ATRAC advanced lossless compression

[johnobuttons]

Sonicstage 3.3 has a new feature called ATRAC advanced lossless compression.

Lossless is definitely good in that it means that what is stored is as good as the original. Think WAV or PCM.

I ripped a couple of CD's in advanced lossless compression just to see what happened. Sonicstage put some big (think 60% of size of WAV or PCM) files on my hard disk.

I was able to use those files to put atrac3plus files on my Hi-MD recorder with any bit rate available to SonicStage. Thats handy since maybe sometime you want Hi-LP, the next time you want Hi-SP, and the next time Atrac3Plus 352kbit. All of them work on first or second generation hi-md units.

It's also possible to burn an audio CD using these lossless compressed files.

However, SONY always forgets something. It would be nice to be able to make WAV files or something like WAV files from these advanced lossless compressed files. Does anyone know if that's possible or do you have to burn a CD and then rip the tracks to get a WAV?

[The Low Volta]

check these forums for more info on atrac advanced lossless... as it should actually be titled atrac advanced useless!

you need to choose a bitrate for the lossless file... this already indicates "excrement ready for hitting a fanlike thingy" if you want to transfer in the bitrate you chose, no probs, it will simply do this (just like a normal ransfer without lossless in between) but if you choose any other bitrate it won't convert from a lossless file to that bitrate, but instead it uses a lossy file in the bitrate you first indicated for the lossless file and converts that to another bitrate which means SQ suffers

besides there are no DAP that can use A-lossless, so it's really only good for listening within SS

[pauljones52]

I think A lossless is not that bad! I mean its cleaver how it doesnt need to re encode the file when you transfer it (I always use HISP so choosing the right bitrate doesnt bother me) Thus saving time. It is cleaver in that it uses the ATRAC file within the lossless file, rather than having a lossless and ATRAC file which would take up more disc space. Dont forget that you can play Atrac lossless in windows media player (yeah i know its not the greatest but at least its something!) I dont have enough hard disc space to use this, but I could see how it would be useful. PS watch out when transfering Atrac3Plus 352kbit from atrac lossless johnobuttons as it will not improve quality over 256kb/s. For some reason it does not re encode the file using the whole file, just the ATRAC part (Max of 256kb/s when importing) If you want 352 the only way to do it is via .wav files OR windows media lossless (Which is why some people think it is pretty useless!!)

Edited January 27, 2006 by Matt J

[johnobuttons]

SonicStage 3.4 is the answer! It converts Atrac3plus advanced lossless to WAV. Works great!

[pata2001]

SonicStage 3.4 is the answer! It converts Atrac3plus advanced lossless to WAV. Works great!

How about the issue of transfer? In SS3.3, SS will use the compressed version for transcoding instead of the lossless version, which really makes it useless.

[raintheory]

How about the issue of transfer? In SS3.3, SS will use the compressed version for transcoding instead of the lossless version, which really makes it useless.

I'd love to meet the person that came up with that.

[yanouche]

How about the issue of transfer? In SS3.3, SS will use the compressed version for transcoding instead of the lossless version, which really makes it useless.

wait a minute, it seems like the problem i'm having right now... just installed SS3.4 and got excited about ATRAC lossless option (as i'm using .wav everyday) - more lossless music on one disc seemed so wonderful until... each time i've been transfering ATRAC lossless files onto hi-md, i ended with it being reencoded into 256kbs lossy... tell me it's a nightmare...

[pata2001]

So far, there is no Sony device that support Atrac lossless. The good thing is, now user can rip to Atrac lossless + 352kbps. Still, Atrac lossless is not really useful if it's only playable with Sonicstage.

[atrain]

atrac lossless is a storage format only. rather than keeping your music files in larger & untagged wav files you can keep them in a perfect [ish] root format to transfer to any device at any bitrate without have to transcode.

[pata2001]

atrac lossless is a storage format only. rather than keeping your music files in larger & untagged wav files you can keep them in a perfect [ish] root format to transfer to any device at any bitrate without have to transcode.

Unfortunately, Atrac lossless pretty much fails on most of those aspects.

1. It is larger in size compared to other lossless codec since it also stores a lossy version of the file.

2. It only works with Sonicstage, unlike other lossless codecs like APE or FLAC.

3. No Sony portable/audio devices support the format. All iPods except the shuffle support Apple lossless. Plus, more and more DAP support FLAC.

