Whole LoT of Metal~The Lords of Thunder Remix (w/ contest)

SignOfZeta · 11/12/2006, 03:12 PM

I posted this in another topic, so I thought I'd make mention of it again for people that may not have been tracking that topic.

Check out what I did (with other people's work)

I'll be giving some sort of prize for the first person to PM me the complete song list (not including the "warning" track, which virtually nobody will recognize). Its very likely that nobody will know them all, so I'll send out a prize to the one with the most complete list. If you all want to collaborate here to complete the list, that's cool too. You can use this format to keep track of them all:

LOT Remix Track List

01: Warning! -
02: ISO1
03: Intro 1 -
04: Intro 2 -
05: Title screen -
06: Level Select -
07: Armor Select -
08: Shop -
09: Pre Boss cinema -
10: Continue? -
11: Boss! -
12: Llamarada-
13: Final Stage -
14: Helado -
15: Auzal -
16: Dezant stage -
17: Cielom -
18: Bosque -
19: Pre-Final Boss section (dialogue with shopkeeper) -
20: Final Boss! -
21: Final Boss! (Part 2) -
22: Closing Cinema/credits -
23: ISO2

SignOfZeta · 11/15/2006, 06:44 PM

OK, I know from the statistics that people are downloading this pretty heavily. Does it run? Do you like it? Its OK to admit you have it. Nobody will think you are bootlegger scum.

Besides, the forum is pretty dead right now anyway. Say something.

grahf · 11/16/2006, 10:29 AM

Awesome, i cant wait to try this out. Lord i love Lords of Thunder

esteban · 11/16/2006, 05:11 PM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/15/2006, 06:44 PMOK, I know from the statistics that people are downloading this pretty heavily. Does it run? Do you like it? Its OK to admit you have it. Nobody will think you are bootlegger scum.

Besides, the forum is pretty dead right now anyway. Say something.

Believe it or not, the only reason I haven't checked this out is because I don't bother with bit torrent.

SignOfZeta · 11/16/2006, 07:33 PM

Quote from: stevek666Believe it or not, the only reason I haven't checked this out is because I don't bother with bit torrent.

I don't understand...

TurboXray · 11/16/2006, 08:12 PM

Steve- it's on the "PC Engine Entity 2" DC++ hub as well.

S'Zeta, I hadn't had a chance to burn it to try on a real system, but I should have time tonight. I'll let you know how it works out.

OldRover · 11/16/2006, 10:42 PM

SOZ, some people don't like torrents...

Odonadon · 11/16/2006, 11:55 PM

Quote from: OldRover on 11/16/2006, 10:42 PMSOZ, some people don't like torrents...

<raises hand>

OD

Keranu · 11/17/2006, 12:36 AM

I use torrents, but I highly prefer other ways of downloading. I am downloading this from Bonknuts on DC++ right now and going to test it out soon.

NightWolve · 11/17/2006, 06:19 AM

I managed to download it a few hours ago. So far, I kinda like tracks 13 and 14. No clue where any of this music came from, but then my scope of known music artists is very limited.

BTW, you should think about compressing this. Use APE or FLAC on every wave file and then RAR everything up along with a batch file + decoder to decompress it back with ease. At least having RAR'ed the whole thing as is would've made sharing it somewhat more bearable. Guess you were just in a hurry?

SignOfZeta · 11/17/2006, 07:25 AM

Quote from: OldRover on 11/16/2006, 10:42 PMSOZ, some people don't like torrents...

That sentence doesn't make it any easier to understand. If one doesn't like bootlegging, yeah, I can see that. Not liking BT as a way to bootlegging, that I don't get. Its fast as hell and I don't need hundreds of gigs of bandwidth to serve it out. It seems perfect for me.

SignOfZeta · 11/17/2006, 07:29 AM

Quote from: NightWolveBTW, you should think about compressing this. Use APE or FLAC on every wave file and then RAR everything up along with a batch file + decoder to decompress it back with ease. At least having RAR'ed the whole thing as is would've made sharing it somewhat more bearable. Guess you were just in a hurry?

I wanted to preserve the sound quality as much as possible, and make it a one step burn so I made the songs wave files. I wanted it to be played on actual hardware, and not just emus. Downloading doesn't take that long, and once your burn it to CD the disk space isn't an issue either. I guess I'm just selfish because I prepared this exactly the way I always wanted someone else to do it, but they never did.

Also, the world needs APE like I need another hole in my head. I'm all for alternatives, but not when they aren't needed whatsoever. Ditto for FLAC.

NightWolve · 11/17/2006, 08:39 AM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/17/2006, 07:29 AMI wanted to preserve the sound quality as much as possible, and make it a one step burn so I made the songs wave files. I wanted it to be played on actual hardware, and not just emus. Downloading doesn't take that long, and once your burn it to CD the disk space isn't an issue either. I guess I'm just selfish because I prepared this exactly the way I always wanted someone else to do it, but they never did.

Also, the world needs APE like I need another hole in my head. I'm all for alternatives, but not when they aren't needed whatsoever. Ditto for FLAC.

I guess more explaining is needed then. Sound quality would be preserved 100% as both APE and FLAC are lossless audio encoders/compressors. They're simply heavy duty PowerZip programs but they're specialized for audio files such as waves - They're not the same thing as MP3/OGG/MPC, etc. which discard/eliminate massive amounts of original audio data. So, with a batch file and the lossless audio decoder to restore the compressed files back to waves, it would still remain a one step burning process (Unless the one-time extra step of clicking a batch file and having to wait to decompress the audio files back to waves is what you mean, and wanting to have avoided that.). As such, there'd be no issue with the resulting ISO/WAV/CUE image file set functioning with real hardware or emus for that matter; this was just about providing significant extra compression of the wave files that cannot be achieved with RAR or ZIP, etc. alone to facilitate faster sharing. Every byte of every file would remain the same in the end... Zero loss.

