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  #31  
Old 2020-02-07, 11:42 PM
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

ftp tutorial, 2004
Quote:
Originally Posted by RainDawg
FTP Downloading

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is somewhat of an old-school method of trading files online. It is still very widely used for many applications, though it's reliance on dedicated servers has caused it to decline in popularity as an impetus for swapping audio files with the rise of decentralized distributed networks like BitTorrent. A more technical description of the nature of FTP can be found at Wikipedia.

FTP downloading sites are becoming few and far between, and since they are exclusively maintained by private parties, they vary greatly in terms of their capacity and reliability. FTP site administrators also employ varying degrees of accessibility, from fully open/public servers to private ones for personal friends only. Google, word-of-mouth, and private forums are the best way to locate FTP servers that may contain material you will be interested in. Just remember that you are always using someone else's property when download from an FTP site, so be respectful and polite to the people who provide the service to you.

In order to access an FTP site, you will need an FTP client software package. There are countless different options out there, some free, some ad-based, and some pay-for-use programs. I recommend FileZilla, a free open-source, fully secure FTP client distributed through SourceForge. There is no need to endure advertising, crippled versions, or licensing fees to use FTP. If you are interested in setting up your own FTP site, FileZilla offers a server package as well.

Here's some examples of FTP sites that I have used and enjoyed over the years. They represent mostly my own personal tastes, but feel free to check them out or look around for others which you may enjoy.
  • Bluegrassbox - A semi-public FTP site with live Bluegrass music.
  • Shntunes - This one's been around forever. Lots of jam-band type stuff.
  • The Live Music Internet Archive - Though not exclusively an FTP site, the Live Music Archive (consistenting of 1000s of shows) can be accessed through FTP as well as HTTP download and BitTorrent.
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  #32  
Old 2020-02-07, 11:53 PM
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Five Five is offline
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

b&p tutorial, 2004
Quote:
Originally Posted by RainDawg
Blanks and Postage (B&P) Trading

If you are somewhat new to lossless audio trading, or have been doing it exclusively throught internet downloading, you may be unfamiliar with the term B&P. Simply put, it is an acronym for a "Blanks and Postage" trade. In essence, you send someone black media (CDs or DVDs) and a postage paid return mailer, addressed to yourself, in order that someone can make you copies of the material you want, and drop it in a mailbox to return it to you without having to pay. In the early days of internet trading, this was one of the few ways that someone could get into the trading field. People willing to donate some time to making copies for you could do so without having to invest in the media and shipping themselves.

Though they are far less common today than several years ago, many, many people still use B&Ps as a way to share with others, get a small tradelist started, or just out of nostalgia for the good old days. I am generally willing to do reasonably sized B&P offers with people who request for me to do so. Many other traders are willing to do the same. Below are some links to help you learn the etiquette, find somewhere to search for B&P offers, etc. Have fun!
  • Beginner's B&P Instructions - An exceptionally detailed guide to doing a proper B&P. The author mentions Grateful Dead, DMB, and Phish, but the same rules apply to all trading communities.
  • The Trader's Den B&P Forums - A forum where you can seek out, offer, or respond to B&P offers (free registration required to post).
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Quote:
Originally posted by oxymoron
Here you are in a place of permanent madness, be careful!
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  #33  
Old 2020-02-08, 12:01 AM
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

foobar2000 tutorial, 2004-12-02
Quote:
Originally Posted by RainDawg View Post
Tagging an Album List on foobar2000

I was asked to give some information on how I tag and setup my files with foobar2000, so here goes. This is, by no means, a definitive tutorial, but just some samples to get people stepping in the right direction. It would take several days to put together a really foolproof guide for all of these, but I wanted to get this out to some people, so I made it quick and chockfull of pictures. It might take some time to get used to all of this, but I just spent two hours making this guide, so I fully expect everyone to devote equal time to figuring out this program....once you do, it will be worth it, I promise.

First, put a list of files that you want tagged into the foobar2000 playlist window. Right click on them, select masstagger, and then "edit tags"

[image missing]

The script that I have made, shown in the screencap below, shows all of the necessary tags to get my album list window to work properly. You can, of course, add or remove any of them as you see fit.

Artist = The main artist for this album
Albumartist = The artists you'd like this to show up under in the albumlist. You cannot add multiple artists in this dialog, we'll cover that in a minute (a weakness of masstagger here...)
Album = album
Date = YYYY-MM-DD...my album list sciprt sorts by this, so you'll want to set this properly
Genre
Input Data = I use this to add the song titles. Each track will get one line, sequentially. I copy/paste the setlist data into this window, and then edit the string above it to tell masstagger how to interpret each line.
Format "TITLE" using "$caps($trim(%title%))" = This will capitalize the first letter from each word in the title, and trick leading and trailing spaces. Makes editing the text in each line easier
Auto Track Number = self-explanatory for multidisc sets, I number them sequentially from 1-xx...technically you could wrestly with giving each track a disc# and a track#, but that's more shit than it's worth. Just number them in order from start to finish....
Legality = Bootleg or Official

[image missing]

Now press "Run" to apply all the tags. When you're satisfied, close masstagger, and you have nicely tagged files.

[image missing]

If you want to add multiple instances of the albumartist tags, required for the album to show up under multiple names in the album list, you'll need to head back to the main playlist window, select all of the files, right click, and select "properites". It will list all of the tags currently on the file. Double-click the "albumartist" field and add whatever extra artists you wish to, separated by a "\" character.

[image missing]

Now to setup the database. In the preferences dialog, select "database" from the list of options. Tell it what folder is the master for your audio files. You can also tell it what filetypes to add if you want. When you're done, you will need to shutdown and restart foobar2000. Then, re-enter the database dialog and press "scan". Depending on how many files you have, this will take several minutes to gather the metadata for every file.

[image missing]

Now to setup the album list. Again, go into the preferences dialog, and select album list. In this screencap, you'll see all of my formatting scripts. The one I am going to be displaying later on this page is here:

Code:
albumartist|'('$if3(%date%,%year%,'no date')')'     $if($greater($meta_num(albumartist),3),'Various Artists',$if(%band%,%artist%' & '%band%,$meta_sep(artist,'; ')))    '"'%album%'"       ['%legality% $upper($ext(%_path%))']'|$num(%tracknumber%,2)'. '$if($greater($meta_num(albumartist),3),$if(%band%,%artist%' & '%band%,$meta_sep(artist,'; '))' - ',)%title%'   ['%__bitrate%'Kbps]'
[image missing]

Save that script, then head to the album list.

[image missing]

Mine looks like this:

[image missing]

And then a glance at what a nicely organized artist entry is. Notice how they say what the "main artist" is at the beginning of each entry. There is one in there called "Rock of Ages" that is actually an album by The Band. Since Dylan appears on it, I added him has an "albumartist" previously, and now it shows up under both artists in the Album List.

[image missing]
__________________
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Quote:
Originally posted by oxymoron
Here you are in a place of permanent madness, be careful!
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  #34  
Old 2020-02-13, 08:22 PM
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

foobar2000 tutorial, 2004-12-02. Recommended to use TLH these days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Five View Post
SHN to FLAC Conversions Using Foobar2000

First off, special thanks to RainDawg who wrote much of the text included here and gave me the knowledge to create this visual tutorial.

As for converting, it is acceptable and encouraged to convert SHN to FLAC, as the former is an outdated and obsolete codec. FLAC has numerous advantages, and you can read a little more about the major differences in the FAQ's audio types and descriptions entry:
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/...#faq_filetypes

Foobar2000 Installation and Configuration

Now, foobar2000 is the complete solution to PLAYING your files, but you may not realize that it comes with an enormous amount of plugins that help you do everything else with those files too. First, make sure you've got the Special Installer version 0.8.3 (the most complete and up to date version) from the foobar2000 blogiste.

When you install this program, make sure you include all of the plugins (some may not be useful to you, but they are all fun to play with and learn what options are out there). This will make sure that you have the diskwriter plugin, which will allow you to do direct file conversions.

When the foobar2000 installer promts you to select installation type, select "Full".

[image missing]

The next thing you need to do is configure foobar2000. Go to Foobar2000>Preferences.

[image missing]

On the left, click on "Diskwriter". Under "Output presets" press the "Add new" button. A new window will appear with the title "Select file writer". Select FLAC.

[image missing]

A new window will appear with the title "FLAC encoding settings". Set "Compression level" to 8. Since FLAC decompresses at the same speed no matter what the compression setting is during encoding, it is best to encode your FLACs with the maximum available compression.

The padding is a certain amount of space left at the beginning of the file, before the audio portion, for adding tags (aka Vorbis comments). You can force this to be something other than the default 4096, but it's not recommended. What creating this default space does is allow people to add and edit tags without having to rewrite the entire file....

Unles you're putting a sick amount of information (pages of text for a single track) the 4096 should be plenty. Of couse, it's awfully rude to decrease this value as people who download your seeds WILL want the freedom to add whatever tags they choose.

Click "OK".

[image missing]

Next, configure foobar2000 so that filenames aren't changed and the output is in the same directory as the source files. Set "Output directory" to "Same as source file directory" and under "Output file name formatting put "%_filename%" (no quotes). More formatting options can be found here.

Your diskwriter preferences should appear as below. Click "Save all".

[image missing]

foobar2000 is now installed and configured for the conversion.

Conversion

Before starting the conversion, check the md5s using md5summer or similar program. All files must be "OK".

[image missing]

Now rename the .md5 file in a way that reflects that it is only associated with the old SHN files. I usually add "shn_" to the beginning of the filename. Do not delete this file. It can be useful as another means to identify which version of the show this is. Do not edit this file other than the filename.

Now you are almost ready to begin conversion. This is a good time to fix spelling mistakes, rename your files to etree format, add a zero before the track numbers 1-9, etc. When you're done, drag and drop all of the SHN files into foobar2000.

[image missing]

Press Ctrl + A to select all files, then right-click on one of the files and select Convert>Run conversion.

[image missing]

A new window will appear with the title "Select file writer preset". FLAC : compression level 8, 4096 bytes padding should be the default setting, if not then select it from the drop-down menu and click "OK".

[image missing]

A progress window will appear. This will take a few minutes.

[image missing]

Bit-compare

When the conversion is finished, select all of the newly-created FLACs and drag and drop them into foobar2000 together with the SHNs which are still there.

[image missing]

At this point you should have the complete SHN and FLAC sets in foobar2000's playlist. Do some simple math... in my example I have 14 SHNs + 14 FLACs = 28 files in foobar2000... yup, we're ready to start. Select all (Ctrl + A), right-click and select "Bit-compare tracks..."

