If you've ever ripped Cd’s with Nero's Free Lossless Audio Codec (or FLAC) Plug-in, you've probably found that Nero rips the music to a file with a ".fla" file extension (instead of .flac) and the .fla is not a usable format and won't play in any media player that I know of. I've contacted Nero about this and their response is "Sorry, this FLAC Plug-in was not developed from our company. Therfore (sic) we cannot give support for this Plug-in." Since Flac is a great way to rip and encode files with full fidelity but nearly half the size of .wav files, I felt it was important enough to dig into this issue. Since there is no way I know of to rip directly to the .flac format with any Nero settings, what you need to do is convert the .fla files to .flac files. You could do this the hard way and rename every file manually or try this solution: Open Notepad and type the following text EXACTLY (better yet, cut & paste the text from here): ---> ren *.fla *.flac <--- Click "save as" and in the "save as type" drop down, select "All Files". Then in the file name box type: "Fla to Flac Converter.bat" and click save. (Leave the encoding ANSI). You've just created an MS-Dos Batch file. Place the "Fla to Flac Converter.bat" file into the same folder as your .fla files ripped by the Nero Free Lossless Audio Codec Plug-in. Double click on the "Fla to Flac Converter.bat" file and all the .fla files in that folder will be converted to the FLAC format. Hope that helps, Rick Calic
First I would like to point out that .FLA and .FLAC are the same thing. If you can't get your media player to recognize a file with the .FLA extension just change the extension to .FLAC (there is no need to transcode). Install this package to play FLAC files on all popular media players (except iTunes). I recommend [bold]dBpowerAMP (dMC)[/bold] for your ripping and converting needs. Remember to install its FLAC plug-in aswell! Link to software: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/127334 Ced
Actually, I was using Nero to rip files for my personal playlist while working on the computer. I have Event 20/20 monitors connected to my computer and can really hear the difference between lossy and lossless formats. If I were intending to rip files for legal lossless audio sharing I would probably use EAC since that program is the preferred standard. I was only trying to help those that use the Nero plugin and had problems with the .fla extension. BTW - Windows Media Player 9 and Winamp 5 (both with the correct plugins for playing FLAC files) will play .flac files but not .fla files (at least on my computer). Just trying to help.
Oh, sorry I thought that you where asking a question (for yourself) from a methodology stand point. With the official FLAC plug-in Winmedia and WinAMP 2/5 should play the .fla and .flac files. I will try to do some testing or find some documentation about the nero and/or official flac plug-ins that prove otherwise. No offence, Ced
