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Back to ATRAC Advanced Lossless again

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1kyle

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I've been musing around for a while on how to store music 99.99% "ripped" from CD's again.

I started off with Hi-SP @ 256, then experimented with WAV, and ATRAC 3 lossless and have finally decided on ATRAC 3 Lossless (again).

Whilst I know people are pretty dedicated to FLAC and some other lossless formats I've actually found the Atrac Lossless fine for storing on the computer.

I'm aware of the dangers of using a "closed" proprietary format but in this case it's lossless and you CAN convert to WAV so you are not "locked in".

What I find fine with it is that you can easily convert stuff to WAV if you want (no generation loss as you are going from Lossless===> Lossless, and then convert the WAV to any other format you want if you need to rather like extracting a Winzip file and then compressing it to a WINRAR files for example.

Having a smaller library definitely makes it easier to store and process and as I don't have an IPOD or any MP3 player I'm not worried either in conversions.

Computers are pretty fast these days so doing a large number of Batch Conversions (say from AAL ==> WAV won't take a huge amount of time, or even if it does you can do it say at night or whenever.

If the MD system goes the way of the dodo I can always convert to WAV and then use whatever is the next system.

I suspect that if (and when) SONY does come out with a really neat Solid State player / recorder that meets my requirements I'm sure ATRAC will still be around, and there's gossip around that the format might finally be opened up (LINUX --YIPEE).

The only problem I see with ATRAC Lossless (and this is an SS restriction, not a compression problem) is that SS libraries can't span more than 1 physical disc. (Your own WAV files can be stored anywhere as they are just "Data" as far as the computer is concerned - but your SS library can still only reside on 1 physical Disk).

Since I've now got a dedicated 300 GB external disk for this purpose I should be able to store something over 1200 CD's on it using ATRAC lossless. I actually have about 500 CD's currently so this Disk should provide me with more than enough space for the forseeable future.

I like a lot of Classical music and as I've more or less got what I need I don't really buy many CD's any more and for Classical Music don't even THINK of "Music Download Stores" the quality even if you could find the tracks you are interested in would be just too hideous to even bear thinking about.

The 352 ATRAC Lossless seems to me a good method of storing good (lossless) compression and if I need a WAV file doesn't take too long to create one either.

I even convert my own WAV recordings to ATRAC3 Lossless so I've got a consistent format in the library.

I rarely listen to music via a computer but if I do then you can play tracks directly.

It would be nice if the RH1 could play Atrac lossless -- mind you I'm quite impressed with the (compressed) 352 kbs playback in any case.

I think the best advice would be always ensure you have some method of getting back to an original WAV file. SS 3.4 is not so bad so ATRAC 3 lossless is not as useless as some posts suggest it might be.

Flac and other lossless compressions are good but not if you are using SS.

Cheers

-K

Edited by Ishiyoshi
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There is also another usefull feature, if your sound card has a digital audio out ( mine has a coax digital out) and you got a stereo with digital inputs. You can hook your computer up to your stereo, because SS uses the lossless for playback on your computer, you now have a "all of your disc liabary" jukebox!POE

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Theres a few downsides IMO.

No tags when you go via WAV. (yes can be recreated)

You always have to reconvert to use a different player.

You can only convert to WAV or 353kps

If SS gets corrupt you risk losing your library. (has happened to others)

Mind you its not a bad plan if you are decided on Sony only players.

Personally I'm not using Sony players. (except to record) So I'm using FLAC at the moment. Using MediaMonkey I can reconvert on the fly to whatever bitrate I want to either my Zen or iPod Shuffle. Previously I was only using 192-320kps CBR Lame MP3 files.

Edited by Sparky191
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I've been musing around for a while on how to store music 99.99% "ripped" from CD's again.

I started off with Hi-SP @ 256, then experimented with WAV, and ATRAC 3 lossless and have finally decided on ATRAC 3 Lossless (again).

Whilst I know people are pretty dedicated to FLAC and some other lossless formats I've actually found the Atrac Lossless fine for storing on the computer.

I'm aware of the dangers of using a "closed" proprietary format but in this case it's lossless and you CAN convert to WAV so you are not "locked in".

What I find fine with it is that you can easily convert stuff to WAV if you want (no generation loss as you are going from Lossless===> Lossless, and then convert the WAV to any other format you want if you need to rather like extracting a Winzip file and then compressing it to a WINRAR files for example.

Having a smaller library definitely makes it easier to store and process and as I don't have an IPOD or any MP3 player I'm not worried either in conversions.

Computers are pretty fast these days so doing a large number of Batch Conversions (say from AAL ==> WAV won't take a huge amount of time, or even if it does you can do it say at night or whenever.

If the MD system goes the way of the dodo I can always convert to WAV and then use whatever is the next system.