[image missing]

First time you will see some one-time information. Click "OK".

[image missing]

A progress bar will appear, as well as the Console window. Wait a few minutes for it to finish.

[image missing]

Now it's time to check the results:

INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t01.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t01.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t02.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t02.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t03.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t03.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t04.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t04.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t05.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t05.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t06.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t06.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t07.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t07.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t08.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t08.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t09.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t09.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t10.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t10.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t11.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t11.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t12.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t12.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t13.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t13.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Comparing:
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t14.shn" (0)
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : location: "file://D:\sp1992-09-12.flac16\sp1992-09-12d1t14.flac" (0)
INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file
INFO (foo_shn) : internal seektable will be used.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : No differences in decoded data found.
INFO (foo_bitcompare) : Finished successfully.


Q: Now, it says that there were no differences found, and I'm cool with that.

The part where it says that it cannot find / read external blah blah blah. No seektable loaded, etc.

Is this cause for concern?

A: No cause for concern here. foo_shn is the SHN decoder plugin for foobar2000. This is just giving you a little feedback about the SHN file:

INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / read external metadata tag file

This means that there is no .tag file associated with the SHN file. Since SHN does not have any inherant support for tagging, foo_shn can write metadeta to a .tag file. This obviously doesn't have one, but that's fine.

INFO (foo_shn) : cannot find / load external seektable file.

Again, foo_shn is looking for either appended to external seektables. It didn't find any, which means that the SHNs are not seekable (in most other players). The line below that, however, shows just one reason why foobar is the best player out there: it is making up for the lack of a seektable by generating one on the fly so that the end user will never have to worry if the original files were seekable or not.

The foo_bitcompare plugin is just telling you which files it is comparing, and then returns the result that no differences were found. You've successfully completed a SHN > FLAC conversion!

The fastest way to check for errors is to look for the word "ERROR" anywhere on the left-hand side of the log. If you only see the word "INFO", then there were no errors. For an example of what an error looks like, I compared two different files and snapped a pic of the Console window:

[image missing]

Don't rely on your machine "beeping". Mine didn't.

So long as there are no errors, feel free to delete the SHN files now.

Fingerprinting and Updating Lineage

So at this point hopefully you've finished your conversion and have finished a successful verification. Congratulations! There is just a little bit more to do.

FLAC fingerprints: Get FLAC frontend and install it if you haven't already. Drag and drop your new FLAC files into FLAC frontend. It's a nice touch to keep them in the correct order, so grab the set from the first file (circled). Push "Fingerprint".

[image missing]

Save the generated .txt file in the same folder with the FLACs.

[image missing]

If you are feeling paranoid, push the "Test" button to verify your FLACs again using FLAC frontend.

Always include in your lineage how you did to the files what you did. The above example would include:

SHN > foobar2000 0.8.3 (convered and bitverified identical) > FLAC


Note: this will NOT look at, change, or correct any sector boundary issues. If you have SBEs that you need to correct, this needs to be done with shntool. If you run a conversion with FLAC Frontend, there IS an option to correct SBEs, but if the files are in the wrong order in the original window, you're going to have screwed up the entire set.

Feel free to also add tags to your FLAC files:
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/...ead.php?t=1140

Quote:
Originally Posted by ssamadhi97
SBE checking code for foobar2000

To add file format independent SBE indication to your playlist, append the following code to your playlist formatting string (Preferences -> Display -> Title formatting, Playlist tab):

$ifgreater($mod(%_length_samples%,588),0,$rgb(180,90,90,180,90,90)$num($mod(%_length_samples%,588),3 ),)

The result looks kinda like this:

[image missing]

Tracks with a red number after the playing time have an SBE. For example, in the screenshot above, only the Stolen Ogre tracks have SBEs.


note the nifty PacMan progress bar
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Quote:
Originally posted by oxymoron
Here you are in a place of permanent madness, be careful!
Reply With Quote Reply with Nested Quotes
  #35  
Old 2020-02-13, 08:41 PM
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Five Five is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Canada
Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

Creating DVD/CD Cover Art Guide by trbrown4 via thisistoto, 2006-02-18
Quote:
Originally Posted by thisistoto View Post
Tim’s (trbrown4) Guide To The Basics Of Creating Cover Art

Intro

I was asked to put this little “how-to” guide together. By no means am I an expert or a professional in this field. I figured most of these tricks out on my own and have been fairly happy with the results. Take from this what you will, and if you have any comments or additions to this guide please contact me.

I hope that some of you will find this helpful and that you will begin/continue to create cover art and spread it to the community.

Enjoy!

Who Is This For?

This guide is aimed at the user who has a fair amount of computer knowledge and has some basic computer problem solving skills. If you already are able to create cover art that other people like and are able to create art that you would be willing to post online, this probably is not for you. If you have the desire to create some cool art, but little Photoshop experience, this guide is for you.

To create cover art for my DVD/CD collection I use Adobe Photoshop 7.0. So this guide will be geared towards a Photoshop 7.0 user. I am sure that there are other graphic programs that can be used, even older versions of Photoshop, many with the same tools. But, this guide is based in Photoshop 7.0.

Below are a few templates for you to use as blank canvases, one for the front of CD jewel case and one for a standard DVD case. I did not create the DVD template, I found in about 2 years ago on Sharingthegroove (RIP).

CD Cover

[image missing]

DVD Cover

[image missing]

Before You Begin….

Grab yourself a copy of Adobe Photoshop and start a nice image collection. To find and gather images I use Google’s Image search. This tool is a lifesaver for any digital artist.

http://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&ta...-US:official_s

Bookmark this site! Use it, and use it often. Since you will not be using this art for profit, you do not need to worry about copyright and image licensing. However, it is polite to at least grant credit to a photographer if you use their work in your art and get their permission first.

I often use Google’s Image Search to gather images for background art for my covers. Try and grab the highest resolution possible. There is a search option that will look for “large”, “medium” or “small” images.

You will also want to build your collection of fonts. The basic ones that are built into your OS will get old…very quick. There are tons of free fonts out there for every OS….thousands of them. It takes some time to collect and install them, but it will be worth it when you find that you have a huge collection of fonts to choose from!

A Couple Of Useful Tools In Photoshop:

Undo

Oh yeah…and remember that UNDO is your friend! Ctrl-Z at anytime to undo what you just did, this is a lifesaver.

Zooming

You can zoom in and out of your image to get a close up view or see the big picture. Zoom in Ctrl +, zoom out Ctrl -

Saving

As soon as you have completed your first step on any art work it is a good idea to save your art in case something tragic happens. Save every few minutes or after every major step/addition. It sucks to lose something that you have just spent a lot of time on.

File->Save will allow you to save in Photoshop format. PSD format keeps all of your layers intact and makes it super simple to edit later. Always keep a saved copy of your art in PSD for later edits!!! TO save in JPG or any other common image format…..
File->Save-as and the select your format.

Let’s Begin….

I will guide from beginning to end of the creation of some custom DVD artwork. All of these techniques can be used in various types of artwork, so feel free to play around.

Start up Photoshop and open up a template, either CD or DVD. OK, so now what??? Just a blank white canvas??? No, that just won’t do. You’ve got to add some sort of background. You can either choose a solid color and fill it in using the paint bucket tool, or you can use a higher resolution back ground image.



Setting Your Background Image

Open an image which you would like to use as a background or the base of your art work. Select all (Ctrl-A) to select the entire image and copy (Ctrl-C). Once you have “selected all” you will notice a moving dotted line outlining the image.



Close the image window out and make sure the open template is selected. Paste (Ctrl-V) the image into open template.



Now your copied and pasted background image appears in your template. Notice that it automatically created a new layer in the layers window. I have circled this in red for you to see. So, the image is there and now you need to resize that layer to fit the template. First grab the image and drag it to one corner. Edit->Transform-Scale and drag by one of the corners to stretch it as much as you would like. When you have resized the background image to the desired size press enter to make it official. Now you should have something that looks like this.



Making A Color Overlay Layer To Dull The Image Down A Bit

If you plan adding a lot of detail over your background image, you may want to consider dulling the background color a little bit. This is strictly a judgment call on your part, and it is easy to reverse if you decide against it later.

First, create your new layer. Layer->New->Layer. Once you have done this a window will pop up enabling you to name this layer. For organizational purposes name it something like “Color Overlay”. Select layer opacity to around 50%, this makes the layer transparent. Feel free to experiment later with which percentage you prefer. To do this simply right-click on the layer and adjust the opacity percentage in the “Blending Options” menu.

Ok, so now that you have created you new layer with an opacity percentage less than 100 you can now fill it in using a dull shade like grey or white. Select the “Color Overlay” layer and select the paint bucket tool (follow the red arrow below). Then select the color you will use to fill in using the color selector tool (follow the blue arrow below).



Once you have selected the paint bucket tool and you color, fill it in. I used white to fill in and it looks like this now:



If you don’t like it, you can simply change the color or opacity. Easy as pie! Or you can just do away with the overlay layer altogether by deleting it from your layer window. You can always just click on the little eye to hide that layer and see what your image will look like with out that layer.

You can add additional pictures or artwork over top (or behind) using the same blending/opacity techniques to mix it all up and make and very interesting background. Experiment and have fun!

Adding Text

So, it may be a good idea to label the covert art with important information regarding the contents of the disc(s). Text is fairly easy to include and alter. Select the text tool (follow the dark green arrow below.) Select you font style and size (follow the gold arrow below.) Set the cursor where ever you want to add your text.



Every time that you select the text tool and place the cursor it will create a new layer for that text. You can edit text in an already established letter by selecting the text tool at any time and click on the text that you want to edit. This takes some getting used to, but eventually you will get the hang out it. Earlier version of Photoshop required you to select the layer first and then place the cursor. Gotta love version improvements!

You will also notice that when the text tool is selected there are many text options located along the top of the window. The ‘right justify’ ‘center justify’ and ‘left justify’ buttons are essential. You can use different fonts and sizes within one layer, just select the text that you want to edit and go for it.

Now that you have placed text on the front and back cover you will want to label the spine. There are two ways to do this. You can either enter the text and then rotate it OR you can rotate the entire image, add the text ad then rotate back. I prefer the later.

Image->Rotate Canvas->90 deg. CCW. Select you text tool, place your cursor and type away. You should have something that looks like this:



Now rotate the image back by doing… Image->Rotate Canvas->90 deg. CW.

