fluc no flac

[t079]

what player has 250 /320gb storage with flac support?

[Chengbin]

Stop bitching about FLAC people. It not like Archos doesn't offer a lossless format. Just use WAV. I know it's 30% bigger, how much difference does that make when you got a 250GB player?

[mitchelln]

Stop bitching about FLAC people. It not like Archos doesn't offer a lossless format. Just use WAV. I know it's 30% bigger, how much difference does that make when you got a 250GB player?

He's not bitching. He is asking. Along with an awful lot of other people on this very site and also just about every review of the 605. The FLAC codec is free, readily available for ARM and the new Archos has a lot more grunt to run it now. So why not just put the darn codec on the device and make a lot of people happy? It is literally the case of a couple of lib files.
This is just silly stubbornness and simply makes it look like Archos don't listen to their customers.

FLAC has other advantages over WAV as well. Tagging and cover art anyone?

[t079]

bitching about FLAC people. It not like Archos doesn't offer a lossless format. Just use WAV. I know it's 30% bigger, how much difference does that make when you got a 250GB player?

wav is twice the size. i can fill up 250gb with flac easily, then theres no room for video

[Chengbin]

How is FLAC half the size of wav? In my compression tests, the compression rates are only 30-35% with pop music. Unless you are talking about audiobooks, then I don't see how FLAC reduce wav to half the size. And BTW, I can't believe you can fill a 250GB HDD with FLAC files. That's like 600 CDs!!!

[nukeypearce]

Two words.

WMA Pro.

It supports wma pro so I believe that WMA lossless should be playable too.

It even does WMA Pro 5.1 - maybe it just means we'll have to use that.

Also it may be the case that although the FLAC codec is free they already have license with another media player manufacturer (if you noticed things like OGG and FLAC are only featured in one or two different manufacturers). Maybe Archos doesn't have the rights for it; yes it may be free and yes they may want to include it but there might be too much red tape surrounding it at present. The other manufacturers may have got in there first, unfortunately.

[mitchelln]

Also it may be the case that although the FLAC codec is free they already have license with another media player manufacturer (if you noticed things like OGG and FLAC are only featured in one or two different manufacturers). Maybe Archos doesn't have the rights for it; yes it may be free and yes they may want to include it but there might be too much red tape surrounding it at present. The other manufacturers may have got in there first, unfortunately.

There is no exclusive license. There are no rights issues. It is simply down to senior Archos management saying "Non" (I was told this direct by a frustrated Archos software engineer).

WMA Pro, on the other hand, does have such issues.