[Five]

earliest known announcement of legacy software mkwACT, 2000-10-30. we use Trader's Little Helper for .mkw, .shn, .md5 since 2005.

playing older .shn files, you could not seek, i.e. skip to the middle of a track. mkwACT was the killer app because it usually worked and could encode seekable .shn files for the first time ever. none of this is an issue in 2020 lol.

Originally Posted by etree.org

etree.org | mkwACT introduction

The mkw Audio Compression Tool (mkwACT) is a Windows program designed to allow easy and convenient conversion of WAV audio files to and from various lossless and lossy compressed formats, including Shorten.

mkwACT is the easiest utility available for compressing and decompressing Shorten files for Windows. It also can generate and check MD5's.

The latest version of mkwACT, v0.97 beta 1, can encode Shorten files with seek information!

For the most recent software and documentation updates, please visit the official mkwACT website

etree.org | mkwACT download

mkwACT097b1.exe v0.97 beta 1 - 1.1MB Released: 10/2/00

mkwACT096f.exe v0.96f Released: 6/8/00

If you are installing mkwACT 0.96e or later for the first time, install these MFC runtime libraries first.

etree.org | mkwACT docs

For mkwACT documentation, please view the mkwACT readme.

etree.org | mkwACT credits

Thanks to [color=blue]Michael K. Weise[color], the author of mkwACT, for making a great tool for the entire lossless trading community!

mkw license, last known version still online to 2004-10-30

MKW LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 1998, 1999 by Michael K. Weise ("the author".) 
Personal use of the software is permitted free of charge. 

Commercial use of the software or incorporation of the software into an income-
producing product is not permitted without the author's prior written consent.

The software may be redistributed freely, provided that it is not altered, that
it is accompanied by the author's original documentation and that no fee 
whatsoever is charged of the recipient.


DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY

This software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or 
implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability 
and fitness for a particular purpose. By installing or using the software, you 
assume all associated risks, known or unknown. In no event will the author be 
liable for any damages arising from the use of or inability to use the software.

mkwACT readme, 1999

Originally Posted by Michael K. Weise

(The readme is currently somewhat outdated. Please see the change log for latest information. -mkw)


The mkw Audio Compression Tool

Contents

Introduction
Components & Licenses
How to use mkwACT - Basic
How to use mkwACT - Advanced
Known Issues
Author Contacts
Where to look for software updates

Introduction

The mkw Audio Compression Tool (mkwACT) is a Win32 program designed to allow easy and convenient conversion of WAV audio files to and from various lossless and lossy compressed formats. Currently supported compressed formats are MKW, SHN and MP3.
The easiest way to initiate a compression task is by simply dragging the file from Explorer into the mkwACT window, but a command line interface and a DDE interface are also supported. Queued tasks are asynchronously processed one at a time, using only idle CPU time (i.e., without significantly slowing down other applications running on the same system.) MD5 Checksum generation and testing of compressed files are also supported. Processing can also be manually paused at will.

Platform Compatability

I personally test each new version of mkwACT on a Windows NT 4.0 (SP6) platform before releasing it. The software is used by others running various versions of Windows 9x as well as Windows 2000. Windows 3.1 and Win32s are not supported, however.

Components & Licenses

The mkw Audio Compression Tool (mkwACT) acts as a front-end user interface to various plug-in components which complete various audio compression tasks. Due to the fact that two of these components are provided by others than myself, Setup will ask you to accept three different license agreements during the installation process. The mkw Audio Compression Tool and all supported plug-in components have licenses that permit personal use at no charge; see each author's license for details.

mkwACT currently supports the following plug-in components:

• MKWM?.DRV
  
  These components provide two-way support for MKW, a lossless compression format for CD quality (16 bit, 44.1 kHz, stereo) recordings. MKW compression is faster than shorten, but does not provide as good a compression ratio. These components are my work and, like the main mkwACT program, are subject to the mkw license.
  
  
• SHNDLL32.DLL
  
  Provides two-way support for shorten, the current de-facto standard in lossless audio compression. SHNDLL32.DLL is the work of Tony Robinson and SoftSound Ltd., and is subject to the shorten license.
  
