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  #121  
Old 2005-04-26, 01:29 PM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

sweet man, thanks a bunch
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  #122  
Old 2005-04-26, 02:52 PM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Hey roann - this is much appreciated, thanks a lot
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  #123  
Old 2005-04-26, 03:20 PM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

%!#&! ... this sucks ... !!! WARNING!!! ... from an email: "... i have a problem with the "fix SBE" or "PAD SBE" feature : When i want to use them with WAV files, the resulting fixed or padded files are compressed into FLAC format, though they are still called .WAV Is it me, or is there a bug somewhere ?"

Unfortunately there is a bug somewhere! Just testet heavily fixing SBEs. For ape, flac and shn files all is done the way it should be ... phew ... When fixing wav files the "fixed" files are definitely not wav but flac files ... very strange. So ... do not use fix mode / pad mode on wav files!

Big sorry for this shit, at the moment I really don't know what's going on. Just got home from work, so give me some time to fix this.

- Robert
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  #124  
Old 2005-04-26, 04:14 PM
uhclem
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzbo
I don't see how it's possible, as it is bytes in the uncompressed audio stream, not the compressed side that need to be moved so the data needs to be piped back through flac by shntool in order to make the correction. ...
jazzbo is right about this. Shntool compresses flac at default level 5, regardless of what compression level the original flacs had. Shntool always applies the default settings of whatever output format you are using.

Secondly, in order for shntool to do it's job, it always decompresses the files to wave format, does what it has to do, then compresses the results to whatever output format you specify. It does not merely shift bytes from the front of one file to the next. That would not work, since it is, as jazzbo states, the audio stream that shntool works with, not all the data in the file. In fact, if, for some reason, you had a set made up of a mix of shn, flac and wave files, shntool could easily work with all of them at once. This is because it converts everything to wave format.
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  #125  
Old 2005-04-26, 04:58 PM
uhclem
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by symon
And, while we're on the subject of fixing SBEs.. what is the difference between the different ways of fixing the SBEs - Forwards, backwards, etc. -? The default seems to be backwards. Does it matter?
The default is indeed backwards. Here's how this all works:

A sector consists of 588 samples. Let's suppose you have a track in the middle of a set somewhere (TrackX) that has an SBE of 500 samples, i.e. the last sector of the track contains only 500 samples instead of the required 588. Assume that all other tracks are sector-aligned.

If you set shntool to backward fix (the default), shntool will move the track break backwards, that means it will cut those 500 samples off the end of the file and append them to the beginning of the next file, TrackX+1. The samples move forward, but the track break has moved backwards because now TrackX ends and TrackX+1 begins 500 samples sooner.

Because 500 samples have been added to the beginning of TrackX+1, shntool will have to cut 500 off the end of that file and move them to the beginning of the next, TrackX+2. This goes on all the way down the chain until the end. The last track would then have 500 samples too many. Shntool simply pads the end with 88 samples of silence, thus giving a complete sector of 588 samples at the end.

If you set shntool to forward fix, shntool will do the opposite. It will cut 88 samples off the front of TrackX+1 and stick those 88 samples on to the end of TrackX. This will make the last sector on TrackX 588 samples (500+88), thus fixed. The samples are moved back, but the track break is moved forward because now TrackX ends and TrackX+1 begins 88 samples later.

Because 88 samples are now missing from TrackX+1, shntool cuts 88 samples from the beginning of TrackX+2 and appends them to the end of TrackX+1. But now TrackX+2 is 88 samples short, so shntool keeps on going track after track till it reaches the end. The last track then ends up 88 samples too short, so shntool pads the end of it with 88 samples of silence.

If you set shntool to round fix, shntool looks at the number of samples in the last sector of TrackX and decides whether to shift forward or back depending on size. The idea is to move as little data as possible. If the last sector contains fewer than 294 samples (i.e. 1/2 of 588) then shntool will cut off those samples and move them to the front of TrackX+1. If, on the other hand, the last sector of TrackX contains more than 294 samples, it will cut off however many samples it needs from the front of TrackX+1 and move them to the end of TrackX so that the last sector of TrackX becomes 588 samples. In the case of our 500 sample last sector, shntool would perform a forward shift and move 88 samples from the beginning of TrackX+1 to the end of TrackX. When shntool goes on to fix TrackX+1 it performs the same thing. The idea is to never move more than 294 samples from the end/beginning of one track to the next. If your set has multiple SBEs, shntool can end up moving some track breaks forward, and some track breaks backward all in the same set. I don't know what happens if a sector has exactly 294 samples, but obviously it moves those samples one way or the other.

