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[ssamadhi97]

SHN plugin version 0.15 for MJ8 and MC9 posted.  

+ supports internal seektables
+ supports external seektables in same folder as .shn file
+ supports brute-force forward and instant backward seeking in "unseekable" shn files (note that forward seeking can be VERY slow in these cases!! this is not a bug, but out of necessity.)


- does not support external seektables in remote locations yet
- does not support tagging yet

plugin for MJ8: download it from the MJ8 Input Plugins Page!

plugin for MC9: download it from the MC9 Input Plugins Page!

Please break it and report bugs and failures here.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

For those who don't know the Shorten (.shn) file format: it is a lossless audio compression scheme that is extremely popular in the online concert trading scene.

for details see http://research.umbc.edu/~hamilton/shnfaq.html

[ssamadhi97]

By the way, is there any point in maintaining an MJ8 version of the plugin anyway?

[zevele10]

Yes ,as far as i know.

Thank you for the work.

Now ,we have to start a pool:

Do you have any  SHN on your HD ?

[ssamadhi97]

Yes ,as far as i know.
Now ,we have to start a pool:

Do you have any  SHN on your HD ?

Sure, go nuts.. I for one have some 60-80 GB worth of shns on my hd (from the top of my hat), which is far from atypical for an avid concert trader.

[LisaRCT]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is an SHN ?

[ssamadhi97]

A SHN (.shn) is a Shorten file. Shorten is a popular (albeit slightly outdated) lossless music compression scheme which is widely used among concert traders.

For detalis see http://research.umbc.edu/~hamilton/shnfaq.html

(I just added this bit of info on SHN format to the first post in this thread as well..)

[Warlock]

You are quick!  Thanks for taking the time to put this together.   I'll try it tonight.  I have about 60 GB of shn files, so I will put it through its paces.  Thanks.

[Warlock]

Thanks again for putting this together.  It worked great.  I didn't have any playback problems at all.  The only thing I noticed, which is more a limitation of SHNs themselves, is an inability to actually tag the file itself.  Are SHNs taggable at all?  

[salsbst1]

Thanks again for putting this together.  It worked great.  I didn't have any playback problems at all.  The only thing I noticed, which is more a limitation of SHNs themselves, is an inability to actually tag the file itself.  Are SHNs taggable at all?  

I'm not a SHN expert, but I believe that tagging the file might throw off one of the format's features, which is in-built MD5 checksums.  You touch the file and the checksum changes.  The trading communities will then see this as a "different" file from the one that you downloaded, which is not a good thing.  On the other hand, I may be wrong.

[Warlock]

That is a good point, and one I overlooked.  Changing the MD5s would be a very bad thing.

[ssamadhi97]

On the other hand, I may be wrong.

And you are wrong:

First of all, Shorten files don't have built-in md5 hashes. (As a matter of fact, they nearly don't have anything built-in. It's a really dodgy minimalistic format.)

SHN filesets are usually distributed with an external .md5 file containing hashes of every single file, the hash list in this md5 file is used to verify the set of shn files at hand.


Warlock is spot-on, the file format is not inherently taggable anyway, and affixing tags to the actual shn file would definitely not only screw up the md5 hash, but it would seriously throw off existing shn decoders and quite probably cause seektable support to break.


However, there is a way to circumvent those problems. A later version of the plugin will support SHN tagging by storing the tags in external .tag files (as apev2 tags for the tagging / developing nerds among you)

This will enable shn users to make use of what is considered the best tagging format available, while leaving the original shn files intact and making the tags very easily removable.

(only drawback is that you'll litter your harddisk with a bunch of sub-1kb files )

[ssamadhi97]

Besides, this kind of tagging for Shorten files is already supported by the foobar2000 audio player, so it's not entirely nonstandard. Incidentially I was involved in the development of the foobar2000 shn plugin Go figure.

(note to self: bug shn plugin devs for winamp and xmms to implement this kind of tagging support as well)


Thursday is a public holiday here.. maybe I'll have the time to implement tagging support then

[salsbst1]

ssamadhi97, thanks for the correction and further info, and for making this plugin!

[ssamadhi97]

no prob.


Here's a sort of known issue with the plugin:

When installing the plugin, it looks like the shn file type is not automatically added to MC's "import media" function and to its list of supported file types. At least that's what happens to me here.

I honestly have no idea whether that's actually normal behaviour for MC9, let alone whether there's any way to manually add the file type or have it added by the plugin or installation script.

I'm investigating and asking around, but I have yet to get any answers.

Until then you'll have to add SHN files to MC by dragging & dropping them into the window, using regular File -> Open Media File or stuff like that. No automatic importing.

Sorry 'bout that, but I can't remedy this at the moment.

[newruler]

The latest version of MediaCenter, 9.1.203 fixes the issue of importing SHN files by adding it to the list of importable files.

[ssamadhi97]

I didn'thave a chance to play with the new version yet.. guess they fixed importing of "3rd-party-supported" files in general then.. excellent  Those guys are quick.

I hope I'll get around to work more on the shn plugin this week, 'tis promising to be quite the busy one though :-/

[jeffh]

With the lastest MC build I am now able to import shn files, but when I try and play them I get an error. Are others able to import and play the files out of the library?