Sounds like a good idea. Thanks

Following gotkaiser's suggestion, and a hassling PM ( ), I have made some amends to the script:

1. Added retainListOfSuccessfulFiles flag, to create flac-113-successful.txt, a list of successfully converted files. Set it to 1 to keep, 0 to delete after processing.

REM ######################################################
SET pathToFLAC="FLAC.EXE"
SET flacOptions=-8 -A "tukey(0.5)"
SET retainListOfFailedFiles=1
SET retainListOfProcessedFiles=0
SET retainListOfSuccessfulFiles=0
SET flacVersion=113
REM ######################################################

2. Drag a txt file onto the batch file, instead of a FLAC file or folder, and the script will assume that it contains a list of files to process - using this list instead of creating its own from a folder. Possibly useful to resubmit failed files, by dragging on flac-113-failed.txt - make sure it's not still in the same folder as flac-113.bat though, otherwise it wll be deleted before anything else*.

* flac-113-processed.txt, flac-113-successful.txt and flac-113-failed.txt are all deleted at the beginning of a new run, and started afresh. If you want to keep these logs ensure that you move them after processing.

@Synthetic Soul

Didn't want you to feel that I hustle things. Was just a question on the progress.

Anyway, thanks

S'OK. I was only joking. Your PM didn't offend me in the slightest; it's good to know that someone is interested.

I had some spare time last night, so I thought I'd put it to some use.

Ok, is clear.

@Synthetic Soul

It's me --again--

I have one suggestion. (Feel free to work on it when ever you want to!)

It would be helpfull to have a list to processed a long re-encoding process. For example if you have to abort, in the case you have to turn of your PC. And if you have a lot of flac files it's helpfull to have a list with the "not successfull" files. (an inverted SuccessfulFiles list) Then you could just drag this list an the batch file and proceed the process.
Hope you got the explanation.

I would do it myself but I have no clue how to do it.

So, just in the case you have some minutes left!


Thanks in advance

Yes, this is basically what I was discussing in a previous post:


It would be difficult for me to create a list of files to process and then remove files from it as they were processed (leaving a list of files still needing processing).

If I, or anyone, can think of an easy/sensible way of doing this then I will try to implement it.

Now that we have flac-113-successful.txt and flac-113-processed.txt I still think that this may be the best way. Perhaps dragging both files at the same time onto the script (to distinguish it from the new "drag a txt file" functionality). The script would ensure that the files are called flac-113-successful.txt and flac-113-processed.txt, and then process flac-113-processed.txt, ensuring that files listed in flac-113-successful.txt are ignored... maybe...

It would be a good feature to have though.

if you install the flacgetv.exe/libflac.dll/libmm.dll as mentioned earlier in the thread, the script will skip all files with the current version.

I drop my entire music folder on to a shortcut for the batch file and it scans thru the 600 gigs in a bout a minute or less, then starts checking/encoding any files which aren't current.

I don't really see the point to trying to process the log files when it doesn't take very long to re-scan everything anyway.

A very good point! Thanks for the lateral thinking, maybe I should try some.

SS,

Thanks for the batch file. This made my entire process painless. I just completed re-encoding 676GB (25,566 songs) from 1.1.2 to 1.1.3. It took about five days to complete. For those interested, I had my 1.1.2 files at -5 and used --best for the conversion and saved 6 GB. Below are just a couple of things I noticed.

I actually encoded this batch of files twice in the last two weeks. The first time it came back with 23 files were already the latest version. However, I knew they were not as I have not started ripping with 1.1.3 yet. It would have taken forever to try and figure out what 23 files it was talking about so I decided to run the batch file again without flacgetv in the folder. This time it came back with 23 errors under the "list of failed files". All of the 23 files failed the encoder test. The list of failed files allowed me to see which one's had failed. This did not seem like a coincidence that the first time flacgetv saw 23 already at 1.1.3 (when they weren't) and then 23 files failed the encoder test. What did these 23 files have in common? They all had "%" in them somewhere. Two of the files had "%" in the name of the file. The other 21 were in a subfolder that had a "%" in the name of the folder. Here are some examples...