  
• BLADEENC.DLL
  
  Provides encoding support for MPEG Layer III (.mp3), the current de-facto standard in lossy audio compression.
  All valid bitrates from 160 kbps on up are supported; lower bitrates are not supported for the reasons stated here. (Personally, I don't recommend using bitrates below 192 kbps in the first place, but if you wish to sacrifice sound quality for a higher compression ratio you'd be better off using the Fraunhofer encoder rather than Blade. At the recommended bitrate of 256 kbps, Blade's output quality is noticeably superior to all other encoders I know of.) BLADEENC.DLL is the work of Tord Jansson and subject to the GNU General Public License.
  
  
• MKWMPEG??.DRV
  
  Provides decoding support for MPEG Layer I, II and III (.mp?) files at all valid bitrates, including VBR. It is based closely on the ISO reference code, meaning it is not optimized for speed but should provide the best output quality possible from a given MPEG file. This module was derived by myself from MAplay1.2+, and is subject to the GNU General Public License. Feel free to download the source code.
  
  
• MD5SUM.DLL
  
  Allows the generation of checksum (.md5) files for all compressed file types, as well as checksum testing to verify file integrity. This code was derived by myself from the RSA Data Security, Inc. MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm.

How to use mkwACT - Basic

Simply drop files to be converted onto the mkwACT window. When dropping WAV files, hold down SHIFT to convert to SHN, CTRL to convert to MP3 or no key to convert to MKW. That's just about all there is to basic operation.

The output file will have the same name as the input file, with the appropriate extension for its type of course. Decoding MPEG files is an exception, in that the MPEG compression layer and bitrate used will be appended to the name of the decoded file as a reminder of its origin. Any existing file of the same name in the same location will be overwritten.

Whether the input file will be removed after the output file has been successfully written is a configurable option (see below). By default it is enabled for lossless processing and disabled for lossy (MPEG) processing.

Optionally, whenever a compressed file is created, its md5 checksum can be calculated and written to an .MD5 file in the same directory. (This option is enabled by default.) The checksum will be appended to an existing .MD5 file in the same directory if there is one. If there is none, a new file will be created using (1) the name of any .NFO found in the same directory, failing that (2) the name of any .TXT file found in the same directory, or failing that (3) NONAME.MD5.

To test the integrity of all files referenced in an .MD5 file, simply drop the .MD5 file onto the mkwACT window. Unlike compression tasks, which are always added at the bottom of the processing queue, checksum verification tasks are always added to the top of the queue. Thus, you can simply drop a folder containing an .MD5 file and several compressed files onto mkwACT in order to first verify the integrity of the compressed files and subsequently decompress them.
No news is good news: as long as all checksums match, mkwACT will not display any messages. If missing or corrupt files are encountered during processing of an .MD5 file, mkwACT will stop further processing and display an error message.

As of version 0.96, mkwACT associates itself with .MKW, .SHN and .MD5 files, so that it can be launched by double-clicking on such a file in the Windows shell.

How to use mkwACT - Advanced

{ todo }

Known Issues

Note that WAV files may contain non-audio data blocks, which are typically used only by the creating application and ignored by other applications. mkwACT will ignore such data blocks without issuing a warning. Thus, WAV files containing such extra information will not be byte-identical after compressing and uncompressing, although the audio data contained will be identical.

Author Contacts

For feedback, including feature suggestions and bug reports, please use this message board.

You can also reach me by private e-mail at [email protected], but again please use the message board for all matters that may be of interest to other users.

mkwACT is a gift from me to my fellow music lovers. If you wish to help motivate me to develop mkwACT further, your support in the form of CDs containing live Grateful Dead recordings (other than these) or a check in any amount will be greatly appreciated at this address:

Michael K. Weise
xxx xxxxxxx xxxxx
xxxxxxx xx xxxxx-xxxx

Gratitude for the shorten codec should be directed towards SoftSound Ltd.

Gratitude for the Blade MPEG encoder should be directed towards Tord Jansson.

Where to look for software updates

Official mkwACT download page

Official Shorten home page

Official Blade Encoder home page

notes from his Trading Preferences page, which show the troublesome situation of cdr(x) trading in the 90s

Originally Posted by Michael K. Weise

Trading for other Recordings

• If you are not absolutely certain of your ability to make a bit-accurate copy of a CD (100% jitter-free DAE and DAO burning,) stop right here and read "If you wish to trade for blanks" instead.
• Any flaws my recordings have are meticulously described in my list, and I expect no less of those I trade with.