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Gear / Technical Help => Post-Processing, Computer / Streaming / Internet Devices & Related Activity => Topic started by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 11:34:31 AM

Title: compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 11:34:31 AM
Lots of problems over here with compression, both SHN and FLAC.  Ive used mkwACT for years without problems and now I keep getting an error message saying:

"Error reported by Shoreten DLL"

Fine, ill use FLAC.  But then I get this:

WARNING: skipping unknown sub-chunk 'PAD'

I retransfered the show for a few seconds and made a small wav.  Tried again, and still got the same errors.  So I popped in an achived CD with SHNs.  Went SHN>WAV no problem.  WAV>SHN got the same error as above.  WAV>FLAC for these files went just fine without any errors.... its about here I wanted to cry  :'(

reinstalled mkwACT, still refuses to work... im working on WINxp... any help???

thanks in advance,
-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 06, 2003, 11:35:52 AM
i don't think that flac error is a problem, i think there is some unnecessary wav header info that it skips.  i get that message whenever i use flac and it's not an issue.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 11:38:53 AM
cool... just for the sake of clearing up some ignorance - do you know why i would get that message on one file and not another??

you get a ticket for quick response, feel a little better if its something i can ignore  ;D

-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: BCostigan on December 06, 2003, 11:43:13 AM
Did you use any tools in CEP or Soundforge??
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 06, 2003, 11:43:16 AM
it may depend on how it was transferred and the gear used to tape it.  if it's got SCMS info, that could be in the wav header.  you may want to PM MikeW on this board, i think he's the guy who invented flac?

you gonna be in miami?  i may go to one show and i'll need someone to tell me the names of the songs from the last 3 albums like you did at nassau...+t back at ya.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 11:56:03 AM
Im going tascam da20 mkII > audiophile2496 > wavlab.  Only thing I did to the file was resample and then compression hell!!  Did it before without that error in flac, and the sudden collapse of my mkwact made me suspicious.....

Cant make it to Miami - I have to work, shot my load on my vacation time between feb/summer/anniv tour.  Youll have to poke Jason each time, "YES... THEY OPENED WITH KING OF PRUSSIA"  ;D  

how did the v3>v3 project work???  

-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: Brian Skalinder on December 06, 2003, 11:58:25 AM
Have you changed the software you use for recording and/or tracking your WAVs?

There's a past post which addresses the FLAC sub-chunk issue (http://www.taperssection.com/yabbse/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=7758;start=msg89012#msg89012).  Not real detailed, but...there you go.  Here's the explanation on ETree:

Quote
Your .wav editing software (Sound Forge, Cool Edit, CD Wave, WaveLab, etc.) may have added extra unnecessary data in the header of the .wav file. If this is the case, the FLAC encoding DOS box warning will be displayed:

WARNING: skipping unknown sub-chunk 'LIST'

Don't worry about it... the FLAC encoder is just telling you that there's extra, unnecessary junk in your .wav file, and because FLAC is so cool, it's just skipping it.

And the explanation on FLAC's Sourceforge FAQ:

Quote
WAVE is a complicated standard; many kinds of data besides audio data can be put in it. Most likely what has happened is that the application that created the original WAVE file also added some extra information for it's own use, which FLAC does not store or recreate (see also). But the audio data in the two WAVE files will be identical. There are other tools to compare just the audio content of two WAVE files; ExactAudioCopy has such a feature.

To the archive it goes.

Sorry, I can't help with mkwACT/SHN.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: MikeW on December 06, 2003, 11:58:46 AM
Hey guys....

I just maintain an installer to help keep things simple for Windows FLAC users (www.mikewren.com/flac). Josh Coalson and his band of coding thugs over on flac.sourceforge.net are responsible for the genious of FLAC.

This warning:
WARNING: skipping unknown sub-chunk 'PAD'

Indicates that there is a bunch of extra junk in the header (non-audio) portion of the .wav file, and that FLAC is ignoring it and not including it.  If you used CD Wave to track your shows before encoding, you wouldn't receive those errors.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 06, 2003, 12:00:27 PM

how did the v3>v3 project work???  


there are a coule of issues...i still have a couple of very minor static pops because i didn't have my laptop totally tweaked but they're not a big deal, but it's not perfect.  jason ran his levels more conservatively than he normally does and i backed off the gain a little bit so the levels are low...i normalized in wavelab and it came out pretty nice.  worth the experiment.  i sent jason the dvd-a to see how it sounds on his shitty playback.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 12:04:59 PM
Thanks Bri... I was waiting for you to chime in, figured I wasnt the first with this problem  8)  

Mike - I DID track with CD Wav first and got that error - should I still not be too concerned with it??

thanks... HANK

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 12:10:48 PM

how did the v3>v3 project work???  


there are a coule of issues...i still have a couple of very minor static pops because i didn't have my laptop totally tweaked but they're not a big deal, but it's not perfect.  jason ran his levels more conservatively than he normally does and i backed off the gain a little bit so the levels are low...i normalized in wavelab and it came out pretty nice.  worth the experiment.  i sent jason the dvd-a to see how it sounds on his shitty playback.

live and learn... sounded like a fun project to play with.  dont know why you sent that to jason, gonna sound like garbage...

