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<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"/>
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Sat, 13 Mar 1982 09:10:27 GMT"/>
<style type="text/css">
body {
background: #ffffff;
color: #000000;
font-family: "Verdana", sans-serif;
font-size: 10pt;
text-align: center;
}
.container {
top: 0;
bottom: 0;
left: 0;
right: 0;
width: 960px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
a {
text-decoration: underline;
color: #000000;
}
a:hover {
color: #8394b2;
}
.pageTitle, .pageMenu, .boxHeader, .boxContent {
padding: 2px;
}
.pageTitle, .pageMenu, .box, .boxHeader, .filesHeader {
border: 1px solid;
}
.pageTitle, .pageMenu, .box, .boxContent {
margin: 2px;
}
.pageTitle, .pageMenu, .box {
border-color: #072a66;
}
.pageHeader, .subHeader, .boxHeader, .filesHeader {
font-weight: bold;
}
.pageMenu, .boxHeader {
background: #bcd0ed;
}
.boxHeader, .filesHeader {
color: #5176b5;
border-color: #ffffff;
}
.pageTitle {
background: #618ece;
color: #ffffff;
}
.pageHeader {
font-size: 14pt;
}
.pageSubHeader {
font-size: 12pt;
}
.box {
background: #eef2f7;
border-color: #072a66;
}
.boxHeader {
letter-spacing: 2px;
word-spacing: 2px;
}
.boxContent {
text-align: justify;
}
.filesBox {
width: 100%;
}
.filesHeader {
border-color: #bcd0ed;
text-align: center;
}
.hidden, .hidden a {
color: #c0c0c0;
}
</style>
<title>WavPack User Documentation</title>
</head>
<body>
<div class="container">
<div class="pageTitle">
<div class="pageHeader">Using WavPack Version 5.7.0</div>
</div>
<div class="pageMenu">
<a href="index.html">Home</a> -
<a href="#linux">Linux</a> -
<a href="#wavpack">WavPack options</a> -
<a href="#wvunpack">WvUnpack options</a> -
<a href="#wvgain">WvGain options</a> -
<a href="#wvtag">WvTag options</a> -
<a href="#usage">Usage Guide</a> -
<a href="#noncd">Non-CD</a> -
<a href="#plugins">Plugins</a>
</div>
<br/>
<div class="box" id="Intro">
<div class="boxContent">
WavPack consists of two complementary command-line programs, WavPack and WvUnpack. These
programs allow you to compress (and restore) audio files in several formats including the
Microsoft .wav format. The audio files must be uncompressed PCM (not ADPCM, for example),
but other than that there are few restrictions. The files may be any resolution from 8 to
32 bits; they may be mono, stereo, or multichannel; they may even be IEEE floating point
data or 1-bit DSD audio (in those formats that support DSD).
<p>
Two additional utilities are provided to manipulate metadata stored in APEv2 format
tags located at the end of WavPack files. The first, WvGain, is used to apply (after
loudness analysis) ReplayGain information to WavPack files and the other, WvTag, is a
more general utility for appending or removing all kinds of other metadata items from
WavPack files (including cover art and cuesheets).
</p>
<p>
The programs are initiated from the command line with the following syntax:
</p>
<p>
<b>Usage:</b>
<br/>
<b><tt> WAVPACK [-options] infile[.wav]|infile.ext|- [outfile[.wv]|outpath|-]</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> WAVPACK --drop [-options] infile[.wav]|infile.ext [...]</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> WVUNPACK [-options] infile[.wv]|- [outfile[.ext]|outpath|-]</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> WVUNPACK --drop [-options] infile[.wv] [...]</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> WVGAIN [-options] infile[.wv] [...]</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> WVTAG [-options] infile[.wv] [...]</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
The filename extensions will be defaulted if not provided and the input filename may
contain wildcards for doing batch operations. Specifying the output filename is
optional, and if more than one input file is specified (with wildcards) then the
only acceptable output specification is an output path. If the input filename
begins with a '@' then the file is assumed to contain a list of newline separated
filenames to be processed in batch mode (the output file may also be done this way
although it may contain only a single line). The Windows frontend uses this
mechanism for passing filenames, although it could be used for other purposes. Either
filename can be replaced with "-" to allow use of stdin or stdout, although because
the hybrid lossless mode uses two files it is not compatible with pipes.
</p>
<p>
The input files for WavPack may be either Microsoft .wav files (as mentioned above), or
any of the other formats listed below, including existing WavPack files.
They may also be raw PCM files (specified with the --raw-pcm option).
