FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. Grossly oversimplified, FLAC is similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see links to the right for supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file

The FLAC project consists of : 

- the stream format 

- reference encoders and decoders in library form 

- flac, a command-line program to encode and decode FLAC files 

- metaflac, a command-line metadata editor for FLAC files

- input plugins for various music players

Features of FLAC 1.2.1 :

• Lossless: The encoding of audio (PCM) data incurs no loss of information, and the decoded audio is bit-for-bit identical to what went into the encoder. Each frame contains a 16-bit CRC of the frame data for detecting transmission errors. The integrity of the audio data is further insured by storing an MD5 signature of the original unencoded audio data in the file header, which can be compared against later during decoding or testing. 

• Fast: FLAC is asymmetric in favor of decode speed. Decoding requires only integer arithmetic, and is much less compute-intensive than for most perceptual codecs. Real-time decode performance is easily achievable on even modest hardware. 

• Hardware support: Because of FLAC's free reference implementation and low decoding complexity, FLAC is currently the only lossless codec that has any kind of hardware support. 

• Streamable: Each FLAC frame contains enough data to decode that frame. FLAC does not even rely on previous or following frames. FLAC uses sync codes and CRCs (similar to MPEG and other formats), which, along with framing, allow decoders to pick up in the middle of a stream with a minimum of delay. 

• Seekable: FLAC supports fast sample-accurate seeking. Not only is this useful for playback, it makes FLAC files suitable for use in editing applications. 

• Flexible metadata: New metadata blocks can be defined and implemented in future versions of FLAC without breaking older streams or decoders. Currently there are metadata types for tags, cue sheets, and seek tables. Applications can write their own APPLICATION metadata once they register an ID 

• Suitable for archiving: FLAC is an open format, and there is no generation loss if you need to convert your data to another format in the future. In addition to the frame CRCs and MD5 signature, flac has a verify option that decodes the encoded stream in parallel with the encoding process and compares the result to the original, aborting with an error if there is a mismatch. 

• Convenient CD archiving: FLAC has a "cue sheet" metadata block for storing a CD table of contents and all track and index points. For instance, you can rip a CD to a single file, then import the CD's extracted cue sheet while encoding to yield a single file representation of the entire CD. If your original CD is damaged, the cue sheet can be exported later in order to burn an exact copy. 

• Error resistant: Because of FLAC's framing, stream errors limit the damage to the frame in which the error occurred, typically a small fraction of a second worth of data. Contrast this with some other lossless codecs, in which a single error destroys the remainder of the stream.

Changes from FLAC 1.2.0 to FLAC 1.2.1b :

• General:

- With the new --keep-foreign-metadata in flac, non-audio RIFF and AIFF chunks can be stored in FLAC files and recreated when decoding. This allows, among other, things support for archiving BWF files and other WAVE files from editing tools that preserves all the metadata.

• FLAC format:

- Specified 2 new APPLICATION metadata blocks for storing WAVE and AIFF chunks (for use with --keep-foreign-metadata in flac).

- The lead-out track number for non-CDDA cuesheets now must be 255.

• Ogg FLAC format:

- This is not a format change, but changed default extension for Ogg FLAC from .ogg to .oga, according to new Xiph specification (SF #1762492).

• flac:

- Added a new option --no-utf8-convert which works like it does in metaflac (SF #973740).

- Added a new option --keep-foreign-metadata which can save/restore RIFF and AIFF chunks to/from FLAC files (SF #363478).

- Changed default extension for Ogg FLAC from .ogg to .oga, according to new Xiph specification (SF #1762492).

- Fixed bug where encoding from stdin on Windows could fail if WAVE/AIFF contained unknown chunks (SF #1776803).

- Fixed bug where importing non-CDDA cuesheets would cause an invalid lead-out track number (SF #1764105).

• metaflac:

- Changed default extension for Ogg FLAC from .ogg to .oga, according to new Xiph specification (SF #1762492).

- Fixed bug where importing non-CDDA cuesheets would cause an invalid lead-out track number (SF #1764105).

• build system:

- New configure option --disable-cpplibs to prevent building libFLAC++ (SF #1723295).

- Fixed bug compiling flac without Ogg support (SF #1760786).

- Fixed bug where sometimes an existing installation of flac could interfere with the build process (SF #1763690).

- OS X fixes (SF #1786225).

- MinGW fixes (SF #1684879).

- Solaris 10 fixes (SF #1783225 SF #1783630).

- OS/2 fixes (SF #1771378 SF #1229495).

- automake-1.10 fixes (SF #1791361 SF #1792179).

• documentation:

- Added new tutorial section for flac.

- Added example code section for using libFLAC/libFLAC++.

• libraries:

- libFLAC: Fixed very rare seek bug (SF #1684049).

- libFLAC: Fixed seek bug with Ogg FLAC and small streams (SF #1792172).

- libFLAC: 64-bit fixes (SF #1790872).

