"Once someone uploads this album in FLAC, I'll re-upload these files, converting the FLAC files into MP3 files, to replace these files here. I currently have my eyes for this album in FLAC, so hopefully, I'll find it in time."

Update 5/14/2011: Forget about trying to find this album in FLAC on the internet (for right now that is)... because I'm the one to upload this album in FLAC! Yep, I got my soundtrack just today in the mail, but before I upload it, I need to edit the tags and the CUE sheets, and then I can upload the album for you guys! Another thing, in the next few days, I'll be making a rip of the DVD too, but since it's going to take about 8 GB on my hard drive, I need a little more time to rip the DVD. Sometime today or tomorrow, the soundtrack will be fully uploaded in FLAC, and in several bit rates in MP3 form. I plan on re-uploading all of the other links from before, and making better rips directly from the CD's. I also made my own scans of the album, the US version you buy from Amazon, so that's proof that I got the music directly from the CD's. I'll also be uploading the scans with the FLAC files, and separately. Links for MP3 and a new thread containing the album in FLAC and a DVD rip will be coming soon.

Update 1/31/2013: Wow, I totally forgot about this website completely! Oops, sorry for not updated these links! Anyways, because I need more room for to upload more files onto MediaFire (since they now have a limit of 50GB per account), I had to delete some of the files that I originally uploaded in the first place. I deleted files that were in kbps bit rates of 192, 256, 320, and those VBR files. I kept 128 kbps MP3, FLAC, and the album scans. I changed the folders they were in, so those links have been updated. And unfortunately, I would seriously love to change the thread name, but I don't think we can do that, at least not yet...? So, bottom line is, if you want the other bit rates, you can always download the FLAC files and convert them yourselves, or download them from someone else, or just buy the damn album! I think it's better that way anyways.

To download the music in FLAC and to download the DVD in several formats, a new thread was made back in May, and contains the links there (also here now too, just without the DVD files). Here's the link for this awesome thread:


Distant Worlds: Returning Home [FLAC + CUE Sheets + DVD] (Thread 90101)


Here are the links and the soundtrack information:

http://img13.mediafire.com/c2829e836726d9054a2aa033daf632a9c909b4a730825f334f 610c833e802c8d6g.jpg


Album Title: Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY Returning home
Produced By: Nobuo Uematsu, Arnie Roth, AWR Music Productions LLC, Square-Enix Co., Ltd.
Catalog Number: AWR 10104~7
Discs: DVD + 2CD set
DVD Region Code: 0
Subtitles: English

Performance Dates: November 6th & 7th 2010
Venue: Tokyo International Forum Hall A
Conducted By: Arnie Roth
Composed By: Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu
Performed By: Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra
Chorus: Keio University Wagner Society Choir
Guest Artists: Benyamin Nuss, Meng-Feng Su, Frances Maya, Susan Calloway
Arranged By: Shiro Hamaguchi, Arnie Roth, Eric Roth, Tsutomu Narita, Adam Klemens, Yoshihisa Hirano, Toshiyuki O'mori


Disc 1:

01. FINAL FANTASY VII: One-Winged Angel
02. FINAL FANTASY SERIES: Victory Theme
03. FINAL FANTASY VIII: Don't be Afraid
04. FINAL FANTASY I-III: Medley 2010
05. FINAL FANTASY VIII: Love Grows
06. FINAL FANTASY XI: Ronfaure
07. FINAL FANTASY VII: JENOVA
08. FINAL FANTASY V: Dear Friends
09. FINAL FANTASY IX: Vamo' alla Flamenco
10. FINAL FANTASY VII: Aerith's Theme
11. FINAL FANTASY SERIES: Chocobo Medley 2010


Disc 2:

01. FINAL FANTASY VII: Opening - Bombing Mission
02. FINAL FANTASY X: Zanarkand
03. FINAL FANTASY VII: Those Who Fight (Let The Battles Begin!)
04. FINAL FANTASY VI: Dancing Mad
05. FINAL FANTASY XIII: Blinded By Light
06. FINAL FANTASY XIII: Fang's Theme
07. FINAL FANTASY XIII: March of the Dreadnoughts
08. FINAL FANTASY XIII: Fabula Nova Crystallis
09. FINAL FANTASY XIII: Saber's Edge
10. FINAL FANTASY XIV: Navigator's Glory - The Theme of Limsa Lominsa
11. FINAL FANTASY XIV: Twilight over Thanalan
12. FINAL FANTASY XIV: Answers
13. FINAL FANTASY XIV: Primal Judgment
14. FINAL FANTASY VIII: The Man With The Machine Gun
15. FINAL FANTASY VI: Terra's Theme
16. FINAL FANTASY V: Clash on the Big Bridge (Battle at the Big Bridge)


DVD:

Part 1:

01. FINAL FANTASY VII: One-Winged Angel
02. FINAL FANTASY SERIES: Victory Theme
03. FINAL FANTASY VIII: Don't be Afraid
04. FINAL FANTASY I-III: Medley 2010
05. FINAL FANTASY VIII: Love Grows
06. FINAL FANTASY XI: Ronfaure
07. FINAL FANTASY VII: JENOVA
08. FINAL FANTASY V: Dear Friends
09. FINAL FANTASY IX: Vamo' alla Flamenco
10. FINAL FANTASY VII: Aerith's Theme
11. FINAL FANTASY SERIES: Chocobo Medley 2010


Part 2:

12. FINAL FANTASY VII: Opening - Bombing Mission
13. FINAL FANTASY X: Zanarkand
14. FINAL FANTASY VII: Those Who Fight (Let The Battles Begin!)
15. FINAL FANTASY VI: Dancing Mad

FINAL FANTASY XIII:

16. Blinded By Light
17. Fang's Theme
18. March of the Dreadnoughts
19. Fabula Nova Crystallis
20. Saber's Edge

FINAL FANTASY XIV:

21. Navigator's Glory - The Theme of Limsa Lominsa
22. Twilight over Thanalan
23. Answers
24. Primal Judgment

25. FINAL FANTASY VIII: The Man With The Machine Gun
26. FINAL FANTASY VI: Terra's Theme

Encore:

27. FINAL FANTASY V: Clash on the Big Bridge (Battle at the Big Bridge)


Now, here is the link for the folder with all available files from the album:

MediaFire:
Full Album Download in MP3 & FLAC + Album Scans (http://www.mediafire.com/?e71ubmnxo1g3e)



I know it may have been a little late to finally upload the songs, but enjoy the music! :)

P.S. - The music was ripped directly from the discs, and not wrongfully converted from lossy to lossy format.

Finally, we have the new album by Distant Worlds! I know that someone else has already uploaded it, but I wanted to present to you guys that I have re-uploaded it, and converted the files into 320 kbps bit rate MP3 format, with 48.000 kHz sample rate as well.

You converted the MP3s that have already been uploaded, or you own the disc and created your own MP3s?

If the latter, could you post a FLAC encode as well?

You converted the MP3s that have already been uploaded, or you own the disc and created your own MP3s?

If the latter, could you post a FLAC encode as well?

Well, I would if I knew how to covert files to FLAC format. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that, but as for the files, I just converted the ones that were already uploaded. I'm going to buy the album from Amazon when it's released on April 1st, 2011. If there is no DVD rip until then, then I'll rip the DVD and upload it. I wish I can buy the album now, but the Japanese always have to get the new releases first before anyone else! Well, I know it's a long wait, but the files that were already uploaded had the tag info wrong, and the file names were wrong too, so I decided to re-upload it with everything there, and in 320 kbps, without the variable bit rate crap. Do you happen to know what program I can use to covert files into FLAC? Maybe I'll give a try and see what I can do...

Not trying to sound mean since I know you put effort into making these and posting for others, but the original mp3's you re-encoded from are 220-250kbps vbr encodes. Since mp3 is a lossy codec your not going to get better quality by re-encoding these to 320kbps. I know some older players have issues with variable bitrate so the 128 ones you re-encoded could be useful for those folks. As for making FLAC's you need the actual wav rips from the original CD's since the whole point of FLAC is a lossless encoding.

Not trying to sound mean since I know you put effort into making these and posting for others, but the original mp3's you re-encoded from are 220-250kbps vbr encodes. Since mp3 is a lossy codec your not going to get better quality by re-encoding these to 320kbps. I know some older players have issues with variable bitrate so the 128 ones you re-encoded could be useful for those folks. As for making FLAC's you need the actual wav rips from the original CD's since the whole point of FLAC is a lossless encoding.

Lossless is no compression for an audio file, right? Like, when if you convert the file into a MP3, MP3 format compresses the audio file, as to save memory. But FLAC and WAV are kinda the same, right? You know, with no compression...? I know that there isn't a difference between 320 and 128, but a lot of people would prefer 320 or even 128 kbps, and I re-uploaded for those people, or for anyone who just want the songs. Once I buy the soundtrack in April, I'll try to convert the files to FLAC, and try it out or something. I don't have the CD's, and I'm not going to pay $60 for a DVD that won't play in my country. I'd rather wait until Amazon has it in stock. I still need to buy the other soundtracks too.. and, by the way, no offense taken... I see your point of FLAC... so, I'll do what I can for any other soundtracks I have.

Lossless is no compression for an audio file, right?

No. Lossless means that a file is still compressed, but that the encoder didn’t throw out any of the original data when creating that lossless file. That’s why it’s called lossless: you lose none of the original data. FLAC and WAV are not the same thing, despite the fact that both have 100% of the original sound data from whatever source they were encoded. FLAC is compressed. WAV is not.