Text Effects

These are also very easy with newer versions. Select the text layer that you want to add an effect to and then select all of the text that you want affected. Layer->Layer Style->(Which ever style you want to play with). I like to use the ‘drop shadow’ and ‘stroke’ styles with text. There are many parameters that you can edit and play with. Have fun and experiment.

So I have decided to add a drop shadow to the band name text on the front cover, and here is how it looks (I zoomed in)



These same layer style effects can be applied to images and other object with in your image. Simply assign it to a new layer and “style” away.

Adding Misc. Stuff

So to make your final art look even more impressive add a “Warning” to the back cover and a “DVD” logo to your spine. My typical warning sounds something like this:

WARNING: This DVD was created by fans of the BAND NAME live experience for fans and should not be profited from in anyway. Please support the free trade of live music. Cover Art designed by YOUR NAME

So, feel free to add that.

Below is a generic DVD logo to insert on to the spine. You will want to add this just as you did your initial background image. Before you put it in your art you may want to change the color to match the theme of your art. Open it, copy it, paste it and resize it. I sometimes even add a drop shadow

[image missing]

You can also add a cute little logo or band picture in the upper part of the spine if you want to. Get creative!

So after adding these here is what we have:



Printing

Now that you have spent many minutes creating this art you will want to print it. If you used the template that I gave you, it will print out to the appropriate size if you set the print layout to ‘Landscape’. Print settings vary for each printer manufacturer so you will have to play around and figure it out.

I almost always use matte (not glossy) photo paper for my art. I use the brand made by my printer manufacturer. I never would have thought that this made as much of a difference, it truly does. You can always use regular paper stock if you like, just don’t expect top photo quality results. Also, I never use generic ink. I used to years ago in my old printer but I found that over time the print quality got worse. I don’t know how to explain this, but I only use brand name ink now. I guess if you want top results you have to be willing to pony up the dough for the real stuff.

I have been using a Canon i560 with Canon Ink and Canon Matte Photo paper for the last 18 months or so and have been very pleased with the results.
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

Technobabble sticky post by RainDawg, 2004-11-29
Quote:
Originally Posted by RainDawg View Post
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

offsite TLH tutorial by Godxofxrock9, 2013-12-21. version with images available here as of this writing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Godxofxrock9
How to make a torrent using Trader's Little Helper

I will show you with traders little helper you can also use utorrent vuze etc but this one is the best for me
[tlh.easytree.org]

01. open it the icon should look like this once installed

[image missing]

02. once opened it should look like this

[image missing]

03. then go over to the part that says torrent and it will give you the option to check the torrent or create you want to create so then it should look like this

[image missing]

you can select where the files are that you want to make in to a torrent with the directory then go to tracker announce and select your tracker

[image missing]

then create your torrent
once successfully done it should look like this

[image missing]
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

.shn / shorten.txt 2007-03

Code:
SHORTEN(1)                           local                          SHORTEN(1)



NAME
       shorten - fast compression for waveform files

SYNOPSIS
       shorten [-hlu] [-a #bytes] [-b #samples] [-c #channels] [-d #bytes] [-m
       #blocks] [-n #dB] [-p #order] [-q #bits] [-r #bits] [-t  filetype]  [-v
       #version] [waveform-file [shortened-file]]

       shorten  -x  [-hl] [ -a #bytes] [-d #bytes]  [shortened-file [waveform-
       file]]

       shorten [ -e | -i | -k | -s | -S<name> ] shortened-file

       shorten [ -s | -S<name> ] < shortened-data

DESCRIPTION
       shorten reduces the size of waveform files (such as audio) using  Huff-
       man  coding  of  prediction residuals and optional additional quantisa-
       tion.  In lossless mode the amount of compression obtained  depends  on
       the nature of the waveform.  Those composing of low frequencies and low
       amplitudes give the best compression,  which  may  be  2:1  or  better.
       Lossy compression operates by specifying a minimum acceptable segmental
       signal to noise ratio or a maximum bit rate.   Lossy compression  oper-
       ates  by  zeroing  the  lower  order bits of the waveform, so retaining
       waveform shape.

       If both file names are specified then these are used as the  input  and
       output  files.  The first file name can be replaced by "-" to read from
       standard input and likewise the second filename can be replaced by  "-"
       to  write  to  standard  output.   Under UNIX, if only one file name is
       specified, then that name is used for input and the output file name is
       generated  by  adding the suffix ".shn" on compression and removing the
       ".shn" suffix on decompression.  In  these  cases  the  input  file  is
       removed  on  completion.   The use of automatic file name generation is
       not currently supported under DOS.  If no  file  names  are  specified,
       shorten reads from standard input and writes to standard output.  When-
       ever possible, the output file inherits the permissions, owner,  group,
       access and modification times of the input file.

       From  release  2.3  the  RIFF  WAVE  (Microsoft  .wav) file type is the
       default.  These files contain enough information to  set  most  of  the
       switches  presented  below,  so effective operation is obtained just by
       setting the desired level of compression (-n or -r switch).

OPTIONS
       -a align bytes
              Specify the number of bytes to be copied  verbatim  before  com-
              pression  begins.   This  option  can  be used to preserve fixed
              length ASCII headers on waveform files, and may be necessary  if
              the header length is an odd number of bytes.

       -b block size
              Specify  the  number  of  samples to be grouped into a block for
              processing.  Within a block the signal elements are expected  to
              have  the  same  spectral  characteristics.   The default option
              works well for a large range of audio files.

       -c channels
              Specify the number of independent interwoven channels.  For  two
              signals, a(t) and b(t) the original data format is assumed to be
              a(0),b(0),a(1),b(1)...

       -d discard bytes
              Specify the number of bytes to be discarded  before  compression
              or decompression.  This may be used to delete header information
              from a file.  Refer to the -a  option  for  storing  the  header
              information in the compressed file.

       -e     Erase seek information from an existing file.

       -h     Give a short message specifying usage options.

       -i     Inquire  as  to whether the given file is an external seek table
              file, a file with seek tables appended to it,  or  neither.   If
              seek  tables  are  present,  the  seek  table revision number is
              shown.

       -k     Append seek information to an existing file.

       -l     Prints the software license specifying the  conditions  for  the
              distribution and usage of this software.

       -m blocks
              Specify  the  number  of  past blocks to be used to estimate the
              mean and power of the signal.  The value of zero  disables  this
              prediction  and  the mean is assumed to lie in the middle of the
              range of the relevant data type (i.e. at zero for signed quanti-
              ties).    The  default value is non-zero for format versions 2.0
              and above.

       -n noise level
              Specify the minimum acceptable segmental signal to  noise  ratio
              in dB.  The signal power is taken as the variance of the samples
              in the current block.  The noise power is the quantisation noise
              incurred  by  coding the current block assuming that samples are
              uniformally distributed over the quantisation interval.  The bit
              rate  is  dynamically  changed to maintain the desired signal to
              noise ratio.  The default value represents lossless coding.

       -p prediction order
              Specify the maximum order of the linear predictive filter.   The
              default  value of zero disables the use of linear prediction and
              a polynomial interpolation method is used instead.  The  use  of
              the  linear  predictive  filter  generally  results  in  a small
              improvement in compression ratio at  the  expense  of  execution
              time.    This  is the only option to use a significant amount of
              floating point  processing  during  compression.   Decompression
              still uses a minimal number of floating point operations.

              Decompression  time  is normally about twice that of the default
              polynomial interpolation.  For version 0 and 1, compression time
              is linear in the specified maximum order as all lower values are
              searched for the greatest expected compression  (the  number  of
              bits  required  to transmit the prediction residual is monotoni-
              cally decreasing with prediction order,  but  transmitting  each
              filter  coefficient  requires about 7 bits).   For version 2 and
              above, the search is started at zero order and  terminated  when
              the  last  two prediction orders give a larger expected bit rate
              than the minimum found to date.   This is a reasonable  strategy
              for many real world signals - you may revert back to the exhaus-
              tive algorithm by setting -v1 to check that this works for  your
              signal type.

       -q quantisation level
              Specify the number of low order bits in each sample which can be
              discarded (set to zero).  This is useful if these bits carry  no
              information,  for example when the signal is corrupted by noise.

       -r bit rate
              Specify the expected maximum number of  bits  per  sample.   The
              upper bound on the bit rate is achieved by setting the low order
              bits of the sample to zero, hence maximising the segmental  sig-
              nal to noise ratio.

       -s     Write  seek table information to a separate file (uses shortened
              file name with '.skt' extension).  If the shortened data is read
              from  standard  input,  then  the seek table information will be
              saved in 'stdin.skt'.

       -S<name>
              Write seek  table  information  to  a  separate  file  given  by
              "<name>".

       -t file type
              Gives the type of the sound sample file as one of aiff, wav, s8,
              u8, s16, u16, s16x, u16x, s16hl, u16hl, s16lh, u16lh,  ulaw,  or
              alaw.

              The simple types are listed first and have an initial s or u for
              signed or unsigned data, followed by 8 or 16 as  the  number  of
              bits  per sample.  No further extension means the data is in the
              natural byte order, a trailing x specifies byte swapped data, hl
              explicitly  states  the  byte order as high byte followed by low
              byte and lh the converse.  Hence s16 means signed 16  bit  inte-
              gers in the natural byte order (like C would fwrite() shorts).

              ulaw is the natural file type of ulaw encoded files (such as the
              default sun .au files) and alaw is a similar byte-packed scheme.
              Specific  optimisations  are applied to ulaw and alaw files.  If
              lossless compression is specified with ulaw files then  a  check
              is  made  that the whole dynamic range is used (useful for files
              recorded on a SparcStation with the volume set too high).  Loss-
              less  coding  of  both file types uses an internal format with a
              monotonic mapping to linear.  If lossy compression is  specified
              then  the  data  is  internally  converted to linear.  The lossy
              option "-r4" has been observed to give  little  degradation  and
              provides 2:1 compression.

              With the types listed above you should explicitly set the number
              of channels (if not mono) with -c and if  the  file  contains  a
              header  the  size  should  be  specified  with -a.  This is most
              important for lossy compression which will lead to data  corrup-
              tion if a file header is inadvertently lossy coded.

              Finally,  as  of  version 2.3, the file type may be specified as
              wav (the default).  In this case the file to  be  compressed  is
              interogated  for  the specific data type (chosen from the above)
              and the number of channels to be used.  The header length align-
              ment  (-a  flag)  is  also  automatic  so  lossless  compression
              requires no switches to be set and  lossy  compression  requires
              only that the compression level be set with -n or -r.

