Why not MP3 versions

[Banjaxed]

I understand that you don't lose any quality with Shorten file whereas you do with MP3s, but wouldn't it be good to have mp3 versions of the gigs on the FTP siteAS WELL AS the SHN versions?


The SHN files are about 30MB each, whereas MP3s would be about 4MB each. You could get 15 mp3 tracks for 2 SHNs.


This would mean that people with crap 56k cxns could enjoy the live gigs (with slightly reduced quality) too.

[cartman]

YES Banajxed, but people have this mad stupid policy "DO NOT CONVERT" pfft, i converted a show there and the quality is grand p[lease some1 upload the mp3 versions,








please


banjaxed we should start a petition

[Hendrik]

I understand your problem so much.

I had the same problem with the munich gig. But in my case it's the saving place (only 10 GB on my PC, haha old school![img]smileys/smiley4.gif[/img]), and not the download speed. So I downloaded always one SHN file and converted it to Mp3.

After that I asked a friend if she couldn't burn the wav. files for me on the CD. And so she did.

Maybe that's the only possibility for you to get a gig on CD in the finest quality. But some people are satisfied with Mp3s, that's ok as well. [img]smileys/smiley1.gif[/img]

[cartman]

mp3 is f**kin grand for bobbing away in ur room or walking down the street.,.

[Bumpman]

yeah, 30mb a song is too big for any pc...

[Scon]

All the above is true, but it's more to do with the fact that an mp3 burned CD will often be copied to others, but not labled as an mp3 sourced CD.

From that point on you'll have 2 different quality shows circulating, but it'll be impossible to ensure the 2 stay distinct from eachother. In a sense it pollutes the first. Somebody wanting a copy of an SHN show may end up with an mp3 one. It just gets messy.

Also, if somebody with an mp3 sourced CD decides to make mp3s from that, the quality will get worse again. In theory you get end up with an endless amount of varying quality shows.

Having SHN/FLAC only shows is not ideal for a lot of people, but it seems to be the only way to ensure a high quality to the sound for those who want that level of quality. Typically, those without broadband usually use post to get shows. I always did this in the past.

[Banjaxed]

That'sa good and fair point Scon (and well made), but:


While I take your point that The Purists don't want to dilute the SHN gene pool with (MP3->WAV)-mongrel burned CDs, I'd imagine that it's trivial to look at the raw data on a CD track and determine whether or not it came from an MP3. Even if that's hard/impossible to do all you'd have to do instead would be compare your CD version to an original (or unique signature of that original) hosted on a trusted site such as the FTP server we all know and love.


That's the technical argument. My second argument I'm sure will hold no weight with The Purists:


If you can't easily tell the difference between an mp3 sourced CD version and the original version, what does it matter which version you have?!


In conclusion:
We're talking about live shows recorded (probably) from someone's minidisc thro an (often) crap mic. Even with the original SHN, the quality is going to be fairly poor. There's nothing to stop some kind-hearted lucky broadband-weilding eskimo downloading all the SHNs converting them to MP3 and putting them up on his/her own FTP server (ooh, that's gonna scare those Purists!).

If you're that kind hearted person but you don't know how to do all that nerdy-techy crap, PM me and we'll sort it out. Think of how popular you'll be!


(oh, by the way, sorry Scon, I do appreciate your post and where you're coming from)[img]smileys/smiley14.gif[/img]

[Alistair]

There were a couple of pages put up about this before around here i think...

Why MP3 Is Unacceptable As A Trading Format
and
why most traders dont trade mp3

Although these are mostly about the sound issues when converting to mp3, i have to agree with scon that there will be ever degrading versions floating around and really you should respect the wishes of the tapers as they have gone to the trouble of taping it and distributing it for other peoples benefit.

If you can't easily tell the difference between an mp3 sourced CD version and the original version, what does it matter which version you have?!

Usually you don't have both to compare so you don't know if the original is a lot better or worse, but yeah i see what you mean although it might matter to someone else you trade with further down the line who can. Also as you said we are usually talking about "live shows recorded (probably) from someone's minidisc thro an (often) crap mic." But i would see that as meaning we would want to try and do as much as possible to stop any additional loss of quality.

Generally i think if you have trouble downloading due to file sizes being to large then you could trade by post which should be possible.

Although despite all this I think it would be good to perhaps have the "highlights" of some shows up in mp3 format just not entire bootlegs, to try and stop people from converting the mp3s and trading them.

hmm wonder if any of that made sense[img]smileys/smiley4.gif[/img]

[Bumpman]

basically the problem is that country dwelling folk who are stuck with 56k modems with NO possibility of an upgrade are alienated completely.

The reason being that one song in SHN would take about 4 hours to get, whereas an mp3 song can be downloaded in about 30 mins.

