XDJ-XZ still no flac support

thanks pulse for reply, its really sad to hear that.
i think now i have to switch to aiff or wav for my lossless files, because not everywhere is flagship located.

Sorry, I know they have to cut corners in order to keep the price down and create product segmentation for higher-tier markets, so as a result, things like this happen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

flac is seldom used?! it's the state of the art lossless codec. why would you implement a codec that is "seldom used" in your flagships? that Argument makes no sense, sorry :-) also pio says how nice the dsp and A/D Stage is and does not support the most used lossless Codec?

even the cheapest dsp/cpus are nowadays capable of Decoding 96/24flac by design...and if you have a look at the cpu that is used in xdj-rx, xdj-xr2, and also the xdj-xz you will see that it's absolutely no Problem to implement it, it's a simple Software limit that is delibarately there, to sell flac support with the flagship models.

flac implementation would cost nearly Nothing.

i really hope the will unlock flac support someday for this unit.

@Daniel > Seldom used in that market segment, which is why our top-of-the-line players have it. And as previously mentioned, it's not just about the horsepower to do it.

Hi,

It's marketing.

I would buy this XDJ-XZ, but not .flac support, so : i don't buy it.

Flac is popular.  More that Pioneer think...

Sad :)

But the good news of the day :  i've a DDJ1000, and for the first time, with Rekordbox 5.8, the +6dB channel level meter is fixed !

So the last led light is at real- 2/-3 DBFS : it's nice now.

But i waited 6 months to have this easy bug fixed....

And RB-DMX1 ? news soon ?

A lot of disapointement and waiting, but One only good news :) (Channel meter fixed with RKB 5.8 for DDJ1000)

Perhaps Rekordbox 6 ? will bring us more good news ? or Disapointement ?

Regards,

Olivier F.

@Olivier > Most music providers aren't supplying FLAC audio anyhow; if you need FLAC support, then this unit is not for you.

This is not an RB-DMX1 topic, so I won't answer those questions here, nor anything about future versions of rekordbox.

So, flac support will also not come via an update to the XDJ-XZ ?

Then the unit I just purchased will be returned immediately.

Pioneer take note - I was ready to jump ship to Rekordbox, but this decision of not supporting flac, which I find absolutely ridiculous, will loose you customers, plain and simple (in my case, a new customer, you already had shell out the dough for a fairly expensive controller...).

Seriously Pioneer, what are/were you thinking ?!

And the excuse "it's seldomly used" (the freaking BBC have adopted flac as their internal library format for crying out loud...) or "it costs extra money" is utter BS as well as  xiph.org, the owners of the flac codec have released the codec for free since it was invented 15+ years ago...

And even Apple, after resisting it for 10 years (as it is a competitors' product, who offers it for free - 'how dare they!'), have caved in in 2019 and added flac as a supported format to quicktime / iTunes.

Supporting flac is not a matter of (Pioneer's) choice these days, or a mechanic to allow 'product segmentation for higher-tier markets' (xiph should use that and quote Pioneer on that one... also, I should adjust my rider and charge extra for being a higher-tier file quality DJ.... ffs).

@Chris > Nobody ever said we're not including it because of an added cost for the codec itself, but thank you for your feedback.

Out of serious curiousity - how does not supporting flac "keep the price down" ?

And if it's maintenance & compute - I'm convinced that the cost of supporting flac is only a fraction of that compare to what this does to Pioneers reputation (by creating a disparate device landscape by choice in order to push for an artifical ''product segmentation for higher-tier markets'' -  i.e. RB supports flac, 900NXS doesn't, 2000NXS does, XDJ-XZ doesn't..... seriously!? ) as well as actually loosing out on customers who otherwise would have bought the product i.e. or even returning it, like it will now happen in my case.

Also, this:

https://forums.pioneerdj.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203089269/comments/203506509

I found very interesting. What happened to the flac fan in you @Pulse...?

Digging up an 8yo post for technological relevancy? Nice try, but no.

We both know the decision to exclude it is just as much about market positioning as it is the lack of use of FLAC by the target customer segment for this product.

I would have been a customer for this unit specifically, even willing to migrate to Rekordbox (to at least give it another try...). And there's 3 others here with the same sentiments less than 24hrs after the controller was released.

So clearly someone at Pioneer DJ miss-judged what the customer segment interested in this controller is, wants & uses...

And, it's a shame that Pioneer DJ really thinks creating a disparate device landscape on purpose and by choice in order to push for an artificial ''product segmentation for higher-tier markets"  is considered a 'strategy' / *sic* "market positioning"...

But as a flac fan boy, the irony of that one, since we are talking about an open source format, isn't quite yet lost on you, right...?!

No irony at all, because, again, this isn't about me or my choices, or any associated cost for the codec itself.

Sorry to interrupt in this discussion.

What ever reason Pioneer has to not include the flac codec is just stupid.

If you want to be market leader and stay ahead of others and just be the best you should have the option to play flac files too. Any reason for not having it is just not logic. 

You really should include this opensource codec, not just the ones that need a licence. 

Again, it's not a matter of licensing.

