[Harp-L] Re: FLAC

["jazmaan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <dmf273@xxxxxxxxx>]

FLAC files can be played back through both Winamp and Windows Media Player with the appropriate
plug-ins.   I'm sure there are several available FLAC plug-ins for Winamp but this is the one I
use:

http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=143614

As far as I know there's only one FLAC plug-in for Windows Media Player, but it works fine for me.

http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

Since this is cutting edge technology, don't be surprised if you can't run these players on your
dinosaur Windows 98 system or with outdated versions of Winamp or Windows Media Player.    But if
you're running the current version of Windows XP, along with the latest version of Winamp (5.11)
or Windows Media Player (9 or beta 10) then you shouldn't have any trouble at all.   Both of these
plug-ins installed quite quickly and easily for me with their included installers.   Once they're
installed, you can play FLAC files just like any other audio file.

The only downside to FLAC is that even when audio files are compressed to 53% they're still pretty
large.   Probably too big to send via e-mail.   Don't even mess with FLAC unless you've got a
broadband connection.   But if you can deal with the big files, sound quality just doesn't get any
better than this.   No wonder the traders love it!

If you also want to know how to encode your own FLAC files, let me know.