Help decoding two FLAC files

[Steve A.]

The following 2 files were from a radio broadcast of the Eric Clapton "From the Cradle" tour, so they should be almost legal (yes, there was a disclaimer at the end of the broadcast, but I forgot to listen to it!) I was able to un-FLAC the other songs from this show, but these two just give me error messages ("CODEC not found"). One possibilitity is that the two files aren't quite complete, missing a few bytes that renders them un-FLACable. If anyone can decode these files let me know.

Thanks!

http://tinyurl.com/qvmep

http://tinyurl.com/m3t5r

Steve Ahola

P.S. FWIW MP3 and WAV files that have been truncated will usually play, only they will end abruptly when the bytes run out. It seems like FLAC and APE files need to be complete to be decoded, but there SHOULD be utility programs around that will repair them...

[Don Symes]

Based on this thread:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...hp/t34327.html

Take a look at the first few bytes of the file and see if they're "fLaC" (open it with a text editor, but DO NOT save it).

Antoher thread on the same site (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...ic=30673&st=25)
mentions that Media Monkey - whatever that is - seems to cope pretty well if first fed a good FLAC file. There's also mention in that thread of a FLAC frame decoder that does repair: http://phoenix.inf.upol.cz/~lichvarm...d-0.1.0.tar.gz

I've never FLAC'd, so I have no direct help to offer, but good luck with these and others!

[Steve A.]

Don:

I'll give that a shot. I've noticed that a lot of BitTorrent transfers never reach 100%, as peers with the needed files go off-line, never to be heard from again. It seems like some formats are basically unusable unless complete.

With that in mind, there probably are utility programs out there which will save what you do have.

Thanks!

Steve Ahola

[Carl / Zwengel Amps]

steve;

I never use flac files because they're rare but I believe Linux handles these file types without any problems. If you've got access to a Linux box you should be able to rip it with jack or one of their other utility programs then just convert it to mp3 in the usual manner. Basically what you need is something that will repair the damaged or missing index blocks in the file. Check out http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ I havent used it in forever but it MIGHT do what you need it to do.

-Carl

[gregyancey]

There's a free FLAC codec available for Winamp, which is what I use.

[Rob S]

There's also a codec pack (inc. flac) for Nero from:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multime...gin-Pack.shtml

This works seamlessly with foobar 2000 as it uses the Nero engine.

Cheers,

Rob.

[Rob S]

So I read your post properly and had a go with foobar and the flac front end. The header doesn't contain the normal flac info (doesn't say flac in fact).
I'll have a go with the torrent itself later (peak time here at the minute) and see if you somehow didn't just get a corrupted file.

If it doesn't work then no great loss...

[Steve A.]

Originally Posted by Rob S

So I read your post properly and had a go with foobar and the flac front end. The header doesn't contain the normal flac info (doesn't say flac in fact).
I'll have a go with the torrent itself later (peak time here at the minute) and see if you somehow didn't just get a corrupted file.

If it doesn't work then no great loss...

Rob (or should I call you Groucho???)

This stuff is new to me but I wasn't able to get 100% of the download, which can be very common with BT. The original seeder disappears and your peers only have 96 or 98% of the files. If you wait around long enough, someone with 100% of the files might make them available on line again. Or not.

In any case, I believe that BT will teach the younger generation how to be more patient... you might not get what you requested right away, and you might not get all of it ("but you always get what you need" M. Jagger)

Steve Ahola

P.S. Maybe I just need a better BT search engine! [Edit: just a reminder that I was able to un-FLAC the rest of the show. It was just those two numbers that have been giving me problems and I may digitize my audio cassettes of the show to get those songs.]

[Rob S]

Hi Steve,

My Apologies. The older generation should stop trying to do more than one thing at once... I had done a quick search for that torrent and hadn't realised that I was looking at a cached version from Lord-knows-when. It no longer exists though no doubt it will resurface.

I've recently started to use BitLord 1.1 which gives a lot of information relating to the health of a torrent and lets you select individual tracks if they aren't clumped together, it's one of the nicest I've seen.

Hope this is of some help,

Rob.

P.S. The Groucho avatar went on there after watching duck soup - some avatars on these are a bit intimidating. I expect it'll morph around a bit like the smileys.

[Steve A.]

Originally Posted by Rob S

Hi Steve,

My Apologies. The older generation should stop trying to do more than one thing at once... I had done a quick search for that torrent and hadn't realised that I was looking at a cached version from Lord-knows-when. It no longer exists though no doubt it will resurface.

I've recently started to use BitLord 1.1 which gives a lot of information relating to the health of a torrent and lets you select individual tracks if they aren't clumped together, it's one of the nicest I've seen...

Well, that Torrent started up again and I was finally able to download the last 0.2% and I was able to un-FLAC the files posted here.

New strategy... rather than trying to resurrect old torrents, I've decided to look at the new ones to see if anything interests me. Like with torrentspy.com I see that Rory Gallagher's "Calling Card" is listed as a new torrent.

The technology behind torrents is very revolutionary! In the past, the more people that were downloading a particular file from a specific site, the slower it would go. So you really did not want to publicize the stuff you found. Whereas with torrents the more people downloading (as peers) the faster it will go- "many hands make work light". I'm not sure that I understand the concept of "leeches" and what exactly they are allowed to download.

The idea of maintaining a specific upload ratio on the old pirate sites- people would upload ANYTHING just to so that they would be able to download something. So the crap files and viruses would keep multiplying...

I'm not sure how they do it, but it is interesting how torrents can die off and then grow back... I guess as long as someone who downloaded the torrent will act as a seed or a peer, it can become available again. So you can "vote" with your computer- which torrents you think are worth YOU acting as a seed or a peer.

Steve Ahola

P.S. There are a LOT of torrents out there which at this time are only 92 or 96 or 99% complete. I haven't looked into the Chat feature in BitLord but it would be nice to be able to send out messages like "please make these files available so that I can complete the download!!!"

For the record, my main interest is in bootleg recordings of concerts, which aren't exactly legal, but its not like I'm downloading something I could buy in the store. I've already bought all of the cds available from the particular artists that I follow so I like to fill out my collection with live recordings.

[Rob S]

I too had a few months of downloading ROIO's and demos - mainly of Pink Floyd but apart from a few gems they don't get listened to at all because of the poor quality.

An interesting weekly magazine is the Big-O:
http://www.bigozine2.com/

- you never know what it's going to throw up for the ROIO of the week.
This week is a fine quality recording of Dave Gilmour a couple of weeks ago in Manchester.

Thanks for the Rory Gallagher heads up, a great man!

Rob.

[Steve A.]

Originally Posted by Rob S

I too had a few months of downloading ROIO's and demos - mainly of Pink Floyd but apart from a few gems they don't get listened to at all because of the poor quality...

In many cases I've been tracking down live radio broadcasts that I already recorded on audio cassette tapes, but have been looking for a better recording. Like the EC broadcast from his "Back to the Cradle" tour, Tom Petty's 20 Nights broadcast from the Fillmore and two Bob Marley broadcasts from KSAN in 1973 and 1977 (the last two are on Furthur, which are *artist approved* live recordings).

Steve Ahola

P.S. The Complete Chess Studio Recordings by Muddy Waters (on 9 cds!) is very tempting, especially since many of the singles are not currently available in the US.