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The Drawbacks
FLAC Has to Overcome to Become The Best
With so many high end audio products supporting different
types of data files and compressed data, you find a need of
compressing your existing audio data files into files that are
compatible with the audio product you are using. There are
many file formats existing that will help you in achieving
this, of which FLAC is one of them.
This means that the file that is used for compression has the
same audio data that you find in the resultant file, after
data compression. This means that there is no loss in your
audio quality as there is no loss of data during the data
compression process. This is why this file format is referred
to as a lossless file format.
Though FLAC is a file format that is capable of offering data
compression that ranges between 30 – 60% of the original data
file, there are some challenges and problems that FLAC has to
yet to overcome before it becomes the perfect file format that
can be used for compressing audio files. One of the major
drawbacks of FLAC is that there is not much support for them.
The meaning of this is that though there are quite a few home
stereos, car stereos and portable handsets in the market that
today support FLAC, there is quite a few hardware products
that do not provide support to FLAC. So the best audio product
for you to use for your listening pleasure with FLAC
compressed files would be on the computer. This is because
most operating systems like Windows and UNIX supports FLAC.
So if you have FLAC compressed audio files, there is a chance
that it may not be compatible with the audio system you have
with you at present. It would not be feasible for you to buy a
new audio product if you don’t have an extensive of FLAC
compressed files to listen to.
Instead, it would be better for you to listen to your audio
files on your computer instead of looking for a compatible
audio product. There is another drawback associated with FLAC,
which is the fact that FLAC files are rather large when
compared with other files like MP3 files.
It can also be said that this is the main reason FLAC files
are not that compatible with some audio products; its large
size. It is possible to compress MP3 files to 1/8th the size
of waves however it is only possible for using FLAC to
compress your audio files to about ¼ the size of waves.
Of course this does not imply that FLAC is not a good option
for your audio data compression needs. Both MP3 and FLAC are
great options for audio data compression. You have to choose
between the two depending on what size you want the resultant
audio data file to be and which audio product you intend to
use the FLAC compressed file on and what options you have for
playing your FLAC compressed file.
There is another major concern with users of FLAC compressed
audio data files, which is the fact that FLAC compressed files
does not play on iPods. This is in comparison with other file
formats like Apple Lossless that play well on iPods. This is a
challenge that FLAC has to overcome today as iPods are today
one of the most popular audio products that is carried around
by many people, for listening to music.
One way of overcoming this problem has been figured out which
is to turn to methods of converting between file formats so
that your FLAC compressed file will be compatible for use with
iPods. Once all these drawbacks of FLAC have been overcome,
FLAC may not see much competition in other file formats for
quite some time to come.
Source:
http://www.flacsite.com |
