Freesound Forums

That seems unnecesarily complex, let's keep it simple. Have a look at this plot of the absolute number of downloads versus the frequency (abundance) of each format in the database Legend: W means wav, A is aiff, F is flac, O is ogg, M is mp3 (axes are log 10 to help spread the points)

Generally speaking the number of downloads is a simple linear function of how frequent this format is. Bram, you were quite right :wink:

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/1060/plothw4.th.png

My reading of Dobroide's graph is that FLAC is less popular (below the straight line) and MP3 slightly more popular (just above the straight line) compared to WAV, OGG and AIFF (near enough all on the straight line).

yer wot?

acclivity
My reading of Dobroide's graph is that FLAC is less popular (below the straight line) and MP3 slightly more popular (just above the straight line) compared to WAV, OGG and AIFF (near enough all on the straight line).

yer wot?

uh... yes and no. No if you look at the database globally as in the plot.
Yes, if your interested only in the download-to-abundance ratio. You'll see flac gets half as many donwloads per file than, for example, wav:
http://img276.imageshack.us/img276/3126/tablerg1.png

That's the good side of statistics, you can please everybody

and Mike, again this is an oversimplification since most WAVs in the database are shorter than 10 s, whereas flac files tend to be much longer (that's why one uses flac in the first place).

A global, realistic model to explain the effect of format on download number should take this into account (in technical jargoon, include file size as a covariate). No surprise that users are reluctant to download a huge file... and in a weird format !!

Anyway, I bet the FLAC team at http://flac.sourceforge.net/ would be pleased to know their thing entered FS

HERE'S A SOLUTION THAT GIVES BOTH SIDES WHAT WE WANT!!

so on the one hand, we're weighing the value of more precise sound with fewer artifacts. I am on the sampling/mixing side of things and so i can definitely relate there. even the apparently smallest artifact can turn into a disaster!
on the other hand, we have the file size. it's a bitch to upload long, large .wav files, and a strain on the servers.

the solution?
we can have our cake and eat it too:
upload .rar compressed .wav files.
here's why it works:
the loss of information (sound quality) in an mp3 is due, not only to lossy compression but, to the extreme low and high frequencies being removed. these frequencies are thought to be beyond the ranges of both the human ear and speakers. for the most part this is true, but a subwoofer will miss a lot of those extremely low freqs and so will you (more in the form of physical vibrations felt than in the form of audible sound)
anyways..
my point is that it is not only the compression aspect of mp3 files that is responsible for the loss of sound. also, that there is a difference between lossy and lossless compression.

a .rar file is lossless and produces small file sizes with optional redundancy to protect the files against corruption.

so.. if .wav files were compressed as .rar we'd get perfect .wav files that only take up a little more space than an mp3 would!

think of it like this: it is not the sound that is compressed, with pieces lost in the conversion, by a program that is meant to shrink music files.. but the file itself that is compressed by a program specifically designed so that, when unrar'd, every piece of the file would be exactly correct (otherwise, what would be the use of it?).

problem solved

sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAR_%28file_format%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossy_data_compression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_data_compression

Hi all,

there could be annother reason for someone to upload a mp3 instead of an uncompressed format: I you have, for instance, a mobile recorder which is only capable to write mp3 (i had such a device) you propably want to upload this without decompressing. Everybody can decompress it. But if the uploader does it before uplodaing, and the downloader want to recreate an mp3 from it, the result will be a file which was already: Encoded -> decoded -> encoded. And this would not be reasonable at all, right?

And concerning the popularity of flac, i think many users do not know how to deal with this kind of file which prevent them form downloading. A possible solution could a a Java applet which is capable to decode flac to wav and placed on the site. Due to this would be a client operation no server load will be generated. Would this be realistic?

-Erdie

Where are the .avr & the .snd files?

I use icompositions & there your file is either .mp3 or .aac

I was a little perplexed when a moderator there miss-understood a post I made about using my old 68k mac to access the site, which it struggled.

The moderator determined my post as me saying that I wanted to upload .aiff files, but I'm not that bothered, but would say that then he stated;

I don't think we could support a file format that hardly anybody could play!!!!!

He was speaking about .aiff I assume, but the only reason I used .aiff was because of the dreaded itunes (I've just had half an hour of tearing my hair out after I installed itunes, but it decides to clog up & mess up that system tray..... Quicktime being the usual culprit, but now it's a two headed behemoth of itunes & Quicktime).

.Wav is what my sample program accepts, so I tend to only use .wav files.

& lol, has anybody heard of an .aac file? not me & I have no idea what program could use such a file!

.aiff is fine, .wav is fine, .mp3 tends to be a bit large I find... & .aac I don't know it! & I don't know .fla either...

Only heard of .ogg files recently, whilst using aniplay, a sound/video player/convertor for Atari ST compatible machines!