       -u     The  ulaw  standard (ITU G711) has two codes which both map onto
              the zero value on a linear scale.   The "-u" flag maps the nega-
              tive zero onto the positive zero and so yields marginally better
              compression for format version 2 (the gain  is  significant  for
              older format versions).

       -v version
              Specify  the  binary  format version number of compressed files.
              Legal values are currently 1, 2 and 3, with higher numbers  gen-
              erally  giving  better compression.  2 and 3 are identical, with
              the exception that 2 does not  generate  seek  tables,  while  3
              does.  Detection of format version on decode is automatic.

       -x extract
              Reconstruct  the  original file.  All other command line options
              except -a and -d are ignored.


METHODOLOGY
       shorten works by blocking the signal, making a model of each  block  in
       order  to remove temporal redundancy, then Huffman coding the quantised
       prediction residual.


   Blocking
       The signal is read in a block of about 128 or  256  samples,  and  con-
       verted to integers with expected mean of zero.  Sample-wise-interleaved
       data is converted to separate channels, which are assumed  independent.


   Decorrelation
       Four  functions  are  computed, corresponding to the signal, difference
       signal, second and third order differences.  The one  with  the  lowest
       variance is coded.  The variance is measured by summing absolute values
       for speed and to avoid overflow.


   Compression
       It is assumed the signal has the Laplacian probability density function
       of  exp(-abs(x)).   There is a computationally efficient way of mapping
       this density to Huffman codes, The code is in  four  parts:  a  run  of
       zeros;  a  bounding  one; a fixed number of bits mantissa; and the sign
       bit.  The number of leading zeros gives the  offset  from  zero.   Some
       examples for a 2 bit mantissa:

              Value  zeros  stopbit  mantissa  signbit  total code
              0             1        00        0        1000
              1             1        01        0        1010
              2             1        10        0        1010
              4      0      1        00        0        01000
              7      0      1        11        0        01110
              8      00     1        00        0        001000
              -1            1        00        1        1001
              -2            1        01        1        1011
              -7     0      1        10        1        01101

       Note  that  negative  numbers  are offset by one as there is no need to
       have  two  zero  codes.   The  technical  report   CUED/F-INFENG/TR.156
       included  with the shorten distribution as files tr154.tex and tr154.ps
       contains bugs in this format description and is superceeded by this man
       page.


EMBEDDED OPERATION
       Shorten may be used embedded within other programs.  shorten is a func-
       tion call implemented in the file shorten.c.  The file main.c  provides
       a wrapper for stand alone operation.  A simple example of ebedded oper-
       ation can be found in the file embedded.c.   Full windows DLL operation
       is provided in the windll subdirectory.


SEE ALSO
       compress(1),pack(1).


DIAGNOSTICS
       Exit  status  is  normally  0.   A warning is issued if the file is not
       properly aligned, i.e. a whole number of records could not be  read  at
       the end of the file.

BUGS
       An  easy way to test shorten for your system is to use "make check", if
       this  fails,  for  whatever  reason,  please  report   it   to   <shnu-
       [email protected]>.

       No  check  is  made  for increasing file size, but valid waveform files
       generally achieve some compression.  Even compressing a file of  random
       bytes (which represents the worst case waveform file) only results in a
       small increase in the file length (about 6% for 8 bit data and  3%  for
       16  bit  data).  There is one condition that is know to be problematic,
       that is the lossy compression of unsigned data without mean  estimation
       -  large file sizes may result if the mean is far from the middle range
       value.  For these files the value of the -m switch should be  non-zero,
       as it is by default in format version 2.

       There  is no provision for different channels containing different data
       types.  Normally, this is not a restriction, but it does mean  that  if
       lossy coding is selected for the ulaw type, then all channels use lossy
       coding.

       The technical report CUED/F-INFENG/TR.156 (included in the shorten dis-
       tribution)  report  contains  errors in the bitfield format description
       and is superceeded by this document.

       See the file "ChangeLog" for a history of bug fixes and  feature  addi-
       tions.

       Please  mail  Jason  Jordan  at  the address below if you find a bug in
       shorten involving seek tables.

       Please mail Brian Willoughby at the address below if you find a bug  in
       the AIFF implementation.

       Please  mail Tony Robinson immediately at the address below if you find
       a bug in shorten that is NOT related to seek tables  or  AIFF  support.
       Make  sure you can reproduce your bug using version 2.3a, the last ver-
       sion known to be released by him.


AVAILABILITY
       The   latest   2.x   and   3.x   versions   can   be   obtained    from
       <http://www.etree.org/shnutils/shorten/>        or        <http://shnu-
       tils.freeshell.org/shorten/>.


AUTHORS
       Copyright (C) 1992-1999 by Tony Robinson and SoftSound  Ltd  (ajr@soft-
       sound.com)

       Unix   maintenance   of   3.x   versions   by   Jason   Jordan   <shnu-
       [email protected]>.

       AIFF    support     and     maintenance     by     Brian     Willoughby
       <[email protected]> of Sound Consulting <http://sounds.wa.com/>.

       Shorten  is  available  for  non-commercial  use  without fee.  See the
       LICENSE file for the formal copying and usage restrictions.   For  sup-
       ported  versions  please  see http://www.softsound.com/Shorten.html and
       for commercial use please contact [email protected]



shorten 3.6.1                     March 2007                        SHORTEN(1)
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

shntool install.txt, 2006-12-23

Code:
shntool for DOS/Windows
-----------------------

shntool was built as a native DOS/Windows console application using the MinGW
toolkit, available at <http://www.mingw.org/>.

Support for various file formats is available by downloading the appropriate
win32 helper program linked from the shntool webpage.


============
Installation
============

To install shntool, first extract the files contained in the distribution .zip
file to a temporary directory, and copy shntool.exe to any directory that is
in your PATH.  To find out what directories are in your PATH, open a DOS prompt
and type:

  C:\> echo %PATH%

Any of the listed directories will do, but perhaps the best choice is one of the
Windows directories, e.g. C:\Windows, C:\Windows\Command, C:\Windows\System,
C:\WinNT, C:\WinNT\System32, et cetera.  Of course, yours may be different than
these, and there may be more than one Windows directory listed.

To make sure shntool working correctly, go to the DOS prompt and type:

  C:\> shntool -v

If that doesn't work, you may need to add the extension:

  C:\> shntool.exe -v

You should see shntool's version information (verify that it shows the correct
version - if not, then you probably have an outdated copy of shntool.exe
somewhere on your hard drive that you need to remove).  If you don't see the
version information, or if you get a message saying that the command was not
found, then shntool is not installed correctly.

After you are sure that shntool is installed correctly, you can install any of
the helper programs listed above by copying them to the same directory in which
shntool.exe resides.


=====
Usage
=====

To use shntool, simply invoke it from a DOS prompt as follows:

  C:\> shntool

To learn more about shntool command-line parameters and how to use its various
modes, see the shntool.txt or shntool.pdf files included in this distribution.


==================
Document revision:
==================

$Id: INSTALL.mingw,v 1.2 2006/12/23 06:10:11 jason Exp $
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

shntool changelog.txt and known bugs, 2009-03-30

Code:
version 3.0.10 (2009-03-30)
  + cat mode: fixed bug that prevented use of the -d option
  + cat mode [win32]: properly write WAVE data to the terminal
  + conv mode [win32]: properly read WAVE data from the terminal

version 3.0.9 (2009-03-18)
  + allow fix mode to fix (essentially postpad) just one file, which is useful
    when using the -c option to check for boundary issues
  + added new global -F option to specify a file containing input filenames
    (most modes will now accept input filenames from a single source, using the
     following order of precedence: file specified by -F option, otherwise
     filenames on the command line, otherwise filenames read from the terminal)

version 3.0.8 (2008-08-27)
  + added new -a option to show default encoder/decoder arguments
  + fixed bug when prompting for overwrite action when stdin was
    already at EOF on certain platforms (e.g. OS X)
  + split mode: handle CUE sheets that contain Unicode BOMs
  + wv format: support self-extracting WavPack files

version 3.0.7 (2008-03-02)
  + support for TAK decoding (requires TAK 1.0.4+)
  + updated MPEG-4 ALS to version RM20, and added output support
  + removed detection of unsupported formats RKAU and WMA

version 3.0.6 (2007-12-16)
  + support for TAK encoding (requires TAK 1.0.3+)

version 3.0.5 (2007-10-22)
  + hash mode: show progress indicators
  + cmp mode: new -c option to specify size of byte-shift comparison buffer

version 3.0.4 (2007-09-07)
  + no longer ignore raw WavPack files (wvunpack creates WAVE header for us)
  + support for TTA 3.4.x as well as TTA encoding
  + fixed display bug in joined mode when input files were not CD-quality
  + split mode: new -m option to allow character manipulation of CUE filenames

version 3.0.3 (2007-06-01)
  + improved use of exit codes
  + mkw format: removed deprecated input kluge
  + split mode: override path separation characters in CUE-generated files

version 3.0.2 (2007-02-18)
  + split mode: -c option works again
  + split mode: support wider range of CUE sheets
  + aiff format: support for sox 13.x

version 3.0.1 (2007-01-24)
  + fixed bug with WavPack format detection on 64-bit systems
  + split mode: fixed bug parsing CUE sheets whose last line lacks a newline
  + added support for MKW files
  + added support for MPEG-4 ALS files (input only)
  + added support for detection of TAK files (no input or output yet)
  + added support for detection of WMA files (no input or output yet)
  + added support for detection of RKAU files (no input or output yet)

version 3.0.0 (2007-01-01)

  [platform support]
  + shntool is now a native windows executable (Cygwin is no longer needed)

  [file formats]
  + added support for WavPack 4.x files
  + added support for m4a (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) files (input only)
  + added support for la (Lossless Audio) files (input only)
  + added support for tta files (input only)
  + added support for bonk files
  + added support for kxs (Kexis) files (input only)
  + added new format 'term' to send output to a terminal (standard output)
  + cust format: correct output filenames now shown (instead of "file.custom")
  + cust format: partially-written output files are now removed on error

  [modes]
  + added new mode 'gen' to generate arbitrary-sized files containing silence
  + added new mode 'trim' to trim silence from front and/or back of files
  + renamed mode 'md5' to 'hash', since it now calculates MD5 and SHA1 hashes
  + hash mode: added option to reorder filenames - may be useful with -c
  + split mode: new -n option to control output count format (01, 001, ...)
  + split mode: support for wider range of CUE sheets
  + split mode: new -t option to name files based on keywords in CUE sheets
  + split mode: fixed bug in which -l option failed with large input files
  + split mode: new -e/-u options for specifying lead-in/lead-out
  + split mode: new -x option to extract specific tracks
  + len mode: show compression ratio for individual files as well as overall
  + len mode: show input file format for each file
  + len mode: new -c/-t options to suppress column names/totals line
  + len mode: configurable units for files and totals
  + conv mode: new -t option to convert WAVE data read from the terminal
  + fix, join and hash modes: filenames can now be sorted automatically using
    a natural sorting algorithm, which orders filenames containing numbers the
    the same way a human would, e.g. "t1.wav, t2.wav, ... t10.wav" instead of
    "t1.wav, t10.wav, t2.wav, ...".  as this was taken from the sources of GNU
    ls (see 'ls -v'), it is considered stable enough to be the default.
    if desired, sorting can still be done interactively, or not at all.