4. You don't have to transcode, IF you are going to use the exact bitrate you chose while ripping to Atrac lossless. Other than that, you still have to transcode, and worse, Sonicstage use the lossy version instead of the lossless one for transcoding, resulting in worse quality.

If you must use lossless to store your music with Sonicstage, it's better to use WMA lossless, so that at least during transcoding, you're transcoding from a lossless source instead of a lossy one.

[zerodB]

It works like this:

For more info, hit http://www.sony.net/Products/ATRAC3/tech/aal.html

Edited February 5, 2006 by zerodB

[yanouche]

thank you for info !

now i understand why someone wrote somewhere on the board 'ATRAC advance useless'...

[hpmoon]

check these forums for more info on atrac advanced lossless... as it should actually be titled atrac advanced useless!

you need to choose a bitrate for the lossless file... this already indicates "excrement ready for hitting a fanlike thingy" if you want to transfer in the bitrate you chose, no probs, it will simply do this (just like a normal ransfer without lossless in between) but if you choose any other bitrate it won't convert from a lossless file to that bitrate, but instead it uses a lossy file in the bitrate you first indicated for the lossless file and converts that to another bitrate which means SQ suffers

besides there are no DAP that can use A-lossless, so it's really only good for listening within SS

Can you definitively assert, however, that the process of saving an ATRAC Lossless file to WAV format, either directly into a file or onto a CD burn, only draws from the low-bitrate share of the file and not the lossless portion? This is a very important distinction.

[The Low Volta]

please do not post the same question three times hpmoon!

nope, as far as I know the reconversion to wav should use the complete lossless part (unless Sony is really ignorant) but still this doesn't make it right!

- it is useless (as stated above) to transfer to DAP in any other bitrate than the one chosen unless you want to go through the trouble of reverting to wav, then converting to the bitrate of choice

- it is useless as a storage format, as we don't even know how long SS (and HiMD) will remain alive so no way I'm keeping music in a proprietary format unless I have full SQ and totally acessible (i.e. in wav or an open source lossless codec) backups... but then the option to reconvert my A-lossless to wav again becomes pretty much useless again

stay with opensource formats or wma (if you really need direct compatibility with SS as microsoft won't be gone any time soon ) for your library... or don't, your choice... but I'll bet we'll be reading a number of posts like "all my music is trapped in A-lossless and I've already sold my CD's on ebay and now Sony abandons SS and I'm screwed" or something

[hpmoon]

please do not post the same question three times hpmoon!

nope, as far as I know the reconversion to wav should use the complete lossless part (unless Sony is really ignorant) but still this doesn't make it right!

- it is useless (as stated above) to transfer to DAP in any other bitrate than the one chosen unless you want to go through the trouble of reverting to wav, then converting to the bitrate of choice

- it is useless as a storage format, as we don't even know how long SS (and HiMD) will remain alive so no way I'm keeping music in a proprietary format unless I have full SQ and totally acessible (i.e. in wav or an open source lossless codec) backups... but then the option to reconvert my A-lossless to wav again becomes pretty much useless again

stay with opensource formats or wma (if you really need direct compatibility with SS as microsoft won't be gone any time soon ) for your library... or don't, your choice... but I'll bet we'll be reading a number of posts like "all my music is trapped in A-lossless and I've already sold my CD's on ebay and now Sony abandons SS and I'm screwed" or something

Thanks for the response, but honestly, now I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of your assumptions that have actually perpetuated quite broadly across these forums -- and since these forums are just about the only information resource beyond Sony about the ATRAC codec (together with ATRAC Life), bad assumptions can really do a lot of damage.

I have done as much research as possible based on Sony's Web resources as well as these forums (here and at ATRAC Life), and there is absolutely no authority to support your assumption that the low-bitrate portion of an ATRAC Lossless file is exclusively used, all by itself, for re-encoding to a different bitrate. As you know, the Internet is an anonymous resource -- there is no way to read any qualification into the name "The Low Volta" -- if you are a Sony engineer or such other occupation that provides intimate knowledge of Sony's technology, then please reveal who you are, cite some white paper -- cite the actual source. Thank you.

Ironically, there is also no authority to support the assumption you made most recently -- that moving ATRAC Lossless files to WAV format does not involve at all the lower-bitrate portion of the file. Perhaps there is the horror that an ATRAC Lossless file with a 64 kbps counterpart simply uses the latter all by itself to create the WAV file.

