Equivalent to XiFEO (FLAC Entropy Optimizer)?

[jhwalker]

Has anyone run across a current equivalent to XiFEO (FLAC Entropy Optimizer)? It was available a few years back from a company called XiVero, and was quite a cool piece of software - unfortunately, it can no longer be licensed / activated, giving the company no longer exists and they apparently didn't release a final version which did not require activation

FEATURES:

1. Analyze lossless audio files (e.g., WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC) for actual audio content
2. Based on analysis, change cutoff for encoding; i.e., change filter / sampling rate to fully capture actual content
3. Based on analysis, change bit depth as necessary to fully capture actual content
4. Allow full range of FLAC compression options

I was seeing large file size savings based on re-encoding (for example) 24/96 ALAC files to 18/48 FLAC files, without losing any content (or at least nothing actually present in the source files).

I know Jussi Laako has posted some content re: properly sizing FLAC parameters, so it's probably a regular feature of the FLAC spec; however, the end-to-end workflow XiFEO provided was (AFAIK) unique, and I'd love to have it back.

 

[markanini]

I don't understand the appeal. If space or bandwidth is limited perceptual codecs will be much more efficient.

 

[jhwalker]

I don't understand the appeal. If space or bandwidth is limited perceptual codecs will be much more efficient.

I prefer lossless ‍

 

[markanini]

I prefer lossless ‍

Leaving the source files intact makes more sense in than case. But foobar200 can be used to apply all kinds of DSP to any format. dBpoweramp is good too.

 

[bennetng]

Has anyone run across a current equivalent to XiFEO (FLAC Entropy Optimizer)? It was available a few years back from a company called XiVero, and was quite a cool piece of software - unfortunately, it can no longer be licensed / activated, giving the company no longer exists and they apparently didn't release a final version which did not require activation

FEATURES:

1. Analyze lossless audio files (e.g., WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC) for actual audio content
2. Based on analysis, change cutoff for encoding; i.e., change filter / sampling rate to fully capture actual content
3. Based on analysis, change bit depth as necessary to fully capture actual content
4. Allow full range of FLAC compression options

I was seeing large file size savings based on re-encoding (for example) 24/96 ALAC files to 18/48 FLAC files, without losing any content (or at least nothing actually present in the source files).

Not exactly the same thing you want, but flac's encoding settings can be tuned to adept input data with different characteristics to further reduce file size. Many encoding settings are asymmetric which means the resulting flac files will not take more CPU time to decode. Actually, can even achieve faster decoding speed due to the smaller file size. These settings are all mathematically lossless, there is no resampling or bit-depth reduction.

Here are some examples:

FLAC v1.4.x Performance Tests - Page 12

FLAC v1.4.x Performance Tests - Page 12

hydrogenaud.io

WavPack decoding complexity vs FLAC

WavPack decoding complexity vs FLAC

hydrogenaud.io