[Flac-dev] Multichannel, usage & players?

[Brian Willoughby]

Neil,

The FLAC format does not have many limitations, other than a maximum  
of 8 channels in any single file.  You can get around that limitation  
by using multiple files.

Your real limitation is players.  You would need to develop Mac & PC  
players for multichannel, and include them on the disc.  I have  
developed a multichannel FLAC player for the Mac, but it is not  
freely available (nor is it ready for prime-time as it currently  
stands).  Given the excellent API in the FLAC library, writing such a  
player is not extremely difficult.  The challenges are all about the  
platform (Mac or PC) and not about the FLAC format (although it may  
take a few stumbles before you get everything right with the FLAC API).

So, the answer is: Yes, you can use FLAC to create multichannel files  
up to 8 channels that will be compatible with both Mac & PC.   
However, you must develop the player yourself, and should probably  
include the feature to pair multiple files if you want to support  
more than 8 channels.  Of course, your player only needs to play the  
files that you include, so you do not need to develop support for  
more than 5.1 until such time as you have media which exceeds that  
channel count.

Brian Willoughby
Sound Consulting


On Aug 27, 2007, at 12:19, Neil Wilkes wrote:

Hello to the list, and please forgive me if this has already been  
asked before.
(I am new here, you see)

The question is really simple:
Can I use FLAC to create multichannel files, ranging from 3-channel  
LCR, through Quad, 4.1 to 5.1 and possibly (later) above?

The projects details are essentially this:
DVD-Audio, containing MLP Lossless in stereo & surround/multichannel.
Video_TS folder included, holding DTS and Dolby Digital streams
ROM folder to be included. This is where the problems start.
I need the ROM content to be playable on both Mac & PC, and would  
like to be able to include either a decoder or better still a FLAC  
player as well as the actual audio.
Is this possible?

Neil Wilkes
Director
Opus Productions Ltd
www.opusproductions.com