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  #41  
Old 2005-04-16, 08:43 PM
uhclem
 
Re: Why is FLAC supposedly so bad?

Quote:
Originally Posted by New Homebrew
No SBE correction on the frontend, sadly.
This is true, but FLAC would still be permitted here of course. People who don't know how to use shntool to fix SBEs could stick with FLAC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzbo
One of the things that is unfortunate is that the feature that stores an md5 in the header is an option, and not the default from what I can tell.
This is true. I agree that md5 storage should be the default, but it's not. We should probably institute a rule that if you use Wavpack you must either store the md5 checksum or provide a list of the checksums (for situations where people got the files elsewhere and they didn't have the md5 in the metadata).
Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzbo
I also think if the format was allowed, proof should be required for any torrents that the files are in fact lossless. wavpack is a hybrid format and it is possible to create lossless files. It is even possible to do 'stupid' things with it like create 'lossy' files at 600kbps that are nearly as big as the lossless compressed version, but will unpack differently than the original file. Luckily, it is very easy to check using wvunpack if the file was compressed in a lossless or lossy fashion.
This shouldn't be a problem since, as you point out, there is a verify function that confirms whether the files are lossless or not. Also, very few people actually use the hybrid format afaik so it's unlikely to appear (but that could change). I agree that a log should be provided showing that the files are lossless.

Both of these situations can be taken care of by providing an output from wvunpack.exe with the -mv argument, which tells wvunpack to calculate the md5 and verify the integrity of the data. This is very similar to the FLAC verify function, but it also shows whether the files are lossless or lossy.

Currently the only downside I can think of is that it appears that shntool no longer works with the newest version of wavpack that just came out (v4.2) (except perhaps by using the 'custom' work-around). Hopefully shntool will be updated in the near future to deal with this.
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