Is there A Music Player that will play .flac files?

I have 100 Gigs of songs in .flac format. For anyone who is not familiar with .flac files, they are compressed songs/files that are lossless.

I would love to be able to load all 100 Gigs of songs on my iMac (I loaded them on my PC from all of my CD's, and have them backed up on an external HDD). Is there a Mac compatible player that I can download that has the codec to play .flac files?

Yes, VLC will play them, but is ugly and not intuitive.
Cog is decent though, and more than capable, pretty well featured too.

Cog - News

Or Plex plays all manner of formats, and works with the Apple remote. Fabulous player it is.

Plex - A Complete Media Solution

Both are free by the way.

Thanks!.....I just purchased a new iMac. Is there an Apple remote that I can purchase for it? If so, is it worth getting?

It should have come with one, mine did, so unless Apple changed things, it should be in the box with your keyboard.

I found out that they were including it as a promotion, but not anymore.

That's a shame, I thought it was automatically supplied as it controls front row etc., but looking around it does seem that they have stopped supllying it. Cheapskates!
That's actually quite typical of Apple.
Anyway, it's not needed specifically, and if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can control Plex from it's own app. (sadly not free).

Cog seems the way to go for me. However, their website states that there is a bug in their newest version, 0.07 for Snow Leopard, that causes the playlist to become corrupted. They say that it's better to use one of their unstable versions. Anyone have Cog with Snow Leopard? Which version do you use?

Hmm that's a shame. I don't use it now, because I like PLEX, and don't store much FLAC.
There's no harm to be done by trying the current or the unstable versions, as long as you don't mind re-doing a playlist every so often IF it does go wrong.

Songbird for me. Does every codec under the sun, and I really appreciate how it handles my library. You can have it handle your files in a database type style, or not. I only wish that there was a lite version, which ditched the stupid browser. I understand that it's built with the Mozilla engine, but the browser is simply unnecessary IMO. I also love that it works with my keyboard media shortcuts, via an extension. Lots of good stuff in it aside from that, but it's a long list.

Plex looks interesting. I think I remember looking at Plex a couple of years ago, and it was nothing like it is now. But isn't Plex in direct competition with iTunes? It certainly appears the be the case. Also, looking at its feature set, I'm worried about how bloated it is. Could someone attest to its performance in regards to how fully featured it is?

Doug

Yes I can Doug.
Firstly, I didn't realise that Songbird handled FLAC, otherwise I would have put that as an option. Good to know, thanks.
Now Plex.
Honestly it's interface is very very good, and if you have the Apple remote, so easy to navigate, not only that, it can upscale video to 1080P if your display handles it, and I have not had a single file play with judders or artifacts or pauses at all, be it full BD rips, or MKV's which are troublesome with other software solutions I've tried.
Sadly I wish the App was free, but it's $2.99 and is very good, allowing you to stream to your iPhone/iPod if you so wish.
I would say try the main Mac application, as it's a freebie, and see what you think. No harm to trash it if you don't like it.

Well, I've tried it and now I'm uninstalling it. It's very pretty, that's for sure. But I prefer functionality over aesthetics. For one, it doesn't utilize a mouse or trackpad. It functions only with a keyboard or a remote. That's plain stupid. Secondly, it's a bit resource hungry. I thought Songbird was bad sitting idle at 80MB, but this thing sits idle at 225MB! It also sits with the processor at about 20% vs SB's 1-2%. At first I thought that I was mistaken about the memory it ate up, but if you look closely, it calls up all these Python scripts, as seen in my screen shot.

The other problem is that you can not play anything if you quit the media server. Which is silly, since the media server seems to run independently from the actual interface.

It's quite a slick interface though, and if it wasn't such a hog, and didn't require a keyboard or remote, I might consider giving it another whirl. I'll stick with Songbird.

Doug

Fair enough, each to their own of course. 225 mb it is indeed, but I guess it needs it.
I would imagine that it's use of memory explains it ability to play HD content smoothly.

Perhaps. But I wouldn't recommend it to anybody who was looking purely for a music player. Way overkill, and not fully functional in the most basic of areas. Something like Plex seems like it would make a FAR better platform for an external media server like Roku ATV etc..

Doug

Doug b said:

Perhaps. But I wouldn't recommend it to anybody who was looking purely for a music player. Way overkill, and not fully functional in the most basic of areas. Something like Plex seems like it would make a FAR better platform for an external media server like Roku ATV etc..

Doug

Click to expand...

I've been following the thread pretty closely, and yes, I just want a pure music player that will play .flac. I haven't given up though.

Cog it is then, or VLC. Have a look at their website, they seem to have lots of extensions now, that may give a nicer interface.

I'd probably go with VLC over Cog, but that's only because they keep their software up to date. VLC's playlist view/capabilities are very limited and really fall short in terms of being modern or mainstream. It annoys me a bit. If I were you, I'd download Songbird and see how you like it. It's simple to use, and it enables you to view files as they are on your HD if that's how you like it. I know I do.

What I also love about it is that it scans for new or deleted files and handles it for you. You don't have to manually import or delete anything other than what you put in or take out of your Finder folders. It's capable of a lot more than that, but you don't have to get into any of it.

Doug

Doug b said:

I'd probably go with VLC over Cog, but that's only because they keep their software up to date. VLC's playlist view/capabilities are very limited and really fall short in terms of being modern or mainstream. It annoys me a bit. If I were you, I'd download Songbird and see how you like it. It's simple to use, and it enables you to view files as they are on your HD if that's how you like it. I know I do.

What I also love about it is that it scans for new or deleted files and handles it for you. You don't have to manually import or delete anything other than what you put in or take out of your Finder folders. It's capable of a lot more than that, but you don't have to get into any of it.

Doug

Click to expand...

I already have VLC installed for video purposes, so I'll try that. Songbird sounds good, however if it comes with a Browser that I don't want, and uses resources that I may need, it doesn't sound like I want to try it. I'll have to think about it though. Thanks Doug.

No problem. One last thing. Yes, VLC is lighter on resources, but it's not like Songbird is very heavy on them for that matter.

I just loaded up a folder of FLAC's in VLC to see, but what I found presented a problem for me. I have all my music on an external HD, and currently have that external HD hooked up to my Airport Extreme. VLC is doing a terrible job at playing back those files over my network because there's not enough buffering going on. Songbird handles this seamlessly.

As for the browser part, it's just that the entire application is built on the Mozilla engine, so it's not really an additional component per say. Anyway, Songbird just handles files much better in general. That's all I'll say. Not really trying to be a pusher, sorry.

Doug

Thanks....I decided to use Cog, and I downloaded it. It is a .dmg.bz2 file that looks like a zipped file. Being a newbie to Macs, how to I install Cog with this file? I figured I would ask this in this thread, rather than start another one in the "switch" forum area. Sorry that it is OT. Thanks.

Kevriano said:

Yes, VLC will play them, but is ugly and not intuitive.
Cog is decent though, and more than capable, pretty well featured too.

Cog - News

Or Plex plays all manner of formats, and works with the Apple remote. Fabulous player it is.

Plex - A Complete Media Solution

Both are free by the way.

Click to expand...

Please ignore the post how to install Cog. I figured it out, and it's GREAT! Thanks so much to all posters in this thread.