That being said, you seem to know both of these programs already, so I may have wasted my time explaining this and that the problem really was that you believe both of them to be unreliable. You said, "I wanted to preserve the sound quality as much as possible" in response to the suggested use of either APE or FLAC which unlike MP3/OGG/MPC, do just that... It's a zip/unzip process as I said and they do use checksums to try to trap any decompression/decoding error whether it was caused by the file being bad/incomplete or it's the result of bad memory on your system, just like any other ZIP program. But yeah, if you were worried about the off chance of bugs in these programs, with candidate versions being out there and what not, then OK, my misunderstanding. What I did with my archives is simply included an extra SFV file with all the checksums of the waves before having compressed them. That took care of any paranoia I might've had when doing this. After the user would run the batch file and had all the waves decompressed back, he could SFV check them and see that all the CRC32s matched with what was computed from my originals. Anyhow, I understand if this is too much of a process for what you intended to be a one time thing.

Now on disk space being an issue, I didn't care about that. What I cared about was that it took me most of the day to download it. I wanted to close my PC down, but I had to leave it on since the transfer was slowing to crawl, sometimes around 4KB/s. The best speed I got was around 13KB/s, so I can't agree with "Downloading doesn't take that long" for 700 MB which is why I recommended compressing the thing in the first place. Obviously, if I downloaded it as fast as you appear to indicate I should have (or could've at some other time), I wouldn't have bothered saying anything...

It's funny about your selfish comment - I know how you feel. You and I have a common bond in this regard it seems. See, I created TurboRip because I wanted a ripping program that prepared an ISO/WAV/CUE image file set of a PCE/TG16 disc exactly the way I always wanted some other commercial or freeware program to do it. But... yup, you guessed it! None of them never did...

Thus, it now exists. Now had CDDissect (one inspiration for TurboRip) allowed you to rip an audio track raw to a wave file and not force you into MP3, I probably would not have pursued the creation of this program.

As for hating on APE, FLAC, etc. OK, whatever. I simply picked two known encoders that I've worked with for this very purpose and am confident about. In APE's case, so much so that I added direct encoding support with TurboRip in order to allow you to create 1:1 lossless backups of your games. If you already knew of a better lossless audio encoder for this purpose, great. Regardless, I didn't really intend (nor have the interest) to get into a pissing contest about it, but since you go so far as to indicate both APE/FLAC need not exist (I've not heard anyone so strongly condemn these in particular and in such a juvenile manner), which other lossless encoder have you found that is much better? I can't imagine they've improved _that_ much, but I admit it's been a while since I've taken a look at any updates or possibly new ones. Of course, if this was meant as a comment against all lossless audio encoders in general though, then you couldn't be more wrong. They exist for music lovers that wish to create 1:1 perfect backups of their CD collection, but want significantly better compression rates than what ZIP/RAR alone affords you.

Actually here, lemme refer you to this old chart I once made. The best example is the game "Arunamu No Kiba." If I only RAR either the ISO/WAV/CUE image file set or the BIN/CUE image file set, it compresses down only to 463 MB. BUT, if I take the ISO/WAV/CUE image file set, compress the waves individually with APE and then RAR it all up, it compresses down to 280 MB. Thus, I can share a perfect 1:1 image of the game at only 280 MB. That's a savings of 183 MB. To me, that's very worthwhile and with the right batch files, it's no sweat for the archive creator to create and the end-user to use. A few other examples: Ys Book I & II, I can save 72 MB, and with Xak III, I can save 92 MB, etc. Now granted, this was much more valuable back when the only methods to get these archives was from one person at an average speed of 8-16KB/s, etc. via DC++ or whatever, but still... When there are only a few people still online with a torrent, that's about the speed you get if their upstream sucks.

But yes, do tell, given that I went to the trouble to write all this out. Help me see the light. How is it that APE (and/or FLAC) is "not needed whatsoever?" That's a pretty definitive statement with no wiggle room. I should take that as an insult to my intelligence for having wasted my time in adding such support to TurboRip and for having ever used it to create lossless backups in the past then, right? Let's see, the world needs APE like you need another hole in your head, right, right... OK. Well, we can conclude you feel really strongly about it, so it's gotta be something so eye-opening, so obvious, it should make me completely reconsider ever having endorsed/used it I would imagine, just like that. I look forward to seeing what that argument is because I'm very curious. To think you must know something that I never knew and that had I known it, I never would've wasted all that time with APE support and the like... It's devastating, really.

Anyway, I'm not sure if you originally read some antagonism in my recommendation to compressing your remix, which might explain the "fuck off with your suggestion" kind of tone you decided to take here, but there wasn't any, just so you know. That time. I simply didn't think others will have the patience to wait 16-18 hours to get this, time which could've been cut down quite a bit had it at the bare minimum been RAR'ed. So, I figured a) you were just in a hurry and/or b) perhaps the speeds were better earlier which you expected to last. The suggestion was only intended to help spread the remix faster for others, as I had already downloaded it before posting, but OK, you like doing it your way. Gotcha.

TurboXray · 11/17/2006, 08:21 PM

I think he's running a mac, but there should be macros you can create in place of batch files(I'm guessing)?

NightWolve, I take it they're are command line(console) decompressors for APE and FLAC (I haven't looked into it)?

