Word on the street or rather, word from La France is that the Samsung S5 is to get a firmware update that includes FLAC support in the not too distant future. FLAC has become many people’s codec of choice when it comes to real lossless digitization. Isn’t it time that Apple got on board? [DA Preview via Crunch Gear]
Search Results for "flac"
[ May 19th, 2008 ] ... [ C. S. Magor ]
Rumor: Samsung S5 to Get Some FLAC Action Happening
[ May 8th, 2008 ] ... [ C. S. Magor ]
Naim HDX Hard Disk Player With Onboard Ripper Functionality
The Naim HDX Hard Disk Player is a high-end multi-format player with a whole lot going for it. It sports two 400GB HDDs, plays a whole bunch of formats, rips straight from CD and automatically displays track information and album art. While there are other HDD players on the market, they tend to be targeted at the MP3 crowd. There have been countless times that I have found myself asking, “Why don’t they support FLAC.” It is, after all, the key to high-definition sound with an acceptable storage space footprint. The Naim HDX supports WAV, MP3, AAC (m4a only), WMA and the all important FLAC, which puts it steps ahead of most of the competition.
Given that higher-definition formats take up a lot more space than MP3, the 400GB of space will only get you about 600 albums. For most people this would be plenty, but more demanding users might find it a little testing. Naim works around this by providing two USB ports that can be attached to USB drives. USB drives will give you the full range of format support. If you still need more, it can playback WAV and MP3 on any network connected drives. (more…)
[ November 12th, 2007 ] ... [ C. S. Magor ]
Pinnacle’s Hi Def Media Streamer Looks a Low Priced Treat
There are ton of ways to stream media from your PC to your TV, but Pinnacle is hoping that you will choose their ShowCenter 250HD to do the job. It has a lot going for it, both wired and wireless (b/g) connectivity and support for a range of formats.
The formats that the ShowCenter can handle include:
MP3, WMA, WMA Pro, WMA lossless, WMA-DRM, PCM WAV uncompressed, Windows Media Video 9, WMV-DRM, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVI, DivX, XviD files, as well as high-defenition WMV 9, DivX HD and MPEG-4.
Where I believe that this product goes wrong is with the failure to include FLAC support. FLAC is fast becoming the lossless format of choice for music buffs. The other thing that was noticeably absent was an HDMI port. HDMI would have unquestionably raised the price a little bit, but for the performance advantages that it offers, one would think it to be a nice inclusion.
Source: Electronic House
[ October 27th, 2007 ] ... [ C. S. Magor ]
BeoSound 6 as Attractive as it is Expensive
Yes, it would be fair to consider the BeoSound 6 a work of art. It succeeds as a prime example of what B&O do best, making artwork out of technology and making it cost a lot. The BeoSound 6 looks fantastic. The black silicone keypad really accentuates the polished stainless steel and the black leather case looks incredibly plush. It is a nice looking portable music player.
When you really think about it, however, the BeoSound 6 is simply another 4GB MP3 maker in an already flooded market. Bang and Olufsen might claim that it “takes aim at the best portable music players around and beats them,” but I really don’t think that it does. MP3 is a lossy format, and while the BS6 does support OGG, there is precious little support for other lossless codecs. These days with Flac as popular as it is, you have to wonder why the B&O think tank didn’t consider its inclusion. The thing with MP3 is that you don’t need the finest quality player, you are dealing with a subpar format. What you are paying the $600 for in this case is a fashion statement. As for me, I will stick to what I do now, listening to CDs in my car and listening to MP3s on my cell phone.
Source: Oh Gizmo
[ October 14th, 2007 ] ... [ C. S. Magor ]
How to Burn an APE Image with Nero
There are exactly fifty billion different audio formats out there and one that causes a lot of confusion for Nero is APE. APE is a lossless format, which prior to FLAC was very popular. The trouble that some people find when they are backing up their CDs is that they run into errors. Perhaps the most common error is a filename mismatch.
The first thing that you need is the relevant NERO plug-in. Once you have downloaded it, you will need to unpack the DLL into C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\AudioPlugins
Your backup should have two files, an APE file and a CUE file. The single APE file contains all of the tracks on the CD. The CUE contains relevant track lengths. The trouble that a lot of people run into is that they find the CUE references a WAV not the APE file that is in their directory. There is a fix and it is very simple. Open the CUE in your favorite text editor and make a single change.
Change the following line, which is right near top of the text file in line 3.
FILE “ABC123.wav” WAV
TO
FILE “ABC123.ape” MP3
The MP3 is not a mistake. For whatever reason, NERO does not recognize the APE in Line 3. Setting it as MP3 is the only thing that works. Once you have done that go into Nero, select “Burn Image,” choose the CUE file that you just edited and hit “Burn.”
Source: Monkeys Audio
