Free Lossless Audio Codec: Difference between revisions

FLAC
	Popular open source patent free lossless compression scheme.
Developer(s)	Josh Coalson, Xiph Community
Release	2001; 23 years ago
Type	Lossless
Recommended encoder	FLAC v1.4.3 (23 Jun 2023)
Website	http://xiph.org/flac/

VisualWikitext

Latest revision as of 00:32, 20 October 2023

Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is a codec for lossless audio compression. Grossly oversimplified, FLAC is similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, if supported) just like you would a lossy file.

FLAC is natively supported in Android since version 3.1, in Windows 10, and in macOS High Sierra 10.13.

General aspects of the format

FLAC is freely available and supported on most operating systems, including Windows, UNIX (Linux, *BSD, Solaris, OS X, IRIX), BeOS, OS/2, and Amiga. There are build systems for autotools, MSVC, Watcom C, and Project Builder.

The FLAC project consists of:

the stream format
reference encoders and decoders in library form
flac, a command-line program to encode and decode FLAC files
metaflac, a command-line metadata editor for FLAC files
input plugins for various music players

When it's said that FLAC is free, it means more than just that it is available at no cost. It means that the specification of the format is fully open to the public to be used for any purpose, although the FLAC project reserves the right to set the FLAC specification and certify compliance. It also means that neither the FLAC format nor any of the implemented encoding/decoding methods are covered by any known patent. And it means that all the source code is available under open-source licenses. It is the first truly open and free lossless audio format.

Features

Lossless: The encoding of audio (PCM) data incurs no loss of information, and the decoded audio is bit-for-bit identical to what went into the encoder. Each frame contains a 16-bit CRC of the frame data for detecting transmission errors. The integrity of the audio data is further insured by storing an MD5 signature of the original unencoded audio data in the file header, which can be compared against later during decoding or testing.
Fast: FLAC is asymmetric in favor of decode speed. Decoding requires only integer arithmetic, and is much less compute-intensive than for most perceptual codecs. Real-time decode performance is easily achievable on even modest hardware.
Hardware support: Because of FLAC's free reference implementation, low decoding complexity and popularity, FLAC has relatively widespread hardware support compared to other lossless formats.
Streamable: Each FLAC frame contains enough data to decode that frame. FLAC does not even rely on previous or following frames. FLAC uses sync codes and CRCs (similar to MPEG and other formats), which, along with framing, allow decoders to pick up in the middle of a stream with a minimum of delay.
Seekable: FLAC supports fast sample-accurate seeking. Not only is this useful for playback, it makes FLAC files suitable for use in editing applications.
Flexible metadata: New metadata blocks can be defined and implemented in future versions of FLAC without breaking older streams or decoders. Currently there are metadata types for tags, cue sheets, and seek tables. Applications can write their own APPLICATION metadata once they register an ID.
Suitable for archiving: FLAC is an open format, and there is no generation loss if you need to convert your data to another format in the future. In addition to the frame CRCs and MD5 signature, FLAC has a verify option that decodes the encoded stream in parallel with the encoding process and compares the result to the original, aborting with an error if there is a mismatch.
Convenient CD archiving: FLAC has a cue sheet metadata block for storing a CD table of contents and all track and index points. For instance, you can rip a CD to a single file, then import the CD's extracted cue sheet while encoding to yield a single file representation of the entire CD. If your original CD is damaged, the cue sheet can be exported later in order to burn an exact copy.
Error resistant: Because of FLAC's framing, stream errors limit the damage to the frame in which the error occurred, typically a small fraction of a second worth of data. Contrast this with some other lossless codecs, in which a single error destroys the remainder of the stream.

Pros

Portable to many systems
Open source and freely licensed
Hardware support (PhatBox, Kenwood MusicKeg, Rio Karma, etc. See below)
Streaming support
Extremely fast decoding
Supports multichannel and high resolution streams
Supports ReplayGain
Supports cue-sheet (with some limitations)
Gaining wide use as successor to Shorten

Cons

Compresses less efficiently than other popular modern compressors (Monkey's Audio, OptimFROG)
Higher compression modes slow, for little gain over the default setting.
Only integer bit depth (up to 32-bit int) format are supported, or in other words, no floating-point support.