So FLAC isn't on new players because it's strictly for pro equipment?

This is really funny. Imagine if you're a pro DJ and you get excited about FLAC since it's the 'pro' feature on your NXS2s.

So you convert your collection to FLAC, then one day you find out the gig you're going to tonight might not have all NXS2s so you need to export to AIFF.

And that's when you remember Rekordbox doesn't give you the option to export to AIFF/WAV. It just gives you that big warning telling you your music isn't going to work on anything besides the CDJ-TOUR1 / CDJ-2000NXS2 / XDJ-1000MK2. Rekordbox is all like, "Hey, just FYI, you're totally dumb for using FLAC, and I'm not going to help you fix the dumb thing you did." LOL.

So now you need to find a way to convert everything in your set to AIFF or WAV, then hopefully you know the trick is that you've gotta go into Finder and delete (or move) the FLAC files in the playlist so Rekordbox knows they're missing and lets you relocate them, then you go into your collection and make sure you find every file in the playlist and relocate the file and point it to the new AIFF, and then finally you can export the playlist to your thumb drives and pray that it actually works.

Point being, it's funny that it's considered a pro feature that's only on a couple things, because a pro could never actually use FLAC unless she was prepared to take a few NSX2 players with her if she ever went to a place that didn't buy all new equipment in 2016.

And it's funny that XDJs support FLAC when they're otherwise aggressively positioned as non-professional. They know nobody cares about the CD slot on a CDJ, so when they made the XDJ they also removed the memory cue buttons and hot cue buttons and just left blank space.

The XDJ is so comical! If we didn't care about physical buttons we'd all be DJ-ing from an iPad! If that's what it takes for a $1,000 discount then nobody's interested. How about you remove the CD slot and leave the cue buttons alone and just give me $50 off the CDJ? Maybe you could wire up the CD eject button to play the air horn sample? Although that might be too professional for the price point...

Thanks for your comments and feedback.

You do need to understand that everything added to the software of a player needs to be maintained as well. This always comes with a price and sometimes lead to decisions to leave features out in favor of costs, potential bugs, technical debt, testing etc. (which would increase the price for every future). It's not always that simple to judge about these kind of decisions without having all info, pro's and con's etc. and without taken all research that's been done into account.

@Jasper > Thank you for your additional insight; it's true that these are other factors that we have to consider.

Okay so I'm not going to get into the FLAC debate. However, I do have a question concerning this FLAC situation. If I attach a pair of CDJ/XDJ's (that supports FLAC) via link and the media is shareable across all decks including channels 1 & 2 with this unit, I take it that the FLAC files will only play from the external decks on 3 & 4 but not on 1 & 2?

@Tomas > I'm not 100% sure - they may appear on the browse list but then if you tried to load them on the XZ they may just say something like "Filetype not supported."

Okay thanks for the quick response.

RE: " It's not always that simple to judge about these kind of decisions without having all info"

Oh, but it is...

Pioneer decided in 2016 to add flac/alac as a supported format for NXS2 & the following XDJ hardware as well. From that point onwards, every player released by Pioneer needed to support this - if not, they are knowingly & willingly confuse & hinder their user base & customers.

Yet, opposed to all other brands that added flac support into their product lineup, Pioneer decided to not support flac on anything but the highest tier units - the release of this XDJ-XZ being the prime example, despite it being touted as the 'powerhouse' controller as close to the nxs2s as can be...

And as we have been told here, only in order to create artificial "product segmentation", which among other things, results in a clusterf* of a device landscape in order to save a few micro-cents, while their software, Rekordbox, claims to a) support flac and b) be the ultimate tool to prep your media-devices c) just not when you're using flac or alac files, which people will find out the hard way when turning up at a venue that has not the highest tier gear...

Therefore, just as Apple (but for other reasons), Pioneer is damaging flac as a format  - which they, i.e. the format & people behind the format, are the last ones to deserve this (as they're the ones that set the lossless compressed audio format standard that Apple copied, and have kept it free and open ever since...).

All in all, a great marketing decision... loosing sales & damaging ones reputation all di while declaring some formats the ones only the 'higher tier' DJs choose over those lower tier formats like mp3/wav that the majority of Pioneers' standard customers use...

Well done... well done...

my library contains only flac nowadays (more and more 24bit material) since i'm playing on nxs2 rig. tried my nxs2 Players and also xdj1000mk2 connected to my xz and no way to use them in this combination :-/

It is silly and political not to include FLAC on XDJ units. 

The only technical reason I can imagine is there may be a memory limit on the device and can't stuff more features in there.

I'd also like to see this support in a future update.

CAN YOU SAY REAL TIME WHEN WILL SUPPORT BE ABLE.WHEN I CAN HAVE SERATO DRIVER ONLINE.I CAN'T WORK RIGHT NOW BECAUSE OF THAT DRIVER.IN ADVANCE THANK YOU.PLEASE REACT TO MY COMMENT ASAP.

NO, SORRY.

thx pio for listening :-) flac works now

As of firmware 1.10, yes - FLAC is now included! Thank you for your patience, we're glad we were able to include it and hope you enjoy this addition.