In the case of reëncoding from existing WavPack files, all tags are
copied (and may be modified with the tag specification options) and unless an alternate output
name or directory is specified, the source files will be overwritten (safely). Used with the
filename wildcards, this can be used to easily reëncode an entire directory of WavPack
files with a single command. Reëncoding from lossy to lossless is not allowed, but other
combinations like pure lossless to hybrid lossless (or lossy) are fine. Note that when
reëncoding from a configuration with a correction file to a configuration without a
correction file, the source correction file will <i>not</i> be automatically deleted even if
the source WavPack file is being overwritten. Adding the -d option will accomplish this,
however.
</p>
<p>
<b>File Formats:</b>
<br/>
<b><tt> Microsoft Waveform Audio, extension ".wav", PCM audio</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> WavPack Compressed Audio, extension ".wv", PCM audio</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> Apple AIFF Audio Format, "extension ".aif", PCM audio</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> Apple Core Audio Format, "extension ".caf", PCM audio</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> Sony Wave64 Audio Format, extension ".w64", PCM audio</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> Philips DSDIFF Format, "extension ".dff", 1-bit DSD audio</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> Sony DSD Stream Format, "extension ".dsf", 1-bit DSD audio</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Both programs will warn before overwriting any file (unless the -y or --no-overwrite switch is
specified) and file overwriting is implemented with temp files so that the overwritten
file is not deleted until the operation is successful (including the verification pass
if that has been requested with the -v switch). The programs will also (unless the -q
switch is specified) display
progress in percentage complete and when finished with each file will give the
compression ratio (or bitrate for lossy files), whether the compression was lossy
or lossless, and the processing time. They will also (unless the -z option is used)
display the progress percentage for the whole batch of files on the title bar which
is useful when they are being run minimized. If a batch of files is run then both
programs will indicate when complete whether any errors occurred and how many files
were processed.
</p>
<p>
The compressed file format (.wv) contains the filename extension, all the original header information, and the
compressed audio data for one audio file. The file can be used by WvUnpack to restore
the original file, or the .wv file can be played directly by a player that supports
WavPack files natively like Foobar2000 or JRiver Media Center, or a player that can play WavPack
files using a plugin like Winamp, dBpowerAMP, or Apollo. Also, there are plugins
available to read and write WavPack files with Adobe Audition (and CoolEdit) and Nero
Burning ROM. Many DAW programs also support WavPack natively like Reaper, Steinberg WaveLab, and
Audacity.
</p>
<p>
Starting with version 5.5.0, the WavPack and WvUnpack programs allow options to be added to the
executable (exe) filename and these options are parsed first every time the command is executed.
This is useful when the programs are run by dropping files into their respective icons in the
Windows File Explorer rather than using the Command Prompt to run them. For example, the WavPack
executables might be renamed (see below for the exact meaning of the options listed):
</p>
<b><tt> wavpack{--pause}{--drop}{-hxvm}{--import-id3}.exe</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> wvunpack{--pause}{--drop}.exe</tt></b>
<p>
When multiple input files are specified for the WavPack and WvUnpack programs (using wildcards)
and the output is specified as stdout ("-") then the resulting output from all the files
processed is sent to stdout in a continuous concatenated stream. Normally this is not very
useful because data is interleaved with file headers, however one case can be. If the --raw or
--raw-pcm option is used in WvUnpack then just the audio from all the files will be send to
stdout, and this can be captured in a file or piped directly back to WavPack for reëncoding:
</p>
<b><tt> wvunpack --raw *.wv - > merged.raw</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt> wvunpack --raw *.wv - | wavpack --raw-pcm - merged.wv</tt></b>
<p>
Finally, a debugging mode is provided for the programs which is enabled by simply appending
"_debug" to the the name of the executable (for example, wavpack.exe becomes
wavpack_debug.exe). The debugging versions work exactly like the normal versions except
that they report more detailed information about their operation. For instance, they
will list their command-line arguments and wavpack.exe will display detailed
information about the files it compresses (including how the audio data is interpreted).
Also, all information displayed on the console (including any errors encountered) is
dumped to a text file called "wavpack.log" (under Application Data). This is very handy
for debugging in situations where the command-line window terminates before an error
message can be read (or doesn't get displayed at all). It is not recommended that these
debug version be used all the time because the log file will grow indefinitely.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<br/>
<div class="box" id="linux">
<div class="boxHeader">Linux</div>
<div class="boxContent">
<p>This documentation was written specifically for the Windows command-line version of
WavPack, however the version for Linux (and MacOS) is essentially the same. There are
some Windows-specific commands missing from the Linux version like the -l switch to run
at low priority or the --pause and --drop options helpful with drag and drop. The "debug"
mode described above does not create a log file, but it <i>does</i> provide the extra information.
