**Offer FLAC format in addition to (or instead of) WAV**
FLAC files are the same quality as WAV, but are much smaller and can include tags and album art.
br41n
shared this idea
Hello everybody. Today we introduced AIFF as a new lossless format that you can select during purchase. We’re hoping that this will address some of the functionality you’ve been asking for (metadata and album art in a lossless file). This forum will stay open so people can continue to vote for FLAC support and we would love to hear about your experiences using our AIFF downloads. For more information on why we started with AIFF, see this post: http://news.beatport.com/blog/2011/09/09/introducing-aiff-format/.
114 comments
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ax0n
commented
Deleted my last comment. Turns out, soundconverter did a decent job of FLAC'ing and keeping the metadata. It was just one particular track (The first one I Tried) that didn't work.
Regardless, I don't use AIFF for anything I do. But cheaper AIFF is still a better option than the old tagless WAV. Regardless, for my most recent purchase, FLAC was almost 400MB less than the AIFF versions. So why no FLAC? Shorter download times are in everyone's best interest.
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ax0n
commented
I'm not sure why FLAC lost. It's not like its expensive, or patent encumbered. So the only barrier to using it was either political or philosophical. Neither is good for the customers in this case.
Today, from this thread, I learned Juno has tagged FLAC's. It is likely I will try them for my next purchases, despite being a dyed-in-the-wool Beatport fan. It's a lot of work to have to retag everything.
Scratch, Traktor, Live, and MIXXX all support FLAC now. There's really no excuses any more. Listen to your customers, or at least tell us why you implemented a half-ass solution?
Probably the only good thing that came out of this, was the uncompressed fee dropped from US 1.50 to US 0.75. Which is good, don't get me wrong, but you could've done better by using FLAC too. The bandwidth was only part of the issue for me.
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paulsebelien
commented
Please offer FLAC! Its widely supported, more so than AIFF. And I already have a FLAC collection.
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rgtb
commented
It doesn't make sense from a bandwidth perspective to provide AIFF or WAV. Please give us FLAC.
The only people reliant on AIFF are people that play on CDJs without a DJ software. But all major DJ software, including Traktor, Serato, and VDJ, supports FLAC.
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quistuhpha
commented
What kind of company isn't up to date?? We are in the year 2013!! That's like as if everybody is pushing PS3 titles and you are still pushing PS2 games!! Seriously wtf? Put it in perspective! It's not THAT hard!!
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AboXXL
commented
You already are losing your lossless consumers !
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IanC
commented
I find the £1 per track charge for lossless format downloads is not only extortionate, it's insulting. FLACs are available for much cheaper elsewhere (e.g. Juno).
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Veyda
commented
Same as Kimotei. My 1st preference now is Juno, because they offer zipped downloads already sorted into release folders, with album artwork and metadata in FLACs, as well as JPGs of album art. Beatport's WAVs, I have to convert, tag and sort myself, which is too much unnecessary work. :P
I don't use iTunes as a matter of principle. -
electron_808
commented
Serato now supports FLAC...no more excuses beatport give people (i.e. customers) what they want!...FLAC is the future...you can keep your AIFF!
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4nT1 commented
I would love flac but sadly iTunes doesn't support it as they prefer to prioritize their own formats :( the lack of tagging capability in WAV makes it useless regardless of the purity of the music.
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Kimotei
commented
Im moving over to Juno until Beatport gets FLAC support. Its to much hassle to tag the Wavs.
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kirillov
commented
I dont understand why WAV and not FLAC. I just bought the incredible expensive WAV Files here and then I have to rename and tag them myself! at JUNO I just click "download WAV as FLAC" and I get it automatically delivered with no extra work to do. why not at beatport? people are asking for FLAC since years!
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seanphillip
commented
So I've just learned that the metadata in the AIFF files is some kind of bastardized hybrid of a PCM format that was never intended to support metadata and ID3 tags. This is why some program fail to load metadata from the AIFF files. So the question is why Beatport decided to choose this route instead of a format like FLAC which was designed from the ground up to support metadata and has a smaller file size which would reduce Beatport's bandwidth fees. Since most users are on laptops and using software that support FLAC I kinda feel like this route was taken so Beatport could continue charging the uncompressed format fee. Thanks for sticking it to the people that made you guys!!!
There is only one downside I see with FLAC and that is that new CDJ's from Pioneer don't support FLAC, However there are plenty of utilities to convert to AIFF to other useful formats and its not like CDJ's support metadata on the AIFF files anyways.
I think I'm going to war against all these companies. They build software and hardware that have such high standards for sound quality yet their format support just pushes the masses to MP3's... why are things so difficult!!!
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tay740
commented
AIFF isn't a waste of time but it is true that FLAC is better due to compression applied. I use AIFF due to the tagging and media/hardware support that is offered. What do you use that supports FLAC fully? I am genuinely interested to help me make the switch. I am currently using iTunes to manage my music on windows 7. I like the ease and layout of the software both for storage and copying to and from media such as cd's and usb drives.
@admin, IMO it would be possible to just adopt FLAC and save multiple encoding. Full resolution as MP3 sizes. Is this incorrect?
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Veyda
commented
AIFF is very Mac-centric. All DJs that I know that mix using Windows (an overwhelming majority of them) and prefer lossless, use FLAC - because of its metadata support and lossless compression. AIFF only makes sense if you use iTunes to manage your collection, which again does not make sense unless you're a Mac user.
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George commented
I found an album I wanted today on your website. I added it to my basket and went to check out the quality (I only consider it worth buying if it's lossless as it was mastered).
It jumped up a £ or so because you don't market your downloads with VAT (cheeky, but fine).
Ah, here we go, we want it lossless. Hmm, no FLAC? Fine, I'll convert it from WAV. *click*
+£7.50?!!!!!! The ALBUM itself was less than that. Suddenly £6.38 is £15.96. Great job guys, one lost sale here. Maybe if you learned to advertise stuff closer to the TRUE cost you would piss less people off and get some more sales.
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Ordemo
commented
To follow on, I buy WAV's from Juno or other places and convert them to AIFF's, it's much cheaper.
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Ordemo
commented
I think Beatport played it safe by offering AIFF rather than FLAC.
AIFF is unquestionably a lossless file format, FLAC is lossless as such but it is still a compressed file.
I refuse to buy music from Beatport now because of the expensive lossless "Upgrade" that they charge. Whether or not Beatport will charge a "Upgrade" fee for FLAC is debatable but I imagine that they will if they can get away with it, furthermore I think those who are requesting FLAC and moaning about the price of WAV are dreamers. FLAC will at some point be offered on Beatport but don't expect to be offered FLAC at MP3 prices, in my opinion you will be very lucky if this happens. -
politicalmachine
commented
Just get rid of the WAV file, if I have to pay a $1 extra, why should I be getting a lesser product with no tags? C'mon beatport! FLAC please.
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FilipePatricio
commented
Yeah what he didn't say was that the price is $1.00 extra on AIFF files. Thanks!