  [global behavior]
  + user-configureable progress types (percentage, dots, spin, faces or none)
  + default overwrite option is now 'ask' - can be overridden with -O option
  + allow on-the-fly renaming when files exist and overwrite option is 'ask'
  + new -H option to show h:mm:ss.{ff,nnn} in output, instead of m:ss.{ff,nnn}
  + new -a and -z options to override default file name prefix and postfix
  + new options -w to suppress warnings and -q to suppress non-critical output
  + converted to getopt - this means long options have become single characters
  + alternate input decoder: -i "fmt decoder [arg1 ... argN]"
  + alternate output ext/encoder: -o "fmt [ext=abc] [encoder [arg1 ... argN]]"
  + in addition to the new -i/-o options above, default encoders/decoders
    and/or their arguments, as well as file extensions, can be overridden
    using any combination of appropriately named environment variables:

      ST_<format>_DEC="decoder [arg1 ... argN]"
      ST_<format>_ENC="[ext=abc] [encoder [arg1 ... argN]]"

    e.g.:

      % ST_SHN_DEC="shorten-2.3b" shntool len *.shn
      % ST_FLAC_ENC="flake - %f" shntool conv -o flac *.wav
      % ST_AIFF_ENC="ext=aif" shntool gen -o aiff -l 1:00

version 2.0.3 (2004-05-05)
  + fixed bug in len mode that sometimes caused the m:ss.ff value on the totals
    line to be reported as being one second longer than it actually is - this
    should finally resolve all variants of this bug, which was discovered after
    2.0.0 was released, thought to have been fixed in 2.0.1, and has since been
    determined to have existed from version 0.96 onward
  + len and info modes now indicate whether audio data is block-aligned

version 2.0.2 (2004-05-04)
  + fixed crash when using -stdout in join mode without specifying an output
    format

version 2.0.1 (2004-05-03)
  + fixed bug in len mode that sometimes caused the m:ss.ff value on the totals
    line to be reported as being one second shorter than it actually is

version 2.0.0 (2004-04-20)
  + added new mode 'pad' to individually prepad or postpad CD-quality files
  + added new mode 'cue' to generate CUE sheets or split points from files
  + split mode now supports simple CUE sheets for splitting
  + added "-l len" option in split mode to split file into smaller files
    based on multiples of time interval "len"
  + added -c option to md5 mode for calculating composite MD5 fingerprints
  + added the ability to prepad or postpad files created in join mode
  + added support for sowt-compressed AIFF-C files (requires sox 12.17.4)
  + added the ability to skip ID3v2 tags contained in files or input streams:
     - formats with decoders that natively handle ID3v2 tags:  shn, flac, ape
     - formats that handle ID3v2 tags through clever trickery:  wav, aiff, ofr
     - formats that currently cannot handle ID3v2 tags: lpac, wv
  + added -O option to all modes that create output files, so that the user can
    control whether output files that already exist are overwritten
  + len mode modified to always show overall compression ratio
  + new column in len mode to indicate whether files contain an ID3v2 tag
  + changed length format for non-CD quality files from m:ss to m:ss.nnn
  + several additions and updates to the information shown by info mode
  + all modes now accept the -D option, which enables debugging information
  + modes that create files now remove partially-written output files on error
    (does not apply to the cust format module, since filename cannot be trusted)
  + updates to handle NULL-padding of odd-sized data chunks, per RIFF specs
  + fixed nasty bug in conv mode that caused some input files to be overwritten
  + fixed split mode m:ss.nnn bug that ignored nnn when file was not CD quality

version 1.2.3 (2003-03-20)
  + split mode will now split any file, not just CD-quality ones
  + cat mode now accepts multiple filenames
  + fixed bug in split mode where split point files with Windows line endings
    were considered invalid

version 1.2.2 (2003-02-22)
  + fixed bug in md5 mode that caused extra RIFF chunks to inadvertently be
    included in the calculation of MD5 fingerprints
  + relaxed the file name placeholder requirement for the cust format module
    (the '%f' placeholder can now be a substring of an argument)

version 1.2.1 (2003-02-17)
  + added new mode 'md5' (computes MD5 hash of audio data, independent of format)
  + added support for wv (WavPack) file format
  + added new output format module 'cust' that allows one to specify a custom
    encoder to use in the creation of output files - this enables the user to
    override the default encoder arguments for formats that shntool already
    supports, as well as encode to formats that shntool does not yet support

version 1.2.0 (2002-12-07)
  + info mode now supports extra per-format information (currently this is used
    to indicate seekability of shn files)
  + join mode now supports joining of non-CD quality files

version 1.2.0-rc2 (2002-10-31)
  + overall compression ratio shown in len mode if all input files are compressed
  + fixed bug in fix mode that caused shntool to hang in rare instances
  + added support for ofr (OptimFROG) and lpac file formats

version 1.2.0-rc1 (2002-09-12)
  + added support for aiff, flac and ape file formats; dropped kexis support
    (aiff format supports only AIFF and uncompressed AIFF-C, not compressed AIFF-C)
  + added new mode 'conv' (converts files from one format to another)
  + improved functionality in cmp mode (new -s, -l and -f options)
  + join mode can now write to stdout (only with 'wav' output format)
  + shntool now waits for child processes (prevents shorten 3.4/md5sum race condition)
  + fixed bug in join mode that caused output file to have incorrect data size
    when the data was not sector-aligned, and -nopad was specified
  + some debugging output now shown if SHNTOOL_DEBUG environment variable is set
    (currently limited to the status of child processes - useful if shntool is hanging)

version 1.01 (2001-01-23)
  + fixed rounding error in len and info modes that caused certain
    non-sector-boundary-aligned CD-quality files to appear to be about one
    second shorter than they actually are.  For example, a file that was just
    over half of a frame longer than 3:14.74 would have been incorrectly rounded
    to 3:14.00, when it should have been rounded to 3:15.00.  The error occurred
    when the WAVE data size modulo 176400 fell in the range [175224, 176399].
    Assuming that the data sizes of non-sector-aligned CD-quality WAVE files are
    uniformly distributed, the chance of this error occurring is just over 1 in
    150 (1176 in 176325, to be exact).
  + removed arbitrary 4-byte file size cutoff

version 1.00 (2001-01-13)
  + fixed offset miscalculation in cmp mode for files that differ
  + fixed design error in cat mode where extra RIFF chunks were not output.
    If cat mode was used to extract a file (e.g. shncat file.shn > file.wav),
    then the output file would appear to be truncated to len mode.  Extra RIFF
    chunks can be still suppressed if needed via the new -nr switch.
  + cat mode now quits when nothing more would be output
  + minor documentation and output updates

version 1.00 beta 9 (2001-01-08)
  + added 'r' shift type to fix mode (round to nearest sector boundary)
  + added new mode 'cmp' (compares WAVE data in two files)
  + added -c switch to split mode
  + now only installs symbolic links for specified built-in modes
  + finally wrote a "tutorial"
  + generalized the file order editor, and added more useful commands to it
  + added -nd switch to cat mode

version 1.00 beta 8 (2001-01-05)
  + split mode erroneous input bug fixed
  + minor code cleanup and (hopefully) improved alias installation

version 1.00 beta 7 (2001-01-05)
  + Digital Unix 4.0D compile fix and a 64-bit-architecture header size
    calculation fix
  + added new mode 'split'
  + shortened some command-line arguments in certain modes

version 1.00 beta 6 (2001-01-03)
  + added new mode 'cat'
  + each mode is now aliased to "shn<mode>", e.g. shnlen, shnfix, shncat, etc.
  + cleaned up all errors reported by gcc -Wall

version 1.00 beta 5 (2001-01-01)
  + fixed display errors when using aliases

version 1.00 beta 4 (2001-01-01)
  + added support for conditional compilation of modules
    (see the INSTALL file for more information)

version 1.00 beta 3 (2000-12-31)
  + converted to GNU autoconf

version 1.00 beta 2 (2000-12-28)
  + reimplemented mode aliasing, e.g. creating a symbolic link to shntool named
    'shnlen' will start shntool in len mode

version 1.00 beta 1 (2000-12-23)
  + completely rewritten to be more modular
  + added three new modes - 'join', 'strip' and 'info'
  + see the README file for more information

version 0.98 (2000-11-22, never released)
  + started improving some things, but gave up in favor of a full code redesign

version 0.97a (2000-11-22)
  + fixed help screen bug

version 0.97 (2000-11-21)
  + cleaned up and corrected help screens
  + check whether files are 'CD-quality', and report if they are not
  + display file length in m:ss.ff format only if it is CD-quality, and
    print totals line in m:ss.ff format only if all files were CD-quality -
    otherwise, display file length in m:ss format
  + check that all files are CD-quality before proceeding in fix mode
  + check that at least one file has an error before proceeding in fix mode
  + some code cleanup
  + realized that this thing is due for a rewrite  :^)

version 0.96 (2000-11-18)
  + now report file length in m:ss.ff format, where ff is a number from 0 to 74
    that best approximates the remaining number of 2352-byte blocks after m:ss
  + more error and sanity checking for input files

version 0.95 (2000-10-19)
  + fixed bug where chunk size wasn't being updated for files that were altered in fix mode
  + added code to help determine whether shorten is in the default path
  + WAVE data for headers in .wav (not .shn) files are now verified
  + added extra debugging information in len mode
  + file names created in fix mode are now based on input filenames when -f or -b are given

version 0.94 (2000-08-24)
  + added option to pad the last file with zeroed data in fix mode, if necessary

version 0.93 (2000-07-06)
  + I partially broke file reading from stdin in len mode in 0.92 - fixed.
  + cleaned up code to use the file_info struct for the filename wherever possible
  + added error checking after some malloc's
  + made some error messages more descriptive with regard as to why they may have happened
  + added a generic bug_report() routine (may want to add some diagnostic info to it later)
  + changed all // comments to standard comments to satisfy some bitchy compilers  :)

version 0.92 (2000-07-04)
  + added setlinebuf() support for architectures that don't have it
    (via the "-D_SETLINEBUF_HACK" compiler option)
  + added description of the len mode "-debug" flag to its help menu

version 0.91 (2000-07-04)
  + WAVE headers are processed correctly again
  + added "-debug" switch for len mode
  + fixed segfaults with headers > 64 bytes

version 0.9 (2000-07-03)
  + initial public release

version 0.03 (2000-07-02)
  + all major bugs seem to be worked out, only minor cosmetic
    issues remain

version 0.02 (2000-07-01)
  + started merging shnlen with fixwav to form a unified tool

version 0.01 (2000-06-30)
  + some ideas coalesced, and development started on fixwav
Quote:
Originally Posted by shnutils.freeshell.org
Known bugs

Here is the list of all known bugs in the latest stable version:

When extracting compressed WAVE or AIFF audio, do NOT use the '-t' option, or you will lose data. Specifically, do not run the following commands:

Code:
% shorten -x -t wav filename.shn
% shorten -x -t aiff filename.aiff.shn
The resulting files will only contain the audio header, but no audio data.