Hardware and software that support FLAC

For a more comprehensive list see the FLAC links page.

Hardware

Car stereo

Kenwood KMM series
Pioneer Car Stereo (search FLAC)
JVC KD-X "Digital Media Receivers" series (almost all)
Soundstream Source Units
Tesla Model S
Citroën DS5
Volvo Sensus (SPA Platform)

Home stereo

Olive's Symphony wireless digital music center
Numark's DJ equipment (HDX and CDX turntables, HDMIX mixer)
Sonos Digital Music System
Slim Devices' Squeezebox networked audio players

Portable

Apple iPod with Rockbox firmware
iAudio M3, M5 and X5
iRiver iHP-120/iHP-140 with Rockbox firmware
Iwod G10
Rio Karma
SanDisk Sansa
TrekStor's Vibez
Devices running Android 3.1+
Pono Player
FiiO X Series

Software

Players Software

Windows
1. foobar2000
2. MediaMonkey
3. MusicBee
4. Winamp
5. AIMP
6. VLC
7. XMPlay
8. MPlayer Console player

Mac
1. foobar2000
2. Cog
3. VLC
4. VOX

Linux
1. Clementine
2. MPlayer
3. MythTV
4. VLC
5. XMMS

Android
1. Poweramp
2. AIMP
3. foobar2000
4. VLC

Frontends (Windows)

foobar2000 Music Converter / Audio Player
FLAC GUI (By Moisés Cardona)
~~FLAC frontend (ktf)~~
~~Windows Frontend (by Speek)~~

Frontends (Mac)

Max

Converters

for a more comprehensive list here
1. dBpowerAMP Music Converter / Audio Player / CD Writer
2. MediaMonkey Music Manager / Audio Player / CD Writer
3. fre:ac Music Converter / CD Writer/Ripper
4. foobar2000 Music Converter / Audio Player

Editors

List of popular audio editors

CD writers/rippers

for a comprehensive list of CD/DVD Writers & rippers
1. Nero
2. CDBurnerXP CD writer
3. MediaMonkey - CD ripper/writer
4. Exact Audio Copy CD Ripper
5. CD Wave
6. Arson
7. Burrrn Audio CD burner
8. CDex CD ripper

Taggers

for a comprehensive list of tag editors [here]
1. Mp3tag - Universal Tag Editor
2. TagScanner - "The Ultimate Tag Editor"
3. foobar2000
4. MediaMonkey - Tagger / Music manager (Including multiple and linked album art support)
5. The GodFather - Tagger / Music manager
6. Tag - for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
7. ~~Case's Tag - Command line tagger~~
8. metaflac - for general metadata (including Vorbis comments) maintenance

Other tools

mkvtoolnix - tool to multiplex FLAC streams inside the Matroska container
metaflac - for general metadata (including Vorbis comments) maintenance, also to calculate ReplayGain values for FLAC files lacking such

Frequently asked questions

Question: Does the compression level affect decompression speed?

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer: In truth, the compression level does affect the decompression speed, but the difference between the various compress levels can barely be measured and is too small to be noticed, even on low-end machines.

Question: What is the best compression level for encoding my music?

Short Answer: The default setting, 5.

Long Answer: Encoding at the default setting will give the best balance between compression and encoding speed. Encoding at 8 can more than quadruple the encoding time, while having an insignificant effect on compression.

External links

FLAC homepage
FLAC discussion board on hydrogenaudio
FLAC v1.4.x Performance Tests on hydrogenaudio
FLAC 1.4.3 topic on hydrogenaudio
FLAC 1.4.2 topic on hydrogenaudio
FLAC 1.4.0 topic on hydrogenaudio
FLAC 1.3.3 topic on hydrogenaudio
FLAC 1.3.1 topic on hydrogenaudio
FLAC 1.3.1 non-SSE2 build for older CPUs on hydrogenaudio
Lossless codec comparison (Jan ’15) on hydrogenaudio by ktf graphs the influence of the chosen encoding level on the encoding and decoding performance of FLAC 1.3.1 and various other lossless codecs. Omion's older test, "File Size vs. Decoding Speed", covers the influence of the chosen encoding level on the decoding speed of FLAC 1.2.1.

