Converting SHN to FLAC?

[AAR.oner]

Originally Posted by co9ol

xACT will do direct shn->FLAC conversions. Just drop them in the encode tab select FLAC and go!

I just used it to convert some old Rush shows.
I had an ST5 of the shn so I made an ST5 of the Flac, opened both is text edit, copied over the hexadecimal number and verified.
Everything turned out ok

good to know

[frankm]

I would just recommend documenting everything yoo. Let anyone you potential trade with (or in any Torrent) that you converted the SHN to FLAC and that you verified the ST5 file so everyone knows the conversion had no errors.

[delfman]

Originally Posted by germain

If I am not mistaken when TLH converts shn>flac it does go through the conversion to wav then to flac. The wav files are not saved though.

The st5 signatures of the shn files will match the st5 or ffp signatures of the new flac files. Md5's are whole file checksums which check the container structure as well as audio data and won't match in any format conversion. St5's & ffp's are only checking the actual audio data which should be exactly the same when converting between lossless formats.

well that's good to know.
this was not the case with earlier versions of TLH.

[roann]

Originally Posted by delfman

If you convert shn to flac directly the fingerprints will not match to the originals.
you need to first convert the shns to wav then the wavs to flac if you want the fp's to match the originals.

Originally Posted by delfman

well that's good to know.
this was not the case with earlier versions of TLH.

This is not correct, except the second part of germain's reply.

1) There is no way to _directly_ convert shn to flac. First you have to decode shn to wav, then you have to encode wav to flac.

2) Of course you could decode the whole shn file to wav format and then encode the whole wav file to flac format. But this way you would have to temporarily save the whole wav file somewhere. That's why conversion is done chunk by chunk (the chunks can be processed in memory), so the flac file "grows" step by step.

3) If the conversion was done without errors, the ffp checksum (flac fingerprint) of the converted flac file is _always_ the same as the st5 checksum (shntool fingerprint) of the original shn file, no matter what way of conversion was used.

4) _All_ versions of TLH do shn > flac conversion the same way.

[spidergawd]

Originally Posted by germain

If I am not mistaken when TLH converts shn>flac it does go through the conversion to wav then to flac. The wav files are not saved though.

The st5 signatures of the shn files will match the st5 or ffp signatures of the new flac files. Md5's are whole file checksums which check the container structure as well as audio data and won't match in any format conversion. St5's & ffp's are only checking the actual audio data which should be exactly the same when converting between lossless formats.

Yes, what germain said. Also, in a direct shn>flac conversion, most software probably writes the decompressed shn to a buffer in memory such that creation of an intermediate wav file is not necessary.

Personally, I wouldn't care which format the music is posted in, as long as enough info is included to make sure it's not something I already have in a different format.

Happy New Year! Go Sparty! Go Wings!

[spidergawd]

Originally Posted by spidergawd

Yes, what germain said. Also, in a direct shn>flac conversion, most software probably writes the decompressed shn to a buffer in memory such that creation of an intermediate wav file is not necessary.

Personally, I wouldn't care which format the music is posted in, as long as enough info is included to make sure it's not something I already have in a different format.

Happy New Year! Go Sparty! Go Wings!

Well, I posted this before seeing the second page of posts, particularly roann's. Please disregard everything except the last line.