1 <!doctype refentry PUBLIC "-//Davenport//DTD DocBook V3.0//EN" [
3 <!-- Fill in your name for FIRSTNAME and SURNAME. -->
4 <!ENTITY dhfirstname "<firstname>Matt</firstname>">
5 <!ENTITY dhsurname "<surname>Zimmerman</surname>">
6 <!-- Please adjust the date whenever revising the manpage. -->
7 <!ENTITY dhdate "<date>August 19, 2002</date>">
8 <!-- SECTION should be 1-8, maybe w/ subsection other parameters are
9 allowed: see man(7), man(1). -->
10 <!ENTITY dhsection "<manvolnum>1</manvolnum>">
11 <!ENTITY dhemail "<email>mdz@debian.org</email>">
12 <!ENTITY dhusername "Matt Zimmerman">
13 <!ENTITY dhucpackage "<refentrytitle>FLAC</refentrytitle>">
14 <!ENTITY dhpackage "flac">
16 <!ENTITY debian "<productname>Debian GNU/Linux</productname>">
17 <!ENTITY gnu "<acronym>GNU</acronym>">
31 <holder>&dhusername;</holder>
41 <refname>&dhpackage;</refname>
43 <refpurpose>Free Lossless Audio Codec</refpurpose>
47 <command>flac</command>
49 <arg><option><replaceable>OPTION</replaceable></option></arg>
50 <arg choice=plain><replaceable>infile</replaceable></arg>
51 <arg choice=plain><replaceable>...</replaceable></arg>
55 <title>DESCRIPTION</title>
57 <para>This manual page documents briefly the
58 <command>flac</command> command.</para>
60 <para>This manual page was written for the &debian;
61 distribution because the original program does not have a
62 manual page. Instead, it has documentation in HTML
63 format; see below.</para>
67 <title>OPTIONS</title>
69 <para>A summary of options is included below. For a complete
70 description, see the HTML documentation.</para>
73 <title>Generic Options</title>
77 <term><option>-v</option>, <option>--version</option>
80 <para>Show the flac version number</para>
85 <term><option>-h</option>, <option>--help</option>
88 <para>Show basic usage and a list of all options</para>
93 <term><option>-H</option>, <option>--explain</option>
96 <para>Show detailed explanation of usage and all options</para>
101 <term><option>-d</option>, <option>--decode</option>
104 <para>Decode (the default behavior is to encode)</para>
109 <term><option>-t</option>, <option>--test</option>
112 <para>Test a flac encoded file (same as -d
113 except no decoded file is written)</para>
118 <term><option>-a</option>, <option>--analyze</option>
121 <para>Analyze a flac encoded file (same as -d
122 except an analysis file is written)</para>
127 <term><option>-c</option>, <option>--stdout</option>
130 <para>Write output to stdout</para>
135 <term><option>-s</option>, <option>--silent</option>
138 <para>Silent mode (do not write runtime
139 encode/decode statistics to stderr)</para>
144 <term><option>-o</option> <replaceable>filename</replaceable>, <option>--output-name</option>=<replaceable>filename</replaceable></term>
146 <para>Force the output file name (usually flac just
147 changes the extension). May only be used when
148 encoding a single file. May not be used in
149 conjunction with --output-prefix.</para>
154 <term><option>--output-prefix</option>=<replaceable>string</replaceable></term>
156 <para>Prefix each output file name with the given
157 string. This can be useful for encoding or decoding
158 files to a different directory. Make sure if your
159 string is a path name that it ends with a trailing
165 <term><option>--delete-input-file</option>
168 <para>Automatically delete the input file after a
169 successful encode or decode. If there was an
170 error (including a verify error) the input file
171 is left intact.</para>
176 <term><option>--skip</option>=<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
178 <para>Skip the specified number of samples at the
179 beginning of the input file (can be used for both
180 encoding and decoding)</para>
188 <title>Analysis Options</title>
192 <term><option>--residual-text</option>
195 <para>Includes the residual signal in the analysis
196 file. This will make the file very big, much
197 larger than even the decoded file.</para>
202 <term><option>--residual-gnuplot</option>
205 <para>Generates a gnuplot file for every subframe;
206 each file will contain the residual distribution
207 of the subframe. This will create a lot of
216 <title>Decoding Options</title>
220 <term><option>-F</option>, <option>--decode-through-errors</option>
223 <para>By default flac stops decoding with an error
224 and removes the partially decoded file if it
225 encounters a bitstream error. With -F, errors are
226 still printed but flac will continue decoding to
227 completion. Note that errors may cause the decoded
228 audio to be missing some samples or have silent
237 <title>Encoding Options</title>
241 <term><option>-V</option>, <option>--verify</option></term>
244 <para>Verify a correct encoding by decoding the
