FAQs - Electronic Trading
Q: How do I set up an electronic trade?
A: You can contact someone in our community that is willing to trade. Using FLAC or SHN files, you can usually exchange them through an Instant Message file share or by uploading them to a website.
Q: What are the advantages/disadvantages of an electronic trade?
A: Some advantages of electronic trades are: nearly instant trades, saving costs of CDrs, shipping, jewel cases, and padded mailers. Some disadvantages of electronic trades are: possible internet connection failures or technical difficulties, no hard copy of your disc
Q: What formats do I use to trade?
A: The formats recommended by this site to trade electronically are FLAC or SHN. MP3’s are NOT RECOMMENDED FOR TRADE. Please note which format your files are in, for future
source generation.
Q: What is FLAC and SHN?
A: FLAC and SHN are file formats that allow for full quality of a file to be transferred when uploaded, downloaded, or converted. We do not condone MP3 trades and ask if you have a MP3 sourced disc, to keep it out of trading. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Compression. The main reason FLAC is so popular with electronic trading communities is because the quality of the files is lossless. Our main mission of this website is to create a quality standard in the Hole trading
community. We suggest FLAC to be used to prevent from loss of audio, while still maintaining decent sized files.
Q: What is wrong with MP3?
A: The MP3 format does not allow the lossless transferring of files. Everytime a MP3 is traded, it's quality decreases. Since Holelive.com is all about keeping the best quality-sourced recording in circulation, we do not allow trades of MP3s or MP3 sourced discs.
What should I include in my trade?
A: In your trade, include all tracks of the specified show or other media, as well as a text file (.txt – can be done in Notepad or Wordpad on Windows machines) stating all known
source generation (including what formats your trade is in), sound quality, tracklisting, venue, and date information. Also, please include any comments of the show you have
in your text file.
Q: Where can I find more information on these file formats and electronic trading?
A: Try visiting www.bittorrent.com, http://members.verizon.net/~vze4hc9b/, http://etree.org/whoweare.html, or FLAC for more information.