DMSRP - Where it went and when it's coming back

[Tom Hatfield]

I just read a note in the FAQ at dmjump.net regarding my soundtrack recompilation project and how it mysteriously vanished so many eons ago. It's true that my server went down for some time, but the reason the project is not back up right now is because my computer was toast for a while, and unfortunately I lost ALL my files to a bad hard-disk. I'd like to continue the project, but it depends on two things...

First, if anyone has copies of my songs (any version at all, but I would especially like the original Cakewalk projects), I would really like to have them so I can make them publicly available for download.

Second, the music download on dmweb is more-or-less broken. I was never able to download it from dmweb.free.fr when it was up, either because the connection always timed out or because the RoT was ridiculously slow (in the neighborhood of 600 bps), and the new server at 24fps randomly cuts me off during the download, so I only end up with a portion of the 40-meg archive. (I usually get cut off around 12 or 13 megs, which is maybe three or four complete songs.)

So, if anyone knows how to get in touch with Dennis Ebert (and speak whatever language that is on his site), perhaps you could ask him to break the archive into individual songs and make those available for download, so I don't have to worry about getting cut off. Remember, I need the originals as reference before I can recompile them.

I would really appreciate any help you can give to stand this project back on its feet.

[ChristopheF]

I sent you an archive of your web site.

For the download, I suggest you use a download manager to resume your interrupted downloads. (Flashget, getright, download accelerator, reget, etc...)

Christophe

[Gambit37]

If it helps, I resampled all those MP3s to a lower bit rate with (virtually) no noticeable loss of quality, so the whole archive is now half the size, at around 20MB.

It would be better all round to replace the 40MB archive with this 20MB one. Who has the contact details for the current location of the archive? Christophe?

[ChristopheF]

Yes I can contact him to replace the file.
Gambit, you can send me the new archive in "small" parts (5 MB maximum per attachment). Thanks.

Christophe

[beowuuf]

Oops, must do soemthing about my site (temporarily null links to anything outdated, and then update it...)

Glad the project isn't dead!

I do have to MP3s, but am not sure if they are part of the download Gmabit has, or two of your original songs
I will check the mess of my HD and get back to you

[Tom Hatfield]

Christophe: Thank you VERY much! I got the attachment and am in the process of putting the site back online. I'll post a URL when it's ready. I did actually try to walkthrough the dungeon in DM-SNES to rip the music, but I believe the dungeon is slightly different, just enough so that you can't get back the second floor without seeing it.

Gambit: Dennis Ebert's email address is next to the music download on this site. That's how I contacted him yesterday. He suggested the same thing: try a download manager. I used GetRight the first time but it gave me a webpage. I'll try something else and let you know if it works.

Thanks a lot for your help, guys.

[ChristopheF]

Gambit, have you tried to encode your original files with ogg vorbis instead of MP3?
http://www.vorbis.com/
This codec is free unlike MP3, and produces smaller files than MP3 with better quality.

Very simple command line encoder / decoder here:
http://www.vorbis.com/download_win.psp
look for "vorbis tools" in the encoder section

Christophe

[Gambit37]

I've fiddled with the Ogg Vorbis format, but I figure that not everyone would be able to play them as they might not have the right codecs. At least with MP3, it's pretty standard and everyone should be able to play them.

I'll have a look at the files again and see if I can get them any smaller, then I'll email them to you over the next few days. I've spent far too much time on the computer the last two days sorting out forum merging, so I need a break!

[ChristopheF]

You just need winamp for example to play ogg files. I can put a notice along with the download to explain people how to play the music files.

I will convert the music of DM The Album to .ogg for the next update to make some space for other content. I am also looking at minimizing the download size of DM NExus and Theron's Quest CD images by compressing audio tracks with ogg vorbis.

Christophe

[ChristopheF]

My tests on DM The Album files showed that I cannot hear any difference between the mp3 files and ogg files encoded at only quality level 1 (the default is 3, on a scale of 10).
But the size of ogg files is 19.7 MB instead of 35.5 MB for MP3...

For those users who want to burn the album on CD or do not have any player for ogg files and don't want to download one, I will supply a small batch file that will uncompress the ogg files to standard .wav files using the free oggdec.exe program. I think in that way everybody will be able to hear the music, while minimizing the size of the download.

Christophe

[beowuuf]

Doesn't winamp convert .ogg back to .wav as it does with .mp3?

[ChristopheF]

Yes probably as it uses an ouput plugin to make a wav file of anything it plays, instead of sending the data to the sound card.

Christophe

[Tom Hatfield]

Depending on size constraints, I may make both mp3 and ogg availabe for download. By the way, I'm using Sonar 2.0 now, which uses a new file format (cwp), so I need to know if anyone wants me to put the old Cakewalk (wrk) files up. Otherwise I'm just gonna put up the cwp's.