Odonadon · 11/17/2006, 11:36 PM

Night, this brings up an interesting question - how about including an APE encoder with Turborip?

OD

SignOfZeta · 11/18/2006, 01:18 AM

Quote from: NightWolve[one hell of a post, basically]

I'm just going to hit a few points here briefly. BTW, I use OSX exclusively at home, and very reluctantly at work. The only positive Windows experience in the past several years for me was TurboRip. Thanks!

APE, FLAC, and whatever the next thing is I can't play without installing software that doesn't work: The formats irritate the hell out of me. I just learned of APE a few months ago when I pirated something APE without realizing it. It won't play in iTunes, or on my iPod so I tried two programs to transcode it and neither worked. I can't play it. I can't burn it to CD. Furthermore a single CD album was 460MB! Certainly there is some kind of "loss" if I'm devoting 460MB to unplayable files. This pissed me off. Then I realized that since I didn't pay for this music I had no right to complain. This pissed me off even more. This is how it always goes with this crap for me. If I can't play it myself the last thing I'm going to do is seed files with the same problem. Maybe the file size was actually reduced to the point where it was worth it, but, IMO, it isn't. I spent enough time chosing the tracks, decompressing them, normalizing them and editing them (I wish I didn't have to do that last part, but CDs have limited running times). All the time it would save for users to download (something that can literally be done in their sleep) would basically be made up for by me as I wasted days learning which software actually works, and then of course answered emails from people that can't get the thing to unpack correctly. Its just a huge waste of fucking time, to use the vernacular. We can come back to this argument when I do my next remix (probably GoT) and at that time I have no doubt whatsoever that another useless audio format that I can't play will be coming into popularity with the open source crowd. Even though we're listening to the same 16-bit 44.1khz files we've had for...24 years now, I'd guess, there is always a new way to encode them, isn't there? When I say that these pain the ass formats not are "needed whatsoever", I guess that isn't true. They obviously entertain somebody or they wouldn't exist. The same can be said for OS/2, Cadillac SUVs, and carbon fiber back scratchers. They aren't useless, exactly, they have a use of some sort, but I think that often times it isn't really the exact use that people claim it to me.

Why the image is huge: I wanted someone to be able to open Alcohol %120, which virtually everyone has, and just tell it to burn the .cue file. Quality isn't even really the main issue since about 1/3 or more of these audio tracks came from MP3s anyway. It needs to be usable by noobs so everyone can enjoy. I don't even really understand what you are talking about in your wonderful, informative, and well spoken post, and I'm the one doing the remix. Expecting anything from users is a mistake (as I'm sure you are realizing more and more as you read this).

Bit Torrent: The upload for this torrent is slow because I am the main seeder. If people would leach less it wouldn't be a problem. I live the US with a home cable connection so the upload totally sucks. With more popular stuff I download though I get downloads of 500kbs, and sometimes twice that. I don't know of any other way to get that speed. I'm sure someone will tell me about one though, and I'm sure the program won't run for me.

My mood: I'm a sorta busy guy with far too many hobbies. Because of this I have little pateince for shit that doesn't work right the first time. For example, Audacity can go fuck itself, I've decided, after this remix because it created some pretty huge errors in some of the tracks I edited. This kind of frustration often manifests itself in somewhat asshole-ish comments. Sorry about that. NightWolve on the other had, you have the manors.

esteban · 11/18/2006, 06:02 AM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/16/2006, 07:33 PM
Quote from: stevek666Believe it or not, the only reason I haven't checked this out is because I don't bother with bit torrent.
I don't understand...

Test. WTF? This is the second time I am having a problem cut-n-pasting in a post! (The Astralius thread was the first). I lost my original post, so I re-wrote it to post here, but I get a 404 error page! Goddam.

Update: I can't PM my pasted message either. Anyone else experience this?

OldRover · 11/18/2006, 11:34 AM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/17/2006, 07:25 AMThat sentence doesn't make it any easier to understand. If one doesn't like bootlegging, yeah, I can see that. Not liking BT as a way to bootlegging, that I don't get. Its fast as hell and I don't need hundreds of gigs of bandwidth to serve it out. It seems perfect for me.

That's very interesting...considering you later made a post about needing extra software for formats your PC doesn't currently support.

See the connection? If so, then you'll understand my point.

SignOfZeta · 11/18/2006, 11:41 AM

Quote from: OldRoverThat's very interesting...considering you later made a post about needing extra software for formats your PC doesn't currently support. See the connection? If so, then you'll understand my point.

No, I still don't get it. BT is about as simple as Notepad. Its small, easy to use, availible on every platform, and almost never fucks up. APE on the other hand is just a huge pain in the ass way of doing something that could otherwise be much simpler, in addition to that I can't get stuff in APE to play or convert at all.

BT: Virtually bug free, simpler than almost any program you'll ever use, doesn't require $100 a month in ISP fees when you need to serve out PCE ISOs.

APE, FLAC, etc: Not as simple as MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, etc. Depends on massivly unreliable open source/sharware programs that may leave you with hundreds of MB is unplayable files.

NightWolve · 11/18/2006, 03:52 PM

Quote from: TurboXray on 11/17/2006, 08:21 PMI think he's running a mac, but there should be macros you can create in place of batch files(I'm guessing)?

Yeah, if he's running a MAC, then it's a moot point. He'd preferably need to go back to where he used TurboRip.

QuoteNightWolve, I take it they're are command line(console) decompressors for APE and FLAC (I haven't looked into it)?

