec. As its name implies, this file format is an audio coding format that compresses the audio file to around half of its original size. It can produce exactly the same quality as the identical copy of the original source when decompressed. Because of this reason, those who want to save a copy of the original CD tend to choose FLAC to preserve the sound over other lossy audio formats. This is meant to prevent the original source from being damaged or lost.
Initially, FLAC was introduced in place of other lossless audio formats such as ALAC, WAV and WMA Lossless. By comparison with these file formats, FLAC has its own advantages and is compatible with lots of music players. For example, as opposed to WAV in large file size, FLAC offers premium quality with half the size and supports metadata tagging and album cover art and so forth. Normally, you can rip an CD to get FLAC files which can be converted to other lossy formats like MP3 and AAC for some specific purposes.
Main Features
- Lossless compression. The audio data would be lossless when being encoded (see how to convert lossless FLAC), which makes audio with FLAC format remaining its original sounds.
- Fast speed in decoding.
- Hardware supported. FLAC is the only widely hardware supported lossless audio codec since 2012.
- Available in stream media.
- Positioning supported.
- Suitable for archives applications. Since FLAC is an open and lossless audio codec, it can be converted into any required format. When it encodes, FLAC will compare with the original data and send notice if the data were different when checking.
- Flexible metadata. It can be defined and improved with no effect on the use of data stream and encoder.
- Convenience for copying data from DVD. There is a cue form on the FLAC, which stores all the contents and soundtracks in a single file. Whenever your CD damaged, another duplicated audio can be copied from the backup file.
- Anti-damage: Thanks to its frame structure, the loss could be controlled within damaged frames when the data stream was corrupted.
Visit our: How to Convert FLAC to Apple Losselss on a Mac
Difference between MP3 and FLAC
Both MP3 and FLAC are an open format without DRM. MP3 is a lossy music format. That is to say, MP3 audio files are greatly compressed in order to reduce the file size to save more space. In contrast, FLAC is an lossless file format and six times as large as MP3 in file size. However, FLAC is 50 percent the size of CD and still distributes excellent sound quality. Frankly speaking, MP3 will not be replaced by FLAC, but if the sound quality is your top priority, then FLAC is the best bet.
How to play FLAC
Free Lossless Audio Codec
The problem with FLAC is the inability to be supported by iOS devices natively. However, there are a few apps in the App Store that allow you to support FLAC audio format such as FLAC Player and Capriccio. For Android users, this is less of a problem since FLAC can be supported from Android 3.1 and up. For windows platform, there are many useful players like Windows Media Player and JRiver. For Mac to include FLAC files for playback, downloading Fluke will be fine.
List of Top Video Codecs
Background knowledge does matter a lot in learning something new. The same applies to know the best lossless video codec. Prior to go directly to the best visually lossless video codecs, you'd better have a basic understanding about the current most popular video codecs and their advantages and disadvantages. Thus, it would be much easier for you to conclude the best virtually lossless video codecs. Certainly, you can skip this part and jump to the section you need if you know a thing or two about the top video codecs. If not, you're suggested to spend 2 mins here reading the brief introductions of best video codecs.
H264: is one of the most commonly used video compression standard for video recording, compression and distribution. Since H264 is jointly developed by ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (standard setter of H261, H262, H263) and ISO/IEC JTC1 Moving Picture Experts Group (standard setter of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4), H264 is also called MPEG-4 AVC or MPEG-4 Part 10. It's extended from H263, MPEG-4 Visual and extended to H265 (HEVC).
Pros: 1. Unparalleled compatibility, accepted by almost any device, player and platform.
2. Keep good balance between file compression and quality, virtually lossless in quality.
2. Keep good balance between file compression and quality, virtually lossless in quality.
Cons: The H264 file size of 4K/8K Ultra HD is comparatively large in size.
MPEG-4: also a compression standard of audio and video digital data, absorbs a lot from its predecessors MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and others. Different from H264, MPEG-4 is an evolving standard, disintegrated into several parts, including MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Part 10, MPEG-4 Part 14, MPEG-4 Part 16, etc.
Pros: 1. Supported by most devices and platforms.
2. Produce excellent output quality, visually lossless.
2. Produce excellent output quality, visually lossless.
Cons: The compression ability is still needed to get improved.
H265 (HEVC): the abbreviation of High Efficiency Video Coding (aks. MPEG-H Part 2), is a compression algorithm, much more efficient than its predecessor H264. When it comes to compare H265 with H264, the biggest difference lies in coding tree units. The pattern CTU sizes in HEVC can be extended from 16×16 pixel to 64×64 while H264 only has the power to support the block-size up to 16x16. Basically, HEVC offers around double compression ratio compared with H264, which makes it a primary choice to shrink and encode video to 4K/8K Ultra HD video.
Best Lossless Audio Codec
Pros: 1. High compression ratio, 2 times that of H264.
2. High effeciency without the expense of quality. Highest possible quality is guaranteed.
2. High effeciency without the expense of quality. Highest possible quality is guaranteed.
Free Lossless Audio Codec Player
Cons: Higher demands on hardware configurations. The video codec compatibility leaves something to be desired.
Free Lossless Audio Codec For Mac Download
Video Codecs | Definition | Advantages | Disadvantages |
WMV | the short form of Windows Media Video, WMV is a series of video codecs developed by Microsoft, with a purpose to replace QuickTime related tech standards and WAV/AVI file extension names. | 1. ASF container format to contain the encoded multimedia content. 2. High data compression ratio, suitable for online video streaming. | Obvious quality loss |
VP8 | developed by Google, has something similar to H264, also a block-based transform coding format. It's usually contained by MKV or WebM container format with Vorbis and Opus audio. | 1. Royalty-free public license, no patent fees. 2. Keep an even development between video file size and video quality. | 1. Slightly lower quality than H264, visually no difference. 2. Poor compatibility. |
XviD/DivX | a video codec library with ability to abridge length file to smaller size while maintaining highest possible quality. As the successor to DivX, XviD is now in active with MPEG-4 ASP standard to encode video with .AVI file extension name. | Excellent output quality Script fonts for machine embroidery. | 1. Weak compression ability. 2. Poor compatibility. |
MPEG-2 | a video codec standard widely used in digital television broadcasting and DVD video. | Excellent video quality | 1. Large in file size. 2. Less compatible with mobile devices. |
MPEG-1 | the predecessor of MPEG-2, used mainly in VCD. | Excellent in quality | Poor in size and compatibility |
Free Lossless Audio Codec Download
After reading the above explainations of the most commonly used video codecs, you may have an overall understanding about the 8 video codecs. Yet, it's still hard to distinguish the delicate difference among some similar video codecs in respect of quality video compression ratio and file size. To make this clear, here we conduct a real test on these video codecs and use the actual test data to help you tell the specific differences among them.
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