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Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in

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Posted on November 3, 2009 at 07:37:30
Charles Hansen
Manufacturer

Posts: 4321
Joined: August 1, 2001
 I'm just a dumb analog guy and know nothing about programming. Foobar has an ALAC plug-in, but is restricted to 44/16 files (which it plays fine). But now there is a new version of the ALAC decoder (apparently the one on which the Foobar plug in is based -- see link below) which will handle 24 bit files and has a host of other bug fixes.

Foobar has an SDK available. Is there anyone out there who knows how to integrate the new ALAC decoder into Foobar? Or am I asking for the moon? I've tried posting on the "official" Foobar support boards with no luck....

Thanks!

Charlie why not use the new J River and AIFF files?, posted on November 4, 2009 at 06:48:01
Gordon Rankin
Manufacturer

Posts: 2247
Joined: June 9, 2000
 Charlie,

From what I understand the new J River supports native AIFF files. They would of course sound much better than ALAC files on any system.

Also the new WASPI/Exclusive and Memory option really make J River stand out as the PC playback king.

Thanks
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
RE: Charlie why not use the new J River and AIFF files?, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:15:56
Charles Hansen
Manufacturer

Posts: 4321
Joined: August 1, 2001
 The AIFF files would take up too much room on the iPod.

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 3, 2009 at 17:51:54
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 3065
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
Contributor
  Since: February 24, 2009
 Why mess around with these proprietary formats in the first place? Convert the files to WAV, AIFF, or FLAC and you will be able to play them on more platforms.

Where are you getting these 24 bit AppleLossless files?

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 3, 2009 at 20:31:42
Charles Hansen
Manufacturer

Posts: 4321
Joined: August 1, 2001
 It's silly really. My son has an iPod. So the only two choices for good sound are WAV and ALAC. WAV is too big (16 GB Nano) and poor with tags. ALAC is no longer proprietary. If you look at the link, a group of clever fellows have reverse engineered it.

The old 16-bit version is a plug-in for Foobar, but someone needs to make the new version into a plug-in. I have a collection of high-res files that have been ripped from DVD-A's and downloaded from HDTracks. The only other choice is to store everything in FLAC and make copies of things he wants on his iPod in ALAC. Maybe I'll do that, but what a pain in the neck that would be, both the conversion and then keeping two separate libraries.

Or I could just use the Mac side of my Mac Mini and play the music in iTunes. (I refuse to put iTunes on the Windows side, for a variety of reasons.) J.River will play ALAC files, but only using Apple's QuickTime. Putting that on your computer is unpleasant -- it invades everything.

A much better solution is QuickTime Alternative, but even that uses the core files from QuickTime. And guess what? Then it requires manual selection of the sample rate for playback, just like iTunes. I hate doing that. It's like getting used to a remote control -- would you give up the remote for your TV set? Of course not, you get spoiled.

I'm sure that the right guy could do the job in under an hour. I'm just not the right guy...

So for all of its quirks, I still find Foobar the best solution for *my* needs. I just wish someone would hurry up and convert the new ALAC decoder into a Foobar plug-in.

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 4, 2009 at 04:56:16
Roseval
Audiophile

Posts: 506
Joined: March 31, 2008
 >>>The only other choice is to store everything in FLAC and make copies of things he wants on his iPod in ALAC. Maybe I'll do that, but what a pain in the neck that would be, both the conversion and then keeping two separate libraries.<<<

You have your music in say FLAC
Your portable supports MP3 only.

In your media player you select the files you want to transfer to the portable and the player sync them to the portable doing the conversion to MP3 on the fly.
This is called transcoding and is supported by many media players.
Save you the burden of maintaining 2 identical libraries in a different file format.

The Well Tempered Computer
RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:14:36
Charles Hansen
Manufacturer

Posts: 4321
Joined: August 1, 2001
 I would need to find a program that transcodes to ALAC on the fly.

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 3, 2009 at 23:38:38
J.Mac
Audiophile

Posts: 2102
Location: Colorado
Joined: November 6, 2002
 ALAC is still a proprietary format. Just because someone reverse engineered it to produce a decoder means little. Try incorporating that decoder in a commercial software product and see what happens.

Why do you force your son to use a lossless format on his iPod? Does he really care, or do you also use the iPod as a source in your stereo system?

One approach it is to keep your main library in FLAC and then keep a mirror library in ALAC (or MP3 if he doesn't care, or he would prefer to maximize battery life) by using the transcoding capabilities of foobar or dbpoweramp. The cost is mostly that of another hard drive. You don't even need to backup the mirror library, as you can always recreate it from the master FLAC library.

I have both iTunes and Quicktime installed on my XP system and have no issues. I only use iTunes for loading MP3s on my iPod and recent versions of Quicktime are much less obtrusive than a couple years ago. I don't think have it configured to play anything other than .mov files, so I never see it.
RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:13:19
Charles Hansen
Manufacturer

Posts: 4321
Joined: August 1, 2001
 >> Why do you force your son to use a lossless format on his iPod? <<

Because it's fun to be bigger, stronger, and smarter than someone else and boss them around.

Actually, he can hear the difference....

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 3, 2009 at 21:29:36
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 7510
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Hey Charlie,

I am not any kind of expert on portable players, but you might be best of by playing flac on the ipod. Install Rockbox on the ipod if it is one that is supported and I THINK Rockbox supports flac...pretty sure.

And then you can ditch apple software altogether...


RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:10:03
Charles Hansen
Manufacturer

Posts: 4321
Joined: August 1, 2001
 Apple put the kibosh on that one years ago. If you go to the Rockbox website, every single player that it worked on has been out of production for years. They encrypted the firmware and nobody has cracked it yet.

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:54:01
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 7510
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Sorry.

Apple sucks.
RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:15:52
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 3065
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
Contributor
  Since: February 24, 2009
 "They encrypted the firmware and nobody has cracked it yet.

Boycott companies that pull that stuff.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 5, 2009 at 06:01:16
barondla
Audiophile

Posts: 310
Location: midwest usa
Joined: May 26, 2007
 This is one of the reasons I bought a Sansa Fuze. It plays flac. I play flac. No compressed sound for me. Sansa also has better sound than Ipod (even with compressed music).
thanks
barondla

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:27:49
Charles Hansen
Manufacturer

Posts: 4321
Joined: August 1, 2001
 Aha! You obviously don't have a 13-year old son...

RE: Need programmer to help with Foobar and ALAC plug-in, posted on November 4, 2009 at 08:40:35
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 3065
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
Contributor
  Since: February 24, 2009
 "Aha! You obviously don't have a 13-year old son...

Did. 30 years ago. A great challenge to uncouple teenagers from peer pressure socially engineered by the the power elite.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

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