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 | type = lossless
 | purpose = Popular open source patent free lossless compression scheme.
 | maintainer = Josh Coalson, Xiph Community
+| released = {{start date and age|2001}}
 | recommended_encoder = FLAC encoder
-| recommended_text = FLAC v1.2.1
+| recommended_text = FLAC v1.4.3 (23 Jun 2023)
-| website = http://flac.sourceforge.net/
+| website = http://xiph.org/flac/
 }}
-'''Free Lossless Audio Codec''' ('''FLAC''') is a codec for lossless audiocompression.
+'''Free Lossless Audio Codec''' ('''FLAC''') is a codec for lossless audio compression.
-Grossly oversimplified, FLAC is similar to [[MP3]], but [[lossless]], meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, if supported) just like you would an MP3 file.
+Grossly oversimplified, FLAC is similar to [[MP3]], but [[lossless]], meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, if supported) just like you would a lossy file.
+FLAC is natively supported in Android since version 3.1, in Windows 10, and in macOS High Sierra 10.13.
 == General aspects of the format ==
@@ Line 22: / Line 25: @@
 * input plugins for various music players
-When it's said that FLAC is ''free'', it means more than just that it is available at no cost. It means that the specification of the format is fully open to the public to be used for any purpose, although the FLAC project reserves the right to set the FLAC specification and certify compliance. It also means that neither the FLAC format nor any of the implemented encoding/decoding methods are covered by any known patent. And it means that all the source code is available under open-source licenses. It is the first truly open and free lossless audio format.
+When it's said that FLAC is ''free'', it means more than just that it is available at no cost. It means that the specification of the format is fully open to the public to be used for any purpose, although the FLAC project reserves the right to set the FLAC specification and certify compliance. It also means that neither the FLAC format nor any of the implemented encoding/decoding methods are covered by any known patent. And it means that all the source code is available under [http://xiph.org/flac/license.html open-source licenses]. It is the first truly open and free lossless audio format.
-Some claim FLAC is the most widely used lossless compression format on UNIX systems, though it seems more likely that shn retains that honor on all OS platforms. FLAC files also can be placed inside an Ogg container using libOggFLAC and libOggFLAC++.
 == Features ==
 * '''Lossless:''' The encoding of audio (PCM) data incurs no loss of information, and the decoded audio is bit-for-bit identical to what went into the encoder. Each frame contains a 16-bit CRC of the frame data for detecting transmission errors. The integrity of the audio data is further insured by storing an MD5 signature of the original unencoded audio data in the file header, which can be compared against later during decoding or testing.
 * '''Fast:''' FLAC is asymmetric in favor of decode speed. Decoding requires only integer arithmetic, and is much less compute-intensive than for most perceptual codecs. Real-time decode performance is easily achievable on even modest hardware.
-* '''Hardware support:''' Because of FLAC's free reference implementation and low decoding complexity, FLAC is currently the only lossless codec that has any kind of hardware support.
+* '''Hardware support:''' Because of FLAC's free reference implementation, low decoding complexity and popularity, FLAC has relatively widespread hardware support compared to other lossless formats.
 * '''Streamable:''' Each FLAC frame contains enough data to decode that frame. FLAC does not even rely on previous or following frames. FLAC uses sync codes and CRCs (similar to MPEG and other formats), which, along with framing, allow decoders to pick up in the middle of a stream with a minimum of delay.
