Jekyll2024-12-19T11:27:11-06:00/flac/feeds/feed.xmlFLAC - Free Lossless Audio CodecFLAC is now formally specified in RFC 96392024-12-19T00:00:00-06:002024-12-19T00:00:00-06:00/flac/2024/12/19/rfc-9639-publishedRFC 9639 has been published, specifying the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) format.

Although FLAC has had a specification document since 2000 and a open-source reference implementation filling in the details, this document should formally specify the format, such that implementers don’t have to look at the reference source code or browse the mailing list archives for details.

This publication doesn’t change the FLAC format except explicitly adding support for 32-bit audio and adding restrictions to accommodate, see here for details.

The main benefit this publications brings is that it should make writing a new FLAC decoder implementation from scratch much easier. It also provides assurance for archives wanting to use the FLAC format that their files remain decodable in the far future, in case FLAC ever becomes obsolete and its implementations unusable.

Many thanks for all who participated in improving this document.

]]>FLAC 1.4.3 released2023-06-23T00:00:00-05:002023-06-23T00:00:00-05:00/flac/2023/06/23/flac-1-4-3-releasedThe development for this release focused on the tools, flac and metaflac, whereas the previous few releases had the focus on libFLAC. The main improvement in flac is its handling of foreign metadata on decoding a file (i.e. restoring the foreign metadata), metaflac has had a few features added. Both tools have been vetted with fuzzing, resulting in numerous small fixes.

See the changelog for more information.

]]>FLAC 1.4.2 released2022-10-22T00:00:00-05:002022-10-22T00:00:00-05:00/flac/2022/10/22/flac-1-4-2-releasedLike the last release, this release only has a few changes. A problem with FLAC playback in GStreamer (and possibly other libFLAC users) was the reason for the short time since the last release.

See the changelog for more information.

]]>FLAC 1.4.1 released2022-09-22T00:00:00-05:002022-09-22T00:00:00-05:00/flac/2022/09/22/flac-1-4-1-releasedThis release mostly fixes a few build system changes compared to FLAC 1.4.0. The reason this release follows 1.4.0 so quickly is because the 1.4.0 release tarball had emtpy man pages in it, which weren’t being rebuilt without user intervention.

See the changelog for more information.

]]>FLAC 1.4.0 released2022-09-09T00:00:00-05:002022-09-09T00:00:00-05:00/flac/2022/09/09/flac-1-4-0-releasedThis release brings many small improvements and a few large ones. Here are the most important for end-users:

  • FLAC can now encode and decode 32 bit-per-sample audio. This means the FLAC format is now one step closer to being fully implemented. Note that this is 32 bit integer samples, not 32 bit float samples.
  • Compression for presets 3 through 8 has improved with only a small decrease in encoding speed, while presets 0, 1 and 2 got faster.
  • Compression on 64-bit ARMv8 (used in for example new Apple computers) is now much faster

The API and ABI has changes for both libFLAC and libFLAC++, so developers are encouraged to review the porting guide.

See the changelog for more information.

]]>FLAC decoder testbench2022-09-08T00:00:00-05:002022-09-08T00:00:00-05:00/flac/2022/09/08/decoder-testbenchBesides the libraries and tools provided here, there are many independently implemented encoders and decoders of the FLAC format. To help developers of FLAC decoders to improve their product, a set of conformance test files can be found at github under the name FLAC decoder testbench.

]]>FLAC 1.3.4 released2022-02-20T00:00:00-06:002022-02-20T00:00:00-06:00/flac/2022/02/20/flac-1-3-4-releasedchangelog for more information.]]>FLAC 1.3.3 released2019-08-04T00:00:00-05:002019-08-04T00:00:00-05:00/flac/2019/08/04/flac-1-3-3-releasedFLAC 1.3.2 released2017-01-01T00:00:00-06:002017-01-01T00:00:00-06:00/flac/2017/01/01/flac-1-3-2-releasedFLAC 1.3.1 released2014-11-27T00:00:00-06:002014-11-27T00:00:00-06:00/flac/2014/11/27/flac-1-3-1-released