It looks like somebody would need to add a decoder here.

http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/opencore.git;a=tree;f=codecs_v2/audio

>flac's are HUGE files, bigger than wav files!

This is completely untrue. FLAC files are 40-50% smaller on average than the
equivalent uncompressed data.

>what's the point of a lossless music file on a cellphone

In-ear headphones or other audiophile equipment. Believe it or not, there is gear out
there high quality enough that you can hear the difference.

>the cpu power and memory power alone might put this as not possible

Not true, FLAC has around the same level of computational load as MP3 (if handled well).

>On top of that the G1 as with other cellphones can only take a 16gig sd card anyways

See above. ~500 MB is pretty hefty for an album but certainly not outside of the
range of feasibility for SDHC cards.

(No comment was entered for this change.)

flacs are pretty much the de facto format for lossless music storage. despite lack of
mainstream adoption from ipod (which pushes its own proprietary lossless format),
flac has still retained the crown of lossless audio and a major win for open formats.

if android wants to be considered a serious audio player it will need to earn the
respect of the niches that treat audio players lacking flac playback seriously.
because after .mp3 format and aac, flac the runner up for digital audio in the web
download shops and the runner up to mp3 on the torrent sites. i can fit 2-3 albums on
a 1gb card, which is enough for me on any outing.

reasons why android needs flac support:
-open standard
-most popular lossless format for music
-it needs the audiophile customers that iPhone is leaving in the cold

This is important for all those people (like me) who use FLAC for their music
collection on their desktop, etc, and don't want to (or don't have space to)
transcode all that music for use on their mobile device.

I think the place developers would want to start is the fileformats directory of
OpenCore.  I can't find any relevant documentation, so I'm not sure how that
directory and the codec directory that sukael posted relate to each other.
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/opencore.git;a=tree;f=fileformats

The developer will also have to define new constants PVMF_FLAC and PVMF_MIME_FLAC and
update the list of recognized formats:
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/opencore.git;a=blob;f=pvmi/pvmf/include/pvmf_format_type.h
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/opencore.git;a=blob;f=nodes/pvomxaudiodecnode/src/pvmf_omx_audiodec_port.cpp
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/opencore.git;a=blob;f=pvmi/pvmf/src/pvmf_format_type.cpp
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/opencore.git;a=blob;f=nodes/pvomxaudiodecnode/src/pvmf_omx_audiodec_node.cpp
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/opencore.git;a=blob;f=engines/player/src/pv_player_engine.cpp

FLAC requires a great deal _less_ computational power on all the ARM cores we do FLAC
and MP3 playback on in the Rockbox project (http://www.rockbox.org/) and I would
expect the typical Android-platforms to have the same characteristics in that aspect.

Here's the FLAC source from Rockbox that Daniel mentioned:
http://svn.rockbox.org/viewvc.cgi/trunk/apps/codecs/libffmpegFLAC/
Note that Rockbox is licensed under LGPL and Android under Apache 2.0.  I'm not sure
whether that would be an issue.
Also, Conrad Parker has written a blog post about OpenMAX that I believe is worth a
read: http://blog.kfish.org/2009/02/is-openmax-important-for-free-software.html

I would also love to see FLAC being supported in Android, despite FLAC files being
larger than MP3 storage is getting so much cheaper and bigger these days that fitting
a sizable FLAC collection on to a memory card is no longer an issue. I would
certainly consider moving to an Android handset if FLAC were to be supported.

Could we please get some comment from an Android developer/Google employee?

Really this is one of the few areas where I don't think the Google engineers have to
get too involved. If the Packet Video OpenCore can library can be improved to support
FLAC that'd do it.

A good starting place would be to peek at how OGG is integrated into the platform.  I
remember hearing somewhere that OGG might not even go through OpenCore at all.

Jeffrey is correct.  Ogg does not go through OpenCore.  Rather the Vorbis reference
implementation, Tremor, is used
(http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/external/tremor.git;a=summary)
If anyone is considering working on media codecs, you may be interested in Google
Summer of Code:
http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Summer_of_Code_2009#OpenMAX_IL_components_for_Ogg_codecs

First, solid state memory keeps geting cheaper and capacity keeps geting higher, so
FLAC starts to be a more viable options just as time goes by.

Then Flac is completely open source codec and it's a very fast at decoding time (good
for battery saving when playing).

If the cupcake android update will indeed have the bluetooth stereo profile, this
means we can put the audio out of the phone exacly as it was on the original audio CD
and keeping the best quality possible (keeping the digital stereo 16bit 44100hz over
bluetooth).