 * '''Seekable:''' FLAC supports fast sample-accurate seeking. Not only is this useful for playback, it makes FLAC files suitable for use in editing applications.
 * '''Flexible metadata:''' New metadata blocks can be defined and implemented in future versions of FLAC without breaking older streams or decoders. Currently there are metadata types for tags, cue sheets, and seek tables. Applications can write their own APPLICATION metadata once they register an ID.
-* '''Suitable for archiving:''' FLAC is an open format, and there is no generation loss if you need to convert your data to another format in the future. In addition to the frame CRCs and MD5 signature, flac has a verify option that decodes the encoded stream in parallel with the encoding process and compares the result to the original, aborting with an error if there is a mismatch.
+* '''Suitable for archiving:''' FLAC is an open format, and there is no generation loss if you need to convert your data to another format in the future. In addition to the frame CRCs and MD5 signature, FLAC has a verify option that decodes the encoded stream in parallel with the encoding process and compares the result to the original, aborting with an error if there is a mismatch.
 * '''Convenient CD archiving:''' FLAC has a ''cue sheet'' metadata block for storing a CD table of contents and all track and index points. For instance, you can rip a CD to a single file, then import the CD's extracted cue sheet while encoding to yield a single file representation of the entire CD. If your original CD is damaged, the cue sheet can be exported later in order to burn an exact copy.
 * '''Error resistant:''' Because of FLAC's framing, stream errors limit the damage to the frame in which the error occurred, typically a small fraction of a second worth of data. Contrast this with some other lossless codecs, in which a single error destroys the remainder of the stream.
@@ Line 39: / Line 40: @@
 == Pros ==
 * Portable to many systems
-* Source open and freely licenced
+* Open source and freely licensed
 * Hardware support (PhatBox, Kenwood MusicKeg, Rio Karma, etc.  See below)
 * Streaming support
@@ Line 51: / Line 52: @@
 * Compresses less efficiently than other popular modern compressors ([[Monkey's Audio]], [[OptimFROG]])
 * Higher compression modes slow, for little gain over the default setting.
+* Only integer bit depth (up to 32-bit int) format are supported, or in other words, no floating-point support.
 == Hardware and software that support FLAC ==
-For a more comprehensive list see the [http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html FLAC links page].
+For a more comprehensive list see the [http://xiph.org/flac/links.html FLAC links page].
 === Hardware ===
+==== Car stereo ====
+* Kenwood [http://www.kenwood.com/cs/ce/audiofile/index.php?model=KMM KMM series]
+* Pioneer [http://www.pioneer.eu/eur/products/25/121/61/overview.html Car Stereo] (search FLAC)
+* JVC [http://mobile.jvc.com/product.jsp?pathId=139 KD-X "Digital Media Receivers" series] (almost all)
+* Soundstream [http://soundstream.com/store/car-video/source-units.html Source Units]
+* Tesla Model S
+* Citroën DS5
+* Volvo Sensus (SPA Platform)
 ==== Home stereo ====
 * Olive's [http://www.olive.us/ Symphony] wireless digital music center
@@ Line 61: / Line 72: @@
 * [http://www.sonos.com/ Sonos Digital Music System]
 * Slim Devices' [http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_squeezebox.html Squeezebox] networked audio players
 ==== Portable ====
 * [[Apple iPod]] with [[Rockbox]] firmware
@@ Line 68: / Line 79: @@
 * [[Iwod G10]]
 * [[Rio Karma]]
+* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SanDisk_Sansa SanDisk Sansa]
 * TrekStor's [http://www.trekstor.de/en/products/detail_mp3.php?pid=66 Vibez]
 * Devices running Android 3.1+
+* [[Pono|Pono Player]]
+* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FiiO_X_Series FiiO X Series]
+== Software ==
+==== Players Software ====
+*Windows
+*# [[foobar2000]]
+*# [[MediaMonkey]]
+*# [[MusicBee]]