It's hardly fair to exclude a HUGE chunk of the possible trading community because of a fear of consistant mp3 burning, as long as the original files stay unchanged on the FTP then there should be no worries, who cares if someone wants a crap quality burned CD, they'll soon realise their mistake, it's not the end of the world.

The way i see it is if you're hosting a public FTP, it might be nice to cater for everyone...

[Funky Avocado]

This topic usually surfaces every few months and gets squashed rather quickly and for good reason. There is a ton of info to convince even the biggest skeptic on why shn/flac are the way to go as is evident by the links above. All one has to do is look back at lossy audio and how some of us traders back then were obsessed on getting low generation tapes.

As for all of this being fair, let's take a step back and think about this:

1. A taper spends thousands of dollars on equipment
2. Most likely spends the show sitting still, probably sweating his balls off because he has some kind of fecked up stealth rig, and has to hold a piss in for hours.
3. Goes home and spends countless hours transferring and mastering the tape.
4. Then uploads it to a server for FREE.
5. Then Mario for FREE hosts all these shows without asking for a dime for cost like stress on his machine and bandwith usage.

And you want to talk about not being fair?! The least you can do is respect the tapers decision not to decode to MP3 because he/she wants to preserve the quality. Decoding to MP3 is a sure good way to move the lossless taper/trader community underground as I have seen with other artist like Ryan Adams because they get fed up with people not respecting their wishes.

I have not seen one post from any of you "country" folk asking for a B&P. If you did you would be surprised by the generosity most will show you.

Time to show some gratitude kids.

[Angela]

Bumpman, why don't you trade by mail then. It really is an unbelievable mess to have both formats, I can attest to that.

What you have, if you have several formats, is that somebody will have a CD, extract the WAV files, convert them to SHN, but you don't know what was on the CD inthe first place!!!

So, then you have three, four people downloading this, comparing it to other recordings they have etc. etc. just to keep the ftp/hub or whatever clean and to be able to answer the question: "What's the source". I see it all the time. It's a waste of time.

Do B&P or trade 1:1 and you are guaranteed a high quality gig. You can then make MP3's for your own use, but will also have a CD to copy and send on to others.

[Mario]

Okay, Im going to try to be as nice as possible, but I'll just apologize right out of the box for offending somebody.

1) While some shows are taped with "beginner" rigs, not all shows are. Several US shows last year, and more this year, will be taped with outstanding rigs which cost thousands of dollars. These recordings are NOTICEABLY inferior sounding when encoded to MP3.

2) Downloading files is not a standard, it is a fortunate ability. For more than 25 years, live recordings were traded only by mail. And it took weeks to get one. Just because Im able now to get a show before the next morning doesn't mean everyone should. I understand you'd like to, but if you don't have the technical capability you aren't being discriminated against.

3) In what appears to be a dawning battle with Damien/Management, the more organized the trading community looks the stronger our hand will be. This mp3 proposal leads to confusion and chaos, even more so in a community that is not very fond of using info files.

4) If you don't accept any of these arguments, then its because we said so. Tapers don't want show encoded to MP3 and I don't want to host them.

[Bumpman]

That post was just a bunch of thoughts thrown out there, sorry if i sounded really ignorant...

I definitely respect what tapers and traders do and how much money and time it takes. I don't really want to piss anyone off, sorry.

[framesaver]

The topic has been discussed on the board before, with some of the mp3 fraternity being pretty rude, so you'll have to forgive the main taper/traders/ftp folks for being a little defensive of their work.

I think the main thing people should realise is that the FTP servers actually facilitate more accessible trading of shows - Exact copies of the shows could be distributed to numerous sources who would then add them to their regular postal trading lists. Shows spread much faster this way, and even those stuck with dial up modems would find themselves holding a lossless copy of the show much more rapidly than before the servers existed.

I've traded out of Ireland for 3 years or so now, with good old fashioned cds and jiffy envelopes - that's the way it still works for stuff for The Frames, Josh Ritter etc, where FTP is still not an option. It takes a little more effort sure, but that's what trading is all about. I think it's a mistake for some people to be regarding the FTPs as freebie piggy backs to getting shows, no matter what file format they come in. Yes, it's about spreading the music, but you must appreciate that there has to be some amount of regulation involved. The DR management are concerned enough about downloads without confusing everything with something like this. There are plenty of people around who are willing to copy shows and post them to you without resorting to mp3s.

Just a couple of my cents.

[Bumpman]

yeah, i think 'an post' may just be a saving grace in this situation.

[cartman]

thats all good and i do respect tapers and all the money n such..


some1 said to use post to get the stuff, thats grand aswell, but who here would be willing to copy 50cds or 10 dvds to send them onto us poor 56kers, if some1 is weilling to do this please let me know.. you see people wouldnt be willing to go to this effort, and if they are ill take them up on it, better if they have a dvd but if they dont ill send them cds..