-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: MikeW on December 06, 2003, 12:20:56 PM

Mike - I DID track with CD Wav first and got that error - should I still not be too concerned with it??

It's raising some red flags for me as I've never run into any warning when tracking with CD Wave.

Did you open up the tracks in any audio editing program after tracking with CD Wave?  What is your lineage of the audio.  Walk me through your post-production steps.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 06, 2003, 12:22:18 PM
i get that message all the time on shows i transfer using wavelab.  it's never been a problem to people who have downloaded.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: MikeW on December 06, 2003, 12:31:21 PM
i get that message all the time on shows i transfer using wavelab.  it's never been a problem to people who have downloaded.

Yes, but are you tracking in CD Wave?  CD Wave is supposed to strip all that extra header stuff out when it saves as tracks.  As long as CD Wave is the last step before encoding, you shoudln't receive any errors or warnings when encoding to FLAC.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 06, 2003, 12:33:01 PM
i get that message all the time on shows i transfer using wavelab.  it's never been a problem to people who have downloaded.

Yes, but are you tracking in CD Wave?  CD Wave is supposed to strip all that extra header stuff out when it saves as tracks.  As long as CD Wave is the last step before encoding, you shoudln't receive any errors or warnings when encoding to FLAC.

yes.  not sure what's going on then.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: MikeW on December 06, 2003, 12:36:23 PM
i get that message all the time on shows i transfer using wavelab.  it's never been a problem to people who have downloaded.

Yes, but are you tracking in CD Wave?  CD Wave is supposed to strip all that extra header stuff out when it saves as tracks.  As long as CD Wave is the last step before encoding, you shoudln't receive any errors or warnings when encoding to FLAC.

yes.  not sure what's going on then.

Wow, very interesting.  What version of CD Wave are you using?  I'm very curious to find out what's going on.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 06, 2003, 12:42:57 PM
1.91 beta

i guess i should double check to make sure i'm not giving you bad info!  i'll check back in a few minutes
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 06, 2003, 12:48:18 PM
ok, i was giving you bad info...i just compressed a couple files created in wavelab and tracked in cdwav and get no sub-chunk PAD message, so please disregard all i just said.

 ::)
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: MikeW on December 06, 2003, 12:53:11 PM
ok, i was giving you bad info...i just compressed a couple files created in wavelab and tracked in cdwav and get no sub-chunk PAD message, so please disregard all i just said.

Right on...
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 06, 2003, 12:55:13 PM
so in the end, thought, the sub-chunk PAD message still shouldn't be a problem, right?  thanks for your help Mike!
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: MikeW on December 06, 2003, 01:17:40 PM
In and of itself, the warning message isn't a problem.  However, it indicates to me that something else is fucking with teh wav files before they are getting encoded to flac, and that may be a problem (sector alignment, etc).
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: Brian Skalinder on December 06, 2003, 01:35:16 PM
This still doesn't address the question of why the sub-chunks are appearing while previously they were not, but - have you tried using SHNTool to remove them?

Have you un/re/installed any of your audio software lately?
Have you changed your post-production procedures at all?
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: MikeW on December 06, 2003, 01:47:58 PM
This still doesn't address the question of why the sub-chunks are appearing while previously they were not, but - have you tried using SHNTool to remove them?

Have you un/re/installed any of your audio software lately?
Have you changed your post-production procedures at all?

That was what I was trying to say/ask.  No need to remove the extra header garbage with SHNtool, as FLAC will strip it when encoding (hence the warning messages).
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 03:41:35 PM
sorry - went out for a bit...

I just retransfered the show to my HD the same way I always have... tascam>wavlab@48>wav>resample@44.1>add fades in/out>cdwav(track)>flac

Now, i think i forgot to add fades and reopened the first and last tracks in wavlab to fade in/out - and if my memory serves me correctly those are the only two i tried to compress  ::)  Im going to do it all over again and ill let you know if I still get the same error even after tracking in cdwav...

-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 04:54:09 PM
did it again with tracking in CDwav being the last step - no warning  ;D  Thanks all!!

-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: mirth on December 06, 2003, 06:05:43 PM
Your shorten problem, I'm guessing, is happening on a machine running WinXP? You need to set the compatibility mode for MKW to Windows 2000, then it should work fine.

You're probably trying to encode wav > shn & append the seek table at the end of the file. If you set it to not generate the seek table I bet it will encode w/o problems, but that's not what we want.....
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 06:25:25 PM
Your shorten problem, I'm guessing, is happening on a machine running WinXP? You need to set the compatibility mode for MKW to Windows 2000, then it should work fine.

