audio archiving app proposed

[airon911]

We over at Monkeysaudio.com have a problem.

This tool, the best compromise between speed and efficiency in lossless audio compression, only does single files, much like BZip2.

Here's the wish:

The app compresses as usual untill it encounters an audio file of prechosen formats(PCM formats such as WAV and AIFF).

It compresses those files in to what the Monkeyaudio tool would normally compress it and includes this in to the ZIP archive(or whatever else). It's a good idea to ZIP this file with zero compression thereafter, if that's possible of course.

Upon unpacking the detected lossless audio compression formats are decompressed if so chosen(dialog & prefs for user choice).

That way audio projects could archived with greater efficiency. RAR isn't as good nor as fast as Monkey Audio. Flac could be used as well, if one was so inclined.

So the ZIP file that would normally contain:
blah1.wav , blah1.txt and blah2.aif
would now contain:
blah1.ape, blah1.txt and blah2.ape

One might presume that mixing AIF and WAV files in to one archive would make it impossible to reproduce the exact formats. This is not so. Monkey Audio(Flac too?) has a tag system that could include the source format of the file in the comments field for reference by the archiver.

Btw, if the user chooses not to decompress the losslessy-compressed audio files within an archive, it doesn't matter. They're all playable in Winamp. They all deliver Winamp plugins with their own package.

Monkey Audio brings along a DLL library and the source can be obtained on the website too.

That's the wish. How about it ?

Please email if you can at airon@gmx.net.

Tony

[DSPguru]

Tony,
we talked about it in the past, and i suggested you to contant flac author and 7-zip author.
as far as i know, you never contacted them. why ?
don't you think that flac integration inside 7-zip would be good for your needs ?

[airon911]

I have posted my suggestion on several boards just now, as I was preoccupied with personal matters to quite an extent.

7-Zip
Isn't that Windows-only ? My goal is to have an app that can create ZIP archives on the three major platforms(Unix,MacOS,Windows) and use file-by-file compression which can still be used when another standard unZIPer unpacks the archive. Flac and Monkey Audio are perfect for this, but without cross-platform ability I might as well stick to the Monkey Audio GUI and I only saw a Windows version, which seemed a little out of date. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

I haven't asked Josh yet. I'd be interested to see if he has time for something like this and I thought he might have his plate full with embedded platform stuff and OGG containers.

I've contacted a few ZIP GUI authors with minimal success so far. Over at Virtualsoundstudio.com they're developing an open VST host, crossplatform it is hoped and the kind of archiving app I proposed could be a great support utility in this field so they might grab the ball and get rolling.

I'll try Josh too, just to be shure, but if you have further pointers, don't keep them to yourself please.

If I could code C++, I'd take the ZIP source and code this thing myself with WxWindows as the GUI base.

Tony

[DSPguru]

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?act=ST&f=17&t=5599&s=

[airon911]

Thanks. Another board to register for. Heh.

Tony

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by airon911
7-Zip
Isn't that Windows-only ? My goal is to have an app that can create ZIP archives on the three major platforms(Unix,MacOS,Windows) and use file-by-file compression which can still be used when another standard unZIPer unpacks the archive. Flac and Monkey Audio are perfect for this

Monkey's audio isn't that cross plataform. It extensively uses x86 assembly, and that would certainly make it a nightmare to adapt to other hardware platforms. (Motorola, RISC, DSPs...)

If you want ease-of-portability, go with FLAC (C++) or Wavpack (100% ANSI C).

[airon911]

All well and great. Having a choice between those formats is a definite plus, but if portability is the concern, then Flac and Wavpack are the first choice at this time. You're right there.

Here's a further clarification of the tool for anyone concerned. I hope it makes even more sense for those who don't what I'm talking about(which obviously doesn't include you rjamorim) :


The goal is to make the packing of audio material transparent, while still creating a standard ZIP archive.

The compressor would pack up the audio files with a lossless audio compressor like Monkey Audio or Flac and put THAT in to the ZIp archive. Configured with a switch the user can choose if the archiver would treat audio files(PCM uncompressed-> WAV or AIFF format) this way or not, and whether to unpack losslessly compressed audio in a ZIP archive to its source format upon unpacking.

Lossless audio compressors can be used blockwise and can thus be used to transparently crunch the audio when being put in to the ZIP archive.

Here's a basic diagram :

ziparchiver archive.zip blah/*.*

for each file the ziparchiver decides :
audio file ?
-> no -> pack as usual
-> yes
->detect source format (WAV or AIFF with PCM format data only)
->call lossless audio compressor routines to pack the audio
file block by block and pipe that output to zip packing
routine which packs it as foobar.ape(Monkey Audio
used) instead of foobar.wav or foobar.aif

Unpacking of the ZIP archive does this the other way. It checks for losslessly compressed audio and decompresses it to its source format. That source format description can be stored in a TAG field of the losslessly compressed audio files when being compressed and packed in to the ZIp archive.

The advantage is that the format is still the same and any unZIPer can unpack these archives. But only this new archiver can decompress the audio files while unpacking the archive. With a standard unZIPer you'd have to decompress the unpacked lossless-audio-compressed files with the standard application like Monkey Audio or Flac. The new archiver saves time and preserves directory structure at the same time.

It is extremly useful for archiving any kind of audio project, because of the lossless audio compressors speed and efficiency.

Of course you can first compress the audio of a project and then ZIp it all up. This takes loads of diskspace and/or more time. The HD is heavily used as the compressed audio is unpacked to the same disk to preserve the directory structure of the original archive. The new archiver can work like any ZIP and unZIPer and save additional wear and tear of harddisks.

It saves you from having to develop a new archiving format too. Rar is very slow and inefficient compared to Monkey Audio when it comes to audio, so the benefits would be speed, compression factor and useability.