So now I belive no one can say we don't need FLAC because internal DAC output is not
good enough (using digital output), or it needs too much storage (time will take care
of this issue).

If it could be implemented inside the DSP it would certanly be best optimized for
batery/CPU usage.

BTW- let me go ahead and state if your requirements for a music player aren't sky
high, 16gb of FLACs is more then enough to get me through the day (on the player I've
been using). I want to replace it with an android once support is there.

Let's not be self-centered or shortsighted, people! Just because you might not choose
to put FLAC files on your Android device doesn't mean that other people wouldn't want
to. Also, Android is going to be on a lot of different kinds of devices, and maybe
some of the future devices will be designed with more storage for media playback in mind.

Ok, now that we have A2DP support in Adnroid 1.5 (aka cupcake) we can use this high
fidelity bluetooth DAC to interface with HIFI stereos:
http://whathifi.com/News/Transfer-music-from-your-mobile-to-hi-fi-with-the-Chordette-Gem/
Now guess what's missing from the big picture? FLAC decoding in android... (could it
be done by hardware using the dedicated DSP's inside G1?;)

This would be a great addition to the android platform - flac seems to be the best
bet for a lossless audio standard. 

Another vote for this enhancement request. Will save me maintaining a flac and mp3
library.

Much of my music library is in FLAC - having to encode it into MP3 before I can use
it is a pain, not to mention the quality loss.  Space is not an issue, either.

Same for me. I would be very happy to be able to use my FLAC library on android. 

Another vote from me, I also have my music collection in flac on the desktop.

Another vote from me, I have my music collection in FLAC to use with my Linn Sneaky
DS and it would be a pain to convert it just for Android.

Unfortunately, using code from Rockbox or from ffmpeg is just not going to work, due
to licensing. There is no way that LGPL code (Rockbox and ffmpeg) can be included in
a project with an Apache/BSD/MIT style license (Android). We'd have to start with
libFLAC, and optimize from there.

Another vote here.
I already have a bunch of flac in my computer's music library.

iphone os has apple lossless, so android should have flac lossless support :)
meybe port libavcodec to android, that way its easy to add more codec support
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libavcodec#Implemented_audio_codecs

I have a 16G SDHC for my G1. My desktop has 64G of flac files. Mounting mp3fs every
time I want to add or remove tracks from my G1 is not an elegant solution.

samsunng i7500 has built in 8GB internal memory and upgradable to 40GB (8GB+MicroSDHC 
32GB) and thats around 93 CDs in FLAC, and the internal 8GB is around 16 CDs in FLAC

i hope to see FLAC supported, many of my friends also want it to

@rmrector - there's no reason to avoid LGPL in Android - Android uses LGPL already
(notably WebKit).

It has been acknowledged that Webcore and bluez are probably the only rare
exceptions. It is not of interest to pull in more (L)GPL components.

Bluez is not of interest. Bluetooth burns battery life. Who put that rubbish in there.

"It is not of interest" to you.

bump, another vote from me!

Another vote for FLAC support.
Please!

Another place you can vote for the idea: http://productideas.appspot.com/#9/e=cf&t=flac

Also I would be very happy if FLAC support was added. My main reason for going after
a phone with android was that they had vorbis and (I thought) Flac support. 

Another vote for FLAC here. I can't buy an Android phone until this is added :/

Is there any roadmap for this implementation. It shouldn't be that complicated.

Has there been any feedback from a Google developer yet? 

This issue is now 6 months old and obviously very popular. I really think if Google
are seriously going to compete with mainstream products like iPhone they have to step
up their level of customer service.

It doesn't seem that the Devs are listening, but I'll add my vote anyhow.

I too won't be buying an android phone until support for FLAC is added. The idea of
transcoding my entire music collection is not an appealing one.

And another vote from me.

And a vote from me

The recent release of the native development tools
(http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/1.5_r1/index.html) might make this a bit
easier.  The FLAC API is available in C and C++
(http://flac.sourceforge.net/api/index.html).  It would be interesting to see if the
FLAC API compiles with the native development tools.

@Donald, the NDK doesn't provide an efficient way of piping decoded buffers over to
the media subsystem.

The best option is to write FLAC support parallel to
frameworks/base/media/libmediaplayerservice/VorbisPlayer.cpp, and plug the ".flac"
extension into MediaPlayerService.cpp.

VorbisPlayer is just some lightweight glue to get over to the external/tremor
library.  We would do the same thing with FLAC, add the core library into external/
and write the glue into libmediaplayerservice, adding the library reference to
Android.mk.

j

Another vote for flac support - upwards and onwards, people. Lossless support, please. 