Does it matter which you use? Not really. I use 'round' because the author of shntool claims this is a bit less work for shntool. I like round because it results in the least amount of movement of a track break. If you aren't fussy use backward (the default). I think backward is the default for the reason Five gave, i.e. to avoid moving the track break into the music of the next track.
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  #126  
Old 2005-04-26, 05:08 PM
uhclem
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by roann
PS: Just my two cents on the level of flac compression ... I'm not really a friend of a flac encoding levels higher than 6.
I agree with this 100%. If you look at the parameters that flac.exe uses for its various compression levels, there is no point in going higher than 6:

Code:
-0, --compression-level-0, --fast  Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -r 2,2
-1, --compression-level-1          Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -M -r 2,2
-2, --compression-level-2          Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -m -r 3
-3, --compression-level-3          Synonymous with -l 6 -b 4608 -r 3,3
-4, --compression-level-4          Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -M -r 3,3
-5, --compression-level-5          Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 3,3
-6, --compression-level-6          Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 4
-7, --compression-level-7          Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6
-8, --compression-level-8, --best  Synonymous with -l 12 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6
Flac Help says that '-e' means 'do exhaustive model search' which it calls 'expensive!'. It also states that a '-r' of more than 4 doesn't usually help much. Both level 7 and level 8 use the '-e' switch and an -r value above 4, but levels 6 and below do not. So unless you have an extremely fast computer you are wasting your time on anything above level 6. I have 2.4GHz and I use level 6.
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  #127  
Old 2005-04-26, 07:18 PM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by uhclem
Does it matter which you use? Not really. I use 'round' because the author of shntool claims this is a bit less work for shntool. I like round because it results in the least amount of movement of a track break. If you aren't fussy use backward (the default). I think backward is the default for the reason Five gave, i.e. to avoid moving the track break into the music of the next track.
I can't get "round" to work in shntool using the command line. Is it only -r for that? I think I was trying "shntool fix -r -noskip -o flac *.flac" Something like that.
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  #128  
Old 2005-04-26, 07:49 PM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Very nice improvements, thanks!

Double clicking on the st5 file opens TLH and goes straight into verifying, however it doesn't seem to do that with the ffp files. I tried on two different shows.
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  #129  
Old 2005-04-26, 10:48 PM
uhclem
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

um, try something like this:

shntool fix -s r -noskip -o flac *.flac
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  #130  
Old 2005-04-27, 12:23 AM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by uhclem
um, try something like this:

shntool fix -s r -noskip -o flac *.flac
Ah... thank you.
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  #131  
Old 2005-04-27, 02:44 AM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by feralicious
Very nice improvements, thanks!

Double clicking on the st5 file opens TLH and goes straight into verifying, however it doesn't seem to do that with the ffp files. I tried on two different shows.
Works fine on _all_ my machines ... let's track this down:

Right-click on the ffp file. Is there an item "Verify with Trader's Little Helper"?

If not, you probably didn't select the option "associate with ffp files" during setup procedure. If there is this item, is it printed bold?

If not, another item (the bold one) is set as default action when you double-click the file. You can change this default setting via the Tools menu of Windows Explorer. If the item is printed bold and double-clicking does not work ... I really don't know. Does processing start if you just right-click the ffp file and select "Verify ..."?
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  #132  
Old 2005-04-27, 02:52 AM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by roann
... Unfortunately there is a bug somewhere! Just testet heavily fixing SBEs. For ape, flac and shn files all is done the way it should be ... phew ... When fixing wav files the "fixed" files are definitely not wav but flac files ... very strange. ...
There was a _very_ stupid small bug I had "implemented" with v0.9.2.55. Program didn't check files to fix for wav type ... you know I'm getting older, my brain is shrinking or something ...

Anyway, this is fixed and v0.9.3.56 is released (as usually available here).

- Robert
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  #133  
Old 2005-04-27, 06:25 AM
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jcrab66 jcrab66 is offline
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

thanks man, i'm sure i speak for many others when i say how much i appreciate your efforts upgrading TLH and making it available to us..
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  #134  
Old 2005-04-27, 06:40 AM
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

but can TLH make coffee in the morning?????
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  #135  
Old 2005-04-27, 06:54 AM
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jcrab66 jcrab66 is offline
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Re: Trader's Little Helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by pmonk66
but can TLH make coffee in the morning?????
havent found that feature but then again havent found it on monkeys audio, flac frontend, mkwact or anything else either...
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