What is the FLAC audio format?
Audio file formats: MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC (January 2021).
Free Lossless Audio Codec is a compression standard originally developed by the non-profit organization Xiph.org Foundation that supports digital audio files that are acoustically identical to the original material. FLAC-encoded files, which often have the .flac extension, are distinguished by their fully open design, small file sizes, and fast decoding times.
FLAC files are popular in the lossless audio space. In digital audio, a lossless codec is one that does not lose any important signal information about the original analog music during the file compression process. Many popular codecs use lossy compression algorithms, such as the MP3 and Windows Media Audio standards, which lose some audio range when processed.
Music CD
In fact, many users looking to backup their original audio discs (CD ripping) prefer to use FLAC to save audio rather than using a lossy format. This ensures that if the original source is damaged or lost, then the perfect copy can be played back using previously encoded FLAC files.
Of all the lossless audio formats available, FLAC is perhaps the most popular in use today. In fact, some HD music services now offer tracks in this format for download.
Ripping audio CDs to FLAC generally produces files with a compression ratio of 30 to 50 percent. Due to the lack of a format, some people also prefer to store their digital music library as FLAC files on external media and convert them to lossy formats (MP3, AAC, WMA, etc.) if necessary, for example to sync with an MP3 player or other portable device.
FLAC attributes
FLAC is compatible with all major operating systems, including Windows 10, macOS High Sierra and later, most Linux distributions, Android 3.1 and later, and iOS 11 and later.
FLAC files support metadata tags, album art, and quick content search. Because it is a non-proprietary format without a license to its core technology, FLAC is especially popular with open source developers. In particular, FLAC’s fast streaming and decoding compared to other formats makes it suitable for online playback.
From a technical point of view, the FLAC encoder supports:
Sampling rates from 1 Hz to 65545 Hz in 1 Hz steps or 10 Hz to 655.350 Hz in 10 Hz steps using one to eight channels
PCM bit 4 to 24 bits per sample (although only fixed point samples are supported, not floating point)
FLAC limitations
The main disadvantage of FLAC files is that most hardware does not support them. Although operating systems for computers and smartphones began to support FLAC, Apple did not support it until 2017 and Microsoft until 2016, even though the codec was first released in 2001. Game players generally do not support FLAC, rather they depend on the loss, but on common formats like MP3 or WMA.