You're probably trying to encode wav > shn & append the seek table at the end of the file. If you set it to not generate the seek table I bet it will encode w/o problems, but that's not what we want.....

yeah, I did all that, set the compatability, tried keeping the skt file seperate... no dice.  uninstalled, reboot, reinstall - tried a dozen times with multiple wav files, still same error message  :banging head:

you got anything else for me  :P

Thanks,
-Hank
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: MattD on December 06, 2003, 07:51:40 PM
I have that problem with MKW in win2k as well. I cannot appent a skt when encoding. I switched to SHNtool for this, though I'm mostly using FLAC now anyway.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 08:21:12 PM
thats what I say - I got one compression that works, and eventually its all going to be 24bit audio anyway, so screw SHN  :P

-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: Tim on December 06, 2003, 08:36:25 PM
Hank - I find FLAC to be infinitely more user friendly than MKW/SHN,

and I'm still doing lowly 24bit
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 06, 2003, 09:02:54 PM
really???  I still dont get how the ffps are easier than md5s... I guess after 4 years of SHN its not going to be easy to make a transition....

-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: F.O.Bean on December 07, 2003, 12:23:43 PM
really???  I still dont get how the ffps are easier than md5s... I guess after 4 years of SHN its not going to be easy to make a transition....

-Hank



i like flac more and more everyday, such a great lil tool..i havent been using compression for very long,maybe a year, but even everything i have in shn format, i put into flac format and eventually i'll give all the shn's away.. 8)why mess w/ md5's when the fingerprint is in each flac anyway, why do more steps than ya have to.... ;)
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 08, 2003, 09:59:41 PM
maybe im not using flac verification to it fullest, but the way I see it is you can either create the ffps and compare them by eye to make sure they are all right.... which would involve checking about 15-20 files for each show to make sure the d/l went ok.  

Or you can have them verified when you decode to wav, which means you have to scroll back and read the decompression of each file to see it went OK.  To me, that seems like more work than setting up the md5s for the 5 or so shows i d/led and having mkwACT pop up with the exact files that did not verify.

Do I make sense, or am I a rambling fool that has it all wrong  ???

-Hank

(and if you chose to call me a fool - please state why and not make jokes at my expense  8))

EDIT:  and another thing... when you verify while decoding, who is to say those files are still accurate to the ffps in the txt file?  I can put a p+f show named as a phish show with a phish txt file and they will all verify correctly, will they not??  Then when i listen, its all wrong, and im going to have to settle for some P+F   ;)
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: zhianosatch on December 08, 2003, 10:02:58 PM
Fucked up FLACs won't decode... so the fingerprint is unnecessary. If it decodes, then wham bam, it's all good, nothing went shcrewy.
Why tapers include FLAC fingerprints in their txt files is just one of those dumb taper quirks...
Armen
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 08, 2003, 10:06:57 PM
Fucked up FLACs won't decode... so the fingerprint is unnecessary. If it decodes, then wham bam, it's all good, nothing went shcrewy.
Why tapers include FLAC fingerprints in their txt files is just one of those dumb taper quirks...
Armen

Yeah, but if a complete file is missing, there will be no message to tell me I missed a track... happens sometimes on FTP trades and is easy to overlook.  with the md5s it will tell me its missing from the set, the flac verification only tells me what I have verifys..... right?

-Hank

Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 08, 2003, 10:08:48 PM
the fingerprints are useful if you want to compare what you downloaded to a known source, say that is on the etree database.  if you downloaded the file correctly, it will decode correctly.  if not, you will be notified.
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: HanKDanK on December 08, 2003, 10:15:05 PM
I guess ive just been lucky enough to not run into any problems yet.... forgive my ignorance.  Im still not convinced, but I guess ill just conform with the masses and become a filthy flacer ;)
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: dmonterisi on December 08, 2003, 10:20:21 PM
you've got to look at the list of files to make sure you got them all, yes that's true.  flac does fall short in that critical area. :P
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: F.O.Bean on December 09, 2003, 01:15:05 AM
philthy phlac'r :P
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: Sean Gallemore on December 09, 2003, 07:35:44 AM
sounds screwy, I'll stick to shn for now
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: Brian Skalinder on December 09, 2003, 08:27:52 AM
Yeah, but if a complete file is missing, there will be no message to tell me I missed a track...

That's why I include FLAC fingerprints with my recordings.

-- Dumb Taper
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: F.O.Bean on December 09, 2003, 11:15:39 AM
Yeah, but if a complete file is missing, there will be no message to tell me I missed a track...

That's why I include FLAC fingerprints with my recordings.

-- Dumb Taper

brian, you never miss a beat, +T for that one.... ;)
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: Tim on December 09, 2003, 01:59:58 PM
sounds screwy, I'll stick to shn for now

it's really, really simple...
Title: Re:compression problems
Post by: F.O.Bean on December 09, 2003, 02:45:06 PM
sounds screwy, I'll stick to shn for now

it's really, really simple...

really, really, really simple, if i can do it, you def can.... ;)