Right, and they're easy enough to use. FLAC has more platform support, but I like APE's compression rates. There are others which may have improved since last I checked. Anyhow, that's the thing though, I don't care so much about playing the encoded copy in say Winamp. I use and think of such programs as merely PowerZip/Unzip commandline tools. As long as I have the Unzip program, I can go back to the original wave, and if desired, convert to whatever else I want.

The context here I was going by was about creating a lossless image backup and achieving more compression than what you can do with what general compression algorithms offer you such as RAR, ZIP, blah blah. And to that point, I defended it well enough. If I can take a game like "Arunamu No Kiba" from 463 MB, using just a general compressor such as WinRAR, down to 280 MB by adding APE into the mix, that's 40% more compression than what WinRAR can do alone. This is controversial?? The world can do without it??

Quote from: Odonadon on 11/17/2006, 11:36 PMNight, this brings up an interesting question - how about including an APE encoder with Turborip?

Looks like you haven't played with it enough and I did essentially indicate APE support exists in the previous post. ;) Just do this at the commandline: "TurboRip /ape"

Just two codecs, MP3 and APE, are supported. I wanna add OGG as well some time in the future though. PCE emulators don't support OGG, but it is a better alternative to MP3 for numerous reasons when it comes to small, lossy, 'share on a website' PCE image archives. And yeah, it'd be good for ripping your music discs too.

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/18/2006, 01:18 AMBTW, I use OSX exclusively at home, and very reluctantly at work. The only positive Windows experience in the past several years for me was TurboRip. Thanks!

OK, well, that explains most of it... Given that I knew you used TurboRip, I guessed you were on a Windows-based machine.

QuoteAPE, FLAC, and whatever the next thing is I can't play without installing software that doesn't work: The formats irritate the hell out of me. I just learned of APE a few months ago when I pirated something APE without realizing it. It won't play in iTunes, or on my iPod so I tried two programs to transcode it and neither worked. I can't play it. I can't burn it to CD. Furthermore a single CD album was 460MB! Certainly there is some kind of "loss" if I'm devoting 460MB to unplayable files. This pissed me off. Then I realized that since I didn't pay for this music I had no right to complain. This pissed me off even more. This is how it always goes with this crap for me. If I can't play it myself the last thing I'm going to do is seed files with the same problem. Maybe the file size was actually reduced to the point where it was worth it, but, IMO, it isn't. I spent enough time chosing the tracks, decompressing them, normalizing them and editing them (I wish I didn't have to do that last part, but CDs have limited running times). All the time it would save for users to download (something that can literally be done in their sleep) would basically be made up for by me as I wasted days learning which software actually works, and then of course answered emails from people that can't get the thing to unpack correctly. Its just a huge waste of fucking time, to use the vernacular. We can come back to this argument when I do my next remix (probably GoT) and at that time I have no doubt whatsoever that another useless audio format that I can't play will be coming into popularity with the open source crowd. Even though we're listening to the same 16-bit 44.1khz files we've had for...24 years now, I'd guess, there is always a new way to encode them, isn't there?

Did you use the creator's program from here? It has a simple GUI that allows a drag/drop of an ape file(s) and then the pressing of a Decompress button for conversion back to wave(s)... (I wonder though if you possibly ran into an album with one combined APE file with everything in it. I noticed certain archive creators make one giant wave file of the whole album, then APE encode it and provide a CUE file. I'm not sure if some other custom program is responsible for that, but anyway.)

Again, to clear something up, the context under which I suggested APE/FLAC etc. was for image backup purposes. APE has a commandline tool to encode/decode and I would've guided you on its use, but yeah, you're on a MAC mostly and didn't wanna complicate this, so yeah, bleh to that idea. I also realize now from what you're saying here that your one bad experience with an APE archive you came into contact with has forever shaped your opinion on the codec, and it appears not much of anything I say is gonna change your mind... Well, you know, whatever floats your boat at the end of the day. This ain't it.

QuoteWhen I say that these pain the ass formats not are "needed whatsoever", I guess that isn't true. They obviously entertain somebody or they wouldn't exist. The same can be said for OS/2, Cadillac SUVs, and carbon fiber back scratchers. They aren't useless, exactly, they have a use of some sort, but I think that often times it isn't really the exact use that people claim it to me.

Look, when you say to me the world needs it like you need a hole in your head, and a) I've been using it just fine for years, b) I can reduce a CD image backup's size by about 40% more with it, what it amounts to saying to me is the world doesn't need a lossless codec that is more powerful in certain circumstances (audio files) than RAR/ZIP alone and is capable of achieving up to a 40% extra reduction in size. Those are the results I'm getting and have been getting, so there's a huge disconnect between what you're saying and what I'm saying.

Do you think anyone else having read this believes you're judging the codec fairly? Also, do you think your bad experience with that one APE-based archive is universal?

QuoteWhy the image is huge: I wanted someone to be able to open Alcohol %120, which virtually everyone has, and just tell it to burn the .cue file. Quality isn't even really the main issue since about 1/3 or more of these audio tracks came from MP3s anyway. It needs to be usable by noobs so everyone can enjoy. I don't even really understand what you are talking about in your wonderful, informative, and well spoken post, and I'm the one doing the remix. Expecting anything from users is a mistake (as I'm sure you are realizing more and more as you read this).

Understandable. Yeah, if some were from MP3 sources anyway, then going for lossless was pointless. Though, in that case, I know how to make nice, but lossy, archives with OGG, but let's not go there... Heh. Oh, and you don't need to tell me about low expectations for the common user. ;) Been there, done that when I ran an outfit called RIGG. Well, I still deal with it for all the fan translation projects I do and the occasional nifty tool I might come up with. My philosophy too is you gotta condense the whole operation for whatever it is you're offering into one click of a button, IF possible... If not, limit it as much as possible.