+*# [[Winamp]]
+*# [https://www.aimp.ru/ AIMP]
+*# [[VLC]]
+*# [http://www.un4seen.com/ XMPlay]
+*# [http://mplayerwin.sourceforge.net/ MPlayer]  Console player
+*Mac
+*# [[foobar2000]]
+*# [http://cogx.org/ Cog]
+*# [[VLC]]
+*# [http://coppertino.com/ VOX]
+*Linux
+*# [http://www.clementine-player.org/ Clementine]
+*# [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ MPlayer]
+*# [http://www.mythtv.org/ MythTV]
+*# [[VLC]]
+*# [[XMMS]]
-=== Software ===
+*Android
-==== Players ====
+*# [https://powerampapp.com/ Poweramp]
-* [[foobar2000]]
+*# [https://www.aimp.ru/ AIMP]
-* [[JRiver Media Center]]
+*# [[foobar2000]]
-* [[MediaMonkey]]
+*# [[VLC]]
-* [http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ MPlayer]
-* [http://www.mythtv.org/ MythTV]
-* [http://www.videolan.org/ VLC]
-* [http://www.vuplayer.com/vuplayer.htm VUPlayer]
-* [[Winamp]]
-* [[XMMS]]
-* [http://www.un4seen.com/ XMplay]
-==== Frontends (Windows) ====
+===Frontends (Windows)===
-* Custom [http://members.home.nl/w.speek/flac.htm Windows Frontend] (by Speek)
+* [[foobar2000]] Music Converter / Audio Player
-* [http://home.vxu.se/mdati00/frontah/ Frontah] by Madah
+* [https://moisescardona.me/flac-gui/ FLAC GUI] (By Moisés Cardona)
+* <s> FLAC frontend (ktf) </s>
+* <s> Windows Frontend (by Speek) </s>
-==== Frontends (Mac) ====
+===Frontends (Mac)===
 * [http://www.sbooth.org/Max/ Max]
-==== Converters ====
+===Converters===
-* [http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ dBpowerAMP] Music Converter / Audio Player / CD Writer
+*for a more comprehensive list [http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Download_page#Transcoders here]
-* [http://www.mediamonkey.com/ MediaMonkey] Music Manager / Audio Player / CD Writer
+*# [http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ dBpowerAMP] Music Converter / Audio Player / CD Writer
+*# [[ MediaMonkey]] Music Manager / Audio Player / CD Writer
+*# [[fre:ac]] Music Converter / CD Writer/Ripper
+*# [[foobar2000]] Music Converter / Audio Player
-==== Editors ====
+===Editors===
-* [[Adobe Audition]]
+*List of popular audio editors
-* [http://www.goldwave.com/ GoldWave]
+*# [[Audacity]]
+*# [[Adobe Audition]]
+*# [http://www.goldwave.com/ GoldWave]
-==== CD writers/rippers ====
+===CD writers/rippers===
-* [http://www.nero.com/eng/ Nero]
+*for a comprehensive list of CD/DVD [http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Download_page#CD.2FDVD_Writers Writers] & [http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Download_page#CD_Rippers rippers]
-* [http://arson.sourceforge.net/ Arson]
+*# [http://www.nero.com/eng/ Nero]
-* [http://www.burrrn.net Burrrn] Audio CD burner
+*# [http://cdburnerxp.se/ CDBurnerXP] CD writer
-* [[Exact Audio Copy]] CD Ripper
+*# [[MediaMonkey]] - CD ripper/writer
-* [http://cdexos.sourceforge.net CDex] CD ripper
+*# [[Exact Audio Copy]] CD Ripper
-* [http://www.cdwave.com/ CD Wave]
+*# [http://www.cdwave.com/ CD Wave]
-* [http://cdburnerxp.se/ CDburner XP] CD writer
+*# [http://arson.sourceforge.net/ Arson]
-* [http://www.mediamonkey.com/ MediaMonkey] - CD ripper/writer
+*# <!--[http://www.burrrn.net--> Burrrn <!--]--> Audio CD burner
+*# <!--[http://cdexos.sourceforge.net--> CDex<!--]--> CD ripper
-==== Taggers ====
+===Taggers===
-* [http://members.home.nl/w.speek/download/Tag.zip Case's Tag] command line tagger
+*for a comprehensive list of tag editors [[http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Download_page#Tagging_Utilities here]]
-* [http://www.jtclipper.eu/thegodfather/ The GodFather] Tagger / Music manager
+*# [[Mp3tag]] - Universal Tag Editor
-* [http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html Mp3tag] Universal Tag Editor
+*# [http://www.xdlab.ru/en/ TagScanner] - "The Ultimate Tag Editor"
-* [http://sbooth.org/Tag/ Tag] — for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
+*# [[foobar2000]]
-* [http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation.html#metaflac metaflac] - for general metadata (including Vorbis comments) maintenance