Now that we know you’ve re-encoded the files that were uploaded in a separate thread, what you’ve basically done is to create lossy encodes of lossy encodes. Therefore, your MP3 files, despite being of a technically higher bitrate than the MP3s you began with, actually have less sound quality and therefore sound worse than the original MP3s you began with. Encoders cannot magically recreate sound data; you can’t add quality to a file by re-encoding it, you can only subtract.

Basically, you’ve made a photocopy of a photocopy.


Do you happen to know what program I can use to covert files into FLAC? Maybe I'll give a try and see what I can do…

Any modern encoder worth using supports multiple formats, FLAC encoded. But it sounds like your encoder/method doesn’t. So, refer to this. (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_Configuration_Wizard) The lossless audio thread has a link to a guide, but it’s no longer publicly available, so this is your best bet.

If you are re-encoding files that you got from someone else. STOP. You're wasting everyone's time. If you actually have the physical CD in hand and that is where this rips are coming from, then fine. But to get FLAC you have to go back to the CD and re-rip the CD as FLAC files, not MP3. Same goes with higher quality transcodes. If you are taking 128K MP3s and transcoding to 320K MP3s then what you are doing is equivalent to squeezing a lime, and then taking the lime juice and pouring it back into the lime halves and saying it's somehow better. It's not. You've already squeezed the lime, you can nnot undo this process. If you could, nobody would be asking for a higher quality transcode, we would just do it ourselves.

Is there even any music on here that is not on the previous two albums? I don't know why people are asking for lossless if this is from a DVD. DVDs by nature are LOSSY.

Is there even any music on here that is not on the previous two albums?

Yes. Final Fantasy XIII and XIV tracks, and Clash on the Big Bridge.

4 Key points:

1) Yes, there is new music on this album

2) This is being made available as both a CD and DVD of the live performance as quoted from the Distant Worlds website:


Square Enix
and
AWR Music Productions
present
the entire FINAL FANTASY
Japan 2010 concert
DVD and 2 CD set!

3) You mistake what the point of a lossless rip is. It's not about whether the source material is lossy. It's about whether any information is lost from the transcode. When I rip a CD and encode to FLAC I know it's identical to the CD. Who cares how bad the origiinal CD is. If that's the best for source material there is then that's what you have to work with. At least I'm not introducing any extra information loss on top.

Let's say you have an album of photographs sitting around and you decide to digitise them by scanning them. By definition you're losing information when you scan them. Scans are rarely perfect. You can then either save this image as a big TIF file or save it as a tiny thumbnail jpg. Which do you choose? I'm not saying people should be only post FLAC. I'm just happy to get what I can get, I'm just posting the fallacy in your logic that "it's already lossy so why bother".

4) My issue in this thread isn't about FLAC vs MP3 but a misguided attempt by a newbie to post a higher quality rip that actually isn't. I don't see why anyone would agree that re-encoding a low-bit rate file to a high-bit rate file should be encouraged.


Lastly, we may be wrong about whether this guy has the actual CD or not. It could just be poor grammar or bad English translation, but it sure sounds like this person just took the files and re-encoded them and did not rip them fresh. If that's not the case, then sorry about that, but if it is the case it needs to be caught early on.

Lossless is no compression for an audio file, right? Like, when if you convert the file into a MP3, MP3 format compresses the audio file, as to save memory. But FLAC and WAV are kinda the same, right? You know, with no compression...? I know that there isn't a difference between 320 and 128, but a lot of people would prefer 320 or even 128 kbps, and I re-uploaded for those people, or for anyone who just want the songs. Once I buy the soundtrack in April, I'll try to convert the files to FLAC, and try it out or something. I don't have the CD's, and I'm not going to pay $60 for a DVD that won't play in my country. I'd rather wait until Amazon has it in stock. I still need to buy the other soundtracks too.. and, by the way, no offense taken... I see your point of FLAC... so, I'll do what I can for any other soundtracks I have.

Ahhahahaha OLOLOL what a n00b!1

Ahhahahaha OLOLOL what a n00b!1
-.- come on



welcome on board Valiant and thanks a lot for ur post

Yeah, don't mind them. Thanks for sharing~

the song: Answers (FINAL FANTASY XIV). i am searching the version they used in the trailer but without fx.

4 Key points:

1) Yes, there is new music on this album

2) This is being made available as both a CD and DVD of the live performance as quoted from the Distant Worlds website:



3) You mistake what the point of a lossless rip is. It's not about whether the source material is lossy. It's about whether any information is lost from the transcode. When I rip a CD and encode to FLAC I know it's identical to the CD. Who cares how bad the origiinal CD is. If that's the best for source material there is then that's what you have to work with. At least I'm not introducing any extra information loss on top.

Let's say you have an album of photographs sitting around and you decide to digitise them by scanning them. By definition you're losing information when you scan them. Scans are rarely perfect. You can then either save this image as a big TIF file or save it as a tiny thumbnail jpg. Which do you choose? I'm not saying people should be only post FLAC. I'm just happy to get what I can get, I'm just posting the fallacy in your logic that "it's already lossy so why bother".

4) My issue in this thread isn't about FLAC vs MP3 but a misguided attempt by a newbie to post a higher quality rip that actually isn't. I don't see why anyone would agree that re-encoding a low-bit rate file to a high-bit rate file should be encouraged.


Lastly, we may be wrong about whether this guy has the actual CD or not. It could just be poor grammar or bad English translation, but it sure sounds like this person just took the files and re-encoded them and did not rip them fresh. If that's not the case, then sorry about that, but if it is the case it needs to be caught early on.

This is the part where I had said a lot of really bad words, and I didn't want anymore people to see it... and it's really bad.

---------- Post added at 09:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:28 PM ----------


-.- come on



welcome on board Valiant and thanks a lot for ur post

Thank you so much for the help! I appreciate it very much!

About FFXIV "Answers", several people at YouTube has uploaded the full song without the effects, or without the sounds from the trailer. You can ask them or download a program that can convert the YouTube video into an audio file on your computer. dvdvideosoft.com has the program, plus many other programs for free, but only for a limited time. I don't know.. maybe I can get you the song...? It won't be no FLAC though... so sorry about that.

You said you're new to FLAC, why dont you learn about it from google, or wikipedia, or etc first?
You also said my vbr upload had wrong tag&names, which and where, can you point it out?

the song: Answers (FINAL FANTASY XIV). i am searching the version they used in the trailer but without fx.

YouTube - Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) Soundtrack - Answers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2poCjqoSqOY)

As far as I know, there is no "good quality" for this song yet :(

EXCUSE ME!!!!!! I'M NOT A NEWBIE TO ALL OF THIS!!! I'm new to FLAC, because I didn't know about FLAC! DON'T YOU "LOSSLESS" PEOPLE TELL ME THAT I'M A NEWBIE!!! AND, I DON'T GET WHY EVERYONE HAS TO HAVE "FLAC" WHEN THE AUDIO PRETTY MUCH SOUNDS THE SAME! ISN'T THAT WHAT QUALITY IS ALL ABOUT??? THE AUDIO?? NOT THE CD INFORMATION??? OR TRACK INFO?? WHATEVER IT IS?? YOU PEOPLE WANTING FLAC AND TALKING SHIT ABOUT ME IS JUST WRONG!!! CAN'T YOU APPRECIATE THE FACT THAT I TRIED TO DO SOMETHING FOR THE WORLD?? LIKE, SOME PEOPLE DON'T LIKE FLAC, OR THEY DON'T LIKE VARIABLE BIT RATE, SO I RE-UPLOADED THESE FILES FOR THEM!!!! NOT FOR UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BITCHES THAT LIKE TALKING SHIT!! YOU DON'T LIKE THIS THREAD, THEN GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!

And by the way, I have another account here on ffshrine that I have had for a while, under the username "Brownhairbaby01"! I'm the one that provided FFXIII OST PLUS and Piano Collections FFXIII once they came out!! I was the first to make a thread of FFXIII PLUS download links, so don't fucking complain about these files because it took a long time to upload them! And sorry if your audio files has to be "perfect"!! Haven't you all learned, that NOTHING IS PERFECT!!?????

Valiant, the main problem people have about your upload is the fact that you did a lossy-to-lossy encode, rather than this FLAC business. When it comes to music, the gold standard of audio quality is always the original CD, regardless of whether the mastering was lossless or lossy. The reason people always need to know source, bitrate and encoding details before spending their download bandwidth is that they want to be assured they are getting something that has been ripped and converted DIRECTLY from the original CD.

As people have previously pointed out, lossy transcoding of music is always a subtraction process. Compare a rip of the original CD at MP3 320 kbps vs your upload of MP3 320 kbps transcoded from MP3 V0 (which is already lower than CBR 320). The difference in sound quality would be quite noticeable. There is no internet law saying you can't do what you did but you should at least let people know the source so they can choose to download or not.

If you did the same thing here as your previous posts for the Final Fantasy XIII albums, I would ask that you state the source of your files if possible.

Also, what is wrong with VBR?

PRAISE THE MAKER! OH and praise the guy who posted these too! ;)

Thanks man! Much appreciated!

Is there even any music on here that is not on the previous two albums? I don't know why people are asking for lossless if this is from a DVD. DVDs by nature are LOSSY.
The normal DVD-Video (DVD-Audio is another story) can store LPCM audio tracks. E.g. my Yuki Kajiura Live DVD (the one from 2008) has the audio track for the concert in LPCM stereo. All additional material is in AC3 though.


Also, what is wrong with VBR?
Nothing. In fact CBR320 is inferior to VBR V0. People just don't get that, because they don't know how a lossy encoder works for variable bitrate modes. A lossy encoding mode should always be jugded by 'perceived audio quality vs. filesize'. VBR V0 gets the best out of the encoding techniques that the MP3 standard allows.

