Batch Files - "How to" + Recipes (add 'em if you got 'em!)

[Five]

Originally Posted by uhclem

Don't use a batch file for fixing SBEs. Here's why. Use TLH or BatchEnc.

such a great thread!

[pmonk]

This is getting beyond my understanding!

As I said - I download a Hendrix studio torrent over on eztree and this is what I got

length expanded size cdr WAVE problems filename
3:50.41 40668476 --- -- ---xx Track01.flac
0:55.16 9740528 -b- -- ---xx Track02.flac
0:22.71 4047836 --- -- ---xx Track03.flac
4:02.53 42813500 --- -- ---xx Track04.flac
6:29.08 68638460 --- -- ---xx Track05.flac
4:35.59 48648812 --- -- ---xx Track06.flac
12:48.13 135505416 -b- -- ---xx Track07.flac
21:19.38 225705424 -b- -- ---xx Track08.flac
3:32.49 37512092 --- -- ---xx Track09.flac
1:25.34 15074012 --- -- ---xx Track10.flac
0:25.74 4584092 --- -- ---xx Track11.flac
4:43.64 50071772 --- -- ---xx Track12.flac
0:33.05 5833004 --- -- ---xx Track13.flac
3:39.71 38798636 --- -- ---xx Track14.flac
4:19.31 45760556 --- -- ---xx Track15.flac
5:11.12 54888668 --- -- ---xx Track16.flac
78:15.39 789.92 MB (totals for 16 files, 0.5838 overall compression ratio)


When I used TLH to fix the sbe, I got this:

length expanded size cdr WAVE problems filename
3:50.41 40668476 --- -- ---xx Track01.flac
0:55.16 9739676 --- -- ---xx Track02-fixed.flac
0:22.71 4047836 --- -- ---xx Track03-fixed.flac
4:02.53 42813500 --- -- ---xx Track04-fixed.flac
6:29.08 68638460 --- -- ---xx Track05-fixed.flac
4:35.59 48648812 --- -- ---xx Track06-fixed.flac
12:48.13 135505820 --- -- ---xx Track07-fixed.flac
21:19.38 225705020 --- -- ---xx Track08-fixed.flac
3:32.49 37512092 --- -- ---xx Track09-fixed.flac
1:25.34 15074012 --- -- ---xx Track10-fixed.flac
0:25.74 4584092 --- -- ---xx Track11-fixed.flac
4:43.64 50071772 --- -- ---xx Track12-fixed.flac
0:33.05 5833004 --- -- ---xx Track13-fixed.flac
3:39.71 38798636 --- -- ---xx Track14-fixed.flac
4:19.31 45760556 --- -- ---xx Track15-fixed.flac
5:11.13 54891020 --- -- ---xx Track16-fixed.flac
78:15.40 789.92 MB (totals for 16 files, 0.5600 overall compression ratio)

All tracks went thru the process but the ending digits of the size of the fixed tracks have the same numbers.

Now when I used batchenc and just added the tracks that hd the errors, I got this:

length expanded size cdr WAVE problems filename
3:50.41 40668476 --- -- ---xx Track01.flac
0:55.16 9739676 --- -- ---xx Track02-fixed.flac
0:22.72 4050188 --- -- ---xx Track03-fixed.flac
4:02.53 42813500 --- -- ---xx Track04.flac
6:29.08 68638460 --- -- ---xx Track05.flac
4:35.59 48648812 --- -- ---xx Track06.flac
12:48.12 135503468 --- -- ---xx Track07-fixed.flac
21:19.39 225707372 --- -- ---xx Track08-fixed.flac
3:32.49 37512092 --- -- ---xx Track09.flac
1:25.34 15074012 --- -- ---xx Track10.flac
0:25.74 4584092 --- -- ---xx Track11.flac
4:43.64 50071772 --- -- ---xx Track12.flac
0:33.05 5833004 --- -- ---xx Track13.flac
3:39.71 38798636 --- -- ---xx Track14.flac
4:19.31 45760556 --- -- ---xx Track15.flac
5:11.12 54888668 --- -- ---xx Track16.flac
78:15.40 789.92 MB (totals for 16 files, 0.5771 overall compression ratio)

Track 7 and 8 now have diferent sizes???

Obviously I'm playing around but curious about the results?

Originally Posted by pmonk66

Now when I used batchenc and just added the tracks that hd the errors, ...

Oops, that's your mistake. You can't fix just the tracks that have errors. You have to fix the entire set of seamless files together because shntool moves track breaks back and forth.

You can only skip tracks that don't need fixing if and ONLY if they come before the first track that has an SBE. In this case, that means you can skip track01, but that's it. Notice that when you fixed them with TLH, EVERY track except for track01 ended up with '-fixed' appended to it. That's not just there for fun, it's there to tell you that that track was changed.

[pmonk]

Now what would happen if I burn that last set to a cd-r???

It would be a disaster because the fix you have performed has moved parts of the completely wrong tracks onto the fronts or ends of other tracks, depending on what kind of shift you used, i.e. you will find a millisecond of the end of track02 shifted to the beginning of track07 or a millisecond of the front of track07 shifted to the end of track02. I doubt that's what you wanted.

As for track08, all you've done is padded the end of it, which is pointless.