I suspect that if (and when) SONY does come out with a really neat Solid State player / recorder that meets my requirements I'm sure ATRAC will still be around, and there's gossip around that the format might finally be opened up (LINUX --YIPEE).

The only problem I see with ATRAC Lossless (and this is an SS restriction, not a compression problem) is that SS libraries can't span more than 1 physical disc. (Your own WAV files can be stored anywhere as they are just "Data" as far as the computer is concerned - but your SS library can still only reside on 1 physical Disk).

Since I've now got a dedicated 300 GB external disk for this purpose I should be able to store something over 1200 CD's on it using ATRAC lossless. I actually have about 500 CD's currently so this Disk should provide me with more than enough space for the forseeable future.

I like a lot of Classical music and as I've more or less got what I need I don't really buy many CD's any more and for Classical Music don't even THINK of "Music Download Stores" the quality even if you could find the tracks you are interested in would be just too hideous to even bear thinking about.

The 352 ATRAC Lossless seems to me a good method of storing good (lossless) compression and if I need a WAV file doesn't take too long to create one either.

I even convert my own WAV recordings to ATRAC3 Lossless so I've got a consistent format in the library.

I rarely listen to music via a computer but if I do then you can play tracks directly.

It would be nice if the RH1 could play Atrac lossless -- mind you I'm quite impressed with the (compressed) 352 kbs playback in any case.

I think the best advice would be always ensure you have some method of getting back to an original WAV file. SS 3.4 is not so bad so ATRAC 3 lossless is not as useless as some posts suggest it might be.

Flac and other lossless compressions are good but not if you are using SS.

Cheers

-K

I'm not so sure but I remember a post about Atrac Lossless that said that if you convert a 256kbps lossless file to another birate like 352kbps, SS will convert the 256kbps file to 352kbps not the wav file that it's stored in your computer.

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I'm not so sure but I remember a post about Atrac Lossless that said that if you convert a 256kbps lossless file to another birate like 352kbps, SS will convert the 256kbps file to 352kbps not the wav file that it's stored in your computer.

Yes, that is the case, which makes Atrac lossless as useless as it is.

1kyle: If you really have to store your music losslessly, use WMA lossless. SS can read and transcode WMA lossless just fine.

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pata... I was also convinced on uing WMA-lossless... but then some other horror srtuck: this damned codec doesn't keep cd's gapless!

so fact is we're screwed until Sony lets SS play nice with all the directshow codecs so we can use Flac or Wavepack directly in SS

until this is possible... IMHO there is no real lossless option in SS

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Till nowe I keep my files in Wav(tag is a problem but i still keep my file in this ) or Mp3, i don`t utilize any of the Lossless format till now ..

I found Atrac Lossless useless ..I might try wma Lossless .

Edited by stuge
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I agree if you name files well, lack of tagging isn't that much of an issue. Its just more work though. If it was me and I was using the HiMD as my main player I think I'd just keep a library of HiSP tracks. You already have your lossless library in the form of your orignal CD's. Alternatively buy a huge HD or make a raid array of a few of them together in an external drive box. Then store everything as WAV on that. Only importing them to SS as you need them. Not sure if that gives you gapless though.

Edited by Sparky191
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If I have to covert from WMA-lossless to wav each time just to get gapless... I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to switch from Flac... I also have to convert to wav first...

BTW: I actually do not build any real big computer based library mainly because of the no-real-lossless-option with SS. I would be converting all the time, so for now I just use SB with my CD's and once we get SS to play nice with Flac I'll think of ripping everything at once... for now I won't

I'm slowly thinking of looking for a dedicated player (not necessarily MD) and I will wait what this uses/plays nice with before I really build a PC library

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I'm not so sure but I remember a post about Atrac Lossless that said that if you convert a 256kbps lossless file to another birate like 352kbps, SS will convert the 256kbps file to 352kbps not the wav file that it's stored in your computer.

I'm not sure what you'd do with a 256kbs lossless.

I'm ripping a CD directly to 352 ATRAC lossless. This will re-convert back to WAV if you need to re-use the WAV file again without re-ripping.

I'm not sure what the 256 "Lossless" is. Also I'm talking about 352 LOSSLESS not the 352 ATRAC3 COMPRESSED files that get written to the MD device.

If you use FLAC then why not use AMAROK on Linux. You can store the files in a MySQL database complete with tags etc. I've posted details on this Forum.

Cheers

-K

Cheers

-K

Edited by 1kyle
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I think his point was about the transcoding. 352 ATRAC lossless contains two files. 1) ATRAC lossess 2) 352kps ATRAC3+ Which when you transfer from SS to HiMD...

Choosing 352 ATRAC lossless to 352kps gives you the 352kps ATRAC3+ on the HiMD (note no re-encoding or transcoding)

Choosing 352 ATRAC lossless to 256kps transcodes the 352kps (not the lossless part) to 256kps.