If you now come arguing "But CBR 320 is still the best, because it's the highest setting and yadda yadda...": Search for 'freeformat' encoding in the context of MP3. You can e.g. instruct LAME to create a bitstream that can peak 640kbit/s per frame (vs. 320kbit/s per frame) so it doubles the bitrate. However you won't get much from that. It's not like the increase in perceived quality depends linearly on the bitrate, see e.g. the 'Quality to File Size' graph near the end of this article (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME).

Putting more and more bits into a frame won't help the quality. It's never going to become lossless this way, even if you double the bitrate again. The 'bottlenecks', if you like to call them that way, are in different positions of the encoder pipeline.

@ Enuma and Valiant, thanks a lot.

@all
i like this description from whatcd. short and pregnant
What.CD: A Beginner's Guide (http://www.whatinterviewprep.com/preparefortheinterview.html)

ahhaha teh n00bie encoded vbr v0 mp3 into cbr320 which is essentially halving teh sound quality while doubling teh file size and refuses to acknowledge his n00biness! lolz what a n00b!!1

At last he makes correct and full sentences.
You on the other hand...

Don't yuo mean "at least"??

Valiant, the main problem people have about your upload is the fact that you did a lossy-to-lossy encode, rather than this FLAC business. When it comes to music, the gold standard of audio quality is always the original CD, regardless of whether the mastering was lossless or lossy. The reason people always need to know source, bitrate and encoding details before spending their download bandwidth is that they want to be assured they are getting something that has been ripped and converted DIRECTLY from the original CD.

As people have previously pointed out, lossy transcoding of music is always a subtraction process. Compare a rip of the original CD at MP3 320 kbps vs your upload of MP3 320 kbps transcoded from MP3 V0 (which is already lower than CBR 320). The difference in sound quality would be quite noticeable. There is no internet law saying you can't do what you did but you should at least let people know the source so they can choose to download or not.

If you did the same thing here as your previous posts for the Final Fantasy XIII albums, I would ask that you state the source of your files if possible.

Also, what is wrong with VBR?

As for FFXIII albums, my source was from the iTunes store. I don't have the actual discs, but I did buy them both. And, okay, let me get this straight. Let's say that the original user that uploaded the files, had ripped the CD into MP3 VBR the first time. But then I re-encode the files again and that subtracts the audio quality? How is that possible when the files sound the same on my computer? What I don't understand, is why have FLAC when FLAC and MP3 sound the same? Oh yeah, I did some research on it already, and I even ripped a CD into FLAC, and there was no change in how the song plays! What do people use FLAC for? Do they put the files into their iPods and hear an extreme difference, like an enhanced version that you can't hear on a computer? I only have a computer, and how I listen to the music, was from my computer. My sound card says it's High Audio Definition, do I need to use a special program to listen to FLAC files differently? That's what I'm confused about. Maybe someone can clear it up for me, and maybe explain it without being too literal when it comes to CBR 320 and the vo crap? I don't know what those are, how can I understand what you guys mean?

You should start by reading the Wikipedia articles about MP3, FLAC, lossless data compression and lossy compression. HydrogenAudio is also a good source when it comes to audio compression techniques.

You said you're new to FLAC, why dont you learn about it from google, or wikipedia, or etc first?
You also said my vbr upload had wrong tag&names, which and where, can you point it out?

First things first: I appreciate you uploading these files, and I want to thank you for that, so thank you very much!

Now, on to the hard part of life, your files didn't have the wrong track names, but some of the songs weren't all the way in the tags. Like, not all of the whole song name was there, like, some of the words from the title of the songs were missing. I didn't want to have to explain what I meant by wrong titles, but you have it right. Words were just missing, that's all.


And I already learned a lot from wikipedia. I found a program that can rip FLAC files, and another program that can do the same, and play them. I learned a valuable lesson today: Never reply to other people's comments about FLAC. I don't get how people can view this thread and start this whole big argument about FLAC files. I won't be able to buy the soundtrack until April 1st, 2011. So I cannot upload files in FLAC, already knowing more about it. I thought that I have listed that in with the download links. Yeah, I downloaded your rip, edit them, re-encode them, and then re-upload them to MediaFire and FileFactory, where people can download the files from other websites. I was trying to be of some help, but no, one comment about FLAC and the whole world has to either be mean about it, or go into so much detail that I don't even understand, and because of that, I got a major headache from it. I'm sorry I can't do FLAC right now, maybe in the future, where people can appreciate the hard work I put into these files, and the hard work I put into making and uploading videos onto YouTube, then maybe I'll upload FLAC, but right now, I'm not going to do that. Not for any soundtrack I have.

I'm sorry to everyone that wants FLAC files, but can we end this FLAC conversation now? It's driving me nuts! And, I was hoping I would get some thanks for re-uploading it, but no, we get a FLAC argument. What's next? MP3 argument? DVD is missing argument? Oh, wait, more FLAC arguments?? This thread has gone way too far! Maybe I should just remove it, remove the download links I worked so hard on, and pretend that we didn't have a FLAC argument over the internet? I don't know, maybe I should just turn this thread into a FLAC argument thread? Hmm? Does that sound cool to everyone? I'm truly sorry that this argument has lasted this long. Maybe I should just stop replying to people and leave this thread alone. Like, I never made it in the first place! Again, I'm sorry for replying to everyone's comments, and trying to be of some help. I regret making this thread now, and it's all thanks to some people who had to rude about it! : |

Let's say that the original user that uploaded the files, had ripped the CD into MP3 VBR the first time. But then I re-encode the files again and that subtracts the audio quality? How is that possible when the files sound the same on my computer?

upgrade yuor hardware/ears

@Valiant Terra:
So you're now blaming others for your lack of necessary knowledge?

upgrade yuor hardware/ears
Don't you mean :your hardware

@Valiant Terra:
So you're now blaming others for your lack of necessary knowledge?

Blaming? You know what? Yeah I'm blaming two people so far that are being pricks! Not everyone else! My God, just drop it already! Why do people have to make everything into such a big deal? It's not a big deal! Just let it go already... if someone has the CD's, then everyone could go ask them for FLAC files. Sheez, can't we just end it, here and now? Please?

---------- Post added at 04:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:09 AM ----------


upgrade yuor hardware/ears

WILL YOU STOP BEING A DICK NOW?? YOU AND SOMEONE ELSE HAVE TO GO AND MAKE EVERYTHING SO COMPLICATED! STOP IT NOW!! YOU'RE NOT MAKING IT BETTER!! SO STOP BEING A PRICK!!! AND LEARN HOW TO SPELL!!!! DUMB ASS!!

I think you're the one making it into a 'big deal'. You should just accept that you made a mistake and come back once you know more about how 'this stuff' works. The fact that you don't know the difference between lossy and lossless or even the one between CBR and VBR shows that you have little to almost no knowledge (apart from using an application).

This is nothing to be embarrassed about. The only point you should be embarrassed about is, if you're reluctant to learn about it. And that's how it currently looks to me...

People do mistakes sometimes, and once they learn their mistakes, it should be forgiven. Valiant has tried to share here. Not many people can do that, including me. So, at least appreciate her for doing such thing.

I have no intention to argue or to complicate things here. Thanks again Valiant for your effort.

masashi hamuzu shoud have his own concert.

with piano concertos in it.

start [CUETools] (http://www.cuetools.net/doku.php)

foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/)
- foobar2000: Components Repository - Monkey's Audio Decoder (http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_input_monkey)

and if foobar asking for ...
LAME MP3 Encoder (http://lame.sourceforge.net/)
FLAC - download (http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html)

I know you were only trying to help Valient Terra, but you do at least see the reservations that people are having here? Igqlgf posted your original source matierial which was then re-encoded by you, and posted here. The issue is that, well, it's like a photocopy of a photocopy as has been mentioned earlier. The quality is being degraded and cannot realistically improve. And another thing, you're getting really upset about critiscism when you should be happy to learn! There are people whose time you have wasted because you haven't fully understood what it was that you were doing. n00b means newbie, for the record. Believe it or not some people here have been trying to help you and you have reacted quite rudely, although silent ed deserved it at least. I'd like to thank you for your attempt at helping and welcome you here, it is a learning curve and you'll improve as you go!

WILL YOU STOP BEING A DICK NOW?? YOU AND SOMEONE ELSE HAVE TO GO AND MAKE EVERYTHING SO COMPLICATED! STOP IT NOW!! YOU'RE NOT MAKING IT BETTER!! SO STOP BEING A PRICK!!! AND LEARN HOW TO SPELL!!!! DUMB ASS!!

Um... no.

I know you were only trying to help Valient Terra, but you do at least see the reservations that people are having here? Igqlgf posted your original source matierial which was then re-encoded by you, and posted here. The issue is that, well, it's like a photocopy of a photocopy as has been mentioned earlier. The quality is being degraded and cannot realistically improve. And another thing, you're getting really upset about critiscism when you should be happy to learn! There are people whose time you have wasted because you haven't fully understood what it was that you were doing. n00b means newbie, for the record. Believe it or not some people here have been trying to help you and you have reacted quite rudely, although silent ed deserved it at least. I'd like to thank you for your attempt at helping and welcome you here, it is a learning curve and you'll improve as you go!

Look, I wasn't being rude or at least I wasn't trying to be to everyone else except the people that were being rude about it all, like Silent Ed and that one other prick. Okay, I made the mistake of asking other people for their inputs on FLAC, I know that now. I think I have already mentioned this, but I appreciate the information on FLAC. I know what I did, and I know what I should have done. I also know that this whole FLAC thing in this thread was caused by me. I ask for information, I got it. I looked it up, I understand the basics of FLAC. What I did wrong was posting my thread link in another thread that already had the files. That was my mistake. I only apologize for MY mistakes. I know better now. Earlier, in my posts, I did have a headache, and I couldn't think for crap. I wanted this all to end, 'cause I couldn't get rid of my headache. So I apologize for asking for some info on FLAC, but I don't apologize to the 2 fuck heads that are pricks here.