[Angela]

How about you start with a show or two or three. You can't hear 50 at a time, can you? [img]smileys/smiley2.gif[/img] By thee time you have a few, you actually have something to trade.

[Bumpman]

Angela, you're quite like Yoda, you always seem to have a happy, wise and peaceful resolution for everything.

Plus you're a 900 years old, a foot tall and have green skin.</font>[img]smileys/smiley17.gif[/img]

[Angela]

Not quite 900, but close [img]smileys/smiley2.gif[/img]

[RedRocket]

"who here would be willing to copy 50cds or 10 dvds to send them onto us poor 56kers"





i thought you were promoting making mp3s available? You can't convert a DVD to mp3 and 56kers cant download dvd files, so what is your point?

[Bumpman]

I can convert DVD directly to Mp3, ha ha. [img]smileys/smiley4.gif[/img]

Still, it's incredibly possible that about 10 people could send a DVD each (one each seems cost effective) to someone who could then burn the DVD's and post them on to one person, who posts it on to another etc etc.

The only problem is finding someone who has about 80GB of Damien Rice live music, a DVD burner and a tonne of goodwill. Also 10 - 20 people who want in and don't mind paying for the DVD's.

[Mario]

And what exactly would you be doing in this equation? Sitting around with your thumb up your ass waiting for it to arrive in the mail?

Buy some blank cds, ask someone to do a B+P, and mail it out to them.

You can all petition and protest, but uploads to my server cannot be downloaded until I move them out of the upload folder. And I promise you that mp3 shows will not be moved out, they will be deleted.

Originally Posted by Bumpman

I can convert DVD directly to Mp3, ha ha.

Still, it's incredibly possible that about 10 people could send a DVD each (one each seems cost effective) to someone who could then burn the DVD's and post them on to one person, who posts it on to another etc etc.

The only problem is finding someone who has about 80GB of Damien Rice live music, a DVD burner and a tonne of goodwill. Also 10 - 20 people who want in and don't mind paying for the DVD's.

[kermit]

I'm sorry I'm jumping late on this, but it's been a while since I had a good mp3/shn arguement. If anyone is still interested, try answering some of these:


(1)

Originally Posted by Scon

From that point on you'll have 2 different quality shows circulating, but it'll be impossible to ensure the 2 stay distinct from eachother. In a sense it pollutes the first. Somebody wanting a copy of an SHN show may end up with an mp3 one.

Originally Posted by Mario

These recordings are NOTICEABLY inferior sounding when encoded to MP3.

If there's a loss of quality that can really berecognized by human ears, then once a person listens to it, he could tell the difference, right? Otherwise why keep the larger version if you can't tell the difference?


(2)

Originally Posted by Scon

Also, if somebody with an mp3 sourced CD decides to make mp3s from that, the quality will get worse again.

Why would someone re-encode a show? he can use the same mp3's that are publicly available.


(3)

Originally Posted by Scon

Typically, those without broadband usually use post to get shows.

What about people in foreign countries? Did you ever consider the postage to, let's say, Israel, for ~20 cd's?


(4) Here's another thing that intrigues me: you do know that the shn format is loseless only for a CD, right? I mean, a CD itself is lossy for a vinyl record, so why allow trading on a CD? Why not get a pro vinyl recorder (I'm sure there are some), andtrade only on vinyl?


Anyway, I hope I didn't piss anyone (at least not too much). I'll be back in a couple of days to check if anyone answered.


**edit: removed a remark that maybe seemed provokative (?) **Edited by: kermit

[cartman]

i would convert to DVD if i got the shows, ill gladly send 50cds to some1 for a B+P, Mario you up for that?
ill send 50cds to america and u copy all the shows ye?


let me know


cartman

[Mario]

Cartman, Im sorry, I really don't have time to do that. I can offer to close the server down for however long it takes, so that you can have all the bandwidth and download everything to burn on a DVD.




Let me rephrase my threat. Not only will I delete uploaed mp3s (unless thats the only version of the show), if someone downloads everything from my server and puts them up as MP3s, I will close off the server to the public and keep it limited to tapers and traders who I know are trustworthy.Edited by: Mario

[cartman]

Mario, im organising something with my mate who runs a internet cafe, he said he will let me do it, starting from next weds [hes getting 2mb DSL installed instead of 1mb..how many gigs is everything on the server? ill be queing id say 3 shows at a time, dont want the thing crashing, but im sure we can sort something out,then id be happy to send the dvd[s] by B+P to 10 or 15 people i hjavnt got all the time in the world


how does that sound? then most of the poor 56kers will have all the concerts in SHN and every1 is happy

[Scon]

Sorry Kermit, didn't see your post till now.

