Foobar2000 SHN > FLAC Conversion: A Visual Guide

[ssamadhi97]

Originally Posted by malick

is there a way to check for SBEs from recently downloaded .flac files? The Frontend seems to only allow for that check during encoding.

thanks, and I'll be getting the latest foobar in just a second...

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:


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

[jbeck57143]

I just converted some SHNS to FLAC. The SHN file was 740MB, the resultant FLAC file was only 344MB--Everything bit compared okay, but when I converted the flac files to wav one track failed the md5 check. I converted the shn of the same track to wav and that one was okay. The two wavs aren't quite the same size: The one from the flac file is 60,153KB, the one from the SHN (which was okay) is 60,154KB

i have no idea why that is

Jim

[RainDawg]

99/100 times this is caused by addition data being embedded into the header of the .wav file. FLAC ignores and throws away non-audio data, so this header would dissappear during a WAV > FLAC > WAV transition. SHN does not trash this data, so the audio fingerprints will match even though the expanded .wav file is not identical to the one that created the initial shns.

You can run an shntool -len check on the .shn files, and it will tell if you there is additional data in the header, confirming this suspicion.

[jbeck57143]

I just looked at the shntool results that came with the shn file. Here's what it says for the track in question:

length
5:49.14

expanded size
61596688

cd
---

WAVE
-e

problems
---xx

filename
bd1980-01-21d1t08.shn

What does "e" mean under "wave"?
Jim

[ssamadhi97]

The second entry will contain an 'e' if the WAVE file contains extra RIFF chunks, other than the required 'fmt'
and 'data' chunks.

copied straight from shntool documentation. *HINT HINT*

[jbeck57143]

Thanks! Boy am I a pinhead--I just found it in the tutorial--which I hadn't started reading yet. I haven't used shntool (I just got it).

Jim

[ssamadhi97]

I can relate actually.. shntool's documentation structure isn't clean, I would've expected this kind of information either in the parameter-specific help of the exe itself or in the readme, but not just buried in some (ok, "the") tutorial.

[RainDawg]

By the way, when the FLAC is around half of the SHN, as in this case, that is the result of the audio being mono. For truly mono material, it is not uncommon to get this enormous improvement of the compression ratio .

[malick]

I got this, but where did you generate that output? Or have you created a whole ton of different interfaces to your foobar screen? I'd be interested in more code and how you did that. The programming part is a foreign language to me, so I'd be just copying and pasting.

thanks, great tip.

malick

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:


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

[pmonk]

Thank you!

[cmaz]

Hi,

sorry to be posting to what might be a dead thread, but i hope somebody is still around to answer...

i've just got foobar2000 and am not very experienced with it. i'm trying to follow this tutorial on how to convert SHN to FLAC. i've got foobar2000 v0.8.3 special and installed. Now, i go to <preferences> <diskwriter> and click <add new> but i don't get all the different options that i see on the screenshot from Five. All i have are
Legacy 0.7 output support
WAV (PCM 32bit floating point)
WAV (PCM, fixed-point)

What have i forgotten to do?

[Five]

Okay, try uninstalling and reinstall. Pay special attention at the beginning when it asks you "select the type of install". The default is "normal", so make sure you select "full" from the dropdown menu before pushing "next".
http://img57.exs.cx/img57/9166/fooba...stallation.gif

Then the extra options should be available when you push "add new".

hope this helps

[cmaz]

Five,

Thanks, that did the trick.

[Five]

a thread is never dead so long as there's something on-topic to add.

[RainDawg]

Yes, basically what happened is that you may have unselected the proper plugin during install (forget which one though ) that gives you a wide range of encoding options. By reinstalling with that plugin included, you should be good to go!