Well, Black Paladin, thanks for the tip. I appreciate it greatly.

No problem. Just don't get upset, some people just troll online, and if you get upset, they win. I hope this won't deter you from sharing in the future!

No problem. Just don't get upset, some people just troll online, and if you get upset, they win. I hope this won't deter you from sharing in the future!

I know. And I realized after waking up today that there's no point in fighting over the internet. Internet is internet. You can't walk up to someone's face and tell them off, or kick their asses! That's why I decided to stop fighting. It just takes away from a peaceful day. And hopefully, I'll upload some more files soon. Take care Black Paladin.

if u got the physical CD, rip it to cbr320k, vbr -v0, or Lossless(WAV, FLAC, APE, etc).
if u downloaded it from itunes or other online store or some random website, don't do anything to it, just upload what you got and state the bitrate.

have a nice day.

EXCUSE ME!!!!!! I'M NOT A NEWBIE TO ALL OF THIS!!! I'm new to FLAC, because I didn't know about FLAC! DON'T YOU "LOSSLESS" PEOPLE TELL ME THAT I'M A NEWBIE!!! AND, I DON'T GET WHY EVERYONE HAS TO HAVE "FLAC" WHEN THE AUDIO PRETTY MUCH SOUNDS THE SAME! ISN'T THAT WHAT QUALITY IS ALL ABOUT??? THE AUDIO?? NOT THE CD INFORMATION??? OR TRACK INFO?? WHATEVER IT IS?? YOU PEOPLE WANTING FLAC AND TALKING SHIT ABOUT ME IS JUST WRONG!!! CAN'T YOU APPRECIATE THE FACT THAT I TRIED TO DO SOMETHING FOR THE WORLD?? LIKE, SOME PEOPLE DON'T LIKE FLAC, OR THEY DON'T LIKE VARIABLE BIT RATE, SO I RE-UPLOADED THESE FILES FOR THEM!!!! NOT FOR UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BITCHES THAT LIKE TALKING SHIT!! YOU DON'T LIKE THIS THREAD, THEN GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!

And by the way, I have another account here on ffshrine that I have had for a while, under the username "Brownhairbaby01"! I'm the one that provided FFXIII OST PLUS and Piano Collections FFXIII once they came out!! I was the first to make a thread of FFXIII PLUS download links, so don't fucking complain about these files because it took a long time to upload them! And sorry if your audio files has to be "perfect"!! Haven't you all learned, that NOTHING IS PERFECT!!?????

The above passage goes for anyone who talks shit about me, and my files! Be happy that I gave my time to upload them! And stop being picky over everything! You want FLAC, buy the album yourself!!!! You fucking pricks!! : |[COLOR="Silver"]

At no point did I complain that you did not post these files in FLAC. In fact, I stated in the very post that you quoted that I didn't care if it was in FLAC or not. Only ONE person in ONE post actually asked you for a FLAC version. Every other post has either been about the merits of FLAC or explaining what FLAC is and how to rip it. Somebody asked why anybody would want the CD ripped in a FLAC and I tried to explain it to them.

The issue here is that we are all looking for the highest quality music. Let's look at your VERY FIRST post:


I know that someone else has already uploaded it, but I wanted to present to you guys that I have re-uploaded it, and converted the files into 320 kbps bit rate MP3 format, with 48.000 kHz sample rate as well.

Now here's the question, why would anybody want files with a higher bitrate and/or sample rate than what is already available? Hmmm? Maybe it's because they are looking for something higher quality than what they have. That is EXACTLY what you were advertising. Your post suggested that you had a better version, when in fact you had a WORSE version. What you did was basically you accidentally lied. You had no idea what you were doing, which is fine. What ISN'T fine is lashing out at everyone when they're trying to point out that you're doing something wrong. You complained about being called a newbie, when in fact in every post you have made it absolutely crystal clear that you had no idea what you were doing, which is pretty much by definition a newbie.

Let me try to make absolutely clear what you were doing wrong. You stated you were offering 320 kbit cbr tracks w/ 48 khz sample rate. The SOURCE material you had was, I believe, 220 kbit vbr tracks w/ 44 khz sample rate. Try to imagine it this way:

Somebody has a giant 48 oz jar of peanut butter (pretend this is like a CD). This person wants to give this peanut butter to you, but the jar is too heavy. So they get an empty 24 oz jar of peanut butter and fill it to the top. Imagine that this is like ripping the music to 220 kbps MP3. You then get the jar of peanut butter and you decide to pass it off to someone else. But you want to give them something better: a 36 oz jar of peanut butter (imagine that this is like 320 khz mp3). So you get an empty 36 oz jar of peanut butter and transfer the 24 oz of peanut butter to the 36 oz jar of peanut butter and say, "Hey! Here's 36 oz of peanut butter!"

Do you see what is wrong with this picture? What you've given the other person is not 36 oz of peanut butter, but a 36 oz jar with 24 oz of peanut butter in it.

But wait, it gets worse. Not only did you give them only 24 oz of peanut butter, but you actually gave them a little bit less. How is that possible? When you transferred the peanut butter to the new jar there was still a little bit of peanut butter left over in the bottom of the jar that you couldn't scrape out. So you really probably only gave them maybe 23 oz of peanut butter.

Oh, but it's even worse. Imagine that this same person that you're giving the peanut butter to happened to get 24 oz of peanut butter from the same person that gave you 24 oz of peanut butter. Since you claimed that you were giving them 36 oz of peanut butter, they said, "Yippie skippy!" and threw their 24 oz of peanut butter into the trash. Imagine their dismay when they discover that they threw out their 24 oz of peanut butter and replaced it with 23 oz of peanut butter thinking that they were getting 36 oz of peanut butter.

This is exactly what has happened here. This is why everyone had an issue with what you were doing. Nobody really had an issue with the lack of FLAC (which, btw, is the equivalent of just handing over the entire 48 oz jar of peanut butter). The issue was that there was a disconnect with what you were advertising and what you were offering. Even worse, you claimed to be offering something better than what is already available when in fact you aren't (23 oz vs 24 oz).

Note that this analogy is not perfect, but should get across the basic concepts.

So the question is, how do you get a real genuine 36 oz jar of peanut butter? The only way to do it is to go back to the original container (the CD) and empty it out into a 36 oz jar until the 36 oz jar is full. In other words, to get a higher quality rip you need to have the original CD. Otherwise you are wasting everyone's time INCLUDING YOUR OWN.

You may think that music "sounds the same to your ears" but trust everyone here that is telling you, there is actually a difference. The fact that you're trying to upload something better than what's available means you must understand that at some level there is a difference. What we are telling you is that there is a difference, and it's worse than what is already available.

The important things to take away from this are:
1) The only way to provide a better rip is to go back to some form of lossless source like the original CD or FLAC (do you see why people like FLAC now?)
2) If you ever want to share something that you got from someone else the best thing to do is to share it the same way you got it (don't edit or re-encode it) UNLESS your source is CD, FLAC or some other lossless format (see point 1).

I see people have given good advice already, but there's one more thing I think you might want to know Valiant. Many people really cannot hear a difference in audio quality between lossless and lossy rips so they wonder what point is there in FLAC. Personally, I sure as hell don't load up my music player with FLAC files but rather I listen to everything in MP3 V0; audio quality is virtually indistinguishable until you use specialized sound playback equipment like expensive bookshelf speakers. Still I rip all my CDs into FLAC because:

1) Archiving: it gives me a digital copy of the hard CD so that I have a backup in case the physical CD is damaged.
2) Future encoding: new and better music encoding formats will surely be developed in the future. Having a master lossless copy will allow me to generate rips with different encodes and bitrates at any time with the confidence that I am working from a bit-by-bit copy of the original.

It's definitely worth your time to educate yourself about all this so you can make your own informed decision about how to manage your music collection. The What.CD link (What.CD: A Beginner's Guide (http://whatinterviewprep.webs.com/preparefortheinterview.html)) gave me a great foundation and I'm sure you can find it easy to understand.

I see people have given good advice already, but there's one more thing I think you might want to know Valiant. Many people really cannot hear a difference in audio quality between lossless and lossy rips so they wonder what point is there in FLAC. Personally, I sure as hell don't load up my music player with FLAC files but rather I listen to everything in MP3 V0; audio quality is virtually indistinguishable until you use specialized sound playback equipment like expensive bookshelf speakers. Still I rip all my CDs into FLAC because:

1) Archiving: it gives me a digital copy of the hard CD so that I have a backup in case the physical CD is damaged.
2) Future encoding: new and better music encoding formats will surely be developed in the future. Having a master lossless copy will allow me to generate rips with different encodes and bitrates at any time with the confidence that I am working from a bit-by-bit copy of the original.

It's definitely worth your time to educate yourself about all this so you can make your own informed decision about how to manage your music collection. The What.CD link (What.CD: A Beginner's Guide (http://whatinterviewprep.webs.com/preparefortheinterview.html)) gave me a great foundation and I'm sure you can find it easy to understand.

Wow! That link surely did open my mind and eyes! It was very helpful! I mean, VERY HELPFUL!! Thanks so much for giving me the link! Now I understand why people prefer FLAC instead of MP3. I get it now, thanks so much Cleru! I appreciate it very much!