Frankly you are better off just burning it with the SBEs, than burning a fix job like that. I would consider such a 'fix' to be a complete and total fuckup.

Think of it this way: When you are fixing SBEs with shntool or TLH, you are moving the track breaks to where they should have been placed had the original Big Wave File been tracked along sector boundary lines. In order to do this, shntool has to work with the entire Big Wave File just like CDwave had to do. It can't work with only bits and pieces of the Big Wave File.

I also meant to say that the reason many of the tracks are the exact same size before and after the fix is because the same amount of data have been snipped off the front of the track as has been added to the end of it. The tracks are, nevertheless, different, as the -fixed tells you.

One thing to be aware of though. If you use the -noskip argument, shntool will append -fixed to each track regardless of whether it was actually fixed or not. But the -noskip argument is only to be used when you are converting the files from one format to another while you are fixing them.

[feralicious]

Originally Posted by uhclem

I also meant to say that the reason many of the tracks are the exact same size before and after the fix is because the same amount of data have been snipped off the front of the track as has been added to the end of it. The tracks are, nevertheless, different, as the -fixed tells you.

One thing to be aware of though. If you use the -noskip argument, shntool will append -fixed to each track regardless of whether it was actually fixed or not. But the -noskip argument is only to be used when you are converting the files from one format to another while you are fixing them.

That was a question I had... do you need to change flac to wav when you fix? Or is it okay to fix it and keep it as a flac? (Not that I've even been able to achieve that, but if it's okay and possible I'd like to.)

[feralicious]

Originally Posted by uhclem

As for track08, all you've done is padded the end of it, which is pointless.

Frankly you are better off just burning it with the SBEs, than burning a fix job like that. I would consider such a 'fix' to be a complete and total fuckup.

pmonk, go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

[pmonk]

Originally Posted by feralicious

pmonk, go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

As I said - I was just playing around.

If you use shntool the fix would be converted to .wav.

If you use TLH - the tracks will remain in the compressed form.

I realize you were just experimenting, pmonk. But if you need it here you go:


Shntool can output the fixed files in any audio format recognized by shntool, which includes shn, flac, wav and several others. Just insert the '-o [format]' argument after the fix argument, e.g.:

shntool fix -o flac *.flac

If you run a fix like this, only the files that need fixing will end up fixed. You will recognize them by '-fixed' being appended to the name. You can then delete their corresponding unfixed versions and you will end up with a fixed set consisting of a mix of unfixed and '-fixed' files (unless all of them had to be fixed).

Use the -noskip argument if you are outputting to a format different from the input format. This way shntool will convert those files which it doesn't actually need to fix, e.g. shntool fix -noskip -o flac *.shn

[feralicious]

Originally Posted by pmonk66

As I said - I was just playing around.

I know... I still love you. I just like to tease.

[dancin_carrot]

Does anyone know what level of FLAC compression is used with shntool? And is there a way to change it?

[jazzbo]

Originally Posted by dancin_carrot

Does anyone know what level of FLAC compression is used with shntool? And is there a way to change it?

5 (the default) and yes.

You have to use the cust format in shntool:

For example, here's a SHN file on my harddrive. (Sorry, all of my examples are in a unix shell, but the examples should be applicable to a Windows machine, just follow the instructions in the shntool documention about quoting the curly braces. But the important thing is I marked the file sizes so you can see the higher compression level working.)

/data2/bwq1977feb7$ ls -la bwq1977feb7track01.shn
-rw-r--r-- 1 kevin kevin 3437861 2004-06-27 17:40 bwq1977feb7track01.shn


Now, default FLAC compression from shntool at level 5:

/data2/bwq1977feb7$ shntool conv -o flac bwq1977feb7track01.shn
converting 'bwq1977feb7track01.shn' to 'bwq1977feb7track01.flac' ... done.

/data2/bwq1977feb7$ ls -la bwq1977feb7track01.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 kevin kevin 3354437 2005-03-27 17:02 bwq1977feb7track01.flac


Now, force level 8 with the cust format:

/data2/bwq1977feb7$ shntool conv -o cust ext=flac8 { flac - -8 -o %f } -d . *track01.shn
converting 'bwq1977feb7track01.shn' to './bwq1977feb7track01.custom' ... done.

/data2/bwq1977feb7$ ls -la bwq1977feb7track01.flac8
-rw-r--r-- 1 kevin kevin 3345563 2005-03-27 17:05 bwq1977feb7track01.flac8


The cust command here is forcing the output extension to be flac8 (just for comparison purposes while I was running the test) and passing STDIN ("-") to be compressed at level 8. I couldn't get it to work without explicitly stating I wanted output in the present path with the -d switch.

Once you get the cust format working on your setup, you can use it for output with any of shntool's modules. You can also use cust to incorporate new compression formats into shntool without the support being waiting for support to be added to shntool.

[pmonk]

I created a batch file to create md5 signatures - but I would like to it to be able to automatically name the .md5 the name of the folder that was dragged into the batch file. Is that possible???

[dancin_carrot]

Pretty cool jazzbo, thanks! I'll try to get that working if I have some time, but I've just discovered that foobar2000 can do conversion to flac level 8 from flac files encoded at an unknown level.

My next question is, is there a way to test flac files to see what level they are encoded to?