Experts! Here's a puzzle for you... or maybe just a question from me.

[feralicious]

Okay, so I have a show that is just one shn file and the md5 of the wav. Nothing else came with it. So here's what I did:

1 - decompressed to wav with MKWAct to check the md5, it's fine.

2 - tried to convert wav to flac in Flac Frontend, at 99% got an error:
ERROR: got partial sample

checked the st5 for it and the wav and shn anyway to see what it came up as:
6faa4359559caa616d64bfaae1d06053 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.shn
b3699efe442c91bd5e3ba80d4da42184 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.flac
6faa4359559caa616d64bfaae1d06053 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.wav

3 - tried to convert shn to flac in foobar, no errors reported:
INFO (foo_flaccer) : Encoding finished successfully
checked st5:
6faa4359559caa616d64bfaae1d06053 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.shn
a9158820ac7cc6437541c118f97c35c1 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.flac
6faa4359559caa616d64bfaae1d06053 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.wav

as you can see, the flac has a different st5 than the other flac I made, but still doesn't match the shn and wav.

4 - tried to convert wav to flac in foobar, no errors reported:
INFO (foo_flaccer) : Encoding finished successfully
checked st5:
6faa4359559caa616d64bfaae1d06053 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.shn
a9158820ac7cc6437541c118f97c35c1 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.flac
6faa4359559caa616d64bfaae1d06053 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.wav

same as the other foobar conversion.

Checked for SBE and there is one. Plus another error:
length expanded size cdr WAVE problems filename
10:05.23 106776594 -b- -- -a-xx Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.shn
10:05.23 101.83 MB (total for 1 file, 0.7737 overall compression ratio)
length expanded size cdr WAVE problems filename
10:05.23 106776592 -b- -- ---xx Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.flac
10:05.23 101.83 MB (total for 1 file, 0.7115 overall compression ratio)
length expanded size cdr WAVE problems filename
10:05.23 106776594 -b- -- -a--- Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.wav
10:05.23 101.83 MB (total for 1 file, 1.0000 overall compression ratio)

Looked up what the a meant:
'a' audio data is not block-[a]ligned
But I still don't know what that means. Is that what's screwing up my flac? Why is the shn okay? How do I get rid of the a?

Okay so now I'm tying to figure out how to fix just one track. I lost the shntool command for it and I'm searching, but in the meantime I have step #5

5 - tried converting to flac using Batchenc:
ERROR: got partial sample (same as Flac Frontend)
checked st5:
6faa4359559caa616d64bfaae1d06053 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.shn
b3699efe442c91bd5e3ba80d4da42184 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.flac
6faa4359559caa616d64bfaae1d06053 [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley.wav
flac has same hash as the one generated with Flac Frontend.

So this makes me wonder how good the conversion process is in foobar? I'm using foobar2000 0.8.3, configured per Five's guide, except I've now changed the encoding level to 5.


So how 'bout them apples? And how the hell do I fix just one track? TLH is supposed to do it but it doesn't. Okay fixed just the one track using Batchenc. Now I'll try the flac conversion again....


Okay SBE is fine now, no errors at all.

Flac encoding in Flac frontend fine and st5 matches wav
ce7928e216e2ed535f2f84a46aa2670a [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley-fixed.flac
ce7928e216e2ed535f2f84a46aa2670a [shntool] Prince + Carlos - Santana Medley-fixed.wav

All is well in Hooville again.

My questions are now:

What's up with foobar not giving any indication of an error?

And what is that "a" error and how does it occur and why did it only affect the flac conversion, yet the shn file I had was okay?

[feralicious]

And that is why I get nothing else done around here. :rolleyes:

[Five]

:hmm:

I'll have to do some playing around with the different encoders and compare .st5s in an attempt to figure out wtf is going on here. I'll try to find some time to do this in the next couple days. I've never got the "a" error and the description is a little cryptic... I bet uhclem knows what that means.

[ssamadhi97]

I want that shn file.

[feralicious]

I want that shn file.All you ever want me for is my shn files. :(

Okay, I'll send it to you... check your pms.

[pmonk]

All you ever want me for is my shn files. :(

Please insert Doorcock's sexual come-on here > ______________________

[pmonk]

Playback and record software must process a multiple of nBlockAlign bytes of data at a time. Data written
and read from a device must always start at the beginning of a block. For example, it is illegal to start
playback of PCM data in the middle of a sample (that is, on a non-block-aligned boundary).

The blockSize specifies the size in bytes of the block to which you would align the sound data. A blockSize of zero indicates that the sound data does not need to be block-aligned. Applications that don't care about block alignment should set the blockSize and offset to zero when creating Audio IFF files. Applications that write block-aligned sound data should set blockSize to the appropriate block size. Applications that modify an existing Audio IFF file should try to preserve alignment of the sound data, although this is not required. If an application does not preserve alignment, it should set the blockSize and offset to zero. If an application needs to realign sound data to a different sized block, it should update blockSize and offset accordingly.

[dorrcoq]

does Nina every download anything WITHOUT problems? :rolleyes:

[pmonk]

My understanding is a wave file are made up of "chunks" of date aligned in fixed-size blocks to ensure real time recording and playback of audio.

[uhclem]

I spoke about this with feralicious in a pm but I might as well add my 2 cents here, just so that people know this isn't a problem or flaw with FLAC. pmonk has already posted more about the subject than I know, and I expect ssamadhi to have something interesting to say about it when he's finished tinkering with the shn file.

But basically flac produced a different fingerprint because it realigned the data during conversion. However, when decompressing to wav, shorten didn't bother to fix it, so the fingerprint didn't change. That's the reason for the difference.

Now I'll leave it to ssamadhi to tell us how this shn file got that way in the first place.

[ssamadhi97]

Not having looked at the shn yet, I'd suspect that part of the last sample in the track has been eaten by the truncat :)

[feralicious]

does Nina every download anything WITHOUT problems? :rolleyes:Hey those are other people's problems that I end up fixing!

And what are you doing in this thread anyway? It clearly said it was for "Experts". :p

[h_vargas]

it's the curse of FLAC Past. (just a small joke.)

sorry i can't be of more help on this one...