245 output in parallel and comparing to the
251 <term><option>--ogg</option></term>
254 <para>When encoding, generate Ogg-FLAC output instead
255 of native-FLAC. Ogg-FLAC streams are FLAC streams
256 wrapped in an Ogg transport layer. The resulting
257 file should have an '.ogg' extension and will still
258 be decodable by flac.</para>
259 <para>When decoding, force the input to be treated as
260 Ogg-FLAC. This is useful when piping input from
261 stdin or when the filename does not end in '.ogg'.</para>
266 <term><option>--lax</option></term>
269 <para>Allow encoder to generate non-Subset
275 <term><option>--sector-align</option></term>
278 <para>Align encoding of multiple CD format WAVE
279 files on sector boundaries. See the HTML
280 documentation for more information.</para>
285 <term><option>-S</option> {<replaceable>#</replaceable>|<replaceable>X</replaceable>|<replaceable>#x</replaceable>}, <option>--seekpoint</option>={<replaceable>#</replaceable>|<replaceable>X</replaceable>|<replaceable>#x</replaceable>}</term>
289 Include a point or points in a SEEKTABLE. Using #,
290 a seek point at that sample number is added. Using
291 X, a placeholder point is added at the end of a the
292 table. Using #x, # evenly spaced seek points will
293 be added, the first being at sample 0. You may use
294 many -S options; the resulting SEEKTABLE will be the
295 unique-ified union of all such values. With no -S
296 options, flac defaults to '-S 100x'. Use -S- for
297 no SEEKTABLE. Note: '-S #x' will not work if the
298 encoder can't determine the input size before
299 starting. Note: if you use '-S #' and # is >=
300 samples in the input, there will be either no seek
301 point entered (if the input size is determinable
302 before encoding starts) or a placeholder point (if
303 input size is not determinable).</para>
308 <term><option>-P</option> <replaceable>#</replaceable>, <option>--padding</option>=<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
311 <para>Tell the encoder to write a PADDING metadata
312 block of the given length (in bytes) after the
313 STREAMINFO block. This is useful if you plan to
314 tag the file later with an APPLICATION block;
315 instead of having to rewrite the entire file later
316 just to insert your block, you can write directly
317 over the PADDING block. Note that the total length
318 of the PADDING block will be 4 bytes longer than
319 the length given because of the 4 metadata block
320 header bytes. You can force no PADDING block at
321 all to be written with -P-, which is the default.
327 <term><option>-b</option> <replaceable>#</replaceable>, <option>--blocksize</option>=<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
330 <para>Specify the block size in samples. The
331 default is 1152 for -l 0, else 4608; must be one of
332 192, 576, 1152, 2304, 4608, 256, 512, 1024, 2048,
333 4096, 8192, 16384, or 32768 (unless --lax is used)</para>
338 <term><option>-m</option>, <option>--mid-side</option></term>
341 <para>Try mid-side coding for each frame (stereo
347 <term><option>-M</option>, <option>--adaptive-mid-side</option></term>
350 <para>Adaptive mid-side coding for all frames (stereo
356 <term><option>-0</option>..<option>-8</option>, <option>--compression-level-0</option>..<option>--compression-level-8</option></term>
359 <para>Fastest compression..highest compression
360 (default is -5). These are synonyms for other
365 <term><option>-0</option>, <option>--compression-level-0</option></term>
368 <para>Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -r 2,2
374 <term><option>-1</option>, <option>--compression-level-1</option></term>
377 <para>Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -M -r 2,2
383 <term><option>-2</option>, <option>--compression-level-2</option></term>
386 <para>Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -m -r 3
392 <term><option>-3</option>, <option>--compression-level-3</option></term>
395 <para>Synonymous with -l 6 -b 4608 -r 3,3
401 <term><option>-4</option>, <option>--compression-level-4</option></term>
404 <para>Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -M -r 3,3
410 <term><option>-5</option>, <option>--compression-level-5</option></term>
413 <para>Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 3,3
419 <term><option>-6</option>, <option>--compression-level-6</option></term>
422 <para>Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 4
428 <term><option>-7</option>, <option>--compression-level-7</option></term>
431 <para>Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6
437 <term><option>-8</option>, <option>--compression-level-8</option></term>
440 <para>Synonymous with -l 12 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6
