FLAC Downloading Trends
Journal | April 29, 2009 | Updated: May 7, 2009 | Posted by Basilisk
About a year ago I posted an entry about the RAR and ZIP file formats used to package whole releases available from Ektoplazm. In the ensuing discussion, several visitors indicated a strong interest in FLAC, a lossless audio format that is rapidly becoming the industry-standard alternative to the antiquated WAV format. FLAC files are smaller than WAV files (without losing any quality) and they can be tagged (with information such as artist, title, and BPM). This is very useful for digital DJs and collectors who have moved away from storing music on physical media. Seeing the value of the idea, I began posting FLAC versions of all new releases starting in August of 2008.
Today I had a look at downloading trends by format. I compared download counts for 30 releases going back to Journey Of The Turtle and discovered that approximately a quarter (23.2%) of all downloads are lossless (FLAC or WAV). Overall, FLAC accounts for 7.8% of all downloads and 31.4% of all lossless downloads. FLAC appears to be getting more popular–newer releases tend to show a higher proportion of FLAC downloads–but this is just a casual observation.
Of course, some visitors download individual releases more than once–for instance, after trying out a release in MP3 format some visitors probably come back to leech the lossless version. Likewise, I can conceive of situations where listeners return to download MP3 versions for use on portable devices. Such patterns are sure to skew the results but I haven’t been able to puzzle out the appropriate database queries to get to the bottom of it. Maybe next time!
For now, it is enough to get a general idea of the popularity of this new format. If the numbers seem a bit low, don’t worry about it. FLAC is now my standard of choice and I don’t plan on giving it up!
Subscribe By Email
RSS Feed
Facebook
Twitter
now only flac fomat for download?
MP3, FLAC, and WAV will continue to be supported. This post reports usage patterns since FLAC was introduced. Sorry if there was any confusion!
it’s all right) thanks
Other than for purposes of obtaining a perfect “lossless” encoding, do people actually found the sound quality better on FLAC than on a 320 CBR mp3??
Hooray for FLAC! I am very glad you do this.
i am glad to see FLAC becoming more popular. when FLAC options are available, i usually download a release in losless format for listening to at home or at work (wherever i happen to be at the time), and if i like it, i download again in MP3 to put on my ipod. i wish more portable music devices supported flac…
Thanks for sharing all these releases! And especially FLAC is best option for me.
@ Etienne Starblaze:
Yes FLAC/WAV sounds way better even on my home system, and makes big difference on club/outdoor sound
I love flac forever :))
I’m one of those people who prefer to download the FLAC version of a release, if I like it. Therefor prior to FLAC, I download the MP3 version to check out the release because if it’s not the style I like, why produce additional traffic by downloading the FLAC version?
Btw, WAV is not an option for me. As all my DJing tools I use support FLAC, and FLAC is lossless, why bother downloading a larger package. If I really need the WAV files to burn them on CD-R I can still produce them out of the FLAC files. No biggie.
So glad to see flac gaining more support. Technology is switching gradually and, thanks God, we see a lot of people paying atention to this transition. Even traders of so called “comercial music” are realizing flac’s advantages.
Of course we’re not dismissing MP3, because MP3 was designed for a diferent purpose other than flac, and a 320kbps MP3 or even OGG Vorbis Q5 or 6 are pretty well suited for portable use. Now, FLAC’s flexibility of storing metadata and its approach to linear prediction for encoding audio without stressing bandwidth by keeping less complex information at lower bitrate levels, are amazing. Another thing that helps FLAC even more in the future is the current adoption of the format by the European Broadcasting Union.
One thing I would love to see right now, (no advertising intended), is the rise of SongBird as player of choice, for its open architecture, the great idea of combining a media player and a web browser on a single interface, and its commitment of being cross-platform compatible. The software is very good for being in the active development stage, so, we can’ wait when the player consolidates by itself as favorit by many. Needless to say that it supports FLAC ot of the box!