But lets assume that your assumption turns out to be true. That's absolutely perfect for my needs -- literally, there is no better outcome for me. I can create a centralized jukebox with lossless playback from my PC. From that jukebox, I can compile my collection into audio CDs for my car and any other audio CD context, largely retaining the fidelity of the original CD. I can also dump the ATRAC 64 kbps quickly onto my Hi-MD player and onto CD-RWs for my ATRAC3plus CD Walkman. The only negative for portable music is that SonicStage would have to convert the 64 kbps portion up to 66 kbps for ATRAC3 (non-plus) compatibility with my Clie TH-55 -- though that's really a limitation of the Clie firmware which is, of course, outdated and past possible revision.

With the advent of SonicStage 3.4, I am disabling all copy protection, therefore as long as I keep an installation disc or backup of SonicStage 3.4 (or higher), your arguments about the dangers of the proprietary technology are moot. I can freely move the files around in perpetuity.

To those who are reading this, I do urge you to never take the advice, or purported expertise, of any single poster in a forum like this. Browse around and you'll usually find opposing viewpoints -- only to be resolved by clarity from the manufacturer. If, on the other hand, you see a signature like, "John Doe, Senior Engineer, ATRAC Division, Sony Electronics Corporation" -- you're onto something.

I intend to contact Sony at the highest level available to get clarity on this, and will post my findings here with an attempt at authenticating the results.

[Qwakrz]

Ok, took me 15 mins to run these tests.... Lets see the outcome..

Ok, Atrac LossLess at 64k and attempting to transcode to 352K onto Hi-MD...

oops, SS reports that the sound quality will be 64kbps even after the transcode. So this proves that SS ignores the lossless part when transcoding to Hi-MD. (this is the stupid bit that I dont understand.... why do it this way)

Ok, take that same file & right click it, choose the option to save as a WAV file. Rip the same track from the same CD in WAV format as well to compaire.

Run FC (file compaire) to see if there are any differences. If the WAV file is transcoded from the lossy part there will be differences throughout the file, from lossless there should be none.

Well, that proves that converting to wav uses the lossless part of the file as well.

One final thought I had was what would happen if you send ATLL and convert it to WAV on the fly same as in my point 1. SS wont do it as its not an option.

Hope that clears things up

Edited February 27, 2006 by Qwakrz

[The Low Volta]

ok thanks qwarkz...you beat me to this!

Thanks for the response, but honestly, now I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of your assumptions that have actually perpetuated quite broadly across these forums

hpmoon... feel free to doubt my comments and to search further... in fact I would advise you to do this. But if you had really researched this into such depts as you claim, you'd have noticed that I'm not "one single" poster here who claims this: I only ty to share what I learned here on MDCF (and which was also proven at that point by other investigative members, so it wasn't just rumours)... it's often because of what we all here just didn't "accept as truth or adequate explanation" from Sony (even the higher hierarchies, which often prove not very trustworthy) that we've built such a big knowledge base here!

but before you start taking things personal (and almost go asking ppl not to believe any of my comments anyway ) please try to search and read all post about such a subject and also to evaluate the numerous posters... I actually have mentioned words like "as far as I know", "I believe", "IIRC", etc. when discussing this and also have pointed to other threads (with more knowledgable ppl explaining the issue) or asked ppl to search this here on MDCF (as I know there's proof of it somewhere but I just can't recall the URL right now, sorry...I'm only human and ppl can search for themselves)...so don't go pointing the "you think you hold the truth"-finger at me... No I don't, I was actually reacting to a number of posts that were yelling "whoopee A-lossless is our saviour" without realizing the restrictions and therefore could misinform a lot of ppl... I thought that pointing such thing out is what makes forums usefull as sources of knowledge?!?

so please relax a bit... yes these things should be proven (the part about the reconversion when selecting a different bitrate was already, just can't remember where... thanks again qwarkz for the recap+additional research) but that's no need to get angry/irritated...

now back to the topic:

But lets assume that your assumption turns out to be true. That's absolutely perfect for my needs -- literally, there is no better outcome for me. I can create a centralized jukebox with lossless playback from my PC. From that jukebox, I can compile my collection into audio CDs for my car and any other audio CD context, largely retaining the fidelity of the original CD. I can also dump the ATRAC 64 kbps quickly onto my Hi-MD player and onto CD-RWs for my ATRAC3plus CD Walkman. The only negative for portable music is that SonicStage would have to convert the 64 kbps portion up to 66 kbps for ATRAC3 (non-plus) compatibility with my Clie TH-55 -- though that's really a limitation of the Clie firmware which is, of course, outdated and past possible revision.

