[Flac] flac filesize limitation

[Brian Willoughby]

On May 13, 2007, at 05:45, Harry Sack wrote:
> If I encode 192 kHz sound @ 24 bit for some days (WAV file) and I  
> encode it to FLAC, I think you can have a very big file and 1.5 TB  
> is reached very quickly.
> And in the future audio will even get bigger, when used for HD-DVD  
> en Blu-ray media and 5.1 channels is considered the 'minimum'  
> setting for surround sound.

Don't forget that the WAV file is going to stop recording at the 4GB  
mark (2GB if the recording software is not carefully written).  You  
would need to record directly to FLAC if you want more than 4GB of  
audio, and you'll need an operating system which can handle files  
larger than that.  The FLAC library allows developers to create  
recording software which saves audio data directly to FLAC files  
without going first to another, more limited format.  You may think  
that 1.5 TB is reach very quickly, but in practice there are not any  
programs which can support this.

As Jud pointed out, changing from stereo to 5.1 surround has no  
effect, because the only limitation of FLAC is the number of samples,  
and this does not decrease when more channels are used.  WAVE and  
AIFF, however, are limited to 4GB total, so more channels or more  
bits always means fewer samples, and thus shorter duration recordings.

Brian W.