And to everyone else that was trying to get me to understand what you guys were talking about, I now understand what you guys mean! Thank you everyone for helping! I do appreciate your time and effort into helping me, and it was hard for me to learn, but I got it now. I know now what FLAC really is! Thanks! : D

---------- Post added at 02:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:48 AM ----------


At no point did I complain that you did not post these files in FLAC. In fact, I stated in the very post that you quoted that I didn't care if it was in FLAC or not. Only ONE person in ONE post actually asked you for a FLAC version. Every other post has either been about the merits of FLAC or explaining what FLAC is and how to rip it. Somebody asked why anybody would want the CD ripped in a FLAC and I tried to explain it to them.

The issue here is that we are all looking for the highest quality music. Let's look at your VERY FIRST post:



Now here's the question, why would anybody want files with a higher bitrate and/or sample rate than what is already available? Hmmm? Maybe it's because they are looking for something higher quality than what they have. That is EXACTLY what you were advertising. Your post suggested that you had a better version, when in fact you had a WORSE version. What you did was basically you accidentally lied. You had no idea what you were doing, which is fine. What ISN'T fine is lashing out at everyone when they're trying to point out that you're doing something wrong. You complained about being called a newbie, when in fact in every post you have made it absolutely crystal clear that you had no idea what you were doing, which is pretty much by definition a newbie.

Let me try to make absolutely clear what you were doing wrong. You stated you were offering 320 kbit cbr tracks w/ 48 khz sample rate. The SOURCE material you had was, I believe, 220 kbit vbr tracks w/ 44 khz sample rate. Try to imagine it this way:

Somebody has a giant 48 oz jar of peanut butter (pretend this is like a CD). This person wants to give this peanut butter to you, but the jar is too heavy. So they get an empty 24 oz jar of peanut butter and fill it to the top. Imagine that this is like ripping the music to 220 kbps MP3. You then get the jar of peanut butter and you decide to pass it off to someone else. But you want to give them something better: a 36 oz jar of peanut butter (imagine that this is like 320 khz mp3). So you get an empty 36 oz jar of peanut butter and transfer the 24 oz of peanut butter to the 36 oz jar of peanut butter and say, "Hey! Here's 36 oz of peanut butter!"

Do you see what is wrong with this picture? What you've given the other person is not 36 oz of peanut butter, but a 36 oz jar with 24 oz of peanut butter in it.

But wait, it gets worse. Not only did you give them only 24 oz of peanut butter, but you actually gave them a little bit less. How is that possible? When you transferred the peanut butter to the new jar there was still a little bit of peanut butter left over in the bottom of the jar that you couldn't scrape out. So you really probably only gave them maybe 23 oz of peanut butter.

Oh, but it's even worse. Imagine that this same person that you're giving the peanut butter to happened to get 24 oz of peanut butter from the same person that gave you 24 oz of peanut butter. Since you claimed that you were giving them 36 oz of peanut butter, they said, "Yippie skippy!" and threw their 24 oz of peanut butter into the trash. Imagine their dismay when they discover that they threw out their 24 oz of peanut butter and replaced it with 23 oz of peanut butter thinking that they were getting 36 oz of peanut butter.

This is exactly what has happened here. This is why everyone had an issue with what you were doing. Nobody really had an issue with the lack of FLAC (which, btw, is the equivalent of just handing over the entire 48 oz jar of peanut butter). The issue was that there was a disconnect with what you were advertising and what you were offering. Even worse, you claimed to be offering something better than what is already available when in fact you aren't (23 oz vs 24 oz).

Note that this analogy is not perfect, but should get across the basic concepts.

So the question is, how do you get a real genuine 36 oz jar of peanut butter? The only way to do it is to go back to the original container (the CD) and empty it out into a 36 oz jar until the 36 oz jar is full. In other words, to get a higher quality rip you need to have the original CD. Otherwise you are wasting everyone's time INCLUDING YOUR OWN.

You may think that music "sounds the same to your ears" but trust everyone here that is telling you, there is actually a difference. The fact that you're trying to upload something better than what's available means you must understand that at some level there is a difference. What we are telling you is that there is a difference, and it's worse than what is already available.

The important things to take away from this are:
1) The only way to provide a better rip is to go back to some form of lossless source like the original CD or FLAC (do you see why people like FLAC now?)
2) If you ever want to share something that you got from someone else the best thing to do is to share it the same way you got it (don't edit or re-encode it) UNLESS your source is CD, FLAC or some other lossless format (see point 1).

Yeah, your right. I lashed out when there was no point of doing so. So, I get what the problem is. I didn't mean to lie about what I had said, but I've gotten messages from people that had wanted MP3, and thinking that 48.000kHz was better than 41.000kHz, I didn't know the other side to it all. I guess you can call it "being blind" to see the real truth between audio formats. I realized that I won't be able to listen to FLAC's high quality, or it's true quality, unless I upgrade my equipment, or buy some expensive equipment. I think that if I was to have such equipment, then it'll all be clear to me. But because I'm poor, I can't buy new stuff. I had no idea that encoding one file to another, lossy files, actually loses quality each time. I didn't know that until now. And FLAC, from what I have read, is a compression format, but it keeps all of the original data from the original CD (and if I understand this part correctly), keeps the original quality that was recorded on the CD in the first place, right? I don't want to start explaining it and get it wrong, but it's kinda like the Government telling you that, that 48 oz of peanut butter has every single ingredient in it, but really (bringing my files into the picture), the peanut butter in the 48 oz jar is not the same peanut butter that they had said it was, because not every ingredient was in the peanut butter, and it was probably way less than half the jar (23 oz of peanut butter). So, in reality, I re-encoded these files into lower quality, and thought that just because they were 320 kbps, they lost more audio quality overall, or lost more data because I made these files worse than how they really were. I did advertise my thread, but I didn't mean to lie about audio quality, so I'm very sorry about that. I wasted everyone's time, including your time, and my time too. If I had the actual CD's, I'd ripped them into FLAC just to prove how sorry I am. Too bad I don't have the money for them though.

And one more question, is FLAC the best audio format to use? All I need is a yes or a no. That's all.

And by the way, about the whole Government thing, I'm seeing it as if the U.S. Government told us about something, and they lied about it, you know how the U.S. Government likes to keep secrets.. I see my own actions as if I was like the U.S. Government, and now I understand what I did wrong.

And one more question, is FLAC the best audio format to use? All I need is a yes or a no. That's all.
Best for what purpose? That's like asking "What's the best car?". It's not clear what you need the car for? Driving in the city? Offroad adventure?

Glad yuo've finally realized what yuor mistake was, n00b.

Best for what purpose? That's like asking "What's the best car?". It's not clear what you need the car for? Driving in the city? Offroad adventure?

Oh, I mean like, is it better to listen to FLAC files over any of the other lossless files? I was just looking for opinions, 'cause I wanted to know from an experienced point of view, that's all.

Oh, I mean like, is it better to listen to FLAC files over any of the other lossless files? I was just looking for opinions, 'cause I wanted to know from an experienced point of view, that's all.

we are not talking about listening. there is no difference between flac and 320 mp3 for ur ears. maybe one guy of a million will hear it. and yes, these people are all here .. of course

the reason for flac is. we love untouched files. we love original. there are to many noobs around. and u dont know what they made with the files.
so flac is nice because its compressed and lossless and its not wasting space (.ogg is ok too).
but if u work with (cubase, soundbooth ..) so i like it in wave (but i dont want to download files in wave format, its not possible to trust wave files from strangers :D


... next step: the .cue file ^^ and an audiocheck ^^

Oh, I mean like, is it better to listen to FLAC files over any of the other lossless files? I was just looking for opinions, 'cause I wanted to know from an experienced point of view, that's all.
Like Lilu pointed out: Comparing this in terms of perceived audio quality is pointless. You use a lossless audio copy for archiving/backup/preservation purpose.

FLAC is kind of a standard, because it's specifications are open, the codec is asymmetric and the processing requierements are rather low, so you can even decode a FLAC bitstream on embedded devices (like portable players). In terms of compression efficiency there are certainly better codecs, but it's all a tradeoff game. In terms of reproduction there are no differences between the codecs: If a codec is lossless it has to give you (by definition of the term 'lossless') the original data back that you used for compression.

Quick question because the thought just occurred to me. What happens if you archive a lossless format like FLAC and put it into a .zip or .rar? This would be compression and therefore data would be lost? Just an interesting (to me anyway haha) scenario that popped into my head.

Quick question because the thought just occurred to me. What happens if you archive a lossless format like FLAC and put it into a .zip or .rar? This would be compression and therefore data would be lost? Just an interesting (to me anyway haha) scenario that popped into my head.

no problem .. its 100.000% the same after u enlarged it

Ariel, lay off the swear words a little, eh? ;)
No need to get so upset when someone annoys you over the net.

@Black Paladin:
Uhm, do your textfiles lose letters after putting them in a ZIP-file?

Lossless data compression - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_data_compression)

Haha, I don't personally use ZIPs or other such files except for when I've downloaded and need to extract the contents of said file. I was just interested in the result. Although thanks for the link. Very interesting, wish my maths was at a higher standard though!

Yeah, your right. I lashed out when there was no point of doing so. So, I get what the problem is. I didn't mean to lie about what I had said, but I've gotten messages from people that had wanted MP3, and thinking that 48.000kHz was better than 41.000kHz, I didn't know the other side to it all. I guess you can call it "being blind" to see the real truth between audio formats. I realized that I won't be able to listen to FLAC's high quality, or it's true quality, unless I upgrade my equipment, or buy some expensive equipment. I think that if I was to have such equipment, then it'll all be clear to me. But because I'm poor, I can't buy new stuff. I had no idea that encoding one file to another, lossy files, actually loses quality each time. I didn't know that until now. And FLAC, from what I have read, is a compression format, but it keeps all of the original data from the original CD (and if I understand this part correctly), keeps the original quality that was recorded on the CD in the first place, right? I don't want to start explaining it and get it wrong, but it's kinda like the Government telling you that, that 48 oz of peanut butter has every single ingredient in it, but really (bringing my files into the picture), the peanut butter in the 48 oz jar is not the same peanut butter that they had said it was, because not every ingredient was in the peanut butter, and it was probably way less than half the jar (23 oz of peanut butter). So, in reality, I re-encoded these files into lower quality, and thought that just because they were 320 kbps, they lost more audio quality overall, or lost more data because I made these files worse than how they really were. I did advertise my thread, but I didn't mean to lie about audio quality, so I'm very sorry about that. I wasted everyone's time, including your time, and my time too. If I had the actual CD's, I'd ripped them into FLAC just to prove how sorry I am. Too bad I don't have the money for them though.

