Isn't it time for FLAC USB releases?

[Dave2002]

Presto Classical currently have Teldec's Complete Bach Edition on USB for £135, which is not a bad price. However, isn't about time that issues like this offered FLAC rather than MP3? The price of USB storage is dropping, so why not?

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Teldec/2564661127

[Bryn]

Presto Classical currently have Teldec's Complete Bach Edition on USB for £135, which is not a bad price. However, isn't about time that issues like this offered FLAC rather than MP3? The price of USB storage is dropping, so why not?

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Teldec/2564661127

Possibly because very few domestic media players (CD/DVD/Blu-ray deck, etc.) with USB input facilities have decoders for FLAC in their firmware, whereas mp3 decoding is common to most current players with such inputs. Would that this was different.

[gurnemanz]

I agree, but one small drawback is that Windows Media Player won't recognize FLAC. So I can't rightclick "Play to" to send them wifi from my laptop my Blu ray player's media renderer and thence to amp, as I can with mp3. If I plug the USB directly into the Blu ray it plays the FLAC files fine. You can't make a playlist there but you can play a playlist made on the laptop which it will play. (Panasonic BDT220)

I have that Teldec Bach USB, well worth getting with plenty of interesting recordings. The file and folder arrangement takes some getting used to - for me at least, because I'm in the habit of thinking of a file as a track and a folder as like an album or CD. As it is, each work, however short, has its own folder. Just checked: 3261 files in 1069 (!) folders. Many folders contain just one file.

[Dave2002]

I agree, but one small drawback is that Windows Media Player won't recognize FLAC. So I can't rightclick "Play to" to send them wifi from my laptop my Blu ray player's media renderer and thence to amp, as I can with mp3. If I plug the USB directly into the Blu ray it plays the FLAC files fine. You can't make a playlist there but you can play a playlist made on the laptop which it will play. (Panasonic BDT220)

I have that Teldec Bach USB, well worth getting with plenty of interesting recordings. The file and folder arrangement takes some getting used to - for me at least, because I'm in the habit of thinking of a file as a track and a folder as like an album or CD. As it is, each work, however short, has its own folder. Just checked: 3261 files in 1069 (!) folders. Many folders contain just one file.

Curious how such practical issues get in the way. As the price of USB sticks drops it should be possible to have both FLAC and MP3 versions on the same memory stick. Some may want other formats - for example iTunes users may prefer ALAC, but if there's one lossless and one digital compressed version on the memory stick, then it's not too difficult to get the files converted. Of course, going further forward, it would also be possible to have WAV files - a bit wasteful, but would do the job. Finally, the whole thing could be packaged with a few conversion tools, so that buyers could make up their own collections in formats of their choice.

[knodge41]

I agree, but one small drawback is that Windows Media Player won't recognize FLAC. So I can't rightclick "Play to" to send them wifi from my laptop my Blu ray player's media renderer and thence to amp, as I can with mp3. If I plug the USB directly into the Blu ray it plays the FLAC files fine. You can't make a playlist there but you can play a playlist made on the laptop which it will play. (Panasonic BDT220)

I have that Teldec Bach USB, well worth getting with plenty of interesting recordings. The file and folder arrangement takes some getting used to - for me at least, because I'm in the habit of thinking of a file as a track and a folder as like an album or CD. As it is, each work, however short, has its own folder. Just checked: 3261 files in 1069 (!) folders. Many folders contain just one file.

Gurnemanz, You can quite easily install a Codec which will enable Windows Media Player to play .flac files.

http://www.pristineclassical.com/More/FLAC-WMP.html

See the paragraph 'Installing the FLAC codec for WMP'

There are similar procedures for other codecs for various types of audio file not recognised by WMP by default.