</p>
<p>
The most significant change is in the specification of the output filename or directory,
which in the Linux case must be preceded with the -o switch. This was done to allow
multiple input files to be specified, which is handy by itself but is especially useful
in the default case where the shell is performing wildcard expansion.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<br/>
<div class="box" id="wavpack">
<div class="boxHeader">WavPack Options</div>
<div class="boxContent">
<p>
<b><tt>-a = Adobe Audition (CoolEdit) mode for 32-bit floats</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
The WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE structure is used (if present) to determine the format
details. However, there are some programs that use their own non-standard format
extensions. The most popular of these is Adobe's Audition (previously Syntrillium's
CoolEdit) which created two new 32-bit floating point formats. An option has been
added to WavPack (-a) to force the "adobe" interpretation of these floating point
formats. If you are compressing integer files do NOT use this option.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--allow-huge-tags = allow tag data up to 16 MB (otherwise it's 1 MB)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Normally WavPack allows the APEv2 tags to contain up to 1 MB of data. This limit was
implemented to allow for their use on portable devices which may have limited memory or
processing resources. However, in some situations it may be desirable to place more
data in the tags (for high resolution cover art scans, for example) and this option
permits that. Note that these files are not fully WavPack compliant and may not work
in all situations or with older versions of WavPack programs and plugins.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-b<n> = enable hybrid compression, n = 2.0 to 23.9 bits/sample, or</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt>
n = 24-9600 kbits/second (kbps)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
The default operation of WavPack is pure lossless, which means that the .wv file
contains all the information that was in the original .wav file. The hybrid mode
allows the user to specify a target bitrate for the output file, either in kilobits
per second (kbps) or bits per sample. If the track can be losslessly compressed without
exceeding the specified bitrate, then it will be and WavPack will report the compression
as lossless. If lossless compression would exceed the specified bitrate, then WavPack
will begin carefully discarding the least significant portion of the audio information
to stay within the limit. Every effort is made to keep this inaudible, including the
use of joint stereo, dynamic bit allocation and noise shaping. WavPack will report this
as "lossy" compression. Although the option accepts bitrates as low as 24 kbps, the
actual value that WavPack can achieve is usually much higher than that. For example,
with CD-audio sampled at 44.1k the lower limit is about 196 kbps.
</p>
<p>
When this option is used in combination with the <b>-c</b> option, then a "correction"
file is also created and the result is hybrid lossless compression. Without the <b>-c</b>
option the operation is lossy.
</p>
<p>
The hybrid mode can be used quite successfully with floating-point audio, however
it should <b>not</b> be used for scientific type floating-point
data because the hybrid algorithm might not be application appropriate (and
floating-point "exception" values like infinities or NaNs will not be properly encoded).
Use only the pure lossless mode with non-audio floating-point data.
</p>
<p>
The hybrid mode is <b>not</b> usable with DSD audio files; those are always lossless
and attempting hybrid compression with them will generate an error.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--blocksize=<n> = specify block size in samples (n = 128 - 131072)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
WavPack normally determines the optimum number of samples to place into each
WavPack block, however this option allows it to be directly specified. The most likely
use for this option would be to improve the handling of audio files that have a
variable number of redundant MSBs. For example, the output of the lossyWAV program or
the output of a software HDCD decoder. This option is also often combined with the
<b>--merge-blocks</b> option (which also reduces the minimum allowed block size to 16 samples).
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-c = create correction file (.wvc) for hybrid mode (=lossless)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
If the -c option is specified (in addition to the -b option), then WavPack will
generate an additional file that will contain the information that was discarded
to generate the lossy .wv file. This file will have the same name as the .wv file
but will have the extension .wvc (the 'c' is for "correction"). When WvUnpack is
used to restore the .wav file, it will attempt to find the .wvc file in the same
directory as the .wv file. If it is found then the decompression will be lossless
and will be reported as such, otherwise lossy decompression will be reported
(assuming that any information was actually discarded during the original compression).
If -c is specified but no actual information is discarded, the correction file will
be deleted. The extra overhead involved with having these two files instead of a
single pure lossless file is usually less than 1% of the original .WAV file and can
be as low as 0.25% at high bitrates. Note that CRCs are stored for both the lossy
and lossless versions, so error detection works correctly whether the .wvc file is
used or not.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-c<n> = enable hybrid lossless compression, n = 2.0 to 23.9 bits/sample, or</tt></b>
<br/>
<b><tt>
n = 24-9600 kbits/second (kbps)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
This is a new shortcut combining the <b>-b<n></b> option to set hybrid bitrate and the
<b>-c</b> option to create a "correction" file for hybrid lossless operation. The
advantage of this new syntax is that it makes it harder to accidentally forget the
<b>-c</b> option and get lossy operation unintentionally.