These are the two files that failed

E:\My Music\FLAC\Jane's Addiction\Jane's Addiction\04 - 1%.flac
E:\My Music\FLAC\Soul Asylum\Grave Dancers Union\11 - 99%.flac

This is one of the folders that failed all of the songs inside of it

E:\My Music\FLAC\Sweet, Matthew\100% Fun\all songs.flac

I tested this out by putting these files back through with flacgetv and sure enough it recognizes them as already the latest version (they are actually 1.1.2). I then removed the "%" and ran them again and they encoded correctly. I did the same without flacgetv in the folder and got the same results. Is the "%" not good in 1.1.3? No big deal, just something I noticed.

Another thing I noticed was that there is a 4kb difference in filesize from a file I ripped in EAC with 1.1.2 -5 and then converted with the batch file to 1.1.3 --best compared to a file ripped in EAC with 1.1.3 --best (4kb bigger). I am sure there is some reason for this but I couldn't figure it out. Any thoughts?

probably padding. flac-1.1.2 adds 4k padding by default. 1.1.3 adds 8k, unless it >20min or so in which case it guesses it's a full album and adds 64k padding. you can override that with the -P option.

Josh

Thanks for the info. I have done some of my own testing this morning, and can confirm the issue. Unfortunately I have not found a resolve as yet.

For some reason, when I pass a parameter with a % it gets removed. Below are two ways to achieve the same thing (well, so I thought). The first, which is adapted from flac-113.bat, results in the % being removed. The second works fine.



I will keep trying.

Just wanted to say thanks for this script. I finally decided to switch my complete library from Monkey's Audio to FLAC now that compression is a little better. Mostly my decision to switch was due to the high level of hardware and software support for the format.

This script is a really great find, especially since I've never been completely sure that the -V switch works when using foobar2000 v0.9.4.2. It's also nice that the script will balk at FLAC files containing ID3 tags, particularly since fb2k refuses to say which type of tags are being used. If only fb2k would show the audio MD5 and codec profile (compression level) as well, like it does for WavPack and Monkey's Audio files, then I would be a little bit happier about having switched formats.

I ran into a few FLAC's recently that did indeed have ID3. I used MP3tag v2.37d to sniff them out which worked pretty well, and probably never would have known otherwise, or at least not until I got around to using this script (which was not a guarantee yet at that point). Not sure how fb2k handles the transfer of tags when converting from FLAC to FLAC, but it looks like the ID3 tags are properly converted to Vorbis Comments during conversion. I'm not 100% that the newly created files are 100% clean, especially since telling fb2k to rewrite the tags doesn't seem to fix them. Someone commented on converting to WavPack as an intermediary step which sounds like a good idea to me, so that is how I'm going to handle things from now on just to be safe.

Again, thanks for the great script, and thanks to all the others that have posted some of their own useful comments.

probably padding. flac-1.1.2 adds 4k padding by default. 1.1.3 adds 8k, unless it >20min or so in which case it guesses it's a full album and adds 64k padding. you can override that with the -P option.

Josh
[/quote]


Josh,

The -P function appears to remove all padding, is this correct? I say that because the files are now 4kb less where before the were 4kb more.

-P has to be followed by the number of bytes of padding. it can be 0 for a 0 zero-size padding block (which actually takes 4 bytes because of the block header) or you can say --no-padding for no padding block at all.

not sure exactly why it got exactly 4k smaller, I was just guessing.

I think you must be right. The script certainly isn't doing anything related. 1.1.2 files has less padding by default, and I assume the conversion process does not add extra padding.

From some tests I ran on that very thing, it does seem to work. Adding the -V switch to the commandline slowed the encoding speed down, as one would expect.

