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>November 15, 2001</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>-H</option>
80 <para>Show detailed help screen</para>
85 <term><option>-d</option>
88 <para>Decode (default behavior is encode)</para>
93 <term><option>-c</option>
96 <para>Encode from standard input, or decode to
97 standard output</para>
102 <term><option>-t</option>
105 <para>Test a flac encoded file (same as -d
106 except no decoded file is written)</para>
111 <term><option>-a</option>
114 <para>Analyze a flac encoded file (same as -d
115 except an analysis file is written)</para>
120 <term><option>-s</option>
123 <para>Silent mode (do not write runtime
124 encode/decode statistics to stdout)</para>
129 <term><option>-o</option> <replaceable>filename</replaceable></term>
131 <para>Force the output file name (usually flac just
132 changes the extension). May only be used when
133 encoding a single file. May not be used in
134 conjunction with --output-prefix.</para>
139 <term><option>--output-prefix</option> <replaceable>string</replaceable></term>
141 <para>Prefix each output file name with the given
142 string. This can be useful for encoding/decoding
143 files to a different directory. Make sure if your
144 string is a path name that it ends with a trailing
150 <term><option>--delete-input-file</option>
153 <para>Automatically delete the input file after a
154 successful encode or decode. If there was an
155 error (including a verify error) the input file
156 is left intact.</para>
161 <term><option>--skip</option> <replaceable>samples</replaceable></term>
163 <para>Skip the specified number of samples at the
164 beginning of the input file (can be used for both
165 encoding and decoding)</para>
173 <title>Analysis Options</title>
177 <term><option>--a-rtext</option>
180 <para>Includes the residual signal in the analysis
181 file. This will make the file very big, much
182 larger than even the decoded file.</para>
187 <term><option>--a-rgp</option>
190 <para>Generates a gnuplot file for every subframe;
191 each file will contain the residual distribution
192 of the subframe. This will create a lot of
201 <title>Encoding Options</title>
205 <term><option>--ogg</option></term>
208 <para>When encoding, generate Ogg-FLAC output instead
209 of native-FLAC. Ogg-FLAC streams are FLAC streams
210 wrapped in an Ogg transport layer. The resulting
211 file should have an '.ogg' extension and will still
212 be decodable by flac.</para>
213 <para>When decoding, force the input to be treated as
214 Ogg-FLAC. This is useful when piping input from
215 stdin or when the filename does not end in '.ogg'.</para>
220 <term><option>--lax</option></term>
223 <para>Allow encoder to generate non-Subset
229 <term><option>--sector-align</option></term>
232 <para>Align encoding of multiple CD format WAVE
233 files on sector boundaries. See the HTML
234 documentation for more information.</para>
239 <term><option>-S</option> <replaceable>{ # | X | #x }</replaceable></term>
243 Include a point or points in a SEEKTABLE. Using #,
244 a seek point at that sample number is added. Using
245 X, a placeholder point is added at the end of a the
246 table. Using #x, # evenly spaced seek points will
247 be added, the first being at sample 0. You may use
248 many -S options; the resulting SEEKTABLE will be the
249 unique-ified union of all such values. With no -S
250 options, flac defaults to '-S 100x'. Use -S- for
251 no SEEKTABLE. Note: '-S #x' will not work if the
252 encoder can't determine the input size before
253 starting. Note: if you use '-S #' and # is >=
254 samples in the input, there will be either no seek
255 point entered (if the input size is determinable
256 before encoding starts) or a placeholder point (if
257 input size is not determinable).</para>
262 <term><option>-P</option> <replaceable>bytes</replaceable></term>
265 <para>Tell the encoder to write a PADDING metadata
266 block of the given length (in bytes) after the
267 STREAMINFO block. -P 0 implies no PADDING block,
268 which is the default. This is useful if you plan
269 to tag the file later with an APPLICATION block;
270 instead of having to rewrite the entire file later
271 just to insert your block, you can write directly
272 over the PADDING block.</para>
