Re: AudioCodec: auto-magic file id & iTunes
Re: AudioCodec: auto-magic file id & iTunes
- Subject: Re: AudioCodec: auto-magic file id & iTunes
- From: John Stiles <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 15:26:47 -0800
I always envisioned a virtual file system which could mount a folder
full of FLACs as a mount point which contained equivalent WAVs or
AIFFs. Then you could point iTunes (or whatever app) to a mount point
full of WAVs, and you'd save disk space while still getting perfect
audio.
(This wouldn't immediately solve the problem of convincing iTunes to
create FLACs, but that seems like a much harder problem. If you wanted
to be incredibly clever, you could make your VFS do the dirty
work--have iTunes rip to AIFF and point it to a location in your VFS,
and it could stream-FLAC the data on the way in.)
If I had a ton of time to burn I would probably consider implementing
this myself... unfortunately (a) I don't have that kind of time right
now :( and (b) AAC 192kbit sounds pretty good to me! Plus I don't know
the first thing about writing a VFS...
On Feb 6, 2004, at 1:48 PM, Brian Willoughby wrote:
Hello all,
I share Chuck's vision of iTunes support for FLAC (see archives from
June
2003), but how will iTunes (or any other application, for that matter)
know to
select the FLAC Codec for a particular file or stream?
Is there some part of an AudioCodec which will return a boolean test
of a
stream as to whether it can be decoded by that Codec or not? I know
that FLAC
files and FLAC streams have identifiers in them (magic number 'fLaC'),
but what
part of the system will be looking for these?
What about filename extensions? Any provision for the system to inform
applications of mappings from filename extensions to a particular
AudioCodec?
I understand that installing a new AudioCodec on a system will make it
available to all applications that use AudioConverter, but it seems
like it
will still be up to every application to be rewritten to open a FLAC
file, look
for the magic number, and then specifically request the appropriate
Codec.
I'm thinking primarily of playback of an existing FLAC-encoded file.
Is there
some mechanism where an application can present this file (or stream)
to the
AudioConverter, and have CoreAudio pick the appropriate decoder? I've
not seen
anything along these lines.
P.S. It seems even tougher to get iTunes to create FLAC-encoded files
when
importing new audio files. This involves UI changes - adding FLAC to
the list
which currently allows AAC, AIFF, MPG, WAV? But this last part seems
like a
question for another list...
Brian Willoughby
Sound Consulting
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