</p>
<p>
<p>
<b><tt>-cc = maximum hybrid compression (hurts lossy quality & decode speed)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Normally, when the -c option is used to create a correction file in the hybrid mode,
WavPack attempts to optimize for the quality of the lossy file and lets the combined
lossless compression of the two files fall where it may. This option tells WavPack
to optimize for the overall compression ratio instead, even if this means some
possible degradation of lossy quality (for example, dynamic noise shaping is not
used in this mode). This can also have an effect on lossless decompression speed
(however it does <b>not</b> affect lossy decoding). Keep in mind the effect of
this option is not too significant either way.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--channel-order=<list> = specify non-standard channel ordering</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
For multichannel audio WAV files there is a Microsoft required WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE header to
indicate which speakers are represented and those speakers must be in the standard Microsoft
order (which is also specified by USB). However, some programs skip generating the WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE
header and even write the channels in the wrong order. For files without the WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE
header (or those with the header but with a zeroed channel mask), WavPack assumes Microsoft channel
order and further assumes that all speakers (up to the
number of channels) are present. If that is not the case, then this option allows the user to
specify the exact channels present (and their order) from this list (which is in Microsoft order):
FL,FR,FC,LFE,BL,BR,FLC,FRC,BC,SL,SR,TC,TFL,TFC,TFR,TBL,TBC,TBR.
</p>
<p>
If not all of the channels in the file have speaker definitions, then it is possible to simply
terminate the speaker list with "..." (e.g. FL,FR,...) to indicate that all following channels are
unassigned. Specifying "..." alone indicates that all channels are unassigned.
</p>
<p>
This option may just be used to specify <i>which</i> channels are present, even if they
are in standard Microsoft order (e.g. standard quad is FL,FR,BL,BR). In this case the
option just controls the channel "mask" and performs no reordering. But if the option
does result in reordering, then this is done <i>before</i> encoding, so if the
resulting WavPack file is subsequently unpacked it will <b>not</b> recreate the
identical WAV file (because the channels will now be in the correct order). If you want
the unpacked file to be identical to the original simply do not use this option (although
this means that the resulting WavPack file will not have the correct channel information
and so won't play correctly in multichannel software, and also means that the compression
might not be as good because the "wrong" channels will be paired in stereo).
</p>
<p>
If this option is used then it might be a good idea to add the <b>-r</b> option also to generate a
valid WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE header with the correct channel information. In fact, one could even
pipe the output of WavPack directly to WvUnpack for the sole purpose of reordering WAV files
and adding the correct WAV headers!
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--cross-decorr = use cross-channel correlation in hybrid mode</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Cross-channel correlation is exploited in lossless mode, but it not used by default in hybrid mode
because it can increase noise slightly and increases CPU requirements during hybrid lossless
decoding. This switch is provided to force this mode without affecting noise shaping
(which <b>-cc</b> does to maximize hybrid lossless compression).
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-d = delete source file if successful (use with caution!)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Self explanatory.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--drop = accept multiple files, no output specification allowed</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
This Windows-only option should be specified before any source files and alters the syntax to allow multiple
input files instead of just one. This is useful for using the WavPack executable icon as the target
of a "drag and drop" operation in which case the option is added to the executable filename using
braces (e.g., <b>wavpack{--drop}.exe</b>). Because this is mostly intended for drap and drop support,
the specification of output names or folders is not supported.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-f = fast mode (fast, but some compromise in compression ratio)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
The "fast" mode should be used when compression (or decompression) speed is more
important than compression ratio (or, in lossy mode, audio quality). This option
has no effect on DSD audio.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--force-even-byte-depth = round the bit-depth of source PCM files up to the next whole byte</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
File formats that store uncompressed PCM allow the specification of bit depths
that are not multiples of 8 (e.g., 12-bit or 20-bit). WavPack accepts these files,
however it also checks to make sure that the appropriate LSB "padding" bits are zero
in the source file (as they should be), and if not reports this as an error. One
method of getting around this rare situation is to specify this option which will
round up the bit depth to the next full byte and thereby save the non-zero padding
bits. These files will restore losslessly (assuming a lossless mode is used) even
though they are technically invalid. Note that the WavPack files will report as the
rounded bit depth and be otherwise fine, and this does not result in worse
compression. The other method is to use the <b><tt>--pre-quantize</tt></b> option
to zero the padding bits before encoding, but that's only recommended if it's
known that the padding bits are not valid audio.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-g = general/normal mode (cancels any previously specified -f or -h options)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
This option is provided to revert to the normal default speed mode after having
specified one of the other modes (i.e., "fast" or "high"). It really only makes sense