And one more question, is FLAC the best audio format to use? All I need is a yes or a no. That's all.

And by the way, about the whole Government thing, I'm seeing it as if the U.S. Government told us about something, and they lied about it, you know how the U.S. Government likes to keep secrets.. I see my own actions as if I was like the U.S. Government, and now I understand what I did wrong.

First off, don't get too hung up on FLAC. Most people, including people who download FLAC files listen to their music in another format. It's perfectly fine to post MP3s, they just need to be ripped from a lossless source. There are other forms of lossless codecs including APE files, wavpack, and apple has something called "Apple Lossless" but I thought I read somewhere that they're not true lossless files. Anyway, I don't know. FLAC is pretty much the standard, but the nice thing is that if somebody posts music in FLAC and somebody wants it in APE... well... they can just convert it themselves. No loss in quality. :)

But do know that even if you post FLAC files someone will complain. Some people will prefer that you rip an entire CD with a particular audio program (EAC) with particular settings and rip it to a single FLAC file as opposed to individual FLAC files along with a .CUE and .LOG file. It gets complicated. Everyone has their own standards. And then other people will be like, "Hey, I see you posted in FLAC, can we get an MP3 version, too?" No matter how hard you try you can't please everybody so just remember to relax. :) I used to post on another website under a different nickname and people would complain because I didn't use EAC... I run linux so I can't run EAC because it's a Windows program. You can run it in WINE on Linux, but I don't use WINE. I use a commandline program called cdparanoia to rip my FLAC files and it's good enough for 99% of the people out there, but I got burned out. Although I was thinking about posting my 2-CD Super Meat Boy CD soon because I don't think anybody has posted it in FLAC yet.

You don't need to upgrade your audio equipment and you don't even need to have FLAC if you don't want to. The big problem with FLAC files are that they're huge. An average song that's 4 MB in MP3 will be closer to 40 MB in FLAC, so a whole album will be anywhere between 250 and 350 MBs. In the case of this album, it's a 2 CD-set so you double that to 700MB. A lot of people don't have enough space on their computer or the bandwidth to bother with FLAC. Even posting MP3s are fine and dandy. A lot of people just download the MP3 version because they just want the music to toss onto their ipod or whatever. They're not worried about archival quality that much.

I like FLAC for a couple of reasons:

1) Because it's lossless I can convert the files back to CD and the music will be exactly the same. This is the place where people get hung up about .CUE files and ripping files with a particular program. Because you can rip files to FLAC and then re-burn them to CD and although the music is identical there could be differences in the pre-gap values, CD-TEXT, etc so the CD isn't "absolutely identical". People get hung up over this. I don't.
2) With lossless files I can create lossy files to my specifications. I personally don't like the MP3 format because it's encumbered by patents. I prefer to use Ogg Vorbis which is an equivalent lossy format and it's an open source specification. In addition, I can tailor the quality of my music files to particular devices. I have a 2 GB music player that can't hold a lot of music, so I generally have smaller ogg files. On my computers I usually listen to maxed out quality oggs where I have the space for larger files. I also have an audio server which is also my archive backup server which is connected to a nice stereo system and on that system I just play the FLAC files directly because they're there. I certainly can't tell the difference between a 320 kbit cbr mp3, maxed out ogg, and FLAC though.

Your time wasn't completely wasted because you've learned something from this. But you've got the idea now. And don't take my analogy too far, analogies can only go so far. ;)

One last note is that you tried to offer music @ 48 kHz and just for your information the CD standard is 44.1 kHz so you don't gain anything from offering 48 kHz files. Very few source materials are 48 kHz. I think maybe a few DTS audio CDs are formatted this way, but 48 kHz sources are rare. That was one of the things that tipped me off about your post because I was for sure you couldn't have possibly had a source like that.

@shaggy999: cdparanoia is practically dead. Major issues are missing offset correction and missing AccuRip support (or did this get finally fixed?). I think it's a shame that there isn't any proper tool on linux (using gentoo here) that does the job right. I heard that RubyRipper is heading in the right direction, but I'm still using a 0.99 prebeta of EAC (through wine of course). Works out of the box for me.

@DTS: I think you'll rarely find any DTS streams with a 44.1kHz sampling rate. The DTS coherent acoustics specs allows this sampling rate (see table 5.5 in http://multimedia.cx/mirror/dts1.pdf), but since the DVD-Video standard only allows the 48 and 96kHz rates for DTS...

@shaggy999: cdparanoia is practically dead. Major issues are missing offset correction and missing AccuRip support (or did this get finally fixed?). I think it's a shame that there isn't any proper tool on linux (using gentoo here) that does the job right. I heard that RubyRipper is heading in the right direction, but I'm still using a 0.99 prebeta of EAC (through wine of course). Works out of the box for me.

I can't stand WINE, unfortunately. Honestly, I haven't ripped anything in over a year but I think the isssues you mention still exist.

I can't stand WINE, unfortunately.
Why is that? Any particular reason?

@shaggy999: Apple Lossless IS true lossless, it's just that it shares the file format (.m4a) with something that isn't lossless. However, M4A and ALAC/Apple Lossless are two different things with two different codecs.

Why is that? Any particular reason?

I despise the whole purpose of WINE. I use linux to get away from Windows and the whole environment. My preference would be that development instead go into open source linux-native software. I think it sets a bad standard. There are, of course, good apps on windows. My opinion is that instead of trying to get those good apps working in linux, let's try to make something that's better in linux. Then you wouldn't need WINE and you'd have an extra killer app for linux that Windows doesn't have which will hopefully sway a few more people to move over to linux and help release Microsoft's grip on the market. At the end of the day, all you're doing is enabling a closed source piece of software to work. What if you want a feature that the developer refuses to add? What good is that if the software stops being developed? Being able to run the application in WINE doesn't help you. I know, the irony, since cdparanoia has almost no development going on anymore. But at least if development stops on a piece of open source software someone else can come in and pick up where others left off. Other projects have had this happen where development staggers for years and then suddenly comes roaring back. My hope is that this will happen. It's just my ideology and stubbornness. :)


@shaggy999: Apple Lossless IS true lossless, it's just that it shares the file format (.m4a) with something that isn't lossless. However, M4A and ALAC/Apple Lossless are two different things with two different codecs.

That's probably where the confusion comes from. It hasn't been an issue for me because I don't even think I've even seen an apple lossless file so I haven't really put any energy looking into it.

That's probably where the confusion comes from. It hasn't been an issue for me because I don't even think I've even seen an apple lossless file so I haven't really put any energy looking into it.

M4A is just a container format.

if u got the physical CD, rip it to cbr320k, vbr -v0, or Lossless(WAV, FLAC, APE, etc).
if u downloaded it from itunes or other online store or some random website, don't do anything to it, just upload what you got and state the bitrate.

have a nice day.

i agree with that p0llux guy, simple and to the point.

I despise the whole purpose of WINE. I use linux to get away from Windows and the whole environment.
Have you read the "Debunking Wine Myths" in the WineHQ Wiki?
Debunking Wine Myths - The Official Wine Wiki (http://wiki.winehq.org/Debunking_Wine_Myths)

I think especially the part about "raises Linux marketshare" is important. Having the possibility to use non-native applications is a big plus if you want to switch operating systems. You can then slowly switch to native applications, if these are available. Making the community bigger is important, because good developers are everywhere. You just have to draw them in.


My preference would be that development instead go into open source linux-native software.
Well, most small open-source projects are done out of fun in the free time of the developers. It's hard to tell these people what to do with their time. That's different for Windows because the shareware/payware market share is a lot bigger. In the end open development also means that you could go and fix it yourself. An example is Corbin Simpson who is developing parts of the mesa 3D stack. IIRC all his knowledge about GPU programming is self-taught.


I think it sets a bad standard. There are, of course, good apps on windows. My opinion is that instead of trying to get those good apps working in linux, let's try to make something that's better in linux.
That would mean to port every single Windows application. I don't think that's realistic at all.


Then you wouldn't need WINE and you'd have an extra killer app for linux that Windows doesn't have which will hopefully sway a few more people to move over to linux and help release Microsoft's grip on the market.
I think unix/linux already has so many 'killer apps' (pulseaudio is one example). It's just that this doesn't reach Windows folks, which are just happy when their system 'just works' ;)


At the end of the day, all you're doing is enabling a closed source piece of software to work. What if you want a feature that the developer refuses to add? What good is that if the software stops being developed? Being able to run the application in WINE doesn't help you
Yeah, but this is more a 'closed source vs. open source' programming argument. There are closed source application also on linux, e.g. the ePSXe emulator.


I know, the irony, since cdparanoia has almost no development going on anymore. But at least if development stops on a piece of open source software someone else can come in and pick up where others left off.
Yes, but like I said above: That's a different type of problem you're discribing.

Anyway, I'm also a bit biased when it comes to wine since I actively follow development and sometimes triage bugs or do patches myself. I think wine is especially great for older application, which do now work better in wine than in a native Vista/Win7 environment. :)

I can't stand WINE, unfortunately.Why is that? Any particular reason?
WINE is ghey. Real men prefer VODKA!

