Shorten (SHN) is a

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

used for compressing audio data. It is a form of

data compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compressi ...

of files and is used to losslessly compress CD-quality audio files (44.1

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one h ...

16-

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...

stereo PCM). Shorten is no longer developed and other lossless

audio codec An audio codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream (a codec) that encodes or decodes audio. In software, an audio codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompres ...

s such as

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software p ...

Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is an algorithm and file format for lossless audio data compression. Lossless data compression does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as Advanced Audio Coding, MP3, Vorbis, an ...

(APE), TTA, and

WavPack WavPack is a free and open-source lossless audio compression format and application implementing the format. It is unique in the way that it supports hybrid audio compression alongside normal compression which is similar to how FLAC works. ...

(WV) have become more popular. However, Shorten is still in use by some people because there are legally traded concert recordings in circulation that are encoded as Shorten files. Shorten files use the .shn file extension.

Handling Shorten files

Since few players or media writers attempt to decompress Shorten files, a standalone decompression program is usually required to convert to a different file format that those applications can handle. Some

Rockbox Rockbox is a free and open-source software replacement for the OEM firmware in various forms of digital audio players (DAPs) with an original kernel. It offers an alternative to the player's operating system, in many cases without removing the o ...

applications can play Shorten files without decompression, and third-party Shorten plug-ins exist for

Nero Burning ROM Nero Burning ROM, commonly called Nero, is an optical disc authoring program from Nero AG. The software is part of the Nero Multimedia Suite but is also available as a stand-alone product. It is used for burning and copying optical discs such a ...

Foobar2000 foobar2000 (often abbreviated as fb2k or f2k) is a freeware audio player for Microsoft Windows, iOS and Android developed by Peter Pawłowski. It has a modular design, which provides user flexibility in configuration and customization. Stan ...

, and

Winamp Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014. Sin ...

. All

libavcodec libavcodec is a free and open-source library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. libavcodec is an integral part of many open-source multimedia applications and frameworks. The popular MPV, xine and VLC media players u ...

based players and converters support the Shorten codec.

Converting on Linux

Current versions of

ffmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of ...

avconv Libav is an abandoned free software project, forked from FFmpeg in 2011, that contains libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. History Fork from FFmpeg The Libav project was a fork of the FFmpeg project. It was announced ...

support the shorten format. To convert all .shn files in the current directory to FLAC on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

: for f in *.shn; do ffmpeg -i "$f" "$"; done There are also various GUI programs which can be used, like SoundConverter.

Converting on Windows

A similar command using the freely available

for the Microsoft Windows command line: for /r %i in (*.shn) do ffmpeg -i "%~ni%~xi" "%~ni.flac"For a GUI-based solution, dBpoweramp can be used, however on a 64-bit version of Windows the 32-bit version of the app must be installed, as the Shorten codec does not come in a 64-bit variant. To install the 32-bit version on a 64-bit system, hold-down the right shift key and double-click the installer; keep it held-down until the installer is on-screen.

Converting on macOS

X Lossless Decoder (XLD), an open source graphical and command line application powered by the

libsndfile libsndfile is a widely used C library written by Erik de Castro Lopo for reading and writing audio files. It supports a wide variety of audio file formats and will convert automatically from one to another. It allows the programmer to ignore m ...

and SoX libraries, supports transcoding Shorten files to a variety of lossless and lossy formats.

is also available and can be interfaced with through the terminal identically to how it is used on Linux

References

External links

Shorten Research Paper
written by the author of Shorten and detailing how it works.
Trader's Little Helper Download page
Trader's Little helper converts shn to wav among other things
etree.org Wiki article

etree.org
is a trading site for authorized recordings of live performances; etree formerly used Shorten exclusively but is increasingly using

.
Shorten FAQ
(note: If looking for software to play .shn files, you will probably be better served by th
etree software page
as the Shorten FAQ has many broken and outdated links.)

a performance comparison of lossless audio formats, including Shorten.

Includes a decent list of programs to handle Shorten files. {{Compression formats Lossless audio codecs Cross-platform software