Apple first introduced its very own lossless audio compression format, Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC), in 2004 with iTunes 4.5. This Thursday—seven years later—the company made the code because of its encoder and decoder available under an Apache 2. free license.

ALAC is comparable to another common open lossless format termed as FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), but uses an MPEG 4-compliant QuickTime container. ALAC is supported in iTunes in addition to Apple’s popular ipod device and all sorts of iOS products. For audiophiles who dislike lossy formats like AAC or MP3, it provides a much better sounding alternative. Unlike AAC or MP3, though, which has a tendency to compress files around 10:1, lossless ALAC files only save about 50 % of the disk space.

Additionally to providing the format being an option in iTunes, Apple uses ALAC to deliver audio from iTunes or perhaps an apple iphone to products as an Airport terminal Express or Apple TV for playback via AirPlay.

Why Apple made the decision to spread out source its ALAC code at this era is unclear. Independent designers had reverse designed the codec and incorporated support in libavcodec six years back, and therefore, popular free media playback applications like VLC and Boxee have supported the format since. Still, if you would like Apple’s reference implementation from the format, the code can be obtained to take.

View the original article here

a best wordpress plugin and a WP blog is all anyone need to earn money on the web.