+*# [[MediaMonkey]] - Tagger / Music manager (Including multiple and linked album art support)
-* [http://www.mediamonkey.com MediaMonkey] - [[MediaMonkey]] Tagger / Music manager (Including Multiple and Linked Album Art support)
+*# [http://www.jtclipper.eu/thegodfather/ The GodFather] - Tagger / Music manager
+*# [http://sbooth.org/Tag/ Tag] - for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
+*# <s>[http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/tag/ Case's Tag]  - Command line tagger </s>
+*# [https://xiph.org/flac/documentation_tools_metaflac.html metaflac] - for general metadata (including Vorbis comments) maintenance
 ==== Other tools ====
 * [http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/ mkvtoolnix] - tool to multiplex FLAC streams inside the Matroska container
-* [http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation.html#metaflac metaflac] - for general metadata (including Vorbis comments) maintenance, also to calculate [[ReplayGain]] values for FLAC files lacking such
+* [https://xiph.org/flac/documentation_tools_metaflac.html metaflac] - for general metadata (including Vorbis comments) maintenance, also to calculate [[ReplayGain]] values for FLAC files lacking such
-...and many more; see the [http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#software FLAC software section] and [http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html#extras download section] for a more comprehensive list.
 == Frequently asked questions ==
@@ Line 140: / Line 183: @@
 * [[Lossless]]
 * [[Lossless comparison]]
+* [[FLAC decoder testbench]]
-== Externals links ==
+== External links ==
-* [http://flac.sourceforge.net/ FLAC website]
+* [http://xiph.org/flac/ FLAC homepage]
-* [http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html FLAC download]
+* {{ha|http://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/board,67.0.html|FLAC discussion board}}
-* [http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html Detailed description of the FLAC format]
+* {{ha|https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,123025.0.html|FLAC v1.4.x Performance Tests}}
-* [http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation.html FLAC documentation]
+* {{ha|https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,124356.0.html|FLAC 1.4.3 topic}}
-* [http://flac.sourceforge.net/faq.html FLAC FAQ]
+* {{ha|https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,123234.0.html|FLAC 1.4.2 topic}}
-* <s>[http://people.ucsc.edu/~rswilson/flactest Omion's FLAC "File Size vs. Decoding Speed" test]</s> - a very thorough test on [[Free Lossless Audio Codec#Frequently Asked Questions|the influence of the chosen encoding level on the decoding speed of FLAC]]; the only one so far to have covered FLAC's --super-secret-totally-impractical-compression-level to this extent as well.
+* {{ha|https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,122949.0.html|FLAC 1.4.0 topic}}
+* {{ha|https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,118008.msg974100/topicseen.html#new|FLAC 1.3.3 topic}}
+* {{ha|http://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,107611.0.html|FLAC 1.3.1 topic}}
+* {{ha|http://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,107913.0.html|FLAC 1.3.1 non-SSE2 build for older CPUs}}
+* {{ha|http://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,107990.0.html|Lossless codec comparison (Jan ’15)}} by [http://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?action=profile;u=68263 ktf] graphs the influence of the chosen encoding level on the encoding and decoding performance of FLAC 1.3.1 and various other lossless codecs. Omion's older test, "[http://web.archive.org/web/20091108104748/http://people.ucsc.edu/~rswilson/flactest File Size vs. Decoding Speed]", covers the influence of the chosen encoding level on the decoding speed of FLAC 1.2.1.
+[[Category:Codecs]]
 [[Category:Lossless]]
 [[Category:Encoder/Decoder]]