Ariel, lay off the swear words a little, eh? ;)
No need to get so upset when someone annoys you over the net.

Hey!! You weren't supposed to see that!! jk.

I know that. Sometimes I just can't help myself...

Oh snap! thx Valiant Terra =D

Hey guys,

reading through the thread. I really appreciate your effort Valiant. Thanks for sharing and GREAT WORK!

PS.: Is there a way to get the DVD version of this master piece before the 1st of April ?

Hey guys,

reading through the thread. I really appreciate your effort Valiant. Thanks for sharing and GREAT WORK!

PS.: Is there a way to get the DVD version of this master piece before the 1st of April ?

Yes there is. CDJapan and some other online websites have this album. I don't know the exact price, but CDJapan had it for like $60 or something like that. It said something about not being able to play the DVD in certain countries excluding Japan. I'm not sure which countries, but all I know is that I think it said that the DVD isn't able to play in the U.S., otherwise, I would have bought it, or at least tried to. I won't buy a DVD that won't play in my country, so I gotta wait until April for the U.S. release.

---------- Post added at 06:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 PM ----------


Oh snap! thx Valiant Terra =D

You're welcome Raynar! : D

@Valiant Terra:
DVD region code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_coding)

Yes there is. CDJapan and some other online websites have this album. I don't know the exact price, but CDJapan had it for like $60 or something like that. It said something about not being able to play the DVD in certain countries excluding Japan. I'm not sure which countries, but all I know is that I think it said that the DVD isn't able to play in the U.S., otherwise, I would have bought it, or at least tried to. I won't buy a DVD that won't play in my country, so I gotta wait until April for the U.S. release.

That's just region encoding. I used to rip DVDs from other regions all the time. I forget what I used to use, AnyDVD + CloneDVD I think? That was years ago. Anyway, it certainly won't play in a standard DVD player, but you can rip it to your computer with the appropriate software.

That's just region encoding. I used to rip DVDs from other regions all the time. I forget what I used to use, AnyDVD + CloneDVD I think? That was years ago. Anyway, it certainly won't play in a standard DVD player, but you can rip it to your computer with the appropriate software.

Yeah, the thing for me is that I would like to have the ability to play my DVD's anywhere I want, and at any time, and in any DVD player. That's one of my reasons I won't buy the album now. Another reason is price. I'd rather wait until April, where it is cheaper, and where I can play the DVD in any of my DVD players. I already fucked up my CD/DVD drive by ripping some of the DVD's I had, and now, I can't play copyrighted DVD's because of this one program I used from DVDVideoSoft.com. But, anyways, I'm done with ripping DVD's, except for this DVD from Distant Worlds. If no one makes a rip of the DVD before I receive the DVD, I make a rip of it. And the programs you listed, I'll keep those in the back of my mind, just in case. And thanks for the info! I appreciate it very much.

Yeah, the thing for me is that I would like to have the ability to play my DVD's anywhere I want, and at any time, and in any DVD player.
Did you read the article? That won't work because not all DVD players have the same region code. I know this problem, since my parent don't live in the same regional area as me. However their player could be easily unlocked...


I already fucked up my CD/DVD drive by ripping some of the DVD's I had, and now, I can't play copyrighted DVD's because of this one program I used from DVDVideoSoft.com.
What do you mean by 'fucked up'? At the hardware or at the firmware level? You probably just used one of these tools that let you change the region code (I think this is allowed 5 times by the FW, after that it locks). You do know that for most drives' firmwares you can just reset this count?
Also libdvdcss (the library VLC e.g. uses to access the DVD drive) should be able to gain access to the data even if the region code mismatches. That should be the so called 'title method'.

Did you read the article? That won't work because not all DVD players have the same region code. I know this problem, since my parent don't live in the same regional area as me. However their player could be easily unlocked...


What do you mean by 'fucked up'? At the hardware or at the firmware level? You probably just used one of these tools that let you change the region code (I think this is allowed 5 times by the FW, after that it locks). You do know that for most drives' firmwares you can just reset this count?
Also libdvdcss (the library VLC e.g. uses to access the DVD drive) should be able to gain access to the data even if the region code mismatches. That should be the so called 'title method'.

CloneDVD + AnyDVD were from years ago (like circa 2004). I think the standard for ripping a DVD to iso on Windows now is DVDDecrypter? But I can't remember. What's nice is it can strip the region encoding and make it region 0 (playable on all players around the world). So you can take a DVD and rip it to your hard drive while stripping out the region encoding and then burn it to a blank DVD+R DL disc without any loss in quality. Or if you can only burn DVD+R's, then you have to use some kind of DVD shrinking program that re-encodes the video to a lower quality so that it fits on a single disc.

Did you read the article? That won't work because not all DVD players have the same region code. I know this problem, since my parent don't live in the same regional area as me. However their player could be easily unlocked...

I meant in any DVD player in my country. I believe every DVD player that is sold in my country would have the same region code. I just meant any DVD player I own, really. I only live in the U.S., so basically, I thought that any DVD player I buy in the U.S. would have the same region code... unless someone sells an imported DVD player from another country... then it probably wouldn't work.



What do you mean by 'fucked up'? At the hardware or at the firmware level? You probably just used one of these tools that let you change the region code (I think this is allowed 5 times by the FW, after that it locks). You do know that for most drives' firmwares you can just reset this count?
Also libdvdcss (the library VLC e.g. uses to access the DVD drive) should be able to gain access to the data even if the region code mismatches. That should be the so called 'title method'.

Well, I rented Resident Evil: Afterlife, and when I tried to play it in my DVD drive, Windows Media Player said it couldn't play the disc because of the um, copyright restrictions, or copyright levels or something like that, and I figured that my DVD Decrypter program must have did something to it. It's not entirely messed up (thank God), but just playing copyrighted movies, my DVD player has an issue with... do you think it could be the Region code setting? I never changed the settings for the Region code, so really, I don't know if that's the problem... I don't know, I'll look further into it and let you know what the exact problem or issue is. And by the way, thanks for helping me, even after all of those horrible words I said... I didn't think you would help me after all that drama. Thanks again LiquidAcid! : D

---------- Post added at 08:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 PM ----------


CloneDVD + AnyDVD were from years ago (like circa 2004). I think the standard for ripping a DVD to iso on Windows now is DVDDecrypter? But I can't remember. What's nice is it can strip the region encoding and make it region 0 (playable on all players around the world). So you can take a DVD and rip it to your hard drive while stripping out the region encoding and then burn it to a blank DVD+R DL disc without any loss in quality. Or if you can only burn DVD+R's, then you have to use some kind of DVD shrinking program that re-encodes the video to a lower quality so that it fits on a single disc.

DVD+R DL discs? Where can I get my hands on those discs? Are those the ones the have more memory than a DVD+R disc?

Dvd Double layer.
You can get them here for example:
Amazon.com: Verbatim 95310 8.5 GB 2.4x-6x Double Layer Recordable Disc DVD+R DL, 20-Disc Spindle: Electronics (http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-95310-2-4x-6x-Recordable-20-Disc/dp/B000GHWRIK)

They have 8,5 Gb memory, compared to the 4,7Gb of a regular dvd.

I think the standard for ripping a DVD to iso on Windows now is DVDDecrypter?
DVDDecrypter was discontinued a long time ago, after the author got a C&D letter (pointing at the ripping capability). Take a look at ImgBurn, it's DVDDecrypter with the ripping engine removed, and it's still developed (IIRC by the same developer). I have no idea what you use nowadays for ripping under Windows. I still use mencoder with some custom bash scripts if I should need to rip a DVD on linux. However that occasion arises very rarely.


Well, I rented Resident Evil: Afterlife, and when I tried to play it in my DVD drive, Windows Media Player said it couldn't play the disc because of the um, copyright restrictions, or copyright levels or something like that, and I figured that my DVD Decrypter program must have did something to it. It's not entirely messed up (thank God), but just playing copyrighted movies, my DVD player has an issue with... do you think it could be the Region code setting? I never changed the settings for the Region code, so really, I don't know if that's the problem... I don't know, I'll look further into it and let you know what the exact problem or issue is.
I don't consider WMP a serious application for playing back anything. Did you try the usual suspects (read: VideoLAN client, SMPlayer) ?
It would also help to know the brand and model name of the DVD drive.

Dvd Double layer.
You can get them here for example:
Amazon.com: Verbatim 95310 8.5 GB 2.4x-6x Double Layer Recordable Disc DVD+R DL, 20-Disc Spindle: Electronics (http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-95310-2-4x-6x-Recordable-20-Disc/dp/B000GHWRIK)

They have 8,5 Gb memory, compared to the 4,7Gb of a regular dvd.

Wow! They're so expensive! But, I guess they're well worth it, considering their huge memory size! Thanks for giving me the link! : D

No prob.
But check on the internet for cheaper prices.
Or in local stores.

Thanks for the upload(s)! Much appreciated.

@Valiant, thanks a lot.

I shall be importing the dvd when the price is right =]

lol @ teh "thx for teh upload" n00bz

Thanks for the upload(s)! Much appreciated.

No problem! ; D

---------- Post added at 11:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 PM ----------


@Valiant, thanks a lot.

I shall be importing the dvd when the price is right =]

You're welcome. I'll be waiting for your imported DVD... when the price is guaranteed right! : D

Yeah, the thing for me is that I would like to have the ability to play my DVD's anywhere I want, and at any time, and in any DVD player. That's one of my reasons I won't buy the album now. Another reason is price. I'd rather wait until April, where it is cheaper, and where I can play the DVD in any of my DVD players. I already fucked up my CD/DVD drive by ripping some of the DVD's I had, and now, I can't play copyrighted DVD's because of this one program I used from DVDVideoSoft.com. But, anyways, I'm done with ripping DVD's, except for this DVD from Distant Worlds. If no one makes a rip of the DVD before I receive the DVD, I make a rip of it. And the programs you listed, I'll keep those in the back of my mind, just in case. And thanks for the info! I appreciate it very much.

