TAK

TAK
File:TAK-logo.gif
lossless audio compression.
Developer(s)	Thomas Becker
Release	TBC
Type	Lossless
Recommended encoder	TAK v1.0
Website	Homepage (german)

General aspects of the format

TAK (Tom's lossless Audio Kompressor) is a lossless audio compressor which promises compression performance similar to Monkey's Audio "High" and decompression speed similar to FLAC. While the basic format is ready and safe to use, many features such as internal tagging, playback support for other players are yet to be implemented.

Features

• high compression
• fast compression and decompression speed
• Streaming support
• Error tolerance
  • single bit error will never affect more than 250 ms
• Error detection
  • each frame protected by a 24-bit checksum (CRC)

Pros

• Fast decompression speed (on par with FLAC / WavPack)
• Good compression levels (on par with Monkey's Audio Extra High)
• Error Robustness
• Fast Seeking

Cons

• Closed Source (at the moment)
• No hardware support
• Very limited software support (Only winamp plugin at the moment, SDK to be released soon)
• Tagging is not mature at the moment (ApeV2 Tags can be added using Foosion's decoder stubble, but the decoder can't read the tags)
• No Hybrid / Lossy Mode

Hardware and software that support TAK

Hardware

• none

Software

• Winamp Plugin 0.0.3 Alpha here

Recommended Settings

• best compression - mode "Extra" with "Maximum" appended
• fastest compression - mode "Turbo"
• use ApeV2 tagging (will be used as internal tagging)

Future Features

• Plugins for other applications, such as Winamp or foobar2000 (a Winamp plugin is already close to completion).
• An SDK for other developers.
• Internal tagging.
• Unicode support.
• Piping support.
• MD5 audio checksums for verification and identification.
• A german version.
• Embedded cue sheets.
• Embedded cover art.
• Multi channel audio.

Frequently asked questions

• to be added

External links

• TAK: Homepage (german)
• TAK: release (english)
• TAK: Download