SHN Winamp confusion

[Nirvanafan]

I downloaded two shows from this site, Pearl Jam's MTV Unplugged show and Grateful Dead's Barton Hall show. They are boh in SHN, but they will not import into my Winamp library. Why is this?

[paddington]

you probably need the Shorten plugin. I do not think SHN ever became native for Winamp, though FLAC did a while back.

try this

http://www.etree.org/cgi-bin/counter...are/in_shn.zip

[Teembo]

I don't know why people are still using SHN at all. FLAC is so superior in all aspects.
Grab foobar2000 and use it to convert the SHN to FLAC and you'll suddenly be able to seek through the music.

[tonebloke]

Originally Posted by Teembo

I don't know why people are still using SHN at all. FLAC is so superior in all aspects.
Grab foobar2000 and use it to convert the SHN to FLAC and you'll suddenly be able to seek through the music.

Good call !

[jabulon]

Originally Posted by Teembo

... foobar2000 and use it to convert the SHN to FLAC

TLH will do the same.

[Nirvanafan]

Thanks!

[Weir Back]

For the most part people are not currently encoding with shn. The shows mentioned were encoded with shn years ago, as most were. As someone who listens to the music rather than seeking through it, re-encoding old shn to flac is just stupid.

[co9ol]

Originally Posted by Weir Back

As someone who listens to the music rather than seeking through it, re-encoding old shn to flac is just stupid.

Unless who ever split the tracks did it right after a song ends and not before it begins. I have seen it where there was like a whole min of crown noise before the song began. Now that's worth skipping. (especially if you just wanted to listen to that one song)

[Weir Back]

Originally Posted by co9ol

Unless who ever split the tracks did it right after a song ends and not before it begins. I have seen it where there was like a whole min of crown noise before the song began. Now that's worth skipping. (especially if you just wanted to listen to that one song)

Dead air wherever it appears should never be skipped.

[MalFrie]

Using TLH you can create Skt files, thus making them "Seekable"

Originally Posted by Weir Back

For the most part people are not currently encoding with shn. The shows mentioned were encoded with shn years ago, as most were. As someone who listens to the music rather than seeking through it, re-encoding old shn to flac is just stupid.

flac compresses much more efficiently than shn thus using less hard drive space and is therefore more environmentally friendly and it is much easier to use across all operating systems than shn. Anybody who doesn't take advantage of flacs advantages over shn is just...

[germain]

Originally Posted by Weir Back

For the most part people are not currently encoding with shn. The shows mentioned were encoded with shn years ago, as most were. As someone who listens to the music rather than seeking through it, re-encoding old shn to flac is just stupid.

Shorten is a closed format that was abandoned by its developer in 2003. In other words, its code can not be modified in any way and is quite literally obsolete at this point in time.

As more and more people stop using CD's and use their computer or portable player to play their music, the fact that shn can not be tagged with metadata becomes a real drawback. You might also consider that your ability to play or decode shn files is dependent on the one person who develops the software. These people have to remain on board to keep it current as new operating platforms emerge. Back in late '06 the shnamp plug-in for Winamp broke with the introduction of the latest Winamp model. It took 2 months for the developer to be informed of the break and get it working again. These kinds of issues are going to become increasingly prevalent as the number of shows circulating as shn files decreases further. Personally, I would not want my archive of shows to be stored as shn files.

[Weir Back]

Originally Posted by germain

Shorten is a closed format that was abandoned by its developer in 2003. In other words, its code can not be modified in any way and is quite literally obsolete at this point in time.

As more and more people stop using CD's and use their computer or portable player to play their music, the fact that shn can not be tagged with metadata becomes a real drawback. You might also consider that your ability to play or decode shn files is dependent on the one person who develops the software. These people have to remain on board to keep it current as new operating platforms emerge. Back in late '06 the shnamp plug-in for Winamp broke with the introduction of the latest Winamp model. It took 2 months for the developer to be informed of the break and get it working again. These kinds of issues are going to become increasingly prevalent as the number of shows circulating as shn files decreases further. Personally, I would not want my archive of shows to be stored as shn files.

Re-encoding old file sets seems like a worthwhile endeavor until something else comes along and you have to do it all again. Good luck with this, I'll wait for Charlie Miller to flac an upgrade.

[paddington]

Originally Posted by Weir Back

Re-encoding old file sets seems like a worthwhile endeavor until something else comes along and you have to do it all again. Good luck with this, I'll wait for Charlie Miller to flac an upgrade.

this is a good point, but the idea is to transcode the closed-format SHN files to open-format FLAC, where everyone has access to the source code to keep the codec alive across platforms, as they come and go.

[Weir Back]

Originally Posted by jameskg

this is a good point, but the idea is to transcode the closed-format SHN files to open-format FLAC, where everyone has access to the source code to keep the codec alive across platforms, as they come and go.

You can't argue with that, but since the holders of the original file sets can't help seed, germain better hope the folks snatching the re-encoded ones don't just convert to mp3 and shift delete the flac files, or he'll have to reseed them all himself.