I would be really enjoy having FLAC support on my Android phone. I don't want to have
to convert my music to have songs and ringtones on my phone. 

THANKS!

Hi, I'm a FLACtard, and would love to have FLAC support on my Android phone. I don't
like lossy music! I like the good stuff! c'mon it's 2009!!

Ever hear of allFLAC.com? it's a great site.

No way to get rid of the spam in these bugs is there?

I was thinking in take a S60 (end of the year), and put oggplayer to play Vorbis and
FLAC files. But Android is nice, ok, but a native support for FLAC would be nice, and
no need more to encode audio in lossy formats.

It's large, but with a 1GB SD Card i can put 2 albums to play anywhere.
And space is going to grow day by day, anyone here thought in put a ("complete") O.S.
on a mobile 'phone' years ago? ;)

And FLAC is free software, then, i see that all ways goes to support.
(I just can't talk about technical questions ;) )

o/

I am currently running a 5th gen iPod video with Rockbox. As a Linux user, once this
iPod dies, I cannot upgrade to another Apple device due to interoperability
difficulties. Since my current cell-phone is several years old, upgrading to a decent
smartphone, running Android, is likely the direction I will go.

Having said that, the majority of my music collection is in FLAC, and if Android does
not support FLAC decoding, then I will also not be able to upgrade to an Android device.

I can't imagine it would be /that/ difficult to add FLAC support, so what is the hold
up? I would contribute myself if I even knew where to start...

I think you should check how the ogg part has been implemented and do the
wrapping/bindings on the FLAC libraries :)
But you must get the whole android sources I think (I don't know how to exctract only
parts of it) (about 2,7 GB after git sync)

http://source.android.com/download

I actually wrote this patch a couple days ago. I'm still testing its stability and
there are a few bugs to work on with the Thumb interwork.

I don't think it will be accepted to Android mainline any time in the next several
months (or ever?) because it adds another shared library.

@kenny:

The only way to make it happen is to show that FLAC playback is possible, and to
provide the cleanest, fastest implementation of it that we can. Convince those in
charge of the mainline that this is a highly desirable feature -- sometimes its worth
adding to the system if the benefits are abundant enough.

A (simple basic) question:
If i get a Android cellphone now, i'll be able to "upgrade" to a new version that
will support FLAC?

o/

I think answering yes is quite secure ... :)
(Already changed firmwares 3 times on my HTC Magic/MyTouch 3G : official,
frenchcommunity, Orange UK HTC Hero image adapted to HTC Magic (with the HTC Sense
interface/programs)

I finished the patches and uploaded the changes into Gerrit:

https://review.source.android.com/10908
https://review.source.android.com/10909
https://review.source.android.com/10910

The CyanogenMod ROM uses this to provide FLAC support from version 3.9.3 onward:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=539744

kruton, that is awesome!!  Thanks for taking the initiative and putting together the
patchsets.  I'll try finding someone to code review this and get it merged ASAP.  :)

Just ran some numbers here at work using a Monsoon, which is an extremely accurate
power meter for embedded devices.

I did a pretty large suite of testing, measuring various speaker/headphone
combinations, volume levels, and file formats.  The final result is that all formats
are equally inefficient, lol.  Here's a quick example from one of the songs:

VBR -V0 MP3:      112.65mA
OGG -q6:          112.4979mA
192kBps CBR MP3:  111.82mA
FLAC:             110.46mA

The differences are /marginal/ at best, which means that FLAC reading large files
from the internal SD card has little impact on battery used.  (The majority of power
here is used by the ARM11, since all decoding takes place in software.)

Here's the full set of measurements I took:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tMfXDet38HraVU0E3lzVM8A&single=true&gid=0&output=html

Congratulations kruton for the patches and thanks Jeffrey for the "benchmark".
Day by day we see that's a good and interesting (and necessary)thing to Android
system and your users.
Some Android developer look this please.

And for those worried about space, the 2TB memory cards are coming up.

Cheers. o/

For those needing Flac support on their phone, I fully recommend rooting your phone and flashing Cyanogen's mod. As Kruton mentioned 3.9.3 first had flac 
support, 3.9.7 is out now and it is great. Not only do you get flac, but also apps to SD, wifi teather and more. I couldnt be happier with it!

Any luck finding someone to integrate/accept/review these changes to donut/2.0? (I 
for example wait for possible SE android-phone which will use 2.0. And I'd like to 
see flac-support there.)

We're internally swamped right now.  I tried finding people with bandwidth, but this
change won't be reviewed and merged until after Eclair.  In particular, native
libraries like this need a thorough security review, even if the library is well-known.