if one of the other modes has been encoded directly into the executable filename using
braces, but it could be specified to be unambiguous.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-h = high quality (better compression in all modes, but slower)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
The "high" mode should be used when compression ratio (or, in lossy mode, audio
quality) is more important than compression (or decompression) speed. This option
slows both by about a factor of about 1.5.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-hh = very high quality (best compression in all modes, but slowest)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
The "very high" mode should be used when compression ratio (or, in lossy mode, audio
quality) is much more important than compression (or decompression) speed. This option
slows both by about a factor of about 2, and is not recommended for use on
vintage portable devices because of the high CPU load required for decoding, but should
be fine for anything modern. This option simply activates the <b>high</b> mode for DSD
audio files.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--help = extended help display</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Self explanatory.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-i = ignore length in wav header (no pipe output allowed)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Some programs that pipe data to encoders do not always give the correct length in
the wav headers that they provide (foobar's client and CDex are examples). In these
cases use this option to force WavPack to ignore the header and accept the actual
length. Because WavPack must seek to the beginning of the output file to write the correct
length, this option cannot be used with piped output (override with <b>-y</b>). Note that
WavPack will attempt to fix the supplied header with the correct length if it can do
so safely (and of course in this case it's not strictly lossless, but we're just fixing
an invalid header). <b>Only use this option when it's really needed; using with a valid
header will cause any trailing metadata to be interpreted as audio.</b>
</p>
<p>
When using <b>-i</b> it is not allowed to use pipes for both the input and output because the actual
audio length will not be known in the beginning and there's no way to rewind the output file when
we're done to update the length stored there. You can use the <b>-y</b> to override this but you will
end up with sub-standard files that must be seeked to the end on decode to determine their length.
A warning to this effect will be displayed when the operation completes.
<p>
<p>
<b><tt>--import-id3 = import applicable tag items from ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4 tag on DSF and other files</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Sony's DSF file format specifies that these files may contain an ID3v2 tag at the end, and it
is not uncommon for other files to contain these tags even though it's not part of their official
specs (e.g., WAV and DSDIFF files). WavPack considers this a trailing "wrapper" and stores it in the
WavPack file as such so that the original file can be restored verbatim. However, stored this way
it is not easily accessible for reading (and it is certainly not writable) because WavPack uses
APEv2 tags for metadata. This option causes any trailing ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4 tag in the DSF file (or
any other file type) to be scanned and all applicable items imported into the APEv2 tag,
including cover art.
</p>
<p>
Note that if over 1 MB of image data is present, then the <b>--allow-huge-tags</b> option must
be specified. Also, keep in mind that the image data will be duplicated in the APEv2 tag
and will therefore be consuming twice as much space as required, so it might make sense to also
specify the <b>-r</b> option if very large images are present, although this will obviously make
it impossible to restore the original DSF file because the ID3v2 tag will be gone, and of course
there might be fields in the original tag that are not copied to the APEv2 tag.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-j<n> = joint-stereo override (0 = left/right, 1 = mid/side)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
WavPack normally defaults to joint stereo (sometimes called mid/side) in which
the left and right channels are combined to form an alternate representation
(essentially L+R and L-R) that compresses better in lossless mode and improves
quality in lossy mode. In the "extra" modes WavPack will choose whether or not to
use joint-stereo on a block by block basis. This option allows this feature to be
forced either always on or always off.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-l = run at low priority (for smoother multitasking)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
This option can be used (in Windows only) to force WavPack to run at a low priority
and is handy for doing large WavPack batch conversions in the background.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-m = compute & store MD5 signature of raw audio data</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Calculate and display the MD5 checksum of the uncompressed audio data and store
it in the compressed file. These sums are commonly used in file trading communities
to compare versions of tracks, and as such the sums generated by WavPack match those
of FLAC, OptimFROG, Shntool, and get_id3(). They can also be used by WvUnpack during
decompression to verify the data integrity of lossless files, but this is a secondary
function because WavPack already verifies each block as they are decoded.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--merge-blocks = merge consecutive blocks of equal redundancy</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
This option is only valid when generating lossless files and is only used with the
<b>--blocksize</b> option. WavPack will always scan each block of audio data before
compressing to determine the actual number of valid bits that need to be stored because,
for various reasons, this is not always the same as the number of bits present. In some
situations there can be many redundant bits, as for example in the output of the
lossyWAV program or the output of software HDCD decoders. In these cases it may be
advantageous to use a specific block size (or simply a small block size), but WavPack
does not work very well with very small block sizes because of its relatively large
block header.