Like this, -P4 or like this -P 4 or is it some other way?

My EAC command line is currently...

--best -V -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "tracknumber=%n" %s

@gib

I'm guessing that he was reffering to if fb2k would pop up it's console window and show an error message if a mismatch would ever occure i.e. flac.exe returning a non-zero return code.

@Marino13

The FLAC Documentation page for flac.exe shows it in this format "-P #", so that way defenetly works, but i haven't tested to see if the other way also would work. Also, remember that the value given with the "-P" switch of flac.exe is in bytes and not kilobytes, so if you e.g. want to have only 4KB padding added instead of 8KB(if under 20min.), then use "-P 4096".

Ah! Now that you mention it, I think you are exactly right. Thank you.
And that's a pretty good question, too.

Yes, the -P 4096 did the trick.

First of all thanks for this script, very useful

I've been getting this message on some files tho?



The files definitely aren't already 113 and haven't been encoded any differently to any of my others so not sure what it means. Also what are these errors?

1. I'm afraid that's down to flacgetv.exe. It's supposed to only report an errorlevel of 113 if the file is 1.1.3. It appears it is not. I would just reprocess these files without flacgetv.exe.

2. An error occurred while trying to process these files. "[T]" indicates that the file failed a test decode, suggesting that it is corrupt. "[E]" indicates that an error occurred when re-encoding - the file passed the initial test decode, but failed verification when re-encoding. None of these files have been converted. I don't know why a file would fail re-encoding afte passing the decode test, so it is very possible that these files have ID3v2 tags at the beginning, as per earlier reports in this thread.

A few more ideas, should you be bored and/or looking for further improvements.

- note the file sizes before and after re-encoding, show the individual file gains and a summary at the end with the total original and re-encoded sizes.

- note the commandline parameters (in the summary)

- note the script and track encoding start/end date/times and calculate total time spent encoding and the total time the script to scan/test/encode. I understand that encode time is dependent on cpu/drive loads, however it would provide a ball park figure for differences in compression levels etc.

I suggest the above, so the script could be used to easily compare different flac versions and command lines (ie testing alpha1 etc) in a relatively consistent manner along with the results.

edit:

- date/time stamp the logs/summary file names so that they are not overwritten (optionally if you think its necessary)

Thanks Synthetic Soul, it really is a very useful script Is there any way to get it to output the no vendor string files as this is only listed when it processes the file so when you have thousands of files being processed there's no realistic way of finding them?

Cheers again!

@ Teknojnky : some good ideas there. Thanks for the input.

@ probedb : Try changing the line


... to :


... in flac-113.bat. I think this may actually solve it. Your latest post forced me to do a little more testing with FlacGetV. It appears it returns 255 (not 113) if no vendor string is found, but the change above should mean that now only 113 will get treated as a 1.1.3 file, and any other return code will mean the file is re-encoded.

In case it is useful, here is the batch file that I used to test FlacGetV:


If you save that text as "flacversion.bat", put the file in the same folder as FlacGetV.exe (and it's required DLLs), then drag your root folder onto it, it will create "flacgetv.txt" - which lists all files, with the return code and response from FlacGetV. It may be of some use to you.

Thanks for this I'll give it ago when I convert to 1.1.4 sometime this weekend

Hmm, HA isn't making the email notification sticky.

SS,

I tried this command line with FLAC 1.1.4 with your script and changed the version to 114 and it worked perfect. The folders that did not have a folder.jpg in them failed. I was able to take out the --picture="|image/jpeg|||%~dp1folder.jpg" part of the command line, rename the failed.txt file and drop it back on the batch file and then it encoded any folders that did not have the foder.jpg's in them. How easy!! Thanks a bunch. Now to start the full batch for all 27,000 again. Seems just like a little while ago I did this with 1.1.3. Oh yeah, it was just last month.

