| .\" This manpage has been automatically generated by docbook2man |
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| .TH "FLAC" "1" "02 July 2002" "" "" |
| .SH NAME |
| flac \- Free Lossless Audio Codec |
| .SH SYNOPSIS |
| |
| \fBflac\fR [ \fB\fIOPTION\fB\fR] \fB\fIinfile\fB\fR \fB\fI...\fB\fR |
| |
| .SH "DESCRIPTION" |
| .PP |
| This manual page documents briefly the |
| \fBflac\fR command. |
| .PP |
| This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux |
| distribution because the original program does not have a |
| manual page. Instead, it has documentation in HTML |
| format; see below. |
| .SH "OPTIONS" |
| .PP |
| A summary of options is included below. For a complete |
| description, see the HTML documentation. |
| .SS "GENERIC OPTIONS" |
| .TP |
| \fB-H \fR |
| Show detailed help screen |
| .TP |
| \fB-d \fR |
| Decode (default behavior is encode) |
| .TP |
| \fB-c \fR |
| Encode from standard input, or decode to |
| standard output |
| .TP |
| \fB-t \fR |
| Test a flac encoded file (same as -d |
| except no decoded file is written) |
| .TP |
| \fB-a \fR |
| Analyze a flac encoded file (same as -d |
| except an analysis file is written) |
| .TP |
| \fB-s \fR |
| Silent mode (do not write runtime |
| encode/decode statistics to stdout) |
| .TP |
| \fB-o \fIfilename\fB\fR |
| Force the output file name (usually flac just |
| changes the extension). May only be used when |
| encoding a single file. May not be used in |
| conjunction with --output-prefix. |
| .TP |
| \fB--output-prefix \fIstring\fB\fR |
| Prefix each output file name with the given |
| string. This can be useful for encoding/decoding |
| files to a different directory. Make sure if your |
| string is a path name that it ends with a trailing |
| `/' (slash). |
| .TP |
| \fB--delete-input-file \fR |
| Automatically delete the input file after a |
| successful encode or decode. If there was an |
| error (including a verify error) the input file |
| is left intact. |
| .TP |
| \fB--skip \fIsamples\fB\fR |
| Skip the specified number of samples at the |
| beginning of the input file (can be used for both |
| encoding and decoding) |
| .SS "ANALYSIS OPTIONS" |
| .TP |
| \fB--a-rtext \fR |
| Includes the residual signal in the analysis |
| file. This will make the file very big, much |
| larger than even the decoded file. |
| .TP |
| \fB--a-rgp \fR |
| Generates a gnuplot file for every subframe; |
| each file will contain the residual distribution |
| of the subframe. This will create a lot of |
| files. |
| .SS "DECODING OPTIONS" |
| .TP |
| \fB-F \fR |
| By default flac stops decoding with an error |
| and removes the partially decoded file if it |
| encounters a bitstream error. With -F, errors are |
| still printed but flac will continue decoding to |
| completion. Note that errors may cause the decoded |
| audio to be missing some samples or have silent |
| sections. |
| .SS "ENCODING OPTIONS" |
| .TP |
| \fB--ogg\fR |
| When encoding, generate Ogg-FLAC output instead |
| of native-FLAC. Ogg-FLAC streams are FLAC streams |
| wrapped in an Ogg transport layer. The resulting |
| file should have an '.ogg' extension and will still |
| be decodable by flac. |
| |
| When decoding, force the input to be treated as |
| Ogg-FLAC. This is useful when piping input from |
| stdin or when the filename does not end in '.ogg'. |
| .TP |
| \fB--lax\fR |
| Allow encoder to generate non-Subset |
| files. |
| .TP |
| \fB--sector-align\fR |
| Align encoding of multiple CD format WAVE |
| files on sector boundaries. See the HTML |
| documentation for more information. |
| .TP |
| \fB-S \fI{ # | X | #x }\fB\fR |
| Include a point or points in a SEEKTABLE. Using #, |
| a seek point at that sample number is added. Using |
| X, a placeholder point is added at the end of a the |
| table. Using #x, # evenly spaced seek points will |
| be added, the first being at sample 0. You may use |
| many -S options; the resulting SEEKTABLE will be the |
| unique-ified union of all such values. With no -S |
| options, flac defaults to '-S 100x'. Use -S- for |
| no SEEKTABLE. Note: '-S #x' will not work if the |
| encoder can't determine the input size before |
| starting. Note: if you use '-S #' and # is >= |