QuoteBit Torrent: The upload for this torrent is slow because I am the main seeder. If people would leach less it wouldn't be a problem. I live the US with a home cable connection so the upload totally sucks. With more popular stuff I download though I get downloads of 500kbs, and sometimes twice that. I don't know of any other way to get that speed. I'm sure someone will tell me about one though, and I'm sure the program won't run for me.

Yeah, I mean, it was my choice to continue to download it. My squabble was mainly it could've at least been RAR'ed, ZIP'ed, etc. I really didn't want offense taken and then have to be stuck in a large exchange over this. Looking at my original post, I realize it's a little bit authoritative.

QuoteThis kind of frustration often manifests itself in somewhat asshole-ish comments. Sorry about that. NightWolve on the other had, you have the manors.

Hehe. Well, don't give me too much credit. I kept my manners restrained because this wasn't a topic I felt should escalate into an all out war. I only wanted to offer up some of my experience with image backups since I did it for so many years having gone through all the mistakes and learned all the corrections, etc. What I wanted to offer you up was how to create an archive where the user simply UnRar's it, clicks a batch file (UNPACK.bat), and waits for the APE/FLAC files to convert back to waves. Then they can pick whatever CUE-supporting burning software they want and point it to the CUE file. But, this would've been limited to Windows based machines. All I needed to know was that you're mainly on a MAC computer.

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/18/2006, 11:41 AMAPE on the other hand is just a huge pain in the ass way of doing something that could otherwise be much simpler, in addition to that I can't get stuff in APE to play or convert at all.

APE, FLAC, etc: Not as simple as MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, etc. Depends on massivly unreliable open source/sharware programs that may leave you with hundreds of MB is unplayable files.

To be redudant here, I really can't at all relate to this experience and I've been using APE for several years now. The plugin for Winamp works fine (it doesn't have one for iTunes), so I can play an encoded file with that if I want. And I have either a GUI or commandline program for encoding/decoding (this works fine for me). I don't see the problem. I do see a problem if you need a more platform independent lossless codec and/or you only want codecs that work with your favorite music player. Since I'm always on Windows and Winamp is all I use for my music, APE works just fine and is quite simple. I have no fear of being left with hundreds of MBs of unplayable files. I can always run, "MAC -d fileX.ape fileX.wav" at the commandline or use the GUI to convert them all back to waves (yes, I repeat, this all works fine for me).

But again, know that I don't use it for mainly for having playable music files (to repeat though, it does works fine with Winamp). I use it as a backup tool. That's my purpose for lossless audio encoders; I treat them as enhanced ZIP/7Zip/RAR programs, but for wave files, etc. There is the exception where if I'm in an audiophile mode and want perfect backups of my music CD collection, I'll use it there. But for general music files I want playable access to, that are reasonably sized, and/or are supported by my portable music player, I'll use lossy encoders like MP3 of course and/or something like OGG.

NightWolve · 11/18/2006, 04:04 PM

Quote from: stevek666 on 11/18/2006, 06:02 AM
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/16/2006, 07:33 PM
Quote from: stevek666Believe it or not, the only reason I haven't checked this out is because I don't bother with bit torrent.
I don't understand...
Test. WTF? This is the second time I am having a problem cut-n-pasting in a post! (The Astralius thread was the first). I lost my original post, so I re-wrote it to post here, but I get a 404 error page! Goddam.

Update: I can't PM my pasted message either. Anyone else experience this?

Is it due to having to be forced into sharing/upstreaming? The BT client I have installs an association to your system and whenever you click a torrent link, it pops up with a dialog, you pick a folder to save the archive to, and you let it sit. It obviously isn't the software, as most of them are OK and do the job. Now, my previous ISP did send me a warning once telling me I should limit my upstream data to 100 MB... per day... That happened mainly due to the 4 weeks I was into a MMORPG. But yeah, I think one aspect to it is some users worrying about how much they'll have to upload. ISPs will let you download gigabytes of movies, the works, but don't dare try to turn your PC into a server (when you're paying a residential rate) which is what it looks like from their perspective when you're running a BT client trying to obtain a large file.

OldRover · 11/18/2006, 11:02 PM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/18/2006, 11:41 AMNo, I still don't get it. BT is about as simple as Notepad. Its small, easy to use, availible on every platform, and almost never fucks up. APE on the other hand is just a huge pain in the ass way of doing something that could otherwise be much simpler, in addition to that I can't get stuff in APE to play or convert at all.

The point was that as you don't want to have to install something extra, so do other people not want to install something extra. It's not a hard concept to understand.

SignOfZeta · 11/19/2006, 12:12 AM

Quote from: OldRover on 11/18/2006, 11:02 PM
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/18/2006, 11:41 AMNo, I still don't get it. BT is about as simple as Notepad. Its small, easy to use, availible on every platform, and almost never fucks up. APE on the other hand is just a huge pain in the ass way of doing something that could otherwise be much simpler, in addition to that I can't get stuff in APE to play or convert at all.
The point was that as you don't want to have to install something extra, so do other people not want to install something extra. It's not a hard concept to understand.

What I installed didn't work...BT always works...

GUTS · 11/19/2006, 01:10 PM

Bittorrent is the best thing to hit the internet EVER, I can't even imagine going back to the days of downloading without it.