</p>
<p>
The <b>--merge-blocks</b> option takes care of this situation by allowing WavPack to
merge consecutive blocks with the same number of bits to remove. For example, if a
blocksize of 512 is specified, and 10 512-sample blocks in a row all have exactly
the same number of redundant bits, then these 10 blocks will be combined in to a
single block of 5120 samples (which is much more efficient for WavPack). When the
<b>--merge-blocks</b> option is specified the minimum block size that <b>--blocksize</b>
will accept is reduced from 128 to 16 samples.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-n = calculate average and peak quantization noise (hybrid only)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
This causes WavPack to calculate the average and peak quantization noise generated
in the lossy version of the hybrid mode, both referenced in decibels below full
scale. While it is impossible to use this as a guide to determine the audibility
of the noise, it is useful for comparing the various compression options and for
comparing WavPack's lossy performance to other programs. Note that this option does
not currently produce meaningful results for floating point or multichannel files.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--no-overwrite = don't overwrite existing files, and don't ask to</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Normally WavPack checks that a file it is about to create already exists, and if it
does will prompt the user before overwriting it. When this option is specified
WavPack will skip this prompt and simply go to the next file (if there are any).
This might be useful to resume a long, multi-file WavPack operation that was cancelled
because in that case all the previously encoded files are quickly skipped.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--no-utf8-convert = don't recode passed tags to UTF-8, assume they are UTF-8 already</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
The text fields of APEv2 tags are encoded in the UTF-8 variant of Unicode, so when
tag information is passed in on the command-line they are converted to UTF-8 before
being stored. If your system is already passing the strings in UTF-8, use this option
to prevent double conversion.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--optimize-int32 = enable new optimizations for certain 32-bit integer files</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
32-bit integer files are often originally sourced from floating-point audio, and
previously these were not optimally compressed by WavPack. This option enables a
new check for these (and similar) files and compresses them up to 10% more.
Unfortunately this new mode is not 100% backward compatible, so files created
with this option will decode with only 24 bits of resolution with older WavPack
decoders or 3rd party decoders like FFmpeg. Of course, this difference is very
likely inaudible, and in fact will be non-existent with common 24-bit DACs.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--pair-unassigned-chans = encode unassigned channels into stereo pairs</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
WavPack encodes all channels of multichannel files into stereo or mono streams. So, if
two channels are related (like FL and FR) then these are encoded into one stream
(which improves compression performance) whereas unrelated channels (like LFE) are
encoded by themselves into mono streams. Unassigned channels (those not associated
with any defined speaker) are normally encoded in mono streams for safety, however
this option can be used to specify that they should be paired into stereo streams.
This might improve compression in cases where all of the channels were very similar,
or when it is known that the channels are, in fact, stereo pairs.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--pause</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Pause before exiting the console program (Windows only), allowing the user to press
any key to continue. This might be useful to include in situations where the console
window disappears before the completion status can be seen (like with EAC or the
WavPack FrontEnd) or when using the program icon as "drag and drop".
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--pre-quantize=bits = apply pre-quantization to specified bitdepth</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Even the finest 24-bits ADCs have a true resolution of only around 20 or 21 bits, and
those lower "noise" bits are completely uncompressible. This option enables truncation
of the source audio samples to a specified bit depth <b>before</b> encoding and MD5
calculation, and can often greatly improve the lossless compression ratio. Keep in mind
that although this is conceptually a lossy operation, it will be reported as lossless
because this is performed by the command-line program itself just as the audio is read
from the source file (but of course the source file is not actually modified).
</p>
<p>
This option can be used with any source format (float data is rounded instead of
truncated, and <i>not</i> clipped) and any WavPack mode, although it really does not
make sense to use this in combination with WavPack's lossy mode because it wouldn't
do much (at least not with reasonable parameters).
In the hybrid lossless mode, this pre-quantizing <i>would</i> reduce the size of the
correction file, but wouldn't have much effect on the lossy portion. It also works
well as a reëncoding operation (with a WavPack source file), although it <i>will</i>
modify the MD5 checksum stored in the file (which WavPack's lossy mode does not do).
</p>
<p>
The pre-quantize option is <b>not</b> usable with DSD audio files because they are
already only 1 bit deep, but an error will not be generated (the option is ignored).
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-q = quiet (keep console output to a minimum)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Self explanatory.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-r = remove any extra chunk info from audio file</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
WavPack normally saves all the header information contained in the audio file
(including any chunks after the audio data). This is done so that WvUnpack.exe can
restore the original audio file <i>exactly</i>. The -r option causes WavPack to discard the
header contained in the source file (and any extra chunks). Obviously the source
header is still used to determine the format and size of the file (i.e. this is not
a "raw" mode). When the file is restored with WvUnpack, a generic header will be
generated appropriate for the format. Note that if this option is used with
certain floating-point WAV files generated by CoolEdit or Audition that are not
normalized, the <b>--normalize-floats</b> option of WvUnpack will have to be used when
converting them back to standard PCM formats.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--raw-pcm = input data is raw pcm (44100 Hz, 16-bit signed, 2-ch, little-endian)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Specifies that the source file (or stdin) contains raw PCM data with no header.
and conforms to standard CD quality. Note that the data must match the format of WAV file
audio (i.e., little endian and signed).
