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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180
Apprentice
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OP
Apprentice
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180 |
Really a question for PG but would be interested in the views of other users as well.
The full Audiophile realtracks set is currently running to 400gb+ and will (hopefully) grow rapidly over the next year or two.
If it could be delivered and run via lossless WMA files then this would go some way to slowing down the never ending rise in hard disk size requirements. (my understanding is that lossless WMA takes up about 50% the space of the equivalent WAV - am I correct in this?). It would probably also extend the ability for PG to continue to shipping an ever expanding library on external USB hard drives.
I don't know if there are any codec licensing issues for lossless WMA over and above standard WMA, and I guess that the load/generate time for the realtracks might go up slightly over that for WAV files but other than that it seems like a pretty good option to me.
I would imagine that the Mac users could get their realtracks delivered in Lossless AAC.
I welcome your thoughts!
Regards, Aubrey
If I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,944
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,944 |
Yes, we've considered the lossless WMA. I've never been that impressed with the compression on them (50%), considering plain ZIP can get about 45%.
One option would be for us to offer conversion both ways inside the program (WAV<>lossless WMA), so the user could choose after-the-fact.
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180
Apprentice
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OP
Apprentice
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180 |
Hi Peter - thanks for the response.
I agree that a compression of only 50% is not that impressive, but right now that 50% will save around 200gb of disk space both on your distribution disk and on the user's hard drive (assuming that they don't run it straight from the internal drive). I guess that if they were distributed as lossless WMA with an option to decompress to full WAV as part of the installation routine then users could choose.
I think that I read somewhere that Digidesign had got the sound library for their 'Strike' Drum software plugin compressed down to 25% of its original size but I don't know what compression algorithm they used for that (possible that it is their own proprietary algorithm?).
Regards, Aubrey
If I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor.
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
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