[flac-dev] FLAC Mathematical Details

[Justin Ruggles]

On 02/08/2012 11:49 AM, Ralph Giles wrote:

> On 7 February 2012 21:59, Martijn van Beurden <mvanb1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> AFAIK, FLAC uses a fixed block length so block boundaries are just put
>> somewhere a block ends. Flake, another FLAC-encoders can use variable
>> block length and has a algorithm to decide the length, but this is
>> outside of the -0 to -8 presets, as these are all fixed block length.
> 
> Aha. Thanks for clarifying. I just saw the reference to
> variable-length blocks in the format document.
> 
> How much does the variable-block mode improve compression?


0.5% to 1.0% on average. That's with a fairly simple algorithm.

-Justin