Creating a FLAC Fingerprint File with FLAC Frontend
FLAC fingerprints represent the most versatile form of lossless audio verification currently available. To better understand what a FLAC fingerprint is,
read this. To proceed with a step-through for creating a FLAC fingerprint file (ffp) with FLAC Frontend, read on.
Note: Due to serious inadequacies in older versions of FLAC Frontend (mainly it it's handling of sector boundary correction), please make sure that you are using version 1.7.1 or later,
downloadable here.
First, you'll need to have a complete set of properly named FLAC files. Open an explorer window and browse to the directory containing these files.
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Open up a FLAC Frontend window. Drag the files from the explorer window into the FLAC frontend window.
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Press the "Fingerprint" button, at which point a browse window will open. Direct this window to the same directory as the FLAC files are included. Note that this will output a .txt file which will contain the md5 fingerpring of just the raw audio data contained within the FLAC file. Name this file appropriately and press "OK".
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A command line window will be opened by Frontend which will run the command necessary to grab the fingerprint data from the FLAC header and place it into a text file. After it has run, it will automatically close the command line window and the .ffp.txt file will apear in the original explorer window.
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Open this file to see what the accepted format for a .ffp.txt file looks like. It should have written one line for each file contained within the folder you selected. If it doesn't, you didn't correctly add all of the files to the FLAC Frontend window and you should start over. If it does, you've successfully create a FLAC Fingerprint file.
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Make sure to distribute this file with any sets that you trade or seed to an internet distribution site. This will help traders track and verify their files against the originals.