NightWolve · 11/19/2006, 01:20 PM

OK, bear with this further tangent. The devastating argument that I was waiting for from SignOfZeta turned out to be that APE simply doesn't work. Yet, it works fine for me (it did the first time, too) and I've never had a problem with it... The PCE archives I created in the past using APE came with a one-click batch file that ran the decompressor and I also never had anyone report a problem with it. So, naturally, it should be asked, what gives? The issue for me is that the GUI interface for APE is so simple, in my opinion, that any bonehead can use it and nothing really squares with what he's said about this codec/program, aside from no support for newer music players like the iTunes one. But to that, you don't normally declare the format completely unplayable when it tells you it supports Winamp simply because it doesn't support a player you wanted it to.

But anyway, we can't both be right about this codec/program, OR, we can't both be talking about the same codec/program for that matter. Applications have bugs, this is no exception, but the portrayal here is one of 100% complete universal failure when using this. That's why I mentioned the complete disconnect I'm having with what he's been saying about it and I can't just let a pretty simple codec/program be trashed like this. You don't need to be an Advanced Systems Programmer to use this thing. As such, I decided to set up a little contest of my own.

Basically, I want to assemble an Impossible Mission Force of a few of you that have access to a Windows-based machine. You need not be a crazy Alientologist to take part in this either! It's open to everyone! Bonknuts, Odonadon, stevek666, Keranu and anyone else, I want you guys to follow my below simple instructions to convert an APE file to wave and play it. If none of you have ever used this program, that is preferable as your first use/impression is what matters here. I think at least one of you I listed is on Linux, if so, ignore. Anyway, if you're on Windows or can get access to it, BEGIN!

--MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: CONVERT A MYSTERIOUS APE FILE TO WAVE!--
1) Download MysteryTrack-03.ape and save it to some TEMP folder (C:\TEMP or whatever). This is a, yes, big big mystery audio file which I want you to a) convert to wave, b) play, and c) tell me what game it's from... It shouldn't be too too hard...

2) Download MAC_XXX.exe (reference http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html) and install. Don't worry, it's not a virus.

3) Close to the end of the installation, if the Setup program detects the presence of Winamp, it'll prompt you to install the included plugin. Do so. If you don't have Winamp installed, it's not something you use, whatever, then don't worry about this. You don't need Winamp for this mission.

4) Launch the Monkey's Audio Interface. (A programs folder and shortcut "Monkey's Audio" has been added to your start menu. Although, if you left "Run" checked at the end of the installation, it would've launched already.) This is what your first screen should look like, minus my scribbling:

5) As is indicated above, this one button is the key to accomplishing your mission, should you have chosen to accept it. Click the arrow to the right, and check "Decompress." Or, you may press CTRL + 2 which will do this instantly.

6) Now that you're in Decompress mode, the button will change and your interface will look like this:

7) OK, now we're getting to the really tough part. That MysteryTrack file I had you download must be dragged & dropped anywhere in the white window area. Or, goto the File menu, select "Add File(s)...", and find MysteryTrack-03.ape, wherever you saved it. In my case, I placed the file in the C:\TEMP folder I had created. So, if you succeed in adding a file to be processed, this is what you'll get:

Alright gentlemen, if you've made it this far, success is close at hand. Press the Decompress button... You'll see quick progress reporting as below:

9) Success! Now, go to whatever folder you saved "MysteryTrack-03.ape" in with Explorer and in that folder, you shall indeed now find a new file called "MysteryTrack-03.wav". Double click this newly created wave file and report back your results!! YOU CAN DO IT!!! I KNOW YOU CAN! FOR I HAVE FAITH IN YOU!

---

Alright, so for anyone that took part in this, I'd also like you to go back to all the negative comments that were said about this codec/program and contrast them with the result of your first experience here (if it was your first experience). Specifically, would you say, "APE on the other hand is just a huge pain in the ass way of doing something that could otherwise be much simpler, in addition to that I can't get stuff in APE to play or convert at all."?? Would that be your conclusion? Was this process too hard? Could it be simplified even more than it already is??

NightWolve · 11/19/2006, 01:22 PM

Quote from: GUTS on 11/19/2006, 01:10 PMBittorrent is the best thing to hit the internet EVER, I can't even imagine going back to the days of downloading without it.

IAWTP. And the basic one is so small, I can't imagine the reluctance to install it being a refusal to having to add something extra, especially when it gives you access to a lot of shit.

esteban · 11/19/2006, 02:30 PM

Mission accepted, NW. I'll get on this tonight

. I hope the "mystery track" is, in fact, the theme song from Land of the Lost.

SignOfZeta · 11/19/2006, 04:04 PM

Its the opening monologue for Draclua X.

Odonadon · 11/19/2006, 11:17 PM

Quote from: NightWolve on 11/19/2006, 01:22 PM
Quote from: GUTS on 11/19/2006, 01:10 PMBittorrent is the best thing to hit the internet EVER, I can't even imagine going back to the days of downloading without it.
IAWTP. And the basic one is so small, I can't imagine the reluctance to install it being a refusal to having to add something extra, especially when it gives you access to a lot of shit.

I try to avoid BT if I can - I hate leaving my machine on to download stuff, and sometimes the wait for the seed to start isn't worth it. If it's a huge file and I can't find it anywhere else, then BT will do.

OD

Keranu · 11/21/2006, 03:13 AM

Mission was absolutely successful and took approx. three minutes to do, and that includes the downloading and installing. The sound is from the opening cinema of Dracula X with the German narration and is six seconds long.