(1)If there's a loss of quality that can really be recognized by human ears, then once a person listens to it, he could tell the difference, right? Otherwise why keep the larger version if you can't tell the difference?

That's a bit of a simplified scenario. More realistically, it's gonna come up in a situation where somebody asks for a show through mail that's not labled as CD quality. They have no way of knowing it's mp3 sourced when they do not possess it yet. It'll be incredibly frustrating when they recieve it to find out so.
Also, some shows just have poor recordings. The reciever might just accept it's a bad recording and wish it had been recorded better. They will be unaware that the exact recording is available at a much better quality and experience similar frustrations if they found out so.
I suppose you could compare it to buying a CD in a store, then finding out there was a 'high quality special edition' one or similar (as cheesey as that sounds, I know) at the same price. They could probably claim an exchange, sure, but they'll still feel done for and it'll be a lot of extra hassle.

(2)Why would someone re-encode a show? he can use the same mp3's that are publicly available.

Again, they may have had no knowledge that they were recieving an mp3 sourced CD. They may believe that the CD is the best recording out there and so, when encoding into mp3, will believe that the mp3s are first-generation compressed files of the best recording. In actual fact they'll have sound files that have been encoded twice into mp3 and sound pretty poor. Say they put these on an mp3 compilation for a friend, the friend may want to burn those mp3s as an audio CD for somebody. Now that twice encoded version is in circulation and it is not easy to predict how far shows can spread. Then again, it may not travel further than that friend, but who can say.

(3)What about people in foreign countries? Did you ever consider the postage to, let's say, Israel, for ~20 cd's?

I've rarely ever posted inside my own country. Nearly everything has been back and forth between the USA. So I considered it everytime I posted them. Flat packed CDs without jewel cases, packaged in small bubble-mailers are relatively inexpensive to mail out.

Also - and this is just a personal gripe, so could be taken as pretty subjective and of course you need not agree - I can't see the attraction in trading for so many shows at once. There's an expression about 'spreading your butter to thinly' and it's that way for live shows with me. It's not about collecting as many as I can. Maybe that's just me.

(4)Here's another thing that intrigues me: you do know that the shn format is loseless only for a CD, right? I mean, a CD itself is lossy for a vinyl record, so why allow trading on a CD? Why not get a pro vinyl recorder (I'm sure there are some), and trade only on vinyl?

That's obviously obviously not a realistic prospect. Trading cannot rely on a small few to feed everyone else in the case of the portable audio mediums that will be used to listen from.
To get technical (sorry!), the maximum quality between CD and vinyl is always debated. Whereas you can say minidisc is worse than CD through actual facts, people are constantly bringing up qualities such as 'warmth' in these two which, ultimately, are subjective.
99% of these shows are recorded as 16bit 44khz sounds, which is exactly what CD audio stores. Therefore you're getting the exact same sound as the recording with nothing lost from the recording.
To use a bad analogy, it'd be like putting a single 3 minute track onto a 80min CD and wanting to do so because the CD can hold more. In the end, a CD that could hold only 3 mins would have done the job perfectly. There was no need for the extra potential space because 3mins was all that we had. I hope that makes sense.
If we had a much better quality raw quality recording, beyond 16bit 44khz, then SACD would be the way to go - as of now - if we pretended for a moment that it was possible for everyone to trade these with ease.


I'm terrible at writing, so I hope most of that explained my thoughts ok.Edited by: Scon

[daol20]

I've sat on the fence on this argument for some time, understanding were both sides are coming from.And i have to say there has been some really interesting points made by both sides towards the wholelossy/lossless argument. And atthe end of the day i think, if nothing else, it really boils down to the tapers wishes.


If he/she doesnt want it compressed to lossy format then his/her wishes should be respected. Using lossy compression is basically degrading his/her work and circulating it. I myself was of the opinion that mp3 was perfectly adequate and compressing .wav to .mp3 was perfectly reasonable, until reading the posts from tapers and traders both here and on etree (... getting broadband also helped). But i think that over the past few months, readingthese points,has shown me that ensuring the quality of these shows by maintaing the lossless format, is vital in keeping the trading community flowing in the way it was been.


Refusing to abide by the tapers wishes only forces changes for the worse, with respect to the whole community. Forcing people like Mario (who hasdone so much for the trading in our little corner of the world) to pack up a leave.

[cartman]

mario i am willing to get onto a closed server n d/l everything [shn] and send it to some people using B+P

[Mario]

Originally Posted by cartman

mario i am willing to get onto a closed server n d/l everything [shn] and send it to some people using B+P


*

Send me a PM, and I'll set it up with you on Monday. Im not around this weekend.