</p>
<p>
When encoding raw PCM, it is not allowed to use pipes for both the input and output because the actual
audio length will not be known in the beginning and there's no way to rewind the output file when we're
done to update the length stored there. You can use the <b>-y</b> to override this but you will end
up with sub-standard files that must be seeked to the end on decode to determine their length.
A warning to this effect will be displayed when the operation completes.
<p>
Note that WavPack files created in this way will still normally decode to WAV files (with headers)
when unpacked. To avoid this, use the <b>-r</b>, <b>--raw</b>, or <b>--raw-pcm</b> option with the
WvUnpack program to force raw unpacking.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--raw-pcm=sr,bps[f|s|u],ch,[le|be] = input data is raw pcm with specified format</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Specifies that the source file (or stdin) contains raw PCM data with no header
and the specified sampling rate, bit-depth, and number of channels. Parameters
matching the default (44100,16,2,le) can be omitted. The valid range of bit-depths
is from 1 to 32. The default data format can be overridden with "f" for floating-point
audio (32-bit only) or "s" or "u" for signed/unsigned integers. The number of channels
may be from 1 to 4096.
</p>
<p>
To compress DSD audio, specify bps=1. Note that DSD audio must be in Philips DSDIFF
format (i.e., channels interleaved by byte and MSB first temporally). Therefore, standard
SACD stereo audio would be <b>--raw-pcm=2822400,1,2</b>.
</p>
<p>
Note that WavPack files created in this way will still normally decode to WAV files (with
headers) when unpacked (or DFF files for DSD audio). To avoid this, use the <b>-r</b> option
with the WvUnpack program to force raw unpacking.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-s<n> = noise shaping override (hybrid only, n = -1.0 to 1.0, 0 = off)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
WavPack uses first-order noise shaping to improve the perceived quality of lossy
files and to improve the hybrid lossless compression ratio. Normally WavPack will
choose the noise shaping most appropriate for the application (based on the source
sampling rate and whether the -cc option is specified), but this option allows the
user to override the default with a fixed value. The parameter range is +/- 1.0, where
positive values shift the noise higher in frequency and negative values shift the
noise lower in frequency. Values very close to -1.0 are clipped to prevent problems
associated with very high gain near DC and the value zero results in no noise shaping
at all (i.e., white noise). This option should not be used with the <b>--use-dns</b>
option which enables dynamic noise shaping.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-t = copy input file's time stamp to output file(s)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Self explanatory.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--threads[=n] = enable multithreaded operation (optional n = 1 for no threading to 12 threads maximum)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
On modern multicore CPUs WavPack can get a significant performance boost by utilizing
multiple threads. This is fully applicable to the pure lossless mode, but in the hybrid
modes it is only applicable to multichannel files. If the parameter <b>n</b> is omitted
then the number of threads is determined automatically as a balance between operational
speed and energy consumption.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--use-dns = force use of dynamic noise shaping (hybrid only)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
For version 4.50, dynamic noise shaping was added to the WavPack hybrid mode. This feature
causes the noise shaping to continuously adjust to the spectral characteristics of the source
signal and results in significantly improved subjective quality on samples that previously caused
difficulty with WavPack's lossy mode (particularly material with loud high-frequency transients).
This feature is used by default except for high sampling rates (>= 64 kHz) or when the -cc option
is specified (because it can adversely effect compression ratio), however the <b>--use-dns</b> option
allows the user to force the use of dynamic noise shaping even when it would not normally be used.
