AboutGabriel Expertise I answer a variety of MIDI & computer related questions. I have multiple music degrees and years of experience in the field.
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Question Hi,
I would like to know what audio formats are really lossless and from which video formats can I rip lossless audio information. Thanks.
Answer Hello Ricardo,
Before listing lossless formats, I'll list non-compression formats, which are often confused as being lossless. Also note that there are more formats, these are considered the more common ones. I will include more details, below, regarding what you addressed in your message.
Non-compression formats:
* Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF, container format)
* Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF, container format)
* WAV – Microsoft "WAVE" format (format supports compression, but it is rarely used)
* Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM, generally only described as PCM, note that AIFF, WAV and MLP are all derivative forms of LPCM)
* Pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM)
Lossless audio:
* Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC)
* ATRAC Advanced Lossless
* Direct Stream Transfer (DST)
* Dolby TrueHD – Optional lossless surround sound format used by HD DVD and Blu-ray, it uses MLP but adds higher sample rates, bit rates, and more channels
* DTS-HD Master Audio – Optional lossless surround sound format used by HD DVD and Blu-ray, it was previously known as DTS++ and DTS-HD
* Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
* Lossless Audio (LA)
* Lossless Predictive Audio Compression (LPAC)
* Lossless Transform Audio Compression (LTAC)
* MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding (MPEG-4 ALS)
* MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding - Scalable to lossless (AAC-SLS, also known as HD-AAC) ("MPEG-4 SLS")
* Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP), also known as Packed PCM (PPCM), it is the standard lossless compression method for DVD-Audio content
* Monkey's Audio (APE)
* OptimFROG (OFR)
* RealAudio Lossless (RealPlayer)
* RK Audio (RKAU)
* Shorten (SHN)
* True Audio Lossless (TTA)
* WavPack Lossless (WV)
* Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMA Lossless)
The last two lists, at the bottom of this message, consist of both lossless and lossy video. Since I am, in addition to those, including the lossless audio list, I will go ahead and provide a lossy audio list as an extra reference.
Lossy audio:
Music
* AAC
* ADPCM
* ATRAC
* Dolby AC-3
* MP2
* MP3
* Musepack
* Ogg Vorbis (noted for its lack of patent restrictions)
* WMA
Speech
* CELP
* G.711
* G.726
* Harmonic and Individual Lines and Noise (HILN)
* AMR (used by GSM cell carriers, such as T-Mobile)
* Speex (noted for its lack of patent restrictions)
You said that you would like to know which video formats you can rip lossless audio from. Multimedia files that consist of both audio and video include both audio and video compressions. You will likely find lossless audio in files with lossless video; similarly, lossy audio in files with lossy video. However, there is a possibility that a file consists of lossy video but lossless audio, so you might want to consider both lossy and lossless video formats for potential lossless audio extraction.
There is not a built-in "bulleting" function in this volunteer website's text editing window where we answer questions. To clarify the bullets used below, some of the items are listed with "***". They are subsections of the preceding "*" format/codec.
Lossy video:
* Audio Video Standard (AVS)
* Blackbird FORscene video codec
* Cinepak
* Dirac
* Firebird[1] Original FORscene video codec
* H.261
* H.263
* H.264, also known as MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) or MPEG-4 Part 10
*** CoreAVC
*** MainConcept
*** Nero Digital
*** QuickTime H.264 (MP4)
*** Sorenson AVC Pro codec, Sorenson's new implementation
*** Vanguard Software Solutions
*** x264
* Indeo 3/4/5
* JPEG 2000 intra frame video codec
* MJPEG (Motion JPEG)
* MNG (supports JPEG sprites)
* MPEG-1 Video (Part 2)
* MPEG-2 Video (Part 2)
* MPEG-4 ASP (Advanced Simple Profile) or MPEG-4 Part 2
*** 3ivx
*** HDX4
*** Nero Digital
*** DivX
*** FFmpeg MPEG-4
*** Xvid
* On2 Technologies VP3, VP6, VP7, under the name The Duck Corporation: TrueMotion S
* Pixlet
* ProRes 422 (Apple)
* RealVideo
* Snow Wavelet Codec
* Sorenson video codec
* Tarkin
* Theora (Ogg) (noted for its lack of patent restrictions)
* TruDef high definition fractal video codec
* VC-1 (the primary video codec used by HD DVD and Blu-ray)
* Windows Media Video (WMV)
*** WAX (Part of the Windows Media Series)
You did not say which operating system you are using, though most systems operate similarly for the following steps.
First, if the audio within the video is lossy, there is no way to extract (export) lossless audio from the file.
Second, if the video is lossless, there is a better chance the audio is too.
In either case, if you would like to obtain audio from a video, yet are not sure if the audio is lossless or lossy, you can usually retrieve that information with one of these approaches:
1. Right-click on the file, select properties or a similar option that likely contains more information, and within the window that opens, browse through the tabs for format/codec details.
2. Open the file in a multimedia player; some of the players automatically display the needed information during playback; you might also check through the various features from the menus (possibly an "edit", "options", "view", such as properties or settings - these vary from program to program, it might require exploring the program).
3. Open the file in a multimedia editor, like a "movie editor" or "movie maker" program - one is called "Kino"; explore file details within that program similar to with the multimedia player.
As a disclaimer, I must say that for legal purposes, I do not condone making any modifications, copies, or any improper uses of materials with copyright. Any means of use that another individual applies to copyright materials is done so at their own risk.
If the materials are open domain, legally permitting such uses, or similar, there is a possibility that you can use the materials as such. In such cases, if you would like to actually grab the audio data from a video file, you can do so with programs like "Kino" and, in some cases, even audio editors. When attempting to open a video file in an audio editor (such as "Audacity" or "Ardour"), there is a possibility the audio editing program will automatically open strictly the audio - unable to open the video - and, as a result, have the audio data available for saving as a separate file. If this is not the case with the program you use or the file you open, you can always try using "Kino" or a similar program. When using these programs, you might also consider looking into features such as "import" or "export" (they are built in to several programs like these).
