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Poster: Tyler Date: Jul 28, 2004 4:43am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: lossless question

for what it's worth, i think the archive does accept files in monkey's audio (.ape) but just on the whole people don't use / encode / upload it. for sure we do not accept .mkw files since those are PC only. i do vaugely remember in like 2002 some shows were put up in .ape ... or we at least talked about it? since it is loss-less i am 99% sure is is okay. but others feel free to correct me. i don't think it is covered in the FAQ. please point me to it if you find it.

tyler
archive.org admin

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Poster: xtifr Date: Jul 28, 2004 6:30am
Forum: etree Subject: there's more than two (or three) platforms out there!

Is Monkey's whatever really cross-platform? Does it run on Linux/PPC? On Solaris/Sparc? On HPUX/hppa? I have friends who run each of those three as their primary platform.

The thing about shorten and flac is that they're both available as source (even if SHN isn't technically "open source"), so they're fully portable to just about anything. Most of the other lossless compression formats I've seen are binary-only, and are limited to a handful of platforms. They may *say* Linux is supported, but what they really mean is that Linux/x86 is supported, not Linux/PPC, Linux/Sparc, Linux/Alpha, Linux/MIPS or Linux/ARM (Playstation/Netwinder), etc.

In 20 years, our computers and operating systems will probably have warped beyond all recognition. However, shn and flac will still work because the source is available, and the programs can be recompiled for the new platforms. Is the same true of Monkey's thingie?

(This is an honest question; I really don't know. If the answer is: yes, the source to Monkey's doo-dad is freely available, then I have no real objection to its use on the archive. But otherwise....)

To quote Steve Winwood: "who knows what tomorrow may bring?" Open source (or near equivalents) help make the archive more-or-less future-proof.

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Poster: simon c Date: Jul 28, 2004 7:17am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: there's more than two (or three) platforms out there!

I think it likely that the Archive will be sticking to SHN and FLAC for Etree - SHN because it's still the de-facto standard, and FLAC because it's open-source (hurrah!) and is also extremely popular.

Nothing against .ape, but for starters, we don't have any mechanisms for making derivatives from that format, which makes streamable preview/MP3 versions pretty impossible, and I think they're important for the Live Music Archive (where allowed!)

There may be a few shows hanging out in .ape (just as there are a very few in .mkw), but hopefully they will be replaced as time goes on.

Regards,
s!

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Poster: TomHorton Date: Jul 28, 2004 10:26pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: there's more than two (or three) platforms out there!

The only reason Monkey's Audio was used was because it was the only software that would compress 24bit audio files. This was before FLAC supported 24bit. Now that FLAC supports 24bit, there should be no need for .ape or Monkey's Audio to be supported due to the reasons xtifer mentioned. I have personally re-encoded 2 24bit ape shoes to FLAC and uploaded them to the archive.

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Poster: Tyler Date: Jul 28, 2004 4:49am
Forum: etree Subject: FAQ addition - Re: What formats archive.org accepts for seeds (simon c read this)

So going back and reading the Audio FAQ i was supprised to see that we do not have a section on what type of seeds the archive accepts. esp since there is always confusision with people re: mp3's and seeds. they want to know if they can upload mp3's since the archive hosts mp3's, questions about mkw, etc...

so i think we should write up a FAQ entry about seed file formats that are accepted at archive.org. i'll start a little and simon please add / fix this paragraph and maybe plug it into the faq? thanks!

"The Live Music Archive accepts live concert seeds of loss-less files only. Acceptable file formats include shorten (.shn), FLAC (.flac), or Monkey's Audio (.ape). [note: is .ape okay?] Note that MKW files (.mkw) are NOT an acceptable file format for seeding. Also, lossy files are NOT allowed for seeds (.mp3 or .ogg files). If this is your case, please start with your original .wav files (pre-mp3) and encode them to a loss-less format and upload thos loss-less files to the LMA to be the seed. The Archive will make derivational formats on-site in a quality control method to ensure the uniform quality of the supplemental mp3's and ogg's."

What do you guys think?

Tyler

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Poster: Tyler Date: Jul 28, 2004 5:11am
Forum: etree Subject: one more FAQ edit (meta-data wait time)

also, for this entry: http://www.archive.org/about/faq.php?faq_id=193 maybe put that after the user enters the meta-data, to wait 5 minutes, since the system checks for meta-data every 5 minutes. Right? The current faq entry merely says that the next time the system checks it, it will be fine. people are still entering it 50 times in 5 minutes because each time they think it doesn't 'stick' since they see no change. they just should be told a specific wait time.

Tyler

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Poster: simon c Date: Jul 28, 2004 3:16pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: one more FAQ edit (meta-data wait time)

I've done both of these - the new 'preferred format/' FAQ is worth checking:

http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php#205

WAV is a possible upload format for the LMA, right? Not that anyone generally uses it, but I believe it works fine with our deriver, so there's no reason why you shouldn't use it? If that's wrong, I'll change it.

Thanks,
s!