Have you already got your DVD?
Would you be kind enough to share it with us?
That would be very awesome...

Thanks in advance!

I shall wait for her to rip the videos if shes not to busy :3

Hey! To any experts who know how to use EAC:

I need help with the CUE sheets. I've been using the Hydrogen Audio guides to configure EAC (Exact Audio Copy), but I'm concerned with the configuration, and with the CUE sheets. I'm a beginner for EAC, and it's been a nightmare for me. I have the latest version of EAC, as of May 2nd, 2011. There are options that aren't explained in the guides, and I would like to know if my configuration is as accurately as possible.

When it comes to the CUE sheets and ripping the CD, the guide tells me to do the following:


While the program extracts the CD open the cue Sheet that it made with a text editor such as notepad and run find/replace and replace .wav and WAVE with the files extension you used for compression (ie for FLAC replace it with ".flac" and "FLAC" or for Apple Lossless replace it with ".m4a" and "Apple Lossless"). Also delete all the directory folders using the find/replace feature by leaving the replace field empty (for the recommended file naming scheme, delete ARTIST\(YEAR) ALBUM\). Save the cue sheet and move it into the folder where the music is located (ie ARTIST\(YEAR) ALBUM\). When the CD is done extracting and compressing the CUE can now be used to write a CD using a program that is compatable with EAC's noncompliant CUE sheets such as burrrn (Nero will not work unfortunately).


I changed the .wav and WAVE words into .flac and FLAC (since I'm ripping the CD into FLAC), but what I don't get is to delete the directory folders. I don't see any directory folders in the CUE sheet, and it tells me (for the naming scheme) to delete "ARTIST\(YEAR) ALBUM\)". I haven't done that yet, but if anyone can tell me exactly what to do, that'll be really awesome.

---------- Post added at 12:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:28 PM ----------

And, another thing, once I get used to using EAC, I'll be ripping Distant Worlds: Music from FINAL FANTASY Returning Home into FLAC, and I'll also rip the DVD too! But first, I just need 5$ bucks more, and then I can buy the album! It'll be coming real soon!

---------- Post added at 12:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:32 PM ----------

Oh, and this is the link I got the instructions from, you know, for EAC:


http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_Lossless_Backup

The main point here that you have to pay attention to is that the filenames used in the cuesheet are relative to the location of the cuesheet itself (if you don't use absolute pathes, which you normally don't do). So if your folder "My Ripped Disc" contains audio files "01 first track.flac", "02 second track.flac" and "03 last track.flac", then the cuesheet should also use these filenames IF you also put it into "My Ripped Disc". It's different when you put the cuesheet file somewhere else, because again, the pathes are relative.

EDIT: As for me I just store the raw cuesheet which is generates by EAC (not including tagging, which I do outside of EAC) and don't process it further.

The main point here that you have to pay attention to is that the filenames used in the cuesheet are relative to the location of the cuesheet itself (if you don't use absolute pathes, which you normally don't do). So if your folder "My Ripped Disc" contains audio files "01 first track.flac", "02 second track.flac" and "03 last track.flac", then the cuesheet should also use these filenames IF you also put it into "My Ripped Disc". It's different when you put the cuesheet file somewhere else, because again, the pathes are relative.

EDIT: As for me I just store the raw cuesheet which is generates by EAC (not including tagging, which I do outside of EAC) and don't process it further.

So, what I should do is generate the CUE sheet in the same folder as the CD is ripped into, and don't edit it with anything else except to change the extensions of the file names? The paths of where the tracks are and where the CUE sheet is have to be the same, right? What I'm confused with though, is that the CUE sheet that was generated by EAC don't have the paths of where the files are. The log sheet have the paths though, but it's just a status report, right?

So, what I should do is generate the CUE sheet in the same folder as the CD is ripped into, and don't edit it with anything else except to change the extensions of the file names?
Pretty much.


The paths of where the tracks are and where the CUE sheet is have to be the same, right?
No, they don't have to be the same. E.g. you could create a subfolder "Disc Metadata" and put both logfile and cuesheet there. However the cuesheet won't "work" from that location, except if you adjust the pathnames.

Honestly I wouldn't bother with that so much. You should ask yourself what you need the cuesheet for and how often you need it:
1) Using the cuesheet as playlist. Not recommended in the first place, especially if we're not dealing with range-rips.
2) Burning the audio data back to a recordable. Honestly, why would you do such a thing? Backup? No really, optical media are probably the worst way to create backups. Having a disc which you can put into your player? If you're already dealing with digital rips, then your audio equipment is probably already hooked up to your system. Just play the ripped files from there.


What I'm confused with though, is that the CUE sheet that was generated by EAC don't have the paths of where the files are.
I think that's the default for EAC. It just stores the filenames without the additional path information. Also keep in mind that CUE is kind of an ancient format, that got extended over time. The important data in the cuesheet is the metadata that comes from disc itself, e.g. the TOC (table of contents), CD-TEXT, etc.

See again HydrogenAudio for the original of this file format, why it exists and what uses it has nowadays.
Cue sheet - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Cue_sheet)


The log sheet have the paths though, but it's just a status report, right?
Yes, the content of the logfile validates (or invalidates, if errors were present) the rip quality of the disc. Copying data from a audio CD involves a lot more "effort" than just copying files from your normal data CD. It's not a given that copying a chunk of audio from a audio CD also gives you the data that was stored on the media. That's the reason for the existance of application like EAC and databases like the AccuRip one.

About the cue sheets, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for giving me the link for it. It helps out a lot as to why everyone wants the cue sheets when it comes to ripping an audio CD in a lossless format. Personally, I typically don't care about all of the data on the CD, but when it comes to people that want a specific album in FLAC, or ALAC, or another lossless format with a cue sheet, then that's a totally different story. I couldn't care very much for storing lossless files, as long as I can listen to the music itself, then I'm good. But, when someone wants FLAC + cue sheet, or ALAC + cue sheet, it makes things a little complicated for me, 'cause I'm no expert. But, once I receive Distant Worlds Returning Home album in a few days (since I already bought it from Amazon, and it takes about 2 to 3 days to receive it), I'll do the best that I can to make a near-perfect rip of the album in FLAC + cue sheet, and make a rip of the DVD as well.


Yes, the content of the logfile validates (or invalidates, if errors were present) the rip quality of the disc. Copying data from a audio CD involves a lot more "effort" than just copying files from your normal data CD. It's not a given that copying a chunk of audio from a audio CD also gives you the data that was stored on the media. That's the reason for the existance of application like EAC and databases like the AccuRip one.

Well, I understood why there were applications like EAC and AccurateRip. But, what you stated here makes a lot more sense. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all this to me. It sucks to not be an expert, but with smart experts like you, life just got a little easier! : D

I do have to say, it seems so impossible that no one has made a rip of the DVD or ripped the audio CD's into FLAC, and made a cue sheet for them yet. It's just seems so odd that the album's been released in January, and it there's only MP3 download links for the 2 audio CD's. I don't know, but it just seems so impossible that events turned out this way, you know.

Have you already got your DVD?
Would you be kind enough to share it with us?
That would be very awesome...

Thanks in advance!

Yep, I got it just yesterday (May 14th 2011), and I will be making a rip of it soon. I think I should research what program I should use to rip it, and I should be able to have it uploaded pretty soon!

New links added to the first page, as well as a link to the FLAC thread of this soundtrack.

The link for Disc 2 of the 320 rip leads to disc 1.

Thank you for this! :)

The link for Disc 2 of the 320 rip leads to disc 1.

The link has been updated, so it now leads to Disc 2 (http://www.mediafire.com/?tmj8t78x58tjv6t) of the 320 rip.

read through this thread. just want to say thank you for uploading these master piece, good job. and congratz for being able to learn from yer mistakes :)

Awesome!!! Thank you~~ XD

thanks so much for sharing!!! orchestra is always good... its kinda different feeling and relaxing :) and er... ehehehe.. touching!

Thank yo for this :)

Lossless is no compression for an audio file, right? Like, when if you convert the file into a MP3, MP3 format compresses the audio file, as to save memory. But FLAC and WAV are kinda the same, right? You know, with no compression...? I know that there isn't a difference between 320 and 128, but a lot of people would prefer 320 or even 128 kbps, and I re-uploaded for those people, or for anyone who just want the songs. Once I buy the soundtrack in April, I'll try to convert the files to FLAC, and try it out or something. I don't have the CD's, and I'm not going to pay $60 for a DVD that won't play in my country. I'd rather wait until Amazon has it in stock. I still need to buy the other soundtracks too.. and, by the way, no offense taken... I see your point of FLAC... so, I'll do what I can for any other soundtracks I have.

Just to be clear, VBR is *not* better quality than 320kbps. In fact, if you look it up, you'll find that most times the varying rate does not reach higher than about 220kbps for most songs. So yes, absolutely, 320kbps is the best for mp3, and yes, there is definitely a difference between 320kbps and 128kbps. I've listened to enough of each kind to know that there is a quite noticeable difference.

All that aside though, I meant to ask if you could please encode these to mp3s at 320kbps using either the original CD or the FLAC rips? I don't like to use FLAC because of how much space they waste. Also, if you're simply wondering how to convert FLAC to mp3, there is this guide (http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/how_to_convert_flac_files_to_mp3.cfm).

What are the odds of a re-up?