Here is a precision: we are past feature freeze on Donut and Eclair, we unfortunately cannot add this extra 
feature.

(No comment was entered for this change.)

@Romain

could this at least be looked at? cyanogen seems to have integrated this with little 
problem. shouldnt be much work to it i dont think.

thanks.

Off topic, but is Android team open to submission from ROM hackers such as Cyanogen?

This is important for me as well.

plus one vote for me!
i always rip my cds into flac, mp3 and ogg is lossy, i think flac is pretty much the
only free lossles audio compression out there.

It is absolutelly enough to click star at the top of the page for your vote to be
counted ! Otherwise all of the voters are spammed with your messages .... just like
this time :-P 

Let's see whether this will help

Please add FLAC support :)

I've just purchased an HTC Hero because it was an android phone. I was amazed to find
out that Android didn't support flac. I'm now forced to us wav files.
Please add flac support.

please hook up the flac. not having it just tempts people to go down the cyanogen 
path

Please stop posting "I want this too" messages or other messages which don't
contribute to the bug! That is what the star is for!


I am following the conversation and I keep getting bothered by loads of pointless
emails. I am sorry to people I have bothered with this one...

FLAC PLEASE FOR ANDROID!!!

FLAC support would be an important addition to Android.  I'd also be more compelled
to get an Android phone if this happens.  Pretty soon everyone is going to realize
that there is no point to lossy formats, and FLAC is the de facto lossless format...

I would also like flac support. I am considering buying a Droid and flac support
would go a long way towards convincing me of my purchase. I have to keep flac and mp3
files now because of my old mp3 player. Having to only keep flac files will actually
decrease the amount of storage I use because I will be able to delete all my mp3 files.

@ everyone wanting flac : http://the-b.org/FLAC_on_Android

@ csmcdem : That will not work for those of us considering a Droid since that mod is
built on Android 1.6 and Droid uses Android 2.0

just talked to the developer @ http://the-b.org/FLAC_on_Android, said he can't update 
to support android 2.0 because the source hasn't been released yet.

https://review.source.android.com/#change,10910

Is there a step by step tutorial how to get these patches installed on a stock hero. so 
even a person that cooks for a living still understands it? I would really appreciate 
it. 

Cheers!

(tsss no FLAC support... WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING!?) It's like buying a car 
with no...uhm  but getting a trycicle.

@BradleyJLang

Does that mean Google is officially going to add it?

@Batrick.Donnelly

No these links are so called 3th party patches created by members of the android 
opensource family :P. 

I dont know if official ondroid developers will look here and use there stuff in 
official releases. I think why not its the way of opensource right? the whole world 
can have a part in it right? Correct me if i'm wrong, sometimes it looks they are jealous of the fact 3th party's can do the job and they don't and that they are to 
proud to admit and to embed it in an official releases.(why else conflicts with 
Cyanogen etc?) 

But by all means i hope offcourse i'm wrong and we can have flac support in "Andy2.0"

(And basic bluetooth functionality: send, contacts, presentation remote, etc. like 
any other phone with BT)  

hello i too would very much love to see the addition of flac support to the android os i know its possible because 
the archos 5 which runs on android just did it

http://www.archos.com/products/imt/archos_5/specs.html?country=ru&lang=en

now if they can do it i don't see why google cant, especially if they are aiming to adopt and champion the open 
source community and cause

I vote for FLAC also since 1/2 of my music uses this lossless format. Why should use
a worse format if I can simply listen to this format? FLAC is an important encoding.

There is already a FLAC player for android called AndLess, but it's very very basic
and beta. 
I use FLAC to store all my cd's on my desktop computer and use andless to play them
on my Hero. I'd like to see it embraced properly by the Android community as well.

It looks like AndLess requires root access, which I am not ready or willing to do.

If someone makes an app for Adroid 2.o that works as a .flac player, I will buy it.

AndLess won't work for the Motorola Droid, even with root access because it requires 
direct access to /dev/msm_pcm_out - that doesn't exist on the Droid. 

Add FLAC support!

in this times its a NEED to losless support for every mobile phone/smartphone... 

+1 for flac / WAVPACK support for android devices.

i need this too.

Sorry guys but can you PLEASE stop writing comments like "i need this too" and just 
star the issue? I also want FLAC support very much and 345 other people do as well 
but fortunately not everyone has the need to comment on it. That's what stars are 
for, comments serve for different purpose - discussion about details of the issue, 
possible workarounds, how the issue should be implemented, etc.