What's the difference between "FLAC" and "lossless"

I know that FLAC is a lossless codec. Usenet has a flac newsgroup and a lossless newsgroup. I see on Usenet a lot of "lossless" albums that are nowhere near the size of FLAC albums, though they are both considered lossless music, obviously.

For example, Metallica's Ride the Lightning album which is listed in a.b.sounds.lossless is 36.57 MB in size. If I view that same album on the tracker Exigo, the album is 363.49 MB - 10 times the size.

So my question is, are they both lossless and FLAC is just bloated, or is the lossless category on Usenet full of albums that are not considered lossless?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_data_compression

there are many kind of Lossless compression algorithms

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Originally Posted by allen(s)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_data_compression

there are many kind of Lossless compression algorithms

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Were you going to answer the question, or just post random Wiki links?

That link doesn't even discuss FLAC. :dry:

i posted a link that tells you all the lossless compression methods:

Audio compression

• Apple Lossless - ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec)
• Direct Stream Transfer - DST
• Free Lossless Audio Codec - FLAC
• Meridian Lossless Packing - MLP
• Monkey's Audio - Monkey's Audio APE
• RealPlayer - RealAudio Lossless
• Shorten - SHN
• TTA - True Audio Lossless
• WavPack - WavPack lossless
• WMA Lossless - Windows Media Lossless

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Originally Posted by Skizo

I know that FLAC is a lossless codec, but I see on Usenet a lot of "lossless" albums that are nowhere near the size of FLAC albums.

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flac and lossless are not the same thing. flac comes under the catagory of lossless.

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Originally Posted by allen(s)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skizo

I know that FLAC is a lossless codec, but I see on Usenet a lot of "lossless" albums that are nowhere near the size of FLAC albums.

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flac and lossless are not the same thing. flac comes under the catagory of lossless.

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So what are the differences? :rolleyes:

Quality-wise. I mean, 364MB and 36MB is a huge difference.

i dunno, maybe its a dodgy copy, try playing it to listen / compare the two. if you know the real size is larger, i would choose that one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by allen(s)

i dunno, maybe its a dodgy copy, try playing it to listen / compare the two. if you know the real size is larger, i would choose that one.

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You're leading this conversation in circles. Go back to the original post. :dabs:

lossless would be the larger size yes. 36MB is far to small to be lossless imho

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Originally Posted by allen(s)

lossless would be the larger size yes. 36MB is far to small to be lossless imho

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I don't think the "lossless" stuff is anywhere close. The current copy I have of that album is 256kbps and the album size is 87MB.

i think you answered your own question. :hooray: