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[GHammer]

Yes, I'm on a roll on requests
Could rar file support be added? I'd like to keep my music files inside a rar because I can add recovery records to the rar file.

Yeah, I do backups but the problem with that is they are automated. If I lose the whole drive, fine I have the ability to recover. If the source drive gets a bad sector, a file gets trashed but is still readable it will be backed up. Then I have two copies of a bad file.

If I use rar, it would have to be serious damage to not be recoverable.

No, ZIP does not provide that sort of protection. I have tested it and also asked both the WinZip and PKLab folks.

[pank2002]

Well, I kindda is already -- though I know this isn't what your looking for -- but you can rate and play ALL files from within MC (from devices and drives-->my comp.) I think the good MC guys are implying a feature which will open files in there native program. IE you have a rar file in a playlist called 'playlist containing rarfilse' (creative) and when you open the file it'll open winRAR (or whatever program is assiged to open rarfiles in windows.)
  They talked about it in a thread where somebody would like PS support. Jim said they might imply it in some thread.

[GHammer]

Yeah, my fault. I didn't specify what kind of support I am looking for. I want to compress my ape, cue, and jpg files for a CD into a single rar file. And if there is no cue file support, I'd put the apl files in there of course.

I would like MC to look inside the rar and play the files as if it were in a directory. Kind of like what foobar does, but cooler because I'd have all of the neat things MC does.

[JimH]

That sounds a lot like a playlist.

[GHammer]

That sounds a lot like a playlist.

Hmmm, I never was good at explaining myself. Ask previous girlfriends

Suppose I have these files:

cd.ape
cd.cue
selection1.apl
selection2.apl
cover.jpg

And suppose I used WinRAR to compress them.

Now I have cd.rar

Inside cd.rar I have all the files needed to play the selections or the entire cd.

The individual files do not exist on my system after I compress them, they are deleted because there is no reason to keep them.

Now, why do I want to do this? I want to have the protection that rar gives to its archives. I understand that a compressed audio file, like ape, is not going to become smaller. But inside a rar it will be safer.

"Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives. " That's from the WinRAR website. And I have used that ability to recover damaged archives in the past.

Doesn't have to be ape files I archive, mp3, wav, whatever.

Grab the latest foobar and WinRAR.
Archive a few audio files.
Delete the original files if you want.
Drop the rar file onto foobar.
Play the selections.

Pretty cool feature, and actually useful for the ability to protect the files inside a rar wrapper.

[JimH]

I'm having trouble understanding why a second copy of the file on a CD,  DVD, or even another PC wouldn't be better backup.

However, to address the question you asked, I think it is very unlikely that we'll pursue this (RAR file support).

[pank2002]

Hmmm, I never was good at explaining myself. Ask previous girlfriends

man, we could start a club

I'm not sure I see the smart in this... But then again, I've never been a fan of archives.

[GHammer]

I'm having trouble understanding why a second copy of the file on a CD,  DVD, or even another PC wouldn't be better backup.

However, to address the question you asked, I think it is very unlikely that we'll pursue this (RAR file support).

The why? Let's say I backup my files regularly. Let's say I have a glitch that is not noticed. A power failure, a bit of bad ram, whatever. The glitch corrupts a file so it will not play properly. My backup will not know the file does not play properly, so I will eventually overwrite the backup. Now I have no useful file though I had a copy.

If I have the files inside a rar file I simply use RARs recovery and I have a playable file again. Easy.

Plus, I have Gbs of files. Why not keep them in a repairable container? If backup the container, cool. If I don't, I have to completely lose the drive to lose the files.

[paulr]

Wouldn't you achieve almost the same thing if you used SmartPar to creat parity archives for the files in question (or whatever the appropriate program is to generate PAR2 files) without actually compressing them?

How much damage can RAR recovery records recover from?  I *think* PAR2 is able to recover more and you don't have to compress them.

Just a thought.

[GHammer]

Wouldn't you achieve almost the same thing if you used SmartPar to creat parity archives for the files in question (or whatever the appropriate program is to generate PAR2 files) without actually compressing them?

How much damage can RAR recovery records recover from?  I *think* PAR2 is able to recover more and you don't have to compress them.

Just a thought.

Probably. I'll check it out. You can select the size of the recovery records in RAR, I choose 3%.

Also, never overlook the 'Hey that's cool" factor.
Kinda like a pong game I remember seeing in one of my favorite apps

[paulr]

The "Hey that's cool" (HTC) factor is important.

What I wrote is slightly incorrect.  SmartPar creates PAR files.  There is another application (freeware) that creates PAR2, but the name escapes me at the moment (a google search should locate it fairly quickly).

They are both good parity archives, but PAR2 is better as it is more flexible and can re-create missing files.

[GHammer]

Wouldn't you achieve almost the same thing if you used SmartPar to creat parity archives for the files in question (or whatever the appropriate program is to generate PAR2 files) without actually compressing them?

How much damage can RAR recovery records recover from?  I *think* PAR2 is able to recover more and you don't have to compress them.

Just a thought.

The PAR2 utility works well. But, I have protection using the RAR alone since I set the recovery record and it takes only 3% additional space. I could tell it to use 10% as the PAR utility is doing and should have the same protection.

What I was looking to do was to keep my music files inside a RAR and MC play them from there. Take a look at how foobar does this. It'll all make more sense that way.