Odonadon · 11/22/2006, 06:24 PM

It was much quicker for me, but that's juts cuz I regularily use an APE plugin for Winamp

Zeta beat me to the answer anyway.

OD

NightWolve · 11/23/2006, 11:44 AM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/19/2006, 04:04 PMIts the opening monologue for Draclua X.

HEY! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! WINNER! Oh my lord, this I did not expect... ;) Whoo boy. Well, I guess I have to include you in the list of prize recipients as well then, but it might not be something you can use though.

Alright, so the winners are SignOfZeta, Keranu, and Odonadon. What happened to you stevek666?? PM me a screenshot of your temp folder like my last image and I'll add you in.

And now, your prize gentlemen... What I had in mind was early access to the "Ys: The Oath in Felghana" English patch. Of course, this prize isn't worth much on its own. You need a good Windows machine and the game itself. I understand though that for some of you, having to use Microsoft Windows for anything is akin to having to be bent over by Bill Gates himself and ravaged over and over. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, you get to miss out on some of Falcom's modern works as a result.

Anyway, this concludes our exercise.

PM me for the Felghana patch if you want it and I'll give you a private link from where to get it. The only requirement I have is that you agree not to share it with anyone else. I don't want a leaked patch to spread before I'm ready to go with the first official public version, etc. I would also appreciate feedback if you do play it.

Quote from: Keranu on 11/21/2006, 03:13 AMMission was absolutely successful and took approx. three minutes to do, and that includes the downloading and installing. The sound is from the opening cinema of Dracula X with the German narration and is six seconds long.

Excellent! I hope the brilliance in my choice for that audio file can be appreciated. ;)

Using the Monkey's Audio program by an average user = EASY
Determining the origin of that audio file by an average member of our niche pce community = EASY

Not so impossible of a mission after all...

Quote from: Odonadon on 11/19/2006, 11:17 PMI try to avoid BT if I can - I hate leaving my machine on to download stuff, and sometimes the wait for the seed to start isn't worth it. If it's a huge file and I can't find it anywhere else, then BT will do.

Oh, then we both have the same problem. I too dislike leaving my PC on if I'm going to sleep and so forth. The context I was going by there though was for those who haven't installed BT and refuse to (going by what nodtveidt said). Your case would be different if you do use it. But anyway, this is a problem with any type of sharing software I would say, not so specific to BT. I think in general I've gotten much bigger files and at faster rates than with what I was ever able to get with FTP, DC++, Kazza, etc. Most of the torrents I've run into have been pretty fast with many users, so that shapes my general good impression about it. The torrent for this was one of the slowest, but perhaps that was due to coming too late.

Odonadon · 11/23/2006, 02:12 PM

Quote from: NightWolve on 11/23/2006, 11:44 AMOh, then we both have the same problem. I too dislike leaving my PC on if I'm going to sleep and so forth. The context I was going by there though was for those who haven't installed BT and refuse to (going by what nodtveidt said). Your case would be different if you do use it. But anyway, this is a problem with any type of sharing software I would say, not so specific to BT. I think in general I've gotten much bigger files and at faster rates than with what I was ever able to get with FTP, DC++, Kazza, etc. Most of the torrents I've run into have been pretty fast with many users, so that shapes my general good impression about it. The torrent for this was one of the slowest, but perhaps that was due to coming too late.

Exactly my thinking. When I have used it, it worked pretty well - definitely faster than DC++, Emule, etc. I just find it a bit of a nuisance to visit a website, find what you want to download, then having to open another program and let it handle the download. But sometimes it is the best or only choice.

OD

Keranu · 11/23/2006, 11:21 PM

Sweet, I am going to have to get Oath in Felghana soon

. (don't worry, I use Windows!)

Jammaniaclord · 11/26/2006, 01:15 AM

There are pro's and cons to every format of downloading. Some people LOVE LOVE LOVE IRC, but i cannot stand it, even though i have tried and tried to like it. I LOVE torrents, as you can find stuff on there that you may not find on other peer 2 peer formats. I used to LOATHE Emule, because it was SO damn slow, and ate up so much memory(still does) but man, if you cannot find something on there, you just AIN'T looking hard enough. The stuff basicly comes to you begging!

I still LOVE Direct Connect, as it was the first format i used after Hotline Connect(still use that as well), and have been using it religiously ever since.

As far as using APE, i have never had troubles using it to convert APE files.

PC ENGINE RULES!!!!!!!!!

TurboXray · 11/27/2006, 09:40 AM

Awesome NightWolve! I can't wait for the release.

2X4 · 12/01/2006, 11:37 PM

I have to say that this thread made me pee a little. I appreciate NW's humor. I just gotta say I am also scratching my head to your APE woes, it is easy to use, and if anything, it's MORE usable than apple's mandatory format. great if you want to play music on ipod, useless for any other purpose. I downloaded one song from itunes, and I will never do it again. I don't like the idea of paying for music and then apple telling me what I can do with it. Nightwolve, it's funny that this discussion arose, because it was actually using your rigg archives that introduced me to ape, and now ape and flac is all I use! Although, I too slightly prefer ape.

SignOfZeta · 12/02/2006, 12:28 AM

Quote from: 2X4 on 12/01/2006, 11:37 PMI have to say that this thread made me pee a little. I appreciate NW's humor. I just gotta say I am also scratching my head to your APE woes, it is easy to use, and if anything, it's MORE usable than apple's mandatory format.

What is Apple's mandatory format? Using iTunes one can encode anything to wave, aiff, MP3, AAC, or Apple lossless.

Quotegreat if you want to play music on ipod, useless for any other purpose.

