Re: [Cellar] Sample rate 0 in FLAC

[Michael Niedermayer <[e-mail]>]

On Sat, Oct 01, 2022 at 11:17:06AM +0200, Martijn van Beurden wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> There is a discussion on Hydrogenaud.io about the significance of a
> sample rate of 0 in FLAC files here:
> https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,123069.0.html
> 
> The specification as it has been on the FLAC website always forbade a
> sample rate of 0 in the streaminfo metadata block, no such restriction
> has been written down for uncommon sample rates in the frame header.
> 
> FLAC is already in use for various non-audio applications, such as
> storing laserdisc data (see ld-decode) or other non-audio signals.
> Perhaps a sample rate of 0 could be used to signal non-audio data. Of
> course these signals also have a sample rate, but for laserdisc, the
> sample rate lies outside what can be stored by FLAC.
> 
> Any thoughts?

I can think of 2 cases here
1. Data is not along a time axis
2. Data is along a time axis

an example for 1. would be a gpg key or an email, data from it is not
sampled over time
I think a sample rate of 0 could make sense for this but iam not sure
if this has ever been put in flac

for 2. lets say data recorded by some means other than audio, maybe radar
maybe lidar, maybe some Temperature vs. time. ...
If there is no correct sample rate the data becomes more difficult to
interpret because what is the relation between each data sample and time
then ?

Even worse it becomes if one has 2 streams/files. with 0 sample rates
how are these to be lined up if their relation matters ?

thx

[...]
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