new here. (.flac?)

[allyourbase]

Hello. i happened to run into this site after a few google searches on a hard to find album. im no novice to bittorrent (no expert either) and this seems to be a good community from what ive been reading on the forums. just a few questions i have. this site has some files in formats that are new to me. such as .flac . what is .flac? what do i use with .flac? are there any other weird things i should know befor using this site? how is this site different from ones such as www.demonoid.com or www.torrentspy.com ?

most of all. what is .flac?!? this is bothering me XD. i know its some auido thing, but what do i use to play it? itunes? i like itunes. can it go onto my ipod?

[AAR.oner]

the FAQ should answer most of your questions, but to quickly answer regarding flac, its is a lossles audio format [Free Lossless Audio Codec]...we also allow a few other lossless formats, such as .shn & .ape...

are you on a PC or Mac? that'll help us know what to tell ya...good luck and enjoy the site!

AAR.oner

[allyourbase]

Im running windows xp pro sp2

im used to using just normal auido such as ac3 or mp3 or anything like that. i never even heard of .flac

[Five]

how are you gentlemen

what player are you using?

[GregY]

flac.sourceforge.net

[allyourbase]

well i like to play all my music with itunes, but i can use wmp or somethin like that, but for music i prefer itunes and videos/movies i have nero and powerdvd

[Trader Dave]

how are you gentlemen

what player are you using?
How do you know he's a he? :hmm:

[TheMamba]

how are you gentlemen

:clap: :clap:

How do you know he's a he?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us

http://www.frogstar.com/aybabtu/aa-video.asp

[heyyo]

http://www.google.se/search?hl=sv&q=FLAC&btnG=Google-s%C3%B6kning&meta=

[AAR.oner]

well i like to play all my music with itunes, but i can use wmp or somethin like that, but for music i prefer itunes and videos/movies i have nero and powerdvd

itunes wil not play most lossless codecs...but its kinda shite anyways...if yer on a PC, go with Foobar2000 as yer audio player, VLC as yer video player [tho powerdvd will work fine], and Trader's Little Helper for pretty much everything else
http://www.foobar2000.org/
http://www.videolan.org/
http://thor.prohosting.com/roh0205/

[heyyo]

i would recommend Winamp for playing the files.. (foobar looks so boring xD)
http://www.winamp.com
you need the .flac plugin for it to:
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=143614

[xequence]

Ok... In the world of audio codecs there are two kinds. Lossy (MP3, Vorbis, Musepack, AAC) and Lossless (FLAC, APE, SHN, WAVPACK, WAV). Lossy looses some of the information you arnt supposed to be able to hear when it encodes it, while lossless saves all the information. Lossless codecs are just like RAR or ZIP. There are many popular ones. WAV is just normal uncompressed lossless. Not popular with trading or torrents on the internet. FLAC is the standard for torrents and such, but SHN is often used for concerts taped at sites such as this. I heavily prefer FLAC to SHN. Another popular one is WAVPACK. It is a bit more advanced, and often used by audiophiles (people who demand good quality music and hate everything else). WAVPACK has a hybrid mode where it can make a lossy file, but there will be a restore file that you can merge them together to make it lossless again.

[U2Lynne]

FLAC is the standard for torrents and such, but SHN is often used for concerts taped at sites such as this. I heavily prefer FLAC to SHN.
Actually, if you look at the audio torrents we have going here, I'd say that most of them are flac, not shn (and I'd say that's true at most bt sites nowdays). When torrent sites were first getting started, all you saw were shn torrents. But, nowdays, people prefer to use flac, so you are seeing most of the recently torrented shows being released in flac. (And alot of shn > flac convertions)

[xequence]

Yea, youre right, most of the audio on this site is FLAC. I based what I said on the fact that I have downloaded 5 grateful dead concerts from bt.etree.org and they were all in SHN.

And on all non live show sites, like sites with albums, the only lossless ive ever seen was FLAC (and one time an apple lossless album).

[Five]

How do you know he's a he? :hmm:
What you say !!

[xequence]

i would recommend Winamp for playing the files.. (foobar looks so boring xD)
http://www.winamp.com
you need the .flac plugin for it to:
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=143614

Foobar, boring? O_O

Trust me, its anything but. There are alot of extra components.

http://img386.imageshack.us/my.php?image=foo106wc.png

Thats just a very minimal customization.

[Five]

foobar is fugly but it is also excellent

I still use winamp... trouble is, you have to use a plugin or else configure it specially for seamless playback... when you first install it it adds little gaps between tracks that go largely unnoticed unless you're listening to DSOTM or a live show (as I often do).

once you've got winamp set up it stays that way and works great (also looks beautiful).

I posted the winamp config here:
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=21665

[allyourbase]

alright, thanks a bunch for the help gentelmen and/or ladies