View source for FLAC

{{website|FLAC|http://flac.sourceforge.net}}
{{open}}
'''FLAC''' is short for '''Free Lossless Audio Compression'''. It is an open source [[codec]] and [[file format]] which provides a [[lossless|perfect]] quality audio file. FLAC files usually contain [[CD|CD quality]] audio, but can also support almost any audio data with a wide range of sample frequencies, amount of channels and bits per sample. 

FLAC provides a smaller size of file than [[PCM]] [[WAV]] (about half the size), but much larger than [[lossy]] codecs like [[MP3]]. MP3s are about 5-10% the size of WAV files, but are lower quality.

A CD's worth of data is...
* 700MB as a CD
* 700MB as WAV
* '''300MB as FLAC'''
* 40MB as MP3 (128 [[kbps]])

== Container format ==
{{mux|id=flac|encoder=n}}
FLAC can be used inside several [[container formats]], such as [[ogg]] and [[matroska]], but can also be stored in it's own container.

VLC can only decode this type of container, and cannot encode it. To encode files in FLAC format use the flac command line tool from [http://flac.sf.net FLAC's website].

== Source code ==
{{file|modules/demux/flac.c|input demuxer}}