Josh,

This is awesome. I really do appreciate your hard work.

no prob. BTW in flac 1.1.4 this now also works:

--picture="||||%~dp1folder.jpg"

or just

--picture="%~dp1folder.jpg"

it will try and guess the mime type from the file contents.

Josh

Hi, i was just wondering if :

MP3 (LAME) ripped from source cd in 192 kbps CBR = a conversion from a FLAC to the same bitrate.

Thanks, i wish this question haven't been asked.

This thread is really about re-encoding (FLAC - FLAC), but yes, FLAC - MP3 will get you the same result as CD - MP3.

Just to let you know that I have made a couple of small updates.

I've added the FlacGetV change suggested to probedb, and it now reports bytes saved by any re-encoding and the setting used (as suggested by Teknojnky) in the final summary.

http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/files/flac-113.bat

When will flac-114.bat see the light of day?

there is no need really, you can change the minimum flac version at the top of the batch file.

change it to 114 to have it check for files that are less than 1.1.4 flac.

and thanks again Synthetic Soul, looks even better.

As already said in other 3ads, unfortunally SS bat script won't work with ogg-flacs

All my batch file does is use FLAC.EXE to encode FLACs to FLAC. If FLAC can't handle Ogg FLAC files as input then it can't handle Ogg FLAC files. Nothing I can do.

Just finished converting my collection from 1.1.3 to 1.1.4 and saved 0.25%

Hmm odd things happening...got this error:



Yet if I manually run the encode it works?

It could be a hardware issue such as RAM or Hard Disk failure.

Yes, I can only suggest a temporary glitch. The process should be exactly the same. If you still have a copy of the source file maybe you could try it again with the script.

Bugger, oh well I also noticed it strips % characters out so fails on all files with that in the path, also the ^ character got repeated 4 times in a filename producing something that didn't exist, i.e.

E=MC^2.flac

became

E=MC^^^^2.flac

Thumbs up tho, so nice being able to leave a script running Plus it's meant I've found a few corrupt FLACs in my collection I didn't know about so that's very useful!

Yes, this is one bug reported previously that I have no idea how to fix - it's because batch files use % to denote variables, and the path is being parsed when passed as a parameter. I'm afraid this is just going to have to be worked around...

Edit: Is that Big Audio Dynamite? I'm a big fan of Mick Jones.

No worries

It is indeed! It came out when I was a kid and always loved that song so I had to buy their best of CD

I have a dumb question as I am not a coder. What is the FLAC compression setting of the batch file. If I am guessing correctly, it is FLAC 8. Is this correct? I have been encoding at FLAC 6 and was wondering if I would gain much more hard drive space by going to FLAC 1.1.4 with compression of 8.

John

You can edit it with a text editor. "-8" is the best and slowest compression. You don't gain much if you change from -6 to -8. Just some MB in an album.

Hi,

I like this bat file very much, thanks for it.

There are two questions left for me:

1. Will there be a 1.1.4 version?
2. Is it possible to print the saved bytes in MB, too?

Regards
Franklin

1. The current version works with FLAC 1.1.4. There is simply a variable called (IIRC) flacVersion. This needs to be set to 114 for 1.1.4, 115 for 1.1.5, etc. This is only relevant if you use FlacGetV with the batch file.
2. I did consider this, but apathy got the better of me. I figured people could do the calculation themselves if they felt the need.

To be honest, I never intended this script to become so big. It was supposed to just be a 'simple' script for users to re-encode with a little safety.

Your program is a big hit! You should post this on your web site!

(I meant that you should make it as prominent as Tag and Wapet)

meh, I should probably know better but this batch file is being problematic for me.

"'"FLAC.EXE"' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file."

Yet I have it in the same directory as the batch file. What obvious factor am I overlooking?

Hello, any chance to have a script for convert from old flac to flac 1.1.4, with test before and GUI ?
It's hard for me all these things... I tested to re-encode with omni encoder and it deleted my old flac without giving new flac, just because of an error on an old file. Thanks