“Shorten”, suffix: (.SHN)
Another growing and popular lossless audio format. SHN allows the use of hash files to confirm that it is an exact copy of the overall file using the MD5 digest. MD5 files are usually distributed with SHN files.
Shorten was featured (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/play-pr.html) in a recent issue of Wired Magazine (http://www.wired.com/) (scroll down to “Better Than MP3”). It was originally created by Tony Robinson (http://www.tonyrobinson.com/) of SoftSound (http://www.softsound.com/).
Another technology that works similarly is that of WinRAR’s multimedia (both WAV and BMP) compression. While SHN is a better compression for WAV files, resulting in smaller files, they not require the download/install of new software and can also confirm file quality.
FLAC and TTA are another popular lossless audio compressors.
Links
- FAQ for Shorten (http://research.umbc.edu/~hamilton/shnfaq.html)
- Etree.com (http://www.etree.org/) – Shorten section (http://www.etree.org/shncom.html)
- Shorten for Macintosh, BeOS, Linux on Intel, and Compaq Tru64 Unix
TakeDown.NET -> “SHN”