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I have started a project of ripping my big collection of CDs and storing them on my NAS. Since I care for audio quality I have decided to store them in a lossless format. Right now I have tried to use FLAC. However reading this article makes me having some doubt.
I have considered using Apple lossless (m4a) files. It seems that Apple will support this format for many years to come. However I have not found a way to playback them on my Playstation 3. The m4a format is supported on Mac (of course) and on Windows FLAC on the other hand is supported on all major platforms. The m4a format has the advantage of being able to import to iTunes. Today I mount my NAS and use VLC for playback (on my Mac computer).
We have a Synology NAS, a Mac Book Pro, a Sony PS3 and some Windows computers in my family. Thus I want to be able to playback the audio on all these platforms. The Synology server has the ability to transcode some formats, such as FLAC.
What lossless format do you recommend me to use for storage of my audio files on my NAS? It should be format that is playable on most platforms. It should be future-proof, but I realize that this is hard to predict what will last for many years to come.
One solution would be to keep my FLAC files. I would be able to use them as long as the FLAC format is supported. When another fantastic lossless format arrives, I will have to convert them. As long as it is a lossless format, the audio quality is preserved.
I suspect the NAS to not properly transcode FLAC files on the fly to the PS3. As far as I know, the PS3 doesn't support FLAC playback so the NAS has to transcode it, but I think at some point in the transcoding process the NAS is doing something wrong. Do you have the error message on the PS3? What are the transcoding settings on the NAS? – m-p-3 – 2012-02-15T14:14:17.343