| samples in the input, there will be either no seek |
| point entered (if the input size is determinable |
| before encoding starts) or a placeholder point (if |
| input size is not determinable). |
| .TP |
| \fB-P \fIbytes\fB\fR |
| Tell the encoder to write a PADDING metadata |
| block of the given length (in bytes) after the |
| STREAMINFO block. This is useful if you plan to |
| tag the file later with an APPLICATION block; |
| instead of having to rewrite the entire file later |
| just to insert your block, you can write directly |
| over the PADDING block. Note that the total length |
| of the PADDING block will be 4 bytes longer than |
| the length given because of the 4 metadata block |
| header bytes. You can force no PADDING block at |
| all to be written with -P-, which is the default. |
| .TP |
| \fB-b \fIblocksize\fB\fR |
| Default is 1152 for -l 0, else 4608; must be |
| 192/576/1152/2304/4608/256/512/1024/2048/4096/8192/16384/32768 |
| (unless --lax is used) |
| .TP |
| \fB-m\fR |
| Try mid-side coding for each frame (stereo |
| input only) |
| .TP |
| \fB-M\fR |
| Loose mid-side coding for all frames (stereo |
| input only) |
| .TP |
| \fB-0..-8\fR |
| Fastest compression..highest compression |
| (default is -5). These are synonyms for other |
| options: |
| .RS |
| .TP |
| \fB-0\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -r 2,2 |
| .TP |
| \fB-1\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -M -r 2,2 |
| .TP |
| \fB-2\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -m -r 3 |
| .TP |
| \fB-3\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 6 -b 4608 -r 3,3 |
| .TP |
| \fB-4\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -M -r 3,3 |
| .TP |
| \fB-5\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 3,3 |
| .TP |
| \fB-6\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 4 |
| .TP |
| \fB-7\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6 |
| .TP |
| \fB-8\fR |
| Synonymous with -l 12 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6 |
| .RE |
| .TP |
| \fB--fast\fR |
| Fastest compression. Currently |
| synonymous with -0. |
| .TP |
| \fB--best\fR |
| Highest compression. Currently |
| synonymous with -8. |
| .TP |
| \fB-e\fR |
| Do exhaustive model search |
| (expensive!) |
| .TP |
| \fB-E\fR |
| Do escape coding in the entropy coder. This |
| causes the encoder to use an unencoded representation |
| of the residual in a partition if it is smaller. It |
| increases the runtime and usually results in an |
| improvement of less than 1%. |
| .TP |
| \fB-l \fImax_lpc_order\fB\fR |
| 0 => use only fixed predictors |
| .TP |
| \fB-p\fR |
| Do exhaustive search of LP coefficient |
| quantization (expensive!). Overrides -q, |
| does nothing if using -l 0 |
| .TP |
| \fB-q \fIbits\fB\fR |
| Precision of the quantized linear-predictor |
| coefficients, 0 => let encoder decide (min is 5, |
| default is 0) |
| .TP |
| \fB-r \fI[level,]level\fB\fR |
| Set the [min,]max residual partition order |
| (0..16). min defaults to 0 if unspecified. Default |
| is -r 3,3. |
| .TP |
| \fB-V\fR |
| Verify a correct encoding by decoding the |
| output in parallel and comparing to the |
| original |
| .TP |
| \fB-F- -S- -P- -m- -M- -e- -E- -p- -V- --delete-input-file- --lax- --ogg- \fR |
| These flags can be used to invert the sense |
| of the corresponding normal option. |
| .SS "FORMAT OPTIONS" |
| .TP |
| \fB-fb\fR |
| Big-endian byte order |
| .TP |
| \fB-fl\fR |
| Little-endian byte order |
| .TP |
| \fB-fc \fIchannels\fB\fR |
| Set number of channels. |
| .TP |
| \fB-fp \fIbits_per_sample\fB\fR |
| Set bits per sample. |
| .TP |
| \fB-fs \fIsample_rate\fB\fR |
| Set sample rate (in Hz). |
| .TP |
| \fB-fu\fR |
| Unsigned samples (default is signed) |
| .TP |
| \fB-fr\fR |
| Force to raw format (even if filename ends |
| in \fI.wav\fR). |
| .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| .PP |
| The programs are documented fully by HTML format |
| documentation, available in |
| \fI/usr/share/doc/flac/html\fR on |
| Debian GNU/Linux systems. |
| .SH "AUTHOR" |
| .PP |
| This manual page was written by Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org> for |
| the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). |