• Interface changes (see also the porting guide for specific instructions on porting to FLAC 1.2.1):

- libFLAC:

+ Added FLAC__metadata_simple_iterator_is_last()

+ Added FLAC__metadata_simple_iterator_get_block_offset()

+ Added FLAC__metadata_simple_iterator_get_block_length()

+ Added FLAC__metadata_simple_iterator_get_application_id()

- libFLAC++:

+ Added FLAC::Metadata::SimpleIterator::is_last()

+ Added FLAC::Metadata::SimpleIterator::get_block_offset()

+ Added FLAC::Metadata::SimpleIterator::get_block_length()

+ Added FLAC::Metadata::SimpleIterator::get_application_id()

Elecard MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder provides software-only MPEG Layer III audio encoding solution. It is implemented as a Microsoft DirectShow filter and could be easily incorporated into your capture and network streaming applications.

Features of Elecard MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder:

- DirectShowR interface 

- Property pages 

- Open Source (GNU GPL)

Note: This is a development release, it can crash without warning, has memory leaks and can spoil your display (with movies you never wanted to see), and many things more - but it will not work as expected.

The code uses LAME 3.88 beta MPEG Layer III encoding engine. The original LAME code and filter code could be found at http://www.mp3dev.org

If you are using a DivX codec 4, 5 or later for playing DivX 3 contents and you do not have the DivX 3.11 Alpha codec installed this is a tool that you might need.

Some movies are created with WMA sound format which is unrecognizable by the mp3 codecs of DivX versions higher than 3. In such cases your player starts searching the net for the appropriate codec and never finds it because there is no such available for download. 

The only available appropriate DivX audio codec comes with the DivX 3.11 alpha codec installation pack (other repacks also) - DivXa32.acm. So now you've got an unique DivX 3.11 Alpha repack that will install only the missing audio decompressor, will add an item in your audio compression manager (for win 9x - control panel / multimedia / devices / audio compression codecs) and also an option for uninstallation from control panel (add/remove programs). 

This is an advantage over installing the whole of the DivX 3.11 pack because it installs its older video codecs which you do not need and it overwrites the registry and uninstall information which makes it impossible to uninstall DivX 3.11 Alpha and the other later DivX codec version you might have separately. This may cause some undesired behaviour of your codecs and players. All you need to do for hearing the WMA sound of your movie is to install this pack.

I hope you will enjoy it!

Tags :

- Audio Codec Tag 161 may be requested when DivX MPEG-4 Audio Compressor is missing.

- Audio Codec Tag 353 may be requested when DivX MPEG-4 Audio Compressor is missing.

Note :

- GSpot gives the following information with this type of audio codec: divx (same as wma) (0x0161) DivX Networks.

DFX enhances your music listening experience by improving the sound quality of MP3, Windows Media, Internet radio and other music files. With DFX you can transform the sound of your PC into that of an expensive stereosystem placed in a perfectly designed listening environment

Features of DFX Audio Enhancer 9 :


• Harmonic Fidelity Restoration

Adding Fidelity to your audio eliminates the "muffled" sound that is an artifact of the data compression algorithms used in Internet audio formats. DFX compensates for this loss of high frequency fidelity by carefully regenerating the missing high frequency harmonics in the audio. This harmonic restoration is performed using patent-pending technology that carefully synthesizes high frequency harmonics to replace the harmonics lost during the encoding process.

• Ambience, Stereo Imaging

Adding Ambience to your audio compensates for the lost or diminished stereo depth that is the result of closely located speakers, poor listening environments, and sonic losses due to data compression of Internet audio formats. DFX compensates for the reduced stereo imaging and depth of PC audio by carefully regenerating the ambience and stereo depth. This same ambience processing has been used by Grammy winning engineers of artists such as Alanis Morissette and Ella Fitzgerald.

• 3D Surround Sound

Using the 3D Surround Sound component adds amazing depth and body to your audio, compensating for monitoring limitations and sonic losses due to data compression. With 3D Surround processing the sounds will surround you, virtually putting you inside the music! 3D Surround enhances the sound played on conventional 2-speaker systems and makes even small PC speaker systems sound larger and richer. It is also fully compatible with Surround Sound playback systems.

• HyperBass

Using the HyperBass component adds deep, rich bass sound to your audio by compensating for the bass limitations of almost all PC-based audio systems and data-compressed audio formats. DFX does this by carefully regenerating the low frequency harmonics, thus increasing the perceived bass, but without exceeding the speakers physical limits, adding or changing speakers or amplifiers, and without increased power consumption. HyperBass greatly improves the bass performance of any sound system.

• Dynamic Gain Boosting

Adding Dynamic Boost increases the perceived loudness of your audio while minimizing distortion levels, particularly when using Internet audio systems. By adding Dynamic Gain Boosting, your playback system will sound twice as loud without losing any punch on loud passages.

Typical PC-based multimedia playback systems and even home stereo playback systems suffer from limited dynamic range and headroom. Dynamic Boost compensates for this limited headroom by carefully processing the audio to increase the perceived loudness of the audio without altering the perceived dynamic range.

Changes in DFX Audio Enhancer 8.501 :

- Enhanced stylish interface 

- New vertical mini-mode which nicely integrates with media players 

- Better sound enhancement processing 

- More informative audio status messaging within the user interface

Important Note :

- DFX Audio Enhancer installer is bundled with "Ask Toolbar". However, you may continue the installation process without installing it.

Download :


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