Trader's Little Helper

[TomB]

yes the files came off my tape into soundforge, went up to 24/96 for some eq and loudness and then dithered back to 16/48 wav. since soundforge is sector boundary friendly, I divided the files there then batch converted them in TLH into flac and seeded.... someone then took those files, turned them back into wav and tested... almost ALL of them reported MPEG ! crazy !!
If you read some of my comments, I am thinking that the double conversion is going to flaw pretty much anything you try.... I've read endless reports of lots of people here getting different results even from the subjective spectral... seems there is NO definitive test after all ??

[Thulani]

It's not that for sure, I've just tested with 3 different sources. CDDA first conversion, CDDA second conversion

[roann]

Originally Posted by TomB

... is there any information to tell what TLH actually tests??...

TLH uses the free command-line tool auCDtect to test wav files for MPEG. The decisions this tool makes are based on some sophisticated math formula. All info about the algorithm details can be found here. Note that auCDtect is intended / was developed for testing studio recordings for MPEG (commercially available audio CDs, for example). Because it's impossible to develop a math formula for testing live recordings auCDtect will fail on many live recordings (depends on a lot of things).

Originally Posted by TomB

... If there is a likelihood of false-positives, then this would not necessarily be a "go-to" tool for testing if FLACs are sourced from MPEG then would it?? as you say, the only way to truly tell is to see where the freq. roll-off exists....
So in your opinion is spectral analysis the ONLY definitive way to test?...

On live recordings TLH / auCDtect only should be used as a first hint whether or not the audio data is lossy sourced. The real deal always is frequency and spectral analysis. In most cases you'll get the right result, but sometimes you cannot tell for sure whether the audio data is lossy sourced. So there is no definitve way to test things.

Originally Posted by TomB

... Do you think the false positive comes from the codecs involved in going wav>flac>wav and are leaving some sort of artifact that TLH is sensing??...

... I might be the only one, but I stand by my statement that flac is NOT lossless and converting it back to a wav for anything other than a qualitative exam is worthless...

FLAC definitely is a lossless codec. So wav > flac > wav will result in the same audio data (as can be proved) - nothing is lost, no artefacts are added.

Originally Posted by TomB

... There is a site right now that is promoting the TLH test on files that have gone wav>flac>wav to test if they are not from MPEG.... I posted a recording that went from wav to flac, using the TLH codecs, and that very recording tested positive for MPEG in the TLH test!! ...

Can you provide an URL please?

Originally Posted by TomB

... yes the files came off my tape into soundforge, went up to 24/96 for some eq and loudness and then dithered back to 16/48 wav. since soundforge is sector boundary friendly, I divided the files there then batch converted them in TLH into flac and seeded.... someone then took those files, turned them back into wav and tested... almost ALL of them reported MPEG ! crazy !!...

So you compared your original files with the processed ones? In particular equalizing and dithering up to 24/96 and back to 16/48 will alter the audio data in a way that may cause auCDtect to get wrong test results!

[rspencer]

Any software is just an aid, your eyes & ears will be needed to help be sure.

In general, you'll only get false positives. So if it says it's MPEG-sourced, you'll have to look into it further. If it says it's not lossy, you're good.

[TomB]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but I wanted to be sure and thank you not only for TLH, but also for being so readily available. I am now well informed and able to mentally move on... it was just one of those things, call it OCD

Thanks again for your help!

[Seth01]

I'm wondering if anyone has successfully used the MULTIPLE tracker feature on TLH when creating a torrent? Does this mean that I can upload the same .torrent file to several different private trackers and seed all of them at the same time? Has this worked for anyone?

Thanks for any replies and of course a HUGE thanks to roann once again for developing this amazingly helpful tool.

[mike1061]

Not quite what you are looking for but I'm able to do it with just downloads. As you know I use a "seedbox" and with your Robert Plant torrent I was able to DL the torrent from here. Then as you posted it to dime, I DL'ed that torrent, re-named the dime torrent, it checked the existng dated and started seeding. All I do is add a "1" in front of the second torrent and it works every time.
Thanks Mike

[tonebloke]

Originally Posted by Seth01

Does this mean that I can upload the same .torrent file to several different private trackers and seed all of them at the same time?

Not sure about the multiple torrents, BUT, your max upload speed will be cut due to the number of sites you up the torrent to. The more sites, and leeches, the slower the speed.
"Not good" waiting weeks to finish downloading a show !

[mike1061]

He doesn't have that problem. The speeds he gets are great.
Thanks Mike

[Seth01]

Originally Posted by mike1061

Not quite what you are looking for but I'm able to do it with just downloads. As you know I use a "seedbox" and with your Robert Plant torrent I was able to DL the torrent from here. Then as you posted it to dime, I DL'ed that torrent, re-named the dime torrent, it checked the existng dated and started seeding. All I do is add a "1" in front of the second torrent and it works every time.
Thanks Mike

OK, but then you're just uploading to one tracker at a time, right. Just switching back and forth? As I'm the original seeder, I'd like to be able to seed the same torrent to a few private trackers at the same time. I don't think it'd be possible as each one requires it's own passkey. So even though I can create a .torrent file with all of the trackers' announce url's in it, I can only actually upload to one at a time. Unless I'm not getting it.

Originally Posted by tonebloke

Not sure about the multiple torrents, BUT, your max upload speed will be cut due to the number of sites you up the torrent to. The more sites, and leeches, the slower the speed.
"Not good" waiting weeks to finish downloading a show !

Yeah, tonebloke, I appreciate the feedback but Mike's right. That's not a problem for me as I get good speeds. Nobody waits a long time to download from me unless they're unconnectable.

[tonebloke]

Fair enough.

[tunic]

Originally Posted by Seth01

I'm wondering if anyone has successfully used the MULTIPLE tracker feature on TLH when creating a torrent? Does this mean that I can upload the same .torrent file to several different private trackers and seed all of them at the same time? Has this worked for anyone?

yes, that's exactly how it works. I've used it (for download only) on other trackers. But I seem to recall that Dime disallows this feature. You could double-check it with the mods though.

Originally Posted by mike1061

Not quite what you are looking for but I'm able to do it with just downloads. As you know I use a "seedbox" and with your Robert Plant torrent I was able to DL the torrent from here. Then as you posted it to dime, I DL'ed that torrent, re-named the dime torrent, it checked the existng dated and started seeding. All I do is add a "1" in front of the second torrent and it works every time.
Thanks Mike

There's a much easier way than that: when you download the second torrent a popup shows up asking you if you want to load the tracker into the existing torrent. At least that's how it works in utorrent. So then you can download it from two trackers at the same time, and give you a bigger download speed

[mike1061]

Seth
I am uploading to two different trackers at the same time. I only downloaded the files from the first tracker. By the time you posted to the second tracker, the speeds on the first were slow. But I don't see what difference that would make, the upload speeds are per torrent, not per file set.

tunic
I'm not using utorrent, so I don't have the pop up window.

Thanks Mike

[tunic]

I had some more thought on this. It is indeed not possible to use the multi tracker feature when you create the .torrent file because of the passkey. However the manner I described to download the same fileset from two trackers should also work for you to upload it.

[johnlennon696]

I DL some files that had SBE's, are these settings ok to fix them using TLH:

http://i53.tinypic.com/i5vmua.jpg