Well considering the proliference of iPods...I'd say its 1000x more likely to be useful to someone than them even having ever heard of APE. Again, I don't know what the "mandatory" format is, but anything that plays in iTunes can be transcoded to any other format (except secure files) or burned to audio CDs (including secure files)

QuoteI downloaded one song from itunes, and I will never do it again. I don't like the idea of paying for music and then apple telling me what I can do with it. Nightwolve, it's funny that this discussion arose, because it was actually using your rigg archives that introduced me to ape, and now ape and flac is all I use! Although, I too slightly prefer ape.

This is a totally apple to oranges discussion (pun essential, sorry). AACs from the Apple music store are DRMed. That's kind of a bummer in some ways, but you can't really blame them for it. They make it pretty flexible by allowing multiple users of the same file, and by letting you write them to standard audio CD, that in turn makes them convertable to any other format since extracting regular audio CDs is inherently unrestricted. Other things make the comparison of secure AAC versus APE kind of a bad one. Being able to play APE files on anything but a home computer has got to be pretty rare. I don't know how rare, but it can't be that common. Secondly the files size is fucking gargantuan. I'd need a half terabyte of storage for my music if it were APE format. I could use Apple Lossless since it would play on my iPod, but if I wanted to only carry around 10 albums max I'd just use CDs.

I don't buy things very often from the Apple music store to be honest. The quality is part of the problem, but honestly 128 AAC sounds pretty good. Much better than 128 MP3 certainly. I have a few hundred tracks from the store, but %90 of them date back to the Pepsi promotion they did two years in a row where the music was free. Once in a while I buy something from there but the real reason I don't do it often is because I like having CDs. They aren't DRMed (although would be a heartbeat if the lables could figure out how to make such a thing work) and most importantly Apple still hasn't found a good way to distribute liner notes. This many a time has left me clueless as to who people were that were guest staring on tracks, covering other people's songs, etc. In the past few years I've been getting quite interested in underground hip hop, where the cameos and guest appearances are everywhere...and I don't even know who they are without like liner notes. I need my 12 pages of shout outs!

I think it would be really great if even a single person commented on the actual original subject of this thread. Mininova says the torrent has been downloaded 457 times, and that's just Mininova.

2X4 · 12/02/2006, 09:32 AM

Well what I meant was that if you get the song from iTunes, your only option is the secured files, and that to me is crap. If I buy the CD, I can do whatever I want with the music. It sounds like in your case, computer and iPod are the only places you listen to music, and if thats the case then, itunes would be fine. It's true there is no current mp3 player that supports ape, but if you have the codec, you can save your music without losing a single byte of waveform, and still save disk space, and you can always restore your original wave exactly as it was to rip to any other format, or burn a perfect copy of your original cd. You can play them on winamp, and you can burn them directly with nero. I would guess that more support will come, but yes right now itunes is more omnipresent. I didn't mean to sound mocking, I have just never heard of anybody having problems with ape. I'm no computer savant, but it's pretty simple for me. I think we are sort of comparing apples to oranges in the scope of our individual use of music. In your case iTunes is probably better.

SignOfZeta · 12/02/2006, 12:05 PM

Quote from: 2X4 on 12/02/2006, 09:32 AMWell what I meant was that if you get the song from iTunes, your only option is the secured files, and that to me is crap. If I buy the CD, I can do whatever I want with the music. It sounds like in your case, computer and iPod are the only places you listen to music, and if thats the case then, itunes would be fine. It's true there is no current mp3 player that supports ape, but if you have the codec, you can save your music without losing a single byte of waveform, and still save disk space, and you can always restore your original wave exactly as it was to rip to any other format, or burn a perfect copy of your original cd. You can play them on winamp, and you can burn them directly with nero. I would guess that more support will come, but yes right now itunes is more omnipresent. I didn't mean to sound mocking, I have just never heard of anybody having problems with ape. I'm no computer savant, but it's pretty simple for me. I think we are sort of comparing apples to oranges in the scope of our individual use of music. In your case iTunes is probably better.

My only previous experience with APE was downloading an album that I couldn't decompress or play. This is exactly what happened to me previously with FLAC, and OGG, and I think its all these formats are just masturbatory crap for tech heads. I'm not open minded to needless alternatives that don't work. Hosting my LoT remix in APE would ensure that at least one person wouldn't be able to burn the CD (historically speaking, it would probably be me), and this kind of complication is not worth the high tech hard-on I might getting from using a L337 codec like APE.

Now the file that Nightwolve posted decompressed just perfectly using the exact same versions of the exact same program I tried to use before. Maybe if more people hosted non-broken files I wouldn't hate this crap so much. Or maybe if APE was actually playable in more that a few fringe applications nobody has ever heard of (or on any dedicated hardware players). Until then I'll be using AAC since it plays on just about any computer, and on iPods, sounds great, and won't eat all the HD space in the world.

If the file is secure, that's another matter totally. Neither you or I prefer iTunes music store files to CDs, so this whole complaint aout DRM isn't really the issue. But as I stated before secure AACs from Apple will burn to standard audio CD, so the restrictions obviously aren't that heavy.

NightWolve · 06/18/2013, 02:39 AM

Hey Zeta, any chance I could get this from ya ??? I lost the archive in one of my computer disasters some years back... (I panicked from a virus that got loaded on my system via a Javascript and IE exploit, everything went all to hell, made it worse with one wrong move after another to clean it up, etc. Long story short, wound up overwriting the partition table and data early in the drive. Just went too long without a basic free anti-virus program like AVG. Paid a considerable price for it...)

EDIT: Got it, thanks!