R/E/P Community

R/E/P => Mastering Dynamics => Topic started by: Jim Sam on May 18, 2011, 12:29:43 PM

Title: FLAC for file transfer
Post by: Jim Sam on May 18, 2011, 12:29:43 PM
From the zipping thread:

I always go with .rar when I'm sending mastered files out to clients, as I believe .rar is better optimised for PCM audio files than .zip is, but .zip does seem to be a lot quicker than .rar. Most clients send me uploaded .wav or .aif files, and I have given up asking them for .zip or .rar. I think they both contain checksum error checking. I know Bob Katz makes a good case for .flac being the file transfer format of the future, as it is a faster encode/decode than .rar or .zip, compresses the file size more, and still contains a checksum.

Does anyone use FLAC for file transfer?  I've been contemplating moving over to FLAC for files I send off, but despite the best effort of the Internet Archive and bandcamp, I worry about people not knowing what the codec is and/or being able to play it.
Title: Re: FLAC for file transfer
Post by: Darius van H on May 18, 2011, 03:36:34 PM
I would avoid using any formats that a large proportion of your clients may not be able to handle (unless you have time to burn) - so that rules out (for me) Flac & RAR.

I also one time had a RAR file (that i made myself) that un-rar'd without an error, yet contained corrupted data. After that i stopped using RAR.
Title: Re: FLAC for file transfer
Post by: 24-96 Mastering on May 18, 2011, 04:24:38 PM
I would avoid using any formats that a large proportion of your clients may not be able to handle (unless you have time to burn) - so that rules out (for me) Flac & RAR.

I concur.

It's zip only here... (I wish zip had decent audio file compression though. Wonder why Microsoft don't implement it... Backward-compatibility I assume?) The only times I use RAR is for hires catalog work, i.e. when transferring very large amounts of data.