ALAC Decoder for Apple Lossless Files

By C.K. Sample, III

/. reports about
ALAC Decoder by David Hammerton, which is a basic decoder for Apple Lossless Audio Codec files (ALAC). This early version has the limitation of only being able to handle 16 bit sample sizes and mono or stereo ALAC files (which can normally handle up to 8 different channels for surround sound goodness). ALAC Decoder can output the decoded file into either PCM or WAV files.  Slashdot explains why this may be of interest to some of you, "This allows users of operating systems not supported by iTunes/QuickTime to listen to their Apple Lossless files, a proprietary competitor to FLAC. This is a large leap forward in audio codec interoperability, and paves the way for an ALAC encoder." So, basically, if you're one of those crazy people who have a dual-install of OS X and Yellow Dog Linux, you can now export you Apple Lossless encoded file to a format you can listen to on Linux. If anybody gives this a shot, comment and let us know how the sound turns out after conversion.

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