With the advent of SonicStage 3.4, I am disabling all copy protection, therefore as long as I keep an installation disc or backup of SonicStage 3.4 (or higher), your arguments about the dangers of the proprietary technology are moot. I can freely move the files around in perpetuity.

- yes, if you describe your case like that A-lossless could do just what you need, except for that one reconversion hitch

- but WMA-lossless can do all the same things and...better (and believe me, this is hard to say for me as I'm definitely no Micro$oft fanboy ) As I already explained:

* WMA-lossless = lossless so lossless playback on PC

* WMA plays nice with SS so no probs there (including making Atrac CD's etc)

* it converts nicely to ANY bitrate

* it is proprietary, but at least it is from Microsoft (which means it has a longer life expectancy than atrac IMHO) ...discs do disintegrate and HD's will fail

but still... as I already said numerous times before: I'm only giving advice, not selling dogmas and everyone is free to ignore it and do what they want! Just do not simply blacken my (or anyone else's) name cause your idea might differ. Of course I have made mistakes before and will make 'em in the future, I have always been a good sport and accepted any correction... but at the same time I think I (and a lot of other posters here) have helped ppl by repeating/spreading our (little) knowledge.

[hpmoon]

Ok, took me 15 mins to run these tests.... Lets see the outcome..

Ok, Atrac LossLess at 64k and attempting to transcode to 352K onto Hi-MD...

oops, SS reports that the sound quality will be 64kbps even after the transcode. So this proves that SS ignores the lossless part when transcoding to Hi-MD. (this is the stupid bit that I dont understand.... why do it this way)

Ok, take that same file & right click it, choose the option to save as a WAV file. Rip the same track from the same CD in WAV format as well to compaire.

Run FC (file compaire) to see if there are any differences. If the WAV file is transcoded from the lossy part there will be differences throughout the file, from lossless there should be none.

Well, that proves that converting to wav uses the lossless part of the file as well.

One final thought I had was what would happen if you send ATLL and convert it to WAV on the fly same as in my point 1. SS wont do it as its not an option.

Hope that clears things up

Thanks, Qwakrz, this is great news. My primary concern was about being able to faithfully re-create a WAV file from the ATLL file. I was expecting that the file sizes (original WAV file versus recovered WAV file) would be at least slightly different under the best of circumstances because, purportedly, ATLL rips a typical audio CD's contents into a filespace that is 30-80% smaller. Based on your test, it does appear that the ATLL file uses its smaller-than-the-original self to re-create the original, larger WAV file bit-for-bit, down to the last bit! I guess that this is analogous to a ZIP file, in that ZIPped files are always re-created bit-for-bit when unZIPped. I am totally impressed by this (if not skeptical), and will try the same later today.

The only caveat I can imagine is that Sony sets a target file size for the recovered WAV and "fills in" the details, even if the details bit-by-bit do not 100% match the original WAV file. Just a thought. (Are we 100% confident that the FC command compares bit-by-bit rather than total bits? The FC calculation seems to run too fast to perform that analysis.)

The dialog box that you captured does seem pretty conclusive that the 64 kbps portion of the ATLL file bogs down the fidelity at any higher subsequent bitrate. I can reserve the remotest possibility that Sony botched the text in its dialogue box, applying a general warning to any re-encoding from lower to higher bit rates and mistakenly including an ATLL file within that context just because the ATLL file's associated bit rate is lower. It's not unheard of for Sony and other major developers to make this kind of mistake. As you note, it just doesn't make sense.

In the final analysis (if we're there), it seems as though getting around the problem is a fairly simple two-step (which can be done in a batch by selecting multiple files) -- convert the ATLL files back to WAV, then select the WAV files and dump to whatever target ATRAC bit rate you want. When you weigh this burden against the great benefits of ATRAC Lossless that I mentioned in my previous post, I think you have a winner in ATRAC Lossless for the most typical purposes, including mine. Since I've basically made my ATRAC bit rate selection and am sticking to it (64 kbps), there's just no problem here. Sony would do well, though, to upgrade SonicStage on the next go-around to force a re-encoding from the Lossless portion of the ATLL file when the target bit rate is different -- even if this involved an invisible "unpacking" back to WAV followed by a re-encoding to the target, this would dumb things down enough to muffle the complaints.

