Victor may have a differing opinion, but I prefer FLAC. FLAC is lossless, so the same quality as WAV or AIFF, but nearly half the file size.

Samples/Stems: I like it when you upload a 128k MP3 of the sample or at least one of your song stems so it can be streamed easily. But you may want to also add ‘A New File’ of the sample in FLAC (16-bit) — or a zipfile of a sample or stem pack.

Mixes: I think I’m finding it is actually better if you upload your remixes in 128k MP3 so people can stream your song from ccMixter.org easily (I need to do this myself!).

Pellas: Upload one in 128k MP3 so folks can preview it. Then upload ‘A New File’ with a FLAC version so your vocals can sound their very best in remixes.

That’s my two cents :)

FLAC for all samples and pells would be ideal - many people don’t even realize that modern DAWs, Ableton for one, treat FLAC as a native format.

For ‘pells and esp. remixes I still recommend MP3 VBR. Why?

By allowing 50MB I’m sure people will start uploading 256k and greater MP3s which will make streaming and playing through the flash player a complete dud. It will be devastating to playlists, interrupting flow dramatically.

If it gets really bad, we can always alter the code to ignore huge bit rate MP3s for streaming and flash playing.

would it make sense and be realistic to make a different requirement for the primary files compared to secondary one’s?

i.e. primary can only be up to 192kbps VBR? And only secondary files can be really large?

i.e. as a compromise for instant listening needs vs. HQ download ideals?

i like it. yes. how do we best go about this do you think?

unfortunately the code just isn’t set up for that kind of verification in a reliable way. What we do now is select the best candidate for the streaming and the flash player, I can easily modify that code to exclude huge files based on size and/or sample rate.

if you’re auto-selecting, that would work, too. Is the logic going down the list and selecting the first one that fits the criteria? Because secondary files are often different tracks, not just different formats. So the uploader could have some control within the limits of not breaking the system.

And as you previously suggested, if nothing fits the criteria for reliable playback, then that file just gets skipped in playlists. Would it work to have a * or ? or something instead of the player controls next to files of that nature and somewhere explain what’s going on (maybe one of those text boxes that floats when hovering over that?)

Is there room on the upload page to explain some of these issues and rules and recommendations?

For individual pages might still be ok to attempt the playback? Is there any chance to have a little warning line, only displayed in the case of a file not meeting the minimum playback criteria, mentioning that the file may not play back well on some systems?

If you like the way ccM works now then it will continue to work exactly the same way with the addition of treating huge files as any non-playable format when it comes to the flash player.

I’ll add a note to the relevant help topics.

I’m also quite partial to FLAC, but MP3 is still necessary for streaming previews.

Lossless matters even if you can’t hear the difference now.

You or your listeners will hear it after additional transcodes through lossy codecs. Lossless files bring ultimate flexibility, from an archival point of view.

FLAC also has the advantage of being entirely open source itself:

OGG never took off because MP3 was already so dominant, but there doesn’t yet seem to be a dominant lossless format.

FLAC is the best bet at having an open audio format get any sort of widespread listener adoption. And lossless formats as a whole will become more important as space/bandwidth limitations (hopefully) become increasingly irrelevant.

/rant

:D

And who knew snowflakes smiled? :-)…darn if you don’t learn something new every day….

i love this idea. we’ll see what we can do.

MCJ’s in the room! with ‘curated micro podcasts’ —pretty sweet idea!

I’ve created a new submit form “DJ Set”.

They won’t be listed in ‘remixes’ but I made a new tab under the Playlist - Podcast main tab.

yes, we will need to do some development and it is on the roadmap. we thought of waiting to do the file size upgrade, but thought again, let’s just increase is it now, and build tools for format protocol as we go….and with the input from ccM folks. please keep it coming!

well, we’d sure love to get more great pellas from you Frank! please make sure you upload a 128k mp3 so we can stream preview your lead vox, and zip all your backvox & a high quality version of lead vox too. make sense?

your voice is, AMAZING!

Makes sense…and thank you for the heads up: Mucho appreciated!

I will definitely try to keep that in mind…

If you going to use MP3 then any constant bit rate is a waste of space and bandwidth especially on a pell which will have huge silent gaps in them. Using VBR will ensure the same audio result with more efficient storage, bandwidth and streaming.

You fine gentlemen know better than me. Thy will be done!

I believe VBR still implies specifying a (max?) rate — or am I mistaken?