Topic: Looking for some FLAC help

[Josh P]

so I'm doing some spring cleaning and reorganizing my archived shows.

I put a DVD I had burned back in 2006 in my drive.  It's got a bunch of flac files and an md5.  I click the md5 and let it run, no problem.  I de-flac straight from the DVD to my HD (is that OK or should I copy the FLAC file to my HD then, de-flac?).  But now I want to change the names on some of the files and when I do it says "are you sure you want to rename the read only file named xxxxx to zzzzz?"

Read only file?  Say what?

So I right clicked the wav file, clicked properties and sure enough all the de-flaced wavs have the "read only" box checked in the properties tab.

I doublechecked to see if all the recent recordings I've been accumulating on my HD were checked "read only", nope, none are.

Is this a problem?  Is it as easy as just unchecking the "read only" box in the properties tab of each file?

[morst]

That read-only flag is a weird effect, but it should not be a problem at all for you to decode straight from the disc, if you prefer. One thing to watch when you change the file names is that the old MD5 file won't work until you change the filenames in there as well.

[fmaderjr]

Yes it's as easy as unchecking ''read only".

In XP, to change all the files at once, store all your files/folders in a single main folder.
Right click on that folder.
Select properties.
Uncheck "read only".
Hit "apply"
Hit 'OK" to the defualt option that comes up.

I don't know if Vista works the same way, but it may.

[Josh P]

Thanks for the responses.  As long as it's OK to de-flac straight from the data dvd I think I'm doing it right as far as I can tell.  I'm on XP and putting them all in one folder and unchecking the read only box for the whole folder worked.

just for shits and giggles I copied the files from one of the archive DVDs onto my HD.  Then checked md5's, then de-flac'd, and still they are read-only files.  Must be a setting in flacfrontend I guess?  Or does that happend for everyone else too?

[MattD]

I think it's a Windows setting. Since you're copying files that are read-only  (they have to be on a CDR that's been closed), Windows maintains the file's read-only property when it's copied.

Oh, as for the FLAC part of it, maybe it just preserves whatever attributes that are present.

[Josh P]

I think it's a Windows setting. Since you're copying files that are read-only  (they have to be on a CDR that's been closed), Windows maintains the file's read-only property when it's copied.

Oh, as for the FLAC part of it, maybe it just preserves whatever attributes that are present.

are you pretty confident that I can extract the wavs from the flacs while they're still on the DVD?  Or would you copy them to your HD then go through the process?

[fmaderjr]

The fact that the files are read only has nothing to do with flac. It is because they were first stored on a DVD-R (which can't be modified). If they were copied to an external hard drive (instead of DVD-R) and then back to your main hard drive they would not be read only.

I believe any file stored on a DVD-R or CR-R (and probably DVD-RW & CD-RW unless packet writing software is used to burn them) is going to be read only when transferred back to a hard drive.

That happened to me with a bunch of income tax files I saved to CD-R and it took me a while to figure out how to make them useable again after transferring them back to an income tax program (as read only, they could not be modified). As in the case of these flac files, all I had to do was uncheck read only in properties to be able to use them again.

[dactylus]

I think it's a Windows setting. Since you're copying files that are read-only  (they have to be on a CDR that's been closed), Windows maintains the file's read-only property when it's copied.

Oh, as for the FLAC part of it, maybe it just preserves whatever attributes that are present.

are you pretty confident that I can extract the wavs from the flacs while they're still on the DVD?  Or would you copy them to your HD then go through the process?

I would copy them to your HD, then go through the process.  I have seen errors introduced in the past when NOT copying to the hard drive first...

YMMV

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

I would copy them to your HD, then go through the process.  I have seen errors introduced in the past when NOT copying to the hard drive first...

QFT...  But if you convert FLAC>WAV via DVD>HDD, then you can test the WAV MD5, if one is included...

Read Only on the DVD is normal, since its written permanently to the disc.  Sometimes when you copy from DVD, it carries over.  Just ignore it and turn Read Only off...

Terry

[Josh P]

awesome, awesome, awesome.  +t's all around!!!

[dgale]

I would recommend copying the FLAC files to your HD and then un-FLACing them.  Also, make sure you check the MD5s after you transfer to HD and before you de-FLAC, or better yet, test the ffp in FLAC Frontend.  THe ffp has been with the FLAC files sicne they were created (they are automatically created when the FLAC files were created - the typical ffp file you see with FLAC sets is just a text file showing you the ffps - they are actually part of each FLAC file), wheras you can't say for sure when the MD5s were created unless you created the FLAC files yourself and made the MD%s at the same time.  Many times lately people have added MD5s to a FLAC fileset because it was required by a torrent site for uploading or some similar reason but do you know for sure they tested the ffps first to make sure the fileset was error free?  Testing the ffps is the sure fire way to know that a fileset is an exact bit-for-bit copy of the original fileset.  MD5s are really unnecessary for FLAC filesets - they are just more convenient for many people as you can just doubleclick the MD5 file and the test is run, whereas with ffps you need to load the files in FLAC Frontend and click test and then review the results to see if there were any problems.