Yeah. Besides, barely parts of the world have internet decent enough to stream flac
FLAC is never needed for streaming. To clarify, there are two types of codecs - lossy and lossless. Lossless (like FLAC) preserves all source data (it can compress it, but it's still quite large in result).
Lossy codecs (Opus, Vorbis, AAC, MP3 etc.) compress data with unrecoverable loss. I.e. you can't reconstruct raw original waveform from the lossy file. However, they have what's called a transparency level. It means level of compression / bitrate at which there is no audible difference with the raw original (or lossless compression). I.e. listening to such lossy audio you won't notice any difference. The catch is, if you'll try to reencode that lossy audio into some other lossy codec - then quality will degrade, because you are using already incomplete information with another lossy compression. I.e. each lossy codec has its own tricks how to discard less noticeable parts and keep more noticeable ones. So even at transparency level, if you combine them, you'll get more and more loss.
I.e. the main benefit of FLAC is simply having the master original, which allows you to encode it to any codec with transparency level. There is never a need to use FLAC for streaming, since you can stream any lossy codec encoded above transparency, and it will already be smaller in size than FLAC.
If you want more in-depth reading on it, see https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
---------- Updated at 01:18 PM ----------
To put it in a bit more practical terms, here is a scenario which shows the value of FLAC.
1. I buy the soundtrack in FLAC.
2. I encode it to state of the art lossy codec Opus above transparency level (for example 140 Kbit/s bitrate), and then listen to it using those resulted Opus files on my portable player, handset and other computers.
3. In some future, new state of the art lossy codec XYZ comes out, which reduces size of the transparent lossy audio in comparison with Opus and reduces computational intensity of decoding.
4. I encode my library of FLACs in XYZ, and start using that instead of Opus for listening to music. This reduces storage size and increases battery life since new codec is more efficient.
.... 3 and 4 repeat....
During all that, audible quality stays the same and never degrades.
You get the idea. Without having lossless FLAC you'll be stuck with whatever lossy codec you got the first time if you want to keep the quality.
You're one of those guys who hacks the PS4 servers every year, aren't you? XD
I got about one third of that, and it was mostly just the articles ("a", "the", etc..).
FLAC is never needed for streaming. To clarify, there are two types of codecs - lossy and lossless. Lossless (like FLAC) preserves all source data (it can compress it, but it's still quite large in result).
Lossy codecs (Opus, Vorbis, AAC, MP3 etc.) compress data with unrecoverable loss. I.e. you can't reconstruct raw original waveform from the lossy file. However, they have what's called a transparency level. It means level of compression / bitrate at which there is no audible difference with the raw original (or lossless compression). I.e. listening to such lossy audio you won't notice any difference. The catch is, if you'll try to reencode that lossy audio into some other lossy codec - then quality will degrade, because you are using already incomplete information with another lossy compression. I.e. each lossy codec has its own tricks how to discard less noticeable parts and keep more noticeable ones. So even at transparency level, if you combine them, you'll get more and more loss.
I.e. the main benefit of FLAC is simply having the master original, which allows you to encode it to any codec with transparency level. There is never a need to use FLAC for streaming, since you can stream any lossy codec encoded above transparency, and it will already be smaller in size than FLAC.
If you want more in-depth reading on it, see https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
---------- Updated at 01:18 PM ----------
To put it in a bit more practical terms, here is a scenario which shows the value of FLAC.
1. I buy the soundtrack in FLAC.
2. I encode it to state of the art lossy codec Opus above transparency level (for example 140 Kbit/s bitrate), and then listen to it using those resulted Opus files on my portable player, handset and other computers.
3. In some future, new state of the art lossy codec XYZ comes out, which reduces size of the transparent lossy audio in comparison with Opus and reduces computational intensity of decoding.
4. I encode my library of FLACs in XYZ, and start using that instead of Opus for listening to music. This reduces storage size and increases battery life since new codec is more efficient.
.... 3 and 4 repeat....
During all that, audible quality stays the same and never degrades.
You get the idea. Without having lossless FLAC you'll be stuck with whatever lossy codec you got the first time if you want to keep the quality.
@nfi42 : 24/192 is not needed. See the link I posted above it goes into it in great detail.
24 bit depth can be useful if you plan audio processing. For simple reencoding - not useful really.
140 Kbps is somewhere above transparency level for Opus. See http://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm
See also http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Opus
Each lossy codec has its own transparency level (i.e. bitrate), because they use different compression algorithms. I.e. number alone is quite useless without saying what codec it's applied to.
i boycott all things
If you own the expansions separately or as part of the Expansion Pass, you're in for a treat as well: Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine just got updated to include the free OSTs, both in mp3 and FLAC format.