Since the original shorten doesn't handle this correctly, I'm not sure whether this is a bug, design flaw, or neither. But it certainly is not intuitive, and it will destroy your data, so take heed!

Who do I contact if I have any questions/comments/suggestions/patches/bugs/flames?

Send it all to <shnutils at freeshell dot org>.
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Quote:
Originally posted by oxymoron
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  #41  
Old 2020-02-15, 12:47 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Canada
Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

text from the old etree shorten page, still hosted at shnutils.freeshell.org
Quote:
Originally Posted by shnutils.freeshell.org
What is it?

shorten is a fast, low complexity waveform coder (i.e. audio compressor), originally written by Tony Robinson at SoftSound. It can operate in both lossy and lossless modes. More information might be found here.

The last official version released by Tony was 2.3a. In the fall of 2000, I started hacking on the code to add unix support for seek tables, which Wayne Stielau had developed and implemented for the Windows platform. With his help, I was able to release version 3.0 on 9/29/2000, and have maintained the unix 3.x versions ever since.

Seek tables allow one to seek through a .shn file in real-time while playing it in various audio players. Here is a list of plugins that support seek tables:

See the ChangeLog file for more information about what's new in each version.

Where can I get it?

Right here:
http://shnutils.freeshell.org/shorten/
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  #42  
Old 2020-02-15, 03:32 PM
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

shorten license and changelog. As of v3.6.1 Cygwin.dll is no longer needed, 2007-03-19.

Code:
SHORTEN SOFTWARE LICENSE

This software is being provided to you, the LICENSEE, by Tony Robinson
and SoftSound under the following license.  By obtaining, using and/or
copying this software, you agree that you have read, understood, and
will comply with these terms and conditions:

This software may not be sold or incorporated into any product which is
sold without prior permission from SoftSound.  When no charge is made,
this software may be copied and distributed freely.

Permission is granted to use this software for decoding and
non-commercial encoding (e.g. private or research use).  Please email
[email protected] for commercial encoding terms.

DISCLAIMER

This software carries no warranty, expressed or implied.  The user
assumes all risks, known or unknown, direct or indirect, which involve
this software in any way.
Code:
	1.00 released on Tue 30 Mar 1993
	shorten.h changed to allow ANSI prototypes
	insertion of Steve Lowes fixes for PC compatibility
	Inclusion of the file laplacian.tex
	Typo in man page fixed (hl -> lh)
1.01 released on Tue 06 Apr 1993
	Inclusion of the file change.log
	Documentation of the default byte order
	Setjmp() moved so as to only be used in embedded applications
	Bug in casting to long in word_get() fixed
1.02 released on Thu 08 Apr 1993
	sizech.c removed in line with allowing sizeof(int) == 2
	variable nsd in vario.c:uvar_put() changed to unsigned long
	variable uvar in vario.c:var_get() changed to unsigned long
	constant 1 changed to 1L in vario.c:var_put()
	log(0.0) avoided in lpc.c for pathological cases
	check inserted for predictor order being less than the block size
	if NEED_TO_GUARANTEE_LPC_STABILITY is defined, it will do just that
1.03 released on Mon 12 Apr 1993
	resetopt() added to getopt.c and called before getopt() in shorten.c
	tables in bitshift.h changed from int to char to reduce executable size
	option -d added to discard header bytes on compression/decompression
	wav2lpc() fixed so that the returned value "resn" is non-negative
1.04 released on Fri 07 May 1993
	check added to ensure that the lpc order is less than the buffersize
1.05 released on Sat 08 May 1993
	option -d fixed to work with pipe input and discard on decompression
	bitshift.h removed from the distribution to reduce the size
	types uchar and schar typedef'ed in shorten.h and used in bitshift.h
1.06 released on Tue 11 May 1993
	try to preserve the mode, owner, group, atime and mtime of UNIX files
	input file in unlinked if output file was written successfully
	array.c created to contan pmalloc() and long2d() which error check
1.07 released on Thu 13 May 1993
	added the file INSTALL to give installation instructions
	fixed a few function declarations that were missing
	internal movement within shorten.c in prepration for lossy coding
	changed test file to be real speech
	change from shar to tar.Z format for distribution
	new typdefs ulong and ushort for the obvious things
	pmalloc and long2d now take arguments of type ulong
1.08 released on Fri 18 Jun 1993
	better function prototyping (gcc style) in shorten.h
	uchar ushort ulong now #defined to avoid warnings if typedef exists
1.09 released on Thu 01 Jul 1993
	provisional implementation of -q and -r flags - not finalised
	getc_exit and putc_exit macros used in shorten.c
	-a for version 2 now copies verbatim (checking for the magic number)
	various changes and additions to sphere.c from Jon Fiscus
	getopt functions/variables have hs_ prepended to avoid system conflict
	dupfileinfo.c renamed to be dupfinfo.c - less than eight characters
	memory allocation in fixio.c and vario.c tied up for embedded use
1.10 released on Mon 04 Oct 1993
	updated man page for -q and -r
	exit routines now use varargs and are less verbose
	bitshift now prints longs to bitshift.h as %ld
	shn109.exe included for the first time
1.11 released on Mon 08 Nov 1993
	hsgetopt.h deleted - obsoleted by correct definitions in shorten.h
	division by zero for null input avoided in lpc.c
1.12 released on Wed 23 Feb 1994
	out by one bug in lpc.c internal array sizes fixed (-p 64 now works)
	magic and version (0 ... 7) numbers merged for SPHERE header parsing
	decompression starts when the magic number is found
	option -a now allows for alignment prior to during decoding
1.13 released on Mon 11 Apr 1994
	dupfinfo.c - utime() now called before chmod() and chown()
	prototpye for malloc changed to unsigned long
	readme.dos created for DOS specific problems
	support for stdargs added if HAVE_STDARG_H defined on compilation
	exit.c - fprintf(stderr, ": "); perror(NULL) changed to perror("\0")
	main.c - DOS pipe output hacked by opening fd 1 "wb" with no buffer
	fixio.c - optimisation test for nchan == 0 changed to nchan == 1
	shorten.c - changed abs() for labs() as arguements are long, not int
	lots of non-functional disambiguation to keep DOS compilation quiet
	bitshift.c renamed to mkbshift.c and bitshift.h hardwired in for DOS
	shorten.exe included in the distribution
	releases now made with mkrelease, *.tar.Z, *.tar.gz. *.zip
1.14 released on Mon 08 Aug 1994
	ulaw files are now lossy coded by internally converting to linear
	better treatment of LPC quantisation errors from version 2
	slightly better -h screen
	default nmean is 4 as from version 2
	fixed stupid bug that corrupted the zip version of shorten.exe
1.15 released on Wed 24 Aug 1994
	ICASSP94 support code deleted
	lpc.c: now pass non-zero mean signal and offset
	shorten.c: massive internal reorganisation of compression section
	shorten.c: reasonable mean correction when in lossy mode from V 2.0
1.16 released on Mon 29 Aug 1994
	stdlib.h and string.h now assumed to exist
	lpc.c: fix bug which malloced too few bytes (introduced in 1.16)
1.17 released on Wed 31 Aug 1994
1.18 released on Sat 03 Sep 1994 (by mistake)
	lossy compression to a given segmental SNR is now supported (-n)
	man page rewritten and updated to support lossy compression
	the au file type option is has been renamed ulaw (au is still valid)
	filetimes on the DOS release now match those on the UNIX release
	v2: maximum lpc order searched is the best previous value plus two
	PC compilation moved from XT/tcc to 486/gcc and Makefile.dos deleted
1.19 released on Mon 03 Oct 1994
	spurious labs() in poly.c swapped for abs
	change all #ifdef unix for #ifndef MSDOS as djgpp #defs unix
1.20 released on Mon 17 Oct 1994
	bcc supported again as the executable is smaller (so labs() is back)
1.21 released on Mon 14 Nov 1994
	option -l implemented to print the contents of the LICENSE file
	technical report 156 added as files tr156.tex and tr156.ps
	man page updated
	support added for the WATCOM compiler from [email protected]
	mkrelease and Change.log renamed to release and change.log
	shorten.c: very minor change in lossy coding with -n (2.0 -> 25.0/12.0)
	MSDOS stdin/stdout binary mode fiddling moved from main.c to shorten.c
	linear2ulaw(int) changed to linear2ulaw(long)
	old XT compatable executable renamed shorten.086
1.22 released on Tue 10 Jan 1995
	shorten.c: bug with FN_ZERO fixed - no longer look for more bitshifts
	exit.c: basic_exit() - delete output file if abnormal termination
	shorten.1: warn about lossy coding of unsigned data with offset
	shorten.c: new flag, -u, maps both ulaw zeros onto the positive zero
	v2: new type for lossless ulaw, TYPE_AU2, for two zero ulaw data
1.23 released on Fri 14 Jul 1995
	minor documenation changes
2.0  released on Sun 27 Aug 1995
	lpc.c: round quantised coefficents to the nearest integer
	*.c: numerous casts to avoid warnings with Visual C/C++
	shorten.1: changed format of bit table
	ulaw.c: replaced with Sulawalaw.c
	alaw support: much like ulaw except no zero merge or fancy bitshift()
	shorten.c: help screen left shifted by six chars to accomodate "alaw,"
	Limited WINDOWS support added
	slight optimisation when frame is all zero (don't change bitshift)
	shorten.c: bug fixed when FN_QLPC called after FN_ZERO
	fixio.c:signed values close to max were converted to min when quantised
	BUGFIX_RELEASE definition moved from Makefile to shorten.h
	old ANNOUNCE file deleted and minor changes to INSTALL
	shorten.mak:  Default DOS compiler changed from BCC to MS Visual C++
	Makefile/release:  now take BUGFIX_RELEASE from shorten.h
	Makefile: no longer delete bitshift.h on clean/spotless
2.1  released on Mon 26 Feb 1996
	lpc.c: a bug disabled the early stopping on the search for LP order
	shorten.c: silly bug in ordering of arguments in a rare printf()
	shorten.c: redundant variable/storage buffer1 removed
	shorten.1: Document bugs in the tech report on Rice coding
	-t is now honoured (where possible) to convert file types on decode
	Makefile updated to be more package friendly (James Christie)
2.2  released on Mon 10 Mar 1997
        New -t option "wav" for RIFF WAVE files (automatic selection of -t)
	-t wav now the default - man page and shntest updated, mvs_s16 renamed
	script release renamed mkRelease to avoid MS VC++ name conflict
	setjump() bugfixes for embedded operation (Martin Saxon)
	New windows DLL operation (Martin Saxon)
2.3  released on Thu 04 Sep 1997
	exit.c: system dependence on *sys_errlist[] changed to strerror()
	SHORTEN.086, SHORTEN.EXE and shortn32.exe removed
	Some Debian support
2.3a released on Fri 26 Feb 1999	
3.0  released on Fri 29 Sep 2000
	Seek table extensions by Wayne Stielau
	Unix backport of seek table extensions by Jason Jordan
	Debian support improvements by Caleb Epstein
3.1  released on Tue 10 Oct 2000
	Seek table append option 'fixed'
	Documentation updated
3.2  released on Sat 13 Jan 2001
	Added '-i' switch to display whether a file contains seek information
	Cleaned up endian-conversion code
	Fixed a file naming bug - now, when only an input file name is given,
	output files are named according to the following rules:

		If shortening a file:

			If the input file name ends in .wav, then change
			extension to .shn; otherwise, append .shn to the
			input file name.  Examples:

				file.wav  ->  file.shn
				file.ext  ->  file.ext.shn

		If extracting a file:

			If the input file name ends in .shn, then change
			extension to .wav; otherwise, append .wav to the
			input file name.

				file.shn  ->  file.wav
				file.ext  ->  file.ext.wav

	When the caller specifies -v2 on the command line, seek tables are
	not generated (neither appended nor created in separate files).
	The default behavior is to generate/append seek tables.
3.3  released on Sun 12 Aug 2001
	Converted to autoconf/automake build system
	Made seek table code 64-bit clean
	Changed seek table data structures to compensate for compilers that don't
	  properly implement #pragma pack(1)
	Various minor cleanups/updates that don't impact the shorten algorithm
3.4  released on Sun 10 Feb 2002
	Fix for reading/writing binary data on stdin/stdout for operating systems
	  that do not have a single '\x0A' as a line separator (Frank Klemm)
	Shorten now refuses to input data from or output data to a tty
	Fixed crash when trying to create seek tables from a non-shorten file
	-s and -S options can now create seek table files from data read on stdin
	  (with -s, output filename is 'stdin.skt')
	Seek tables are now appended to non-stdout output file when reading
	  uncompressed data from stdin (e.g. shorten - outfile.shn < data.wav)
3.5.0  released on Mon 18 Nov 2002
	Support for compression of AIFF files contributed by Brian Willoughby of
	  Sound Consulting
	Changed file naming convention during extraction - when only an input file
	  name is given, output files are named according to the following rules:

			If the input file name contains more than one '.' and
			ends in .shn, then drop the .shn; otherwise, if the input
			file name ends in .shn, then change the extension to .wav;
			otherwise, append .wav to the input file name.

				file.aiff.shn  ->  file.aiff
				file.aiff.ext  ->  file.aiff.ext.wav
				file.shn       ->  file.wav
				file.ext       ->  file.ext.wav

	  This change was made so that non-wav files would be properly named after
	  shortening and unshortening.  For example, 'shorten file.aiff' creates
	  file.aiff.shn, and with the change above, 'shorten -x file.aiff.shn'
	  will now create file.aiff (instead of file.aiff.wav).
3.5.1  released Wed 12 Feb 2003
	Minor AIFF spec compliance updates
3.5.2  released Sun 28 Mar 2004
	Fixed seek table permissions bug when creating seek-enabled files from
	  read-only input files
3.6.0  released Mon 03 May 2004
	Fixed a seek table bug which, in rare cases, caused seek tables for certain
	  files (e.g. ones that end with silence) to be generated incorrectly.  Seek
	  tables created with the -k, -s or -S options are not affected.  To help
	  distinguish older, possibly buggy seek tables from newer ones, the seek
	  table revision number has been bumped from 0 to 1.  Thanks to Peter Kunath
	  for the report and the fix.
	Updated the '-i' option to determine whether a file is an external seek
	  table file, a file with seek tables appended, or neither.  If seek tables
	  are present, the seek table revision number is now shown.
3.6.1  released Mon 19 Mar 2007
	Shorten is now a native Windows executable (Cygwin is no longer needed)
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  #43  
Old 2020-02-15, 05:16 PM
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Five Five is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Canada
Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

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.

Quote:
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
Code:
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
Quote:
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
Quote:
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.
Attached Images
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( 100.0 KB, 18 views)
 
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Quote:
Originally posted by oxymoron
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  #44  
Old 2020-02-15, 08:06 PM
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Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

etree.org mkwACT page, as it appeared from 2001 until about 2017-11-30
Quote:
Originally Posted by etree.org
etree.org | mkwACT introduction

The mkw Audio Compression Tool (mkwACT) is a free Windows® 95/98/Me and NT/2000 and XP program created for the easy and convenient conversion of WAV audio files to and from various lossless and lossy compressed formats, including Shorten (SHN).

mkwACT is simply the easiest utility available for compressing and decompressing Shorten files, and checking and creating MD5 signatures.

By following the step-by-step instructions below, most users should be able to download, install, configure, and learn to use mkwACT within 20 minutes or less!

etree.org | mkwACT download

If you are installing mkwACT for the first time on a Windows 95/98/NT PC, you must install the mkwACT Runtime Libraries first!. If you are using Windows 2000 or XP, you do not need to install the mkwACT Runtime Libaries.

mkw-mfc42.exe - mkwACT Runtime Libraries

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

etree.org | mkwACT runtime libraries installation

Before you install mkwACT program, you must first install the mkwACT Runtime Libraries, unless you are using Windows 2000 or XP (***note: XP need's further "tweaking" which is covered in the Setup Section***).

The mkwACT Runtime Libraries are self-installing utilities that are necessary for mkwACT to function properly in Windows 95/98/NT.
  • Before installation, be sure to turn off or disable any virus protection software you may be using.
  • Click on the mkw-mfc42.exe link above (in the download section). When the "File Download" window appears, choose "Run this program from its current location."

    [image missing]

  • Note to Netscape users: If you are only given the option to save the setup program, save it to your desktop, then launch it by double-clicking.

    [image missing]

  • You will receive a Security Warning window after the mkwACT Runtime Libraries download. This is normal, and is nothing to be concerned about. Click the "Yes" button to continue with the installation.

    [image missing]

  • Next, you may see the window below (if you do not, don't worry about it). DO NOT click the "OK" button on the window below!!! You want to continue the mkwACT Runtime Installer. Only click the "OK" button on the window below after you finish with the mkwACT Runtime Libraries Installer (these instructions will tell you when it's OK).

    [image missing]

  • You will see the main mkwACT Runtime Libraries Installer. Click the "Next" button to continue.

    [image missing]

  • mkwACT Runtime Installer will now install what it needs to on your hard drive. When it's finished, you will see the window below. Click "Finish" to continue.

    [image missing]

  • mkwACT Runtime Installer is now finished. It is now allright to click the "OK" button on the mkwSFX window (pictured below).

    [image missing]

    Congrats... you are half-way done with installing mkwACT!
etree.org | mkwACT program installation

Only AFTER you have installed the mkwACT Runtime Libraries, you may install the mkwACT Program.
  • Before installation, be sure to turn off or disable any virus protection software you may be using.
  • Click the "mkwACT097b1.exe" link above (in the download section). When the "File Download" window appears, choose "Run this program from its current location."

    [image missing]

  • Note to Netscape users: If you are only given the option to save the setup program, save it to your desktop, then launch it by double-clicking.

    [image missing]

  • You will receive a Security Warning window after the mkwACT program downloads. This is normal, and is nothing to be concerned about. Click the "Yes" button to continue with the installation.

    [image missing]

  • Next, you may see the window below (if you do not, don't worry about it). DO NOT click the "OK" button on the window below!!! You want to continue the mkwACT Program Installer. Only click the "OK" button on the window below after you finish with the mkwACT Program Installer (these instructions will tell you when it's OK).

    [image missing]

  • The next window will ask you where to install mkwACT on your hard drive. For most people, the default directory will be OK. Unless you have a specific reason to change this, you should not. Click the "Next" button to continue.

    [image missing]

  • Next, you will be prompted as to what options to install. You should leave all options checked. Click the "Next"button to continue.

    [image missing]

  • Now, time for the requisite licenses. First is the mkwACT license, then the Shorten license, and last is the BladEnc (MP3) license. Just click the "Yes" button to continue through all three license agreements.

    [image missing] [image missing]
    [image missing]

  • Next, the mkwACT Setup will add program icons to the Program Folder listed in the text box (by default, it will be "mkw Audio Compression Toolkit"). The default text is fine, so click the "Next" button to continue.

    [image missing]

  • The mkwACT program will now install to your hard drive. When it is finished, you will see the window below. Click the "Finish" button to continue.

    [image missing]

  • Remember that pesky window below? Now it's OK to click the "OK" button to close it!

    [image missing]

  • Finally... You have successfully installed mkwACT! You're now ready to compress and decompress files with the glorious Shorten lossless audio format! Continue with the usage instructions below to learn how to easily set up and use mkwACT!
etree.org | mkwACT setup

Open mkwACT. It should be in your "Start > Programs" folder.

