I've heard people here preach about much FLAC formatted music is much better than MP3 or WAV, so I'd like to ask: What benefits does the FLAC format have over MP3 or WAV?

I'm told it's a lossless format along the lines of WAV, but not as consumptuous of memory.

Can anyone tell me how much MB an hour's length (approximated, give-or-take 4 minutes) of FLAC encoded music is?

*sigh*

http://flac.sourceforge.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Audio_Codec
http://www.flac.org/

Even if TerraEpon's links do have info written up better, here's some small stuff to your questions if you're not in the mood of checking links.

FLAC is compressed lossless format, without any loss in audio quality (thus lossless). So only benefit towards WAV is the size and metadata, and compared to MP3, the sound quality (duh). And memory comsumption probably doesn't much matter in these days especially between WAV and FLAC.

Closest album to hour's length I have clocks 49:57 and is around 342 MB. Though it's DS sound quality which could easen the size a bit, and of course compression level matters also.

Also gotta link to Hydrogen Audio's wiki entry of FLAC. So if you're thinking about going into lossless, use FLAC.

Is this an endorsement of FLAC over ALAC?  If so, I am curious to know your reasons for preferring the former.

I, too, prefer FLAC, but my justification is glib, not reasoned.  I don't want to use a compression format developed by the same company that afflicted the world with the bloated, obnoxious mess that is QuickTime.

Only reason to use ALAC is if you want to listen on iTunes or on an iPod with normal firmware. Otherwise, FLAC is simply just that much better.

What TerraEpon said + the fact that FLAC is open source. And if I remember right, FLAC does have better software support even.

As stated before, it sounds better than mp3 (maybe not on cheap iPod buds, but on anything half-decent, it does) and is smaller and more flexible with the metadata than Wav.

Compression is actually dependant on the type of music. Loud, bass-heavy music compresses fairly decently (only about 65-70 percent smaller than the Wav...techno and hard rock mostly), but softer music goes to about 50 percent or less. Piano albums are probably the smallest I've gotten them. Oddly, chiptunes compress poorly (especially PC98 music), but SNES soundtracks do really well with it. You can select levels when compressing...always use Level-8 for the smallest files. There's no sound difference and the only tradeoff is longer encoding time.

One upside with ALAC and FLAC is they can be converted to Wav and then compressed into the other with no loss. So if you find stuff in one format, you can convert it to the other. I do that with .apes a lot.

But TerraEpon didn't give any reasons that FLAC is better.  Is the actual FLAC codec superior, or is FLAC better just because it's open and more widely supported?

What program do I need to convert MP3s or WAV to FLAC, or to rip music from a CD as FLAC?

This site right here should answer all your questions.

Also, do not convert from MP3 to FLAC.  Converting from lossy to lossless (or to another lossy format for that matter) is a big no-no.

FLAC was invented by Flurgh Acquy in 1927 as a means to hold records in a more supportable ascension of ghurdklacks. Thus, within a momentum of 4 weekends, at least 17 and one-thirds of a fortnight later, on the eve of the last amorphous cloud, he had achieved a large scraping of scraps covering a strewn about floor over the sides of the underneaths of a bald hairy head. This was no average bald hairy head, because, after all, it had hairs. So, once the scratching began, Mr. Acquy had a bald head and grand ghurdklack. With this ghurdklack, he had managed to inspire the spiral portions of the spirals to become more entwined. Not less than 82 shakes of a lamb's right ear lobe later, a spiral became unentwined. This confused Mr. Acquy. It should have lasted at 81 shakes. So, don't take the roots for granted, whether they are hairs or squares!

Well, quickly checking Wikipedia's comparison entry, it seems that FLAC is better than ALAC on technical details. Though ALAC does compress files just a bit smaller size, but FLAC beats it otherwise, atleast according to Hydrogenaudio.

Okay, downloaded and installed EAC.

I'm looking at the window that I use the rip the tracks; I know how to input artist name, album title, year of release, genre, etc., but how do I actually name the individual TRACKS?

I mean, you'd think they'd allow you to input that good information just by CLICKING ON THEM, but hey, I've been using Cakewalk Pyro 2004 for the past 6 years; just I'm just out-of-touch, technologically?

F2 on the tracktitle or slow double click, like you would do on Windows itself when you manually rename things.

Or you could get the CD information from freedb, even VGMdb has one if you're more into ripping game music. Though, can't remember if EAC lets to choose from multiple db's. But then, for that we have Foobar.

Also, this isn't to start any drama or anything like that, but I feel kinda odd that someone who's around the net doesn't use it to first search for stuff and read the stuff that comes out and then ask questions if there's anything left to ask. But then, maybe it's just me and my way of doing stuff; Read First > Test > If fails > Read Again > Test again > If fails again > bash your head into monitor and cry help in various places > If fails again > Bury myself 6 feet under.

Thankfully it still hasn't come to the last step. But when I suddenly stop visiting this forum, you guys know what's happened.

Razakin answered your question, but here's a bonus ProTip: You can copy a list of track titles separated by line breaks to the clipboard and then paste all of the titles at once by going to Database > Get CD Information From > Clipboard.

Damn, that was something I didn't even know, and I've been ripping stuff with EAC for like ages. Oh well, you learn new things everyday.