[Weir Back]

Originally Posted by germain

Shorten is a closed format that was abandoned by its developer in 2003. In other words, its code can not be modified in any way and is quite literally obsolete at this point in time.

As more and more people stop using CD's and use their computer or portable player to play their music, the fact that shn can not be tagged with metadata becomes a real drawback. You might also consider that your ability to play or decode shn files is dependent on the one person who develops the software. These people have to remain on board to keep it current as new operating platforms emerge. Back in late '06 the shnamp plug-in for Winamp broke with the introduction of the latest Winamp model. It took 2 months for the developer to be informed of the break and get it working again. These kinds of issues are going to become increasingly prevalent as the number of shows circulating as shn files decreases further. Personally, I would not want my archive of shows to be stored as shn files.

Re-encoding old file sets seems like a worthwhile endeavor until something else comes along and you have to do it all again. Good luck with this, I'll wait for Charlie Miller to flac an upgrade.