(Worse quality than straight rip to 256kps from the original source)

I have no idea what happens if you convert from ATRAC lossless to WAV. Does it use the Lossless part or the 352kps part?

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I think his point was about the transcoding. 352 ATRAC lossless contains two files. 1) ATRAC lossess 2) 352kps ATRAC3+ Which when you transfer from SS to HiMD...

Choosing 352 ATRAC lossless to 352kps gives you the 352kps ATRAC3+ on the HiMD (note no re-encoding or transcoding)

Choosing 352 ATRAC lossless to 256kps transcodes the 352kps (not the lossless part) to 256kps.

(Worse quality than straight rip to 256kps from the original source)

I have no idea what happens if you convert from ATRAC lossless to WAV. Does it use the Lossless part or the 352kps part?

It uses the LOSSLESS part.

In principle don't use a LOSSY file to convert to another LOSSY format.

Converting from one LOSSLESS format to another is fine.

(If I

Cheers

-K

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I have no idea what happens if you convert from ATRAC lossless to WAV. Does it use the Lossless part or the 352kps part?

I believe someone tested this and when reverting to wav it actually does use the total (so it really is lossless in that case) but still this is an extra step so I can use Flac just as well... and I can play flac with foobar2000 while Atrac lossless is limited to ...SS which I will never use as a player

1kyle... atrac lossless @ 256kbps is what someone wishing to use HiSP mainly would choose...

it is the same rubbish as atrac lossless @ 352kbps but with a slightly more lossy core

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I believe someone tested this and when reverting to wav it actually does use the total (so it really is lossless in that case) but still this is an extra step so I can use Flac just as well... and I can play flac with foobar2000 while Atrac lossless is limited to ...SS which I will never use as a player

1kyle... atrac lossless @ 256kbps is what someone wishing to use HiSP mainly would choose...

it is the same rubbish as atrac lossless @ 352kbps but with a slightly more lossy core

I don't understand how a "Lossless" format can be "Lossy", and where does the Lossless 256 come from.

I believe if you want to try Linux you can use FLAC and a lot of other codecs quite easily and there's plenty of software players as well.

Amarok is one player (you can use a MySQL database for your music and data tags etc). There are loads of others as well.

As far as I know there aren't any Physical Hardware players that actually play FLAC directly (could be wrong on that however).

I only want a PC library so I don't have to re-rip CD's again. I'm not too bothered in which format so long as it's Lossless and can re-create the original WAV if and when I need it.

I originally thought of storing everything in WAV but for archival purposes a Lossless compression scheme that fits everything on to a single HD is what I've been looking for.

I could have created WAV then simply "Zipped" it or Winrar or even with Linux "Tarred" it or used bzip but all these involve an extra step.

The Atrac 3 lossless just did all this in one step. Expanding a file to WAV and comparing it with the original WAV yields the same file so I'm quite happy with this approach.

I've already got MD's loaded with music. This is just for archival purposes.

The whole kybosh is saved on an external 300 GB HD which I just unplug and store until I need it.

I almost never use a computer for PLAYING music. (Editing is another matter but that's a topic for a different post).

I'm not particularly enamoured of WMA lossless as I hope to get rid of Windows completely sooner or later. Whether using WMA or any other "proprietary" LOSSLESS format you'll still need an extra step to get the original WAV back.

Also just as SONY (not before time) seems to be slightly relaxing the DRM issues, Microsoft seems to be going the other way in tightening them up especially in some of the possible newer hardware players in the pipeline that will be able to play (DRM'ed) WMA files directly.

I've got a script that will be able to convert all my ATRAC3 lossless to WAV if I have to do this step so I can Batch process this while I'm doing something else.

Remember I'm storing this stuff purely as DATA. As such it suits my purposes fine whilst not using too much storage.

For other people with different needs this might not be the best method.

Cheers

-K

Edited by 1kyle
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I don't understand how a "Lossless" format can be "Lossy", and where does the Lossless 256 come from.....

Its for fast transfer from the library to a portable. But I'm sure your aware of that in SS since theres been a lot of discussion of the flaw/bug in ATRAC Lossless format on the forums already. ATRAC Lossless format is fine if you are going to convert back to WAV or if you are only going to use the specifc compressed format within the Lossless format. If you are going to use any other format or bitrate ATRAC Lossless is not useful in that scenerio.

Compare that to FLAC. You can convert that directly to almost all open formats. Proprietary formats obviously are an exception to that.

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I don't understand how a "Lossless" format can be "Lossy", and where does the Lossless 256 come from.

this is exactly what all the trouble with A-lossless is all about: it actually is a lossy file + all that's cut out...together it is lossless, but the lossy part is used for transcoding to other bitrates than the one you specified when ripping

you use A-lossless 352 but don't understand A-lossless 256... well the first is A-lossless with a 352 lossy part and the second is A-lossless with a 256kbps lossy part

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