Accept compressed raw audio files (FLAC)

Feature Requests
1

I’ve gotten hooked on the recently released Birdweather PUC bird recorder. It saves all the recognized recordings on the web for review & download. Only hiccup - they’re in the FLAC [Free Lossless Audio Codec] format, not WAV. Not a huge problem - there are free conversion apps and I’ll sometimes process with Audacity which accepts FLAC and exports WAV files.
So, if not a huge deal - support FLAC? Especially since they’re smaller than the uncompressed WAV files.
https://www.gumlet.com/learn/flac-vs-wav/

2

There may be a memory/storage issue. FLAC files tend to be larger than the same audio track saved in other formats.

2 Likes
3

I agree that it’s probably a storage issue, since FLACs are pretty big.

4

iNaturalist accepts .wavs which are typically noticeably larger than .flacs so I’d be surprised if it’s purely a storage issue.

5 Likes
5

You can easily convert FLACs to WAV using e.g. Ocenaudio, Audacity, foobar2000 et al. FLAC is a losslessly compressed audio file so it should be always smaller than WAV (by at least 50%). And if iNat supports large uncompressed WAVs, FLACs would mean lower storage needs vs. WAVs. Besides, most browsers and phones can play FLACs natively (even MacOS, iOS).

2 Likes
6

Just the opposite is true - FLAC files are always smaller than WAV files, which iNaturalist does accept. Presumably, this is why Birdweather uses that format.
https://everpresent.com/flac-vs-wav/#:~:text=Cons%20of%20WAV%20Files&text=Big%20File%20Sizes%20–%20The%20uncompressed,considerably%20larger%20than%20FLAC%20files.

7

FLAC files are always smaller than corresponding WAV files.

1 Like
8

I tend to use MP4 files for most of my audio, and the same file in FLAC format is massively larger.

That’s probably why I assumed it was the same for WAV.

My bad.

9

I was comparing to mp3 files, which is what I typically use - forgot that iNat accepts wav.

1 Like
10

File size for different formats should generally be:
WAV > FLAC > mp3/mp4

WAV and FLAC should not differ in sound quality as FLAC is lossless compression (essentially a zip file for audio). It does require some processing to uncompress for use, so that may affect iNat’s decision to use or not. But I think for playing FLACs in browsers, the FLAC gets sent out by the site and then uncompressed clientside, so this might not be an issue. It might also help a little in places with lower bandwidth/lower quality internet connections. It might also be useful to implement on phones as uploading FLACs could save data?

3 Likes
11

The PUC records many detections and depending on how you set it, are only about 9 sec long each. So, I will download a FLAC file of what i think is the best example from the Birdweather server, clean it up a bit using the free Audacity app, export & upload the WAV file to iNaturalist. I then filter & link ALL the recordings from that site on that day so anyone can play any of the recordings to get a better idea. e.g.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/268660961
It would be handy to be able to upload a single sample FLAC file. The PUC records location data, but iNaturalist doesn’t read it - that would be handy too.

1 Like