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Re: [ARSCLIST] FLAC?
On 27/10/06, Tom Fine wrote:
> A couple of points on this:
>
> 1. even if a format is truly lossless vis-a-vis audio quality (which
> is perfectly achievable through standard data-compression techniques),
> I would argue that it adds some risk and complexity to your digital
> archive. The reason is that compressed data, by its very nature, is
> more vulnerable to corruption and complete loss if a smaller area of a
> storage medium is damaged.
I agree with this. I can't see that the risk is worth it for a space
saving of up to 50%, now that storage media are so big.
In a plain WAV or AIFF file, if one bit is corrupt, it will just give a
small click (which can be repaired), and has no effect on any other
samples. In a compressed file, any fault can affect a whole sequence of
samples, or even make the file unreadable from that point to the end.
And audio files are big, so there is more chance of one file developing
a fault somewhere than in the traditional compressed text or GIF files.
Regards
--
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx