OptimFROG

OptimFROG was designed to aim at the best audio compression possible.

OptimFROG asymptotically has the best ratios available for lossless audio compression. Includes sophisticated, computationally intensive, original compression algorithm.

OptimFROG obtains asymptotically the best lossless audio compression ratios. It has Windows and Linux versions, fully featured input plug-ins for the foobar2000, Winamp2, Winamp3, dBpowerAMP, XMPlay and XMMS audio players (with bitstream error resilience, ID3v1.1 and APEv2 read tagging support), optimal support for all integer PCM wave formats up to 32 bits and an extensible streamable (error tolerant) compressed format. It is also fast, the default mode encodes CD quality audio data at 12.4x real-time and decodes at 17.4x real-time on AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (the fastest mode encodes at 28.1x real-time and decodes at 24.7x real-time).

The compression ratios which can obtained with OptimFROG are generally ranging from 25% (silent classical music) to 70% (loud rock music) of the original audio file size.

This is less compared with around 13% obtained with high quality MP3 files (~176 kb), but you have the great advantage of archiving and listening at perfect copies of your original music.

OptimFROG uses a new audio compression technology, the generalized stereo decorrelation concept (together with the optimal predictor), which was first introduced with OptimFROG 4.0b in December 2001.

At the time of its introduction, the new technology yielded significant better (~1.5%) compression than existing state of the art lossless audio compressors.

Here are some key features of "OptimFROG":
asymptotically the best lossless audio compression ratios
optimal support for all integer PCM wave formats up to 32 bits
fully featured Winamp2, Winamp3, XMPlay, foobar2000, dBpowerAMP, and XMMS input plug-ins for playback
fast operation, default mode encodes CD quality audio data at 12.4x real-time and decodes at 17.4x real-time on AMD Athlon XP 1800+
Win32 and Linux command line versions simple to use, but powerful Windows GUI front-end, Kermit (made by Speek) available at http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/kermit.htm
extensible, streamable compressed format, tagging compatible optimize option, further improving compression at no decoding cost
backward compatible with version 4.2x (decode only)
64 bits large file support under Win32
full pipe support for encoding and decoding
full raw file support
quick verify compressed file integrity function
compatible with Exact Audio Copy, with ID3v1.1 tagging
extensible command line format
multiple file processing on the same command line, with wildcards
option to store MD5 of raw PCM input data and function to check it
option to delete source file after successful operation
option to copy source file time stamp to destination file
bitstream error resilience and transparent real-time recovery
fast seek with intelligent caching for plug-ins
ID3v1.1 and APEv2 read tagging support for plug-ins
streaming support (playing HTTP streams) for foobar2000 plug-in
Replay Gain compatible plug-ins for foobar2000 and Winamp3
fully featured SDK for using compressed files in any application