451 <term><option>--fast</option></term>
454 <para>Fastest compression. Currently
455 synonymous with -0.</para>
460 <term><option>--best</option></term>
463 <para>Highest compression. Currently
464 synonymous with -8.</para>
469 <term><option>-e</option>, <option>--exhaustive-model-search</option></term>
472 <para>Do exhaustive model search
478 <term><option>-E</option>, <option>--escape-coding</option></term>
481 <para>Do escape coding in the entropy coder. This
482 causes the encoder to use an unencoded representation
483 of the residual in a partition if it is smaller. It
484 increases the runtime and usually results in an
485 improvement of less than 1%.</para>
490 <term><option>-l</option> <replaceable>#</replaceable>, <option>--max-lpc-order</option>=<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
493 <para>Set the maximum LPC order; 0 means use only the fixed predictors</para>
498 <term><option>-p</option>, <option>--qlp-coeff-precision-search</option></term>
501 <para>Do exhaustive search of LP coefficient
502 quantization (expensive!). Overrides -q;
503 does nothing if using -l 0</para>
508 <term><option>-q</option> <replaceable>#</replaceable>, <option>--qlp-coeff-precision</option>=<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
511 <para>Precision of the quantized linear-predictor
512 coefficients, 0 => let encoder decide (min is 5,
518 <term><option>-r</option> [<replaceable>#</replaceable>,]<replaceable>#</replaceable>, <option>--rice-partition-order</option>=[<replaceable>#</replaceable>,]<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
521 <para>Set the [min,]max residual partition order
522 (0..16). min defaults to 0 if unspecified. Default
531 <title>Format Options</title>
535 <term><option>--endian</option>={<replaceable>big</replaceable>|<replaceable>little</replaceable>}</term>
538 <para>Set the byte order for samples</para>
543 <term><option>--channels</option>=<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
546 <para>Set number of channels.</para>
551 <term><option>--bps</option>=<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
554 <para>Set bits per sample.</para>
559 <term><option>--sample-rate</option>=<replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
562 <para>Set sample rate (in Hz).</para>
567 <term><option>--sign</option>={<replaceable>signed</replaceable>|<replaceable>unsigned</replaceable>}</term>
570 <para>Set the sign of samples (the default is signed).</para>
575 <term><option>--force-raw-input</option></term>
578 <para>Force input to be treated as raw samples (even if filename ends
579 in <filename>.wav</filename>).</para>
587 <title>Negative Options</title>
591 <term><option>--no-adaptive-mid-side</option></term>
592 <term><option>--no-decode-through-errors</option></term>
593 <term><option>--no-delete-input-file</option></term>
594 <term><option>--no-escape-coding</option></term>
595 <term><option>--no-exhaustive-model-search</option></term>
596 <term><option>--no-lax</option></term>
597 <term><option>--no-mid-side</option></term>
598 <term><option>--no-ogg</option></term>
599 <term><option>--no-padding</option></term>
600 <term><option>--no-qlp-coeff-precision-search</option></term>
601 <term><option>--no-residual-gnuplot</option></term>
602 <term><option>--no-residual-text</option></term>
603 <term><option>--no-sector-align</option></term>
604 <term><option>--no-seektable</option></term>
605 <term><option>--no-silent</option></term>
606 <term><option>--no-verify</option></term>
608 <para>These flags can be used to invert the sense
609 of the corresponding normal option.</para>
618 <title>SEE ALSO</title>
620 <para>The programs are documented fully by HTML format
621 documentation, available in
622 <filename>/usr/share/doc/flac/html</filename> on
623 &debian; systems.</para>
626 <title>AUTHOR</title>
628 <para>This manual page was written by &dhusername; &dhemail; for
629 the &debian; system (but may be used by others).</para>
631 <!-- <para>Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify
632 this document under the terms of the <acronym>GNU</acronym> Free
633 Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version
634 published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
635 Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy
636 of the license can be found under
637 <filename>/usr/share/common-licenses/FDL</filename>.</para> -->
642 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
647 sgml-minimize-attributes:nil
648 sgml-always-quote-attributes:t
651 sgml-parent-document:nil
652 sgml-default-dtd-file:nil
653 sgml-exposed-tags:nil
654 sgml-local-catalogs:nil
655 sgml-local-ecat-files:nil