277 <term><option>-b</option> <replaceable>blocksize</replaceable></term>
280 <para>Default is 1152 for -l 0, else 4608; must be
281 192/576/1152/2304/4608/256/512/1024/2048/4096/8192/16384/32768
282 (unless --lax is used)</para>
287 <term><option>-m</option></term>
290 <para>Try mid-side coding for each frame (stereo
296 <term><option>-M</option></term>
299 <para>Loose mid-side coding for all frames (stereo
305 <term><option>-0</option>..<option>-8</option></term>
308 <para>Fastest compression..highest compression
309 (default is -5). These are synonyms for other
314 <term><option>-0</option></term>
317 <para>Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -r 2,2
323 <term><option>-1</option></term>
326 <para>Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -M -r 2,2
332 <term><option>-2</option></term>
335 <para>Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -m -r 3
341 <term><option>-3</option></term>
344 <para>Synonymous with -l 6 -b 4608 -r 3,3
350 <term><option>-4</option></term>
353 <para>Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -M -r 3,3
359 <term><option>-5</option></term>
362 <para>Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 3,3
368 <term><option>-6</option></term>
371 <para>Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 4
377 <term><option>-7</option></term>
380 <para>Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6
386 <term><option>-8</option></term>
389 <para>Synonymous with -l 12 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6
401 <term><option>-e</option></term>
404 <para>Do exhaustive model search
410 <term><option>-E</option></term>
413 <para>Do escape coding in the entropy coder. This
414 causes the encoder to use an unencoded representation
415 of the residual in a partition if it is smaller. It
416 increases the runtime and usually results in an
417 improvement of less than 1%.</para>
422 <term><option>-l</option> <replaceable>max_lpc_order</replaceable></term>
425 <para>0 => use only fixed predictors</para>
430 <term><option>-p</option></term>
433 <para>Do exhaustive search of LP coefficient
434 quantization (expensive!). Overrides -q,
435 does nothing if using -l 0</para>
440 <term><option>-q</option> <replaceable>bits</replaceable></term>
443 <para>Precision of the quantized linear-predictor
444 coefficients, 0 => let encoder decide (min is 5,
450 <term><option>-r</option> <replaceable>[level,]level</replaceable></term>
453 <para>Set the [min,]max residual partition order
454 (0..16). min defaults to 0 if unspecified. Default
460 <term><option>-R</option> <replaceable>#</replaceable></term>
463 <para>Set the Rice parameter search distance.
469 <term><option>-V</option></term>
472 <para>Verify a correct encoding by decoding the
473 output in parallel and comparing to the
479 <term><option>-S-</option> <option>-m-</option> <option>-M-</option> <option>-e-</option> <option>-E-</option> <option>-p-</option> <option>-V-</option> <option>--delete-input-file-</option> <option>--lax-</option> <option>--ogg-</option>
483 <para>These flags can be used to invert the sense
484 of the corresponding normal option.</para>
491 <title>Format Options</title>
495 <term><option>-fb</option></term>
498 <para>Big-endian byte order</para>
503 <term><option>-fl</option></term>
506 <para>Little-endian byte order</para>
511 <term><option>-fc</option>
512 <replaceable>channels</replaceable></term>
515 <para>Set number of channels.</para>
520 <term><option>-fp</option>
521 <replaceable>bits_per_sample</replaceable></term>
524 <para>Set bits per sample.</para>
529 <term><option>-fs</option>
530 <replaceable>sample_rate</replaceable></term>
533 <para>Set sample rate (in Hz).</para>
538 <term><option>-fu</option></term>
541 <para>Unsigned samples (default is signed)</para>
546 <term><option>-fr</option></term>
549 <para>Force to raw format (even if filename ends
550 in <filename>.wav</filename>).</para>
559 <title>SEE ALSO</title>
561 <para>The programs are documented fully by HTML format
562 documentation, available in
563 <filename>/usr/share/doc/flac/html</filename> on
564 &debian; systems.</para>
567 <title>AUTHOR</title>
569 <para>This manual page was written by &dhusername; &dhemail; for
570 the &debian; system (but may be used by others).</para>
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