[image missing]

Once the mkwACT program is open, click on "Options" then "File Options". Under "Output directory for when input is on a fixed disk drive", select the path (directory) that you want all your converted files to go to. For instance, when you're converting SHN files to WAV files for CD-R burning, you want them to go to a convenient place that you'll easily find on your hard drive. Choose that directory here.

[image missing]

In our example, c:\burning is the directory where all WAV files will go when they're converted from SHN.

Below that, can select the "Output directory for when input is on a removable drive" (such as a CD-R). It is a good idea to have this path (directory) be the same as above, so it won't get (too) confusing.

Also, make note the checkboxes below the two dialog boxes... Make sure your configuration is similar, especially the "Delete input files after lossless (MKW or SHN) processing" option. If this option is checked (the default), your SHN files will be automatically deleted as you convert them to WAV files. For most people, this is undesirable, and leads to "Where the hell did my SHN files go?!?" emails to the Server Team.

Also, you may wish to change the option for "report MD5 verification results only on errors". If this option is checked, it will only let you know if a SHN file does not pass the MD5 verification.

Other than these settings, mkwACT is pretty much ready to roll right out of the box UNLESS you are on a Windows XP system.

If you are running under Windows XP then you should follow these further directions:

If you simply want to convert shn>wav mkwACT will run fine on XP right out of the box.

However, if you want to encode .wav>.shn (w/ seeking as .skt files or appended) it becomes a bit trickier ,(it will also encode from .wav>.shn w/o any seeking fine.... but that suck's ; ).

XP comes w/ a backwards compatibility option.

To run mkwACT in Windows XP, change the compatibility mode for mkwACT to "Windows 2000" by:

* Right-click on the link to mkwACT in the start menu or desktop

* Click properties

* Click the Compatibility tab

* Click the checkbox for "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"

* In the pulldown menu, choose "Windows 2000"

*Apply the change

Now that should have mkwACT running 99% correctly (We still haven't been able to get it to let us batch files to it by highlighting a large group of files , right clicking on them and choosing to "convert to wav" or "encode to shn", but drag & drop will still work in batches fine and it otherwise works as it always has).

etree.org | mkwACT usage

There are two different methods of using mkwACT. The first method is to drag files (or entire folders) onto the mkwACT console window. This is very difficult to explain to someone that is not accustomed to dragging and dropping files/folders in Windows Explorer. Below is a simple sketch at how to arrange your windows so you can easily drag and drop a folder into mkwACT.

[image missing]

After you drop files or entire folders onto the mkwACT console window, the program will automatically perform the necessary MD5 verifications, and if all SHN files pass, they will be decompressed to the directory specified when you configured mkwACT. Pretty slick, eh?

Another way to use mkwACT, is to use the right-click features in Windows Explorer (rather than the drag-and-drop menthod described above).

Open Windows Explorer (this is usually in your "Start > Programs" folder). Find a show you just downloaded to your hard drive. You can double-click on the MD5 files to automatically check the SHN files in that directory!

Once you have performed an MD5 check, you can decompress the SHN files by highlighting the SHN files...

[image missing]

...and then right-clicking. A small window will pop up. Click on "decode to wav".

[image missing]

The mkwACT program will now be automatically launched, and the SHN filess selected with be decompressed to the directory specified when you configured mkwACT. Don't worry that the progress indicator does not seem to do anything, like it does when you perform an MD5 check. This is normal.

[image missing]

When your SHN files are finished decompressing to WAV, the "Processing Status" will say "Idle" (the bottom-left of the mkwACT console window).

etree.org | mkwACT credits

Thanks to Michael K. Weise, the author of mkwACT, for creating this fantastic tool for the lossless trading community!

This documentation page created by Mike Wren, and last updated by Michael Crow on 6/6/2002.

For additional software and documentation, please visit the official mkwACT website.
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Quote:
Originally posted by oxymoron
Here you are in a place of permanent madness, be careful!
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  #45  
Old 2020-02-15, 09:05 PM
Five's Avatar
Five Five is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Canada
Re: The Validity of MD5 Checksums

mkwACT v0.94a 2/6/99 (Use this version to decode MKW files created with versions prior to 0.94)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael K. Weise
  • If you enjoy mkwACT, please register your copy by sending an empty e-mail message to mkwact-announce-subscribexxxxxxxx.xxx. Registration is free, and it ensures that you will be notified whenever a new version of mkwACT is released. In addition, it will allow me to find out how many people are actually using mkwACT.

  • I've set up another e-mail list with egroups.com for user-to-user discussion, feature suggestions and so on.

  • mkwACT uses Microsoft MFC and may not function properly if your MFC libraries are damaged or out of date. For Windows NT, 95 and 98 it is recommended that you download and run this MFC updater from Microsoft. For Windows 2000 and Windows ME, use the built-in "Windows Update" feature instead.

  • Download mkwACT:
    Caution: Use of Beta software always involves the risk of potentially serious, as yet undiscovered bugs. Please send any bug reports to mkwxxxx.xxx.

    0.97b1 confirmed stable mkwACT 0.97b1 includes support for Shorten seek tables for use with Wayne Stielau's Winamp plug-in.
    Version 0.96f released 6/8/00
    Version 0.94a 2/6/99 (Use this version to decode MKW files created with versions prior to 0.94)
    Please bear in mind that newly released versions could contain as yet undiscovered bugs, as they are tested only by myself until they are put up here. Should you discover any problems, please report them to me and revert to a previous version.
Other great freeware every collector of digital recordings should have:
  • Exact Audio Copy
  • LeechFTP
  • A simple but useful command batch to create M3U files
mkw's detailed system of rating shows, opinions of lineage, cdr(x), dat(x), mp3, circa 1999
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael K. Weise
Legend and Notes

Sound Rating
The sound rating describes how fully and clearly what came out of the PA at the actual show has been reproduced. It is affected negatively by such factors as a flat or weak low-end, muddy or hollow trebles and foggy stereo scaping.
If this column is blank, it means that I haven't yet gotten around to rating the recording in question for quality. Needless to say, I rate CD-Rs far more stringently than I did cassette tapes back in the days of analogue.
**** Virtually Flawless

This category is reserved for truly exceptional recordings: AUDs that make you think you're there if you close your eyes, vault SBDs that barely sound their age, DSBDs and recordings that have been digitally remastered on professional studio equipment.

*** Excellent

An excellent recording sounds clear, even through headphones, and the entire audible spectrum is well represented.

** Good

A recording of solid quality. Expect to be neither disappointed, nor particularily impressed with the sound.

* Listenable

Though fine for casual listening, the recording is noticably flawed and I recommend thinking twice about whether you really want it, or at least looking around for a better recording elsewhere.

- Bad or worse

This means the recording is severely flawed and meant to serve historical interest, not listening pleasure.
Noise Rating

Noise Rating is affected negatively by anything that distracts from the music, such as:
  • A - excessive Audience noise (I do like the ambience provided by audience recordings, but if one can make out individual voices close to the mics, that is a definite minus.)
  • H - Hiss (from any analog lineage)
  • M - Noise Modulation (i.e. the noise level varies with the peak level to some degree)

    Note that when mastering CDs myself, I will generally prefer retaining a moderate level of constant noise over getting noise modulation from applying too much noise reduction.
  • D - Digital Noise (i.e. clicks, pops, buzzes or dropouts)

    Note that I tolerate very little digital noise, as it tends to be far more annoying than a constant level of hiss could ever be. Even a single click will prompt a downgrade, and any CD with more than a handful of audible pops over its length belongs in the trash, as far as I'm concerned.
  • F - FM noise (static, distortion) or PCM noise (mild PCM noise often sounds very much like FM static)
  • N - Other Noises of analog origin (i.e. hums, thumps, buzzes, etc.)
  • L - Occasional recording Level overshoots, resulting in slight distortion of loudest parts.
  • C - Inopportune master flips Cut into music.
  • S - Splices or fades (e.g. BCDs commonly have the tuning and crowd reaction between songs edited out, which can ruin the atmosphere of a recording)
Each of these symbols may appear once to denote an occasional slight distraction, twice if it creates a nuissance or thrice if the corresponding noise factor is a real pain in the arse.

A ü in this column indicates that the recording exhibits no notable flaws.

Note

Lately I haven't managed to keep up with grading the sound quality of each recording - in those cases, both "rating" columns are left blank.

CDs

The number of CDs it takes to hold the recording. A letter in this column indicates a shared disk; e.g. the two shows listed as "3(a)" share a disk, occupying 5 CDs between them, and so on.

Lineage

I do not count generations for digital clones; i.e. SBD>DAT>DAT>DAT>CD>CD would be listed as SBD>DAT>CD.
For analog media, on the other hand, >CAS> or >REEL> always means exactly one generation. >CAS/1> is short for >CAS>CAS>, and so on. My notation for an unknown number of cassette generations is >CAS/?>. If I make an educated guess based on sound quality, I note that as, for example, >CAS/2?> ("sounds like about two generations") or >CAS/3?4 ("sounds like 3-4 generations").

If I encounter the words "I think" in the process of tracing back a lineage, I mark the lineage as "fairly certain" or "uncertain", as the case may be.

On the controversial subject of mp3 compression in a recording's lineage, I can only say that the difference between a well-made mp3/256 and its source is often indistinguishable to the human ear. Note that mp3/256 (5:1 compression) is quite a different matter than the more widely used mp3/128 (10:1 compression) - I would not want a CD made from mp3/128 in my collection, as such compression does tend to result in a sound akin to the taste of decaffeinated coffee.

Performance

Obviously a very subjective rating - I've simply marked those recordings which I find myself listening to most frequently.
xp.txt
Code:
Several workarounds have been proposed for MKW-XP trouble. This is  
reportedly the simplest and most effective to date.

Mike Wren <[email protected]> wrote:

To run mkwACT in Windows XP, change the compatibility mode for mkwACT to
"Windows 2000" by:

* Right-click on the link to mkwACT in the start menu or desktop
* Click properities
* Click the Compatibility tab
* Click the checkbox for "Run this program in compatibility mode for:
* In the pulldown menu, choose "Windows 2000"

br0thercr0w <[email protected]> added:

That should have it running 99% correctly (i still haven't been able to
get it to let me batch files to it by highlighting a large group of files
and right clicking on them and choosing to "convert to wav" or "encode to
shn", but drag & drop still works in batches fine and it otherwise works as
it always has).
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