I am ignoring the B-movie production called "The Low Volta," which turned my caution on anyone's credibility into some kind of crying game, but suffice it to say that your more intellectual analysis was much appreciated.

[Qwakrz]

Just a thought. (Are we 100% confident that the FC command compares bit-by-bit rather than total bits? The FC calculation seems to run too fast to perform that analysis.)

FC is bit for bit and has been for a long time, it reports any bit errors it finds. Its fast because thats all its doing, no conversion or modification. Bit for bit comparisons take very little processing power.

The simple fact that the term "lossless" means no loss seems to have escaped you. What you feed into the Atrac LossLess should be what you get out when its decompressed or they could not call it lossless. There are loads of compression codecs out there that are lossless (Monkey, Flac, WMA Lossless, Atrac Lossless). They all do the same as ATLL and most do it alot better. As has been said quite a few times WMA Lossless is importable into SS but has file sizes even smaller than ATLL because it uses a better encoding method. Again when making a WAV file from a WMALL file you will get back the exact same as you put in, bit for bit with 0 differences.

The dialog box that you captured does seem pretty conclusive that the 64 kbps portion of the ATLL file bogs down the fidelity at any higher subsequent bitrate. I can reserve the remotest possibility that Sony botched the text in its dialogue box, applying a general warning to any re-encoding from lower to higher bit rates and mistakenly including an ATLL file within that context just because the ATLL file's associated bit rate is lower. It's not unheard of for Sony and other major developers to make this kind of mistake. As you note, it just doesn't make sense.

If you dont trust this one then all I can suggest is to find a bit of music that does not compress well to 64K AT3+ (there are loads of them) and try putting both a version that was recorded in ATLL64 and then transcoded upto 352K and a version ripped at 352k from the cd on a Hi-MD together, you will be able to hear the difference. If Sony had used the LL bit of the capture for transcoding then there would be no difference. I know that I can hear a difference so I believe what I see when SS tells me there is a quality loss because my ears have told me its true.

Sony would do well, though, to upgrade SonicStage on the next go-around to force a re-encoding from the Lossless portion of the ATLL file when the target bit rate is different -- even if this involved an invisible "unpacking" back to WAV followed by a re-encoding to the target

I agree on this point, Sony should have done this in the first place.

Edited February 28, 2006 by Qwakrz

[atrain]

I am ignoring the B-movie production called "The Low Volta," which turned my caution on anyone's credibility into some kind of crying game, but suffice it to say that your more intellectual analysis was much appreciated.

I would prefer you refrain from making personal attacks, esp. when the person your are impugning was attempting to help.

also that going alac->wav->required bitrate atrac3/+ is a compromise, the point of a storage or library codec as alac is meant to be, should be library->audio device in chosen format, that is i think the major problem with the alac on this forum. any further technical arguments are mere bagatelles when you consider that the concept is flawed.

[hpmoon]

I would prefer you refrain from making personal attacks, esp. when the person your are impugning was attempting to help.

= eggshell skull. I don't really visit Internet forums to socialize, and leave that to meaningful physical friendships. This is a head place.

also that going alac->wav->required bitrate atrac3/+ is a compromise, the point of a storage or library codec as alac is meant to be, should be library->audio device in chosen format, that is i think the major problem with the alac on this forum. any further technical arguments are mere bagatelles when you consider that the concept is flawed.

I don't have a lot of free time on my hands, so if I want to create a system that serves my needs (and, I would argue, a normal audiophile's needs), I can take Sony's whole point of creating ATRAC Lossless seriously: You don't have to sit and wait for re-encoding to your audio devices' lower bit rates. Even on my mega-fast, super-expensive PC, re-encoding occasion-by-occasion is not a time expense that I can afford (multiplied by a collection of several hundred CDs). I've chosen my portable device bit rate and I'm sticking to it.

So, against the advice given here, I'll start ripping my whole collection into ATRAC Lossless format, and against dogma to the contrary, I advocate it for other music lovers as a perfect compromise technology. (We're allowed to disagree here, right? Not that it matters.)

Edited March 1, 2006 by hpmoon