This option should not be specified with the <b>-s</b> option which overrides the default with fixed
noise shaping.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-v = verify output file integrity after write</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Causes WavPack to perform a separate verification pass over the output file to guarantee that the audio data
is correctly encoded and stored to disk. For lossless compression this is performed with an MD5 hash even
if the <b>-m</b> option is not specified. If an error occurs (indicating either a bug in the program or
faulty hardware) then a message is displayed and the output file is deleted (and if an existing file is
being overwritten, then it will be untouched). Because the output file is actually rewound and reread, this
option cannot be used when writing to pipes.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--version = display program version to stdout</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Both the version of the command-line program and the WavPack library are displayed.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-w Encoder = write actual encoder metadata to APEv2 tag</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Write a metadata item to the APEv2 tag for the actual encoder being used
(e.g., "Encoder=WavPack 5.7.0"). It's also possible to specify a value to override
the default. Note that when reëncoding WavPack files this metadata item is
<b>not</b> simply copied from source to destination, but is recreated with the
appropriate value.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-w Settings = write actual encoder settings metadata to APEv2 tag</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Write a metadata item to the APEv2 tag for the actual encoder settings being used
(e.g., "Settings=-hb384cx3"). It's also possible to specify a value to override
the default. Note that when reëncoding WavPack files this metadata item is
<b>not</b> simply copied from source to destination, but is recreated with the
appropriate value.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-w "Field=[@]Value" = write specified metadata to APEv2 tag</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Write specified information to APEv2 tag appended to WavPack file(s). May be used
multiple times for multiple fields. APEv2 tags are the preferred tag format for
WavPack files and are read by all the standard WavPack playback plugins. If the
specified value begins with a '@', then the value is assumed to be a
filename which is used to obtain the item's actual value. This is handy for
including the CUESHEET field for use with images files + cuesheets and foobar2000.
The filename may contain wildcards if it matches exactly one file. Also, if the
file cannot be found in the current directory then the source and destination
directories (if specified) are also checked.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>--write-binary-tag "Field=@file.ext" = write specified binary metadata to APEv2 tag</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Write specified binary file to APEv2 tag appended to WavPack file(s). This is most
commonly used to embed album cover art into WavPack files (with the field name
<b>"Cover Art (Front)"</b>), but could be used for anything desired. A file must be
specified (the data cannot come from the command-line) and it may contain wildcards
if it matches exactly one file. Also, if the file cannot be found in the current directory
then the source and destination directories (if specified) are also checked.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-x[n] = extra encode processing (optional n = 0-6, 1 = default)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Like pre-4.0 versions of WavPack (and many other compressors), WavPack 5.7.0 normally
works "symmetrically" in that encoding and decoding operate at about the same rate
(regardless of the mode used). However, WavPack has an option to work
"asymmetrically", so that extra processing can be done during encoding to
provide better compression, but with NO corresponding cost to decoding performance!
</p>
<p>
This is enabled with the -x option and provides an average improvement in CD music
compression of about 1% in "fast" mode, about 0.5% in the normal mode, and still less in
the higher modes. Because the standard compression parameters are optimized for
"normal" CD music audio, this option works best with "non-standard" audio
(synthesized sounds, non-standard sampling rates, etc.) where it can often achieve
enormous gains. The default level (n=1) provides a decent improvement with little
cost in encoding speed and is recommended for all but the most time critical encoding.
Higher levels provide some marginal improvement with an increasing cost of encoding
speed. The highest levels (n = 4-6) are extremely slow but can provide significant
improvement in special situations (i.e. synthesized sounds). Use -x0 to specify no
extra processing.
</p>
<p>
This option is not applicable to DSD audio and is simply ignored.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-y = yes to all warnings (use with caution!)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Self explanatory.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-z[n] = don't (n=0 or omit) or do (n=1) write to console title bar to show overall progress</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
If enabled leaves "WavPack Completed" on the title bar.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<br/>
<div class="box" id="wvunpack">
<div class="boxHeader">WvUnpack Options</div>
<div class="boxContent">
<p>
<b><tt>--aif or --aif-le = force output to Apple AIFF Audio format</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
Output an Apple AIFF Audio file, either legacy AIFF or AIFF-C/sowt (little-endian),
regardless of the input file format. All extra information in the original file's
header and trailer will be lost and a "fresh" AIFF Audio header will be generated.
Note that DSD audio files will be decimated 8X and output as 24-bit PCM.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-b = blindly decode all stream blocks & ignore length info</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
This option uses the "streaming" mode of the WavPack decoder. Normally this
doesn't make any difference except that the percentage complete
display does not work. However, it causes the decoder to ignore all information
contained in the WavPack blocks concerned with duration and location and blindly
unpacks every valid WavPack block it encounters, and will do so indefinitely
until it receives an EOF. This may be of some use to recover corrupted or partial
WavPack files, or it could be used to decode a sequence of WavPack files that had been
concatenated. If this is used to write a .wav file to stdout then note that the
resulting .wav file will not indicate the correct length because it can't back up
to fix it once it knows the actual length.
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-c = extract cuesheet only to stdout (no audio decode)</tt></b>
</p>
<p>
If the specified WavPack file contains an APEv2 tag, and that tag contains a CUESHEET
field, then only dump that text to stdout without decoding any audio. If no
cuesheet is found then an error is generated. This is equivalent to "-x cuesheet".
</p>
<p>
<b><tt>-cc = extract cuesheet file (.cue) in addition to audio file</tt></b>