what is the lossless equivalent of huffyuv for audio?

[muffinman123]

I realized I have been recording videos in huffyuv but recording audio in PCM. kinda weird only going half way with this, why not all all the way and use lossless compression for both video and audio?

tbh I really don't give too much about audio when I record streams. if there's a quick way to compress audio, even if it's lossy, while recording videos live, I'd like to know.

[DB83]

PCM is uncompressed so no need to worry.

[muffinman123]

what I am saying is I want compressed audio and fast enough for stream recording. is that impossible?

I don't want audio size to waste any more disc space when huffyuv videos already use up so much.

[DB83]

Not with a lossless codec such as huffyuv or lagarith.

There are lossless codecs such as FLAC but you never see these muxed with video. They are audio only.

[DB83]

But then, maybe, you misunderstand the purpose of a lossless codec ?

[jagabo]

flac
lossless-audio
wma lossless
true-audio
dolby truehd
dts-hd master audio

[El Heggunte]

What is the container in which your recorded videos are stored
There are various formats for lossless compressed audio, and not all containers are suitable for them
FLAC for example, cannot be stored in AVI, MPG or TS.

[muffinman123]

alright, let's say we forget lossless part for now, which audio codec is best for fast live recording compression?

[DB83]

So you are confused by the term compression.

In the quality ie best ladder we have

1. PCM ie uncompressed (which is what you already have)
2. Lossless (if you can use it)
3. Lossy eg ac3, mp3, aac etc.

If you are recording lossless video then you MUST use PCM. If you want to go down a peg or two and record mpeg2 then you can use lossy audio.

If your PC can handle lossless video then why change it.

[muffinman123]

If you are recording lossless video then you MUST use PCM.

really? how so? does compressing audio screw things up somehow?

[DB83]

Compression does not screw things up. It just removes data and quality. Some will argue that a 96kbps mp3 sounds identical to the original CD (which is PCM). Impossible to convince that type of person.

I just think you are confused and can not see that.

[DB83]

And I think your confusion really comes from the term 'lossless'. Both huffyuv and lagarith are compressed formats. It is only the sound that is uncompressed. You have your thinking in reverse.

[muffinman123]

so are you saying stream recording cannot compress video and audio at the same time?

[DB83]

Of course it can. I said that in reply #9. Almost all stream recording is compressed video and audio or a combination of compressed video and uncompressed audio.

I do not see how I can help you ferther

[jagabo]

The uncompressed audio is generally so much smaller than the losslessly compressed video that there's no reason to compress the audio. For example, a 720x480 30 fps YUY2 video stream is about 20 MB/s uncompressed, maybe 10 MB/s losslessly compressed with Huffyuv. The accompanying 16 bit, 48000 Hz, stereo audio is about 0.2 MB/s without compression. So the uncompressed audio only accounts for about 2 percent of the total file size. Using a lossless audio compression codec would only reduce the total file size by about 1 percent.

[Cornucopia]

Sounds like you want:
1. Smallish relative size
2. So-so quality
3. LOW CPU utilization

You could do a mid-to-high bitrate mp3, but if you really don't care too much about the sound quality, why not go with 8bit, 22kHz, adpcm, mono wav? It's compatible with everything, and uses hardly any more cpu than full quality 16/44/lpcm/stereo would, but uses 1/2 * 1/2 * 2/3 * 1/2 = ~1/12 the size.

Scott