Easiest way to play FLACs / SHNs on an iPod?

[paulhoffman]

Greetings. I mostly convert the FLACs / SHNs I get here to CDs for listening in my car. I now have an old iPod for the office and want to listen to this material on it. However, converting to MP3s, coming up with a consistent naming system, and so on, is pretty damn tedious.

Is there some software that takes a folder of FLACs / SHNs and puts it in a format that is easy to import into iTunes in a sensible way? I gotta be missing something here...

[jdawson]

There's rockbox which allows you to play flac files. My son knows more about rockbox than I do. There may be some limitations as to what generation or type of ipod (video, nano, etc) may use the crack.

Have you thought of just using the ipod as something like a flash drive and using something like foobar or winamp to play the files on the work pc?

[SilverVishnu]

Yeah, my friend uses Rockbox on his iPod. Apparently it's a lot more functional and generally better than the standard iPod OS.

[U2Lynne]

Rockbox - http://www.rockbox.org/


I've been thinking about installing it on my iPod, but I haven't yet. Five has done so and he said to just download the software and read the installation instructions that come with it and follow them and you should be fine. He did emphasize the read the instructions and make sure you follow them part!

[scratchie]

Originally Posted by paulhoffman

Greetings. I mostly convert the FLACs / SHNs I get here to CDs for listening in my car. I now have an old iPod for the office and want to listen to this material on it. However, converting to MP3s, coming up with a consistent naming system, and so on, is pretty damn tedious.

You know you can rename the files from within Itunes, right?

If you're handy with Perl, I once wrote a script for updating MP3 files' ID3 tags based on an "info.txt" type of file. I could upload that if there's any interest.

[Five]

I installed rockbox on my 80GB Video iPod and have never looked back. You can just take a show of a folder downloaded from here, drag and drop it to your iPod as an external drive, then plug in and listen. 16 and 24bit FLAC is supported, you can also read the txt file and view jpegs. I think ape and shn are also supported but haven't tried that yet. Also, I am playing Doom on my goddam iPod. Sure beats the piss out of that 'guys parachuting' game the apple os comes with. ps when you install rockbox its dual boot so you can still use the apple os anytime you want.

go to rockbox.org and look up your model, follow the manual to the letter for installation (its a breeze).

[scratchie]

Wow, that sounds pretty cool. I just recently got a DVD-Audio capable player, and have been thinking about checking out some 24-bit recordings, but this sounds even easier (and more flexible) than learning how to burn a DVD-A.

[Five]

great link about that posted by danlynch over here:
http://24bit.turtleside.com/

this especially looks promising:
http://audioplex.sourceforge.net/

I have to make some time to test if lplex is bit-accurate when it transcodes. Meanwhile, 24bit FLAC files are preferred imo.

[paulhoffman]

Rockbox looks like the way to go. I'll plow through the doc tonight. Thanks!

DVD-Audiofile is excellent (and free @ the turtleside link) for creating DVD-Audio discs at several different resolutions from 16/44.1 up to 24/192 from FLAC or WAV files. It is a GUI, not command line. There are 9 possible groups, so you can put a 24/48 show in one group, and a few 16/44.1 shows in other groups. Blank screen, no menus with this prog. You burn the .iso it creates.

Lplex is excellent too (and free), but it creates audio only DVD-Video discs with a blank screen. It is command line, but you can just drop a folder of WAVs or FLACs into Lplex.exe and it will author a disc, but it will be one long track. For separate tracks, drop the folder into Lplex_discrete.bat. DVD-Video is limited to 16/48, 24/48, or 24/96. It does transcode to .VOB bit accurately, I have played with it and the log file lists input audio checksums and output audio checksums (they match).

Audio DVD creator makes audio only DVD-Video discs ($40) also, but with a menu. It's great and is a GUI.

All of these programs are very easy to use, similar to burning a CD.

[scratchie]

Originally Posted by Five

great link about that posted by danlynch over here:
http://24bit.turtleside.com/

Ha. That's actually the page that first got me thinking about it. What I really need are some recommendations for "essential" 24-bit recordings to check out (although that's probably getting a little far afield for this particular forum thread). (Not that I would refuse any, though, if you just wanted to throw a couple out.)

Rockbox sounds like the way to go, at least at first. Thanks to everyone for additional suggestions on DVD software, though.

this especially looks promising:
http://audioplex.sourceforge.net/

I don't understand why it would author as a DVD-video rather than DVD-audio. Is that to make it compatible with more machines?

[U2Lynne]

Originally Posted by scratchie

Ha. That's actually the page that first got me thinking about it. What I really need are some recommendations for "essential" 24-bit recordings to check out (although that's probably getting a little far afield for this particular forum thread). (Not that I would refuse any, though, if you just wanted to throw a couple out.)

If you go to Advanced Search and put "24-bit" (no quotes) in the search field and select Select Titles Only and then select Audio Torrents on the right, you will get a list of all the 24-bit shows we currently have on our tracker. I've always enjoyed gewwang's recordings, but there are several other very good tapers listed there also. You might want to pick one from a band you like and try it out.

Originally Posted by scratchie

Ha. That's actually the page that first got me thinking about it. What I really need are some recommendations for "essential" 24-bit recordings to check out (although that's probably getting a little far afield for this particular forum thread). (Not that I would refuse any, though, if you just wanted to throw a couple out.)

I don't understand why it would author as a DVD-video rather than DVD-audio. Is that to make it compatible with more machines?

This one is really good:
Radiohead Bonnaroo 2006 FOB KM140 24/96
http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=26458
The presence and ambiance is incredible.

Dave Matthews Band concert for Virginia Tech FOB Schoeps MK4 24/48 9-6-2007
http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=509521

The last regular (non festival) Phish show:
http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=510117

Les Claypool 8-11-2007 24/48 better than the 24 bit Schoeps version IMO, cause this is closer and uses omni mics
http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=508973

There's some Ryan Adams, moe., Black Crowes, and others in 24 bit also on http://bt.etree.org

www.archive.org has a lot of 24 bit shows in the Live Music Archive

Most 24 bit shows are 24/48 or 24/96, so authoring as video works fine. I would guess that only 10% of people with a DVD player are DVD-A compatible.

[scratchie]

Thanks for the recs. I'll definitely check out that Radiohead show when I get a chance.

[possessed]

What are you using for headphones? Unless it's some nice phones then I don't see the purpose of filling an iPod with large files. If you have good cans, then I digress.

Personally, I've found that 320k is perfect for size and quality and I'm pumping my tunes via some Klipsch speakers. As far as renaming and tagging, I use AudioShell which works nicely. Of course everyone has their own idea what works best for them so with that....