Re: [flac-dev] Gapless Support

[Declan Kelly]

On Fri, Feb 03, 2012 at 02:19:00AM +0400, lrn1...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 A word of caution:

 1) CUE sheets don't support timestamps past 99 minutes 59 seconds. Not
 a problem for audio CDs, but for bigger media it might be an issue.

Most bigger media (DVD, BD, etc) have already solved that problem by
not relying on having a single CUE sheet, instead having a layout of
files in folders (or chapters, or whatever) that isn't a 1-dimensional
follow one groove from start to finish approach.

 2) GStreamer (which is something you might have to use as a multimedia
 framework for playing audio, if you're developing free software, or
 even proprietary software for some platforms) doesn't support CUE
 sheets natively, and i don't really recall any frameworks that do (not
 that i know that many...). CUE sheet support has to be implemented on
 top of the framework, and might not be as straightforward as it sounds
 (especially if you want to also have gapless playback). Clementine
 audio player, for example, still can't get CUE sheets right, and
 QuodLibet audio player doesn't support them at all.

On an almost daily basis, I listen to FLAC files using one of these:
* 2009-vintage Nokia (Symbian OS) with the FolderPlay app.
* Sansa Fuze v2 (not the Fuze+) running Rockbox.

Both play FLAC files gapless, and while FolderPlay claims to support CUE
files I have not been able to make it work with them.
If I'm not mobile, I generally use vlc for music playback.

FolderPlay (not to be confused with Folder Player for Android) used to
be hosted on SourceForge until the lack of source code caused it to be
removed. It seems to be back now, however, with source.

I have yet to come across a player that I can reliably use with single
track FLAC albums, either with embedded CUE or a separate CUE file.
So I either rip from CD to per-track files, or split out single track
FLAC album archives to individual tracks.

Buying music online is almost always per-track, and usually an album is
packaged as 1 ZIP file containing all the tracks (as MP3 or FLAC or
whatever was chosen). Bandcamp and MusicGlue (to name just 2) do it that
way. So there isn't much room for bonus track trickery with online
releases.

The OST album of the recent David Fincher movie was released initially
as a 6-track sampler (online only) then as a full album with 39 tracks
adding up to almost 3 hours.
Digital release was one ZIP file containing the 39 tracks (in a choice
of formats, including FLAC, but not exceeding 16/44.1 resolution) and
for physical release the album was split across 3 CDs or 6 vinyl discs.

-- 
-Dec.
---
Mosaic is going to be on every computer in the world. - Marc Andreessen, 1994
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Re: [flac-dev] Gapless Support

[LRN]

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On 17.01.2012 12:44, Richard Schülein wrote:
 Hi,
 
 
 
 i’m not part of the FLAC project, but i have a question regarding
 FLAC and Gapless support… I hope, I get an answer from some of you
 ;-)
 
 We are currently try to add Gapless support on our device… If we
 rip an CD with our device, we can find out, that one track follow
 after another so we can
 
 recognize, that the tracks are gapless or not.
 
 But how can we find that out on already existing FLAC files (or
 other formats). Is there a marker inside the file, who tell me,
 that this
 
 File is a gapless file? Also gapless make only sense, if you have
 the follow up file also…
 
 
 
 Example:
 
 
 
 CD
 
 Track 1 not gapless
 
 Track2 Gapless
 
 Track 3 Gapless
 
 Track 4 not gapless
 
 
 
 If I rip now all 4 titles and play them later the player must know,
 that Song 1 is not gapless but Song2 and 3 “Fit” together.
 
 What will happen, if I delete Song3…. Is the player playing now
 from Song2 to Song4 gapless, which is not correct…
 
 
 
 Anybody a good description for me, how this is solved on FLAC?
 
 
AFAIK, gaplessness is the sole responsibility of the player.

How do you know *at all* that tracks 1 and 4 on that CD are not
gapless, but tracks 2 and 3 are?

Anyway, no matter where you get that info from, you can put arbitrary
metadata into FLAC files, including the information you need for
gaplessness.

Also note that many players support gapless playback. For audio files
that do not fit together it doesn't make a difference: one file ends
in a definitive fashion, then another one begins. Doesn't matter
whether they are played gaplessly or not. When files fit together,
gaplessness becomes apparent (if implemented). So most players usually
do gaplessness regardless. Of course, if you remove Track 3 in your
example and try to play Track 4 after Track 2, gaplessness won't help.
But then again, it's not FLAC's problem, it's the problem of the user
removing 3rd track, and/or of the player not recognizing that tracks 2
and 4 don't fit (and even if player does recognize that - what would
it do? Skip Track 2?).
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