Hillsboro XML Recording Archive
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Hillsboro XML files are used to archive a live show that is being distributed by the Internet, mail or any other medium in formats such as shorten. The files store each track of the live show, along with attributes of that track, MD5 signature, track length, and notes on the track among other things.

Releases:

• September 29, 2002: Release version 1.1. This is a second revision of the HBX file format. The major change in the standard is in how show notes are recorded. Previously, it was hard (or at least it caused redundancy) to record a track note that should be applied to more than one track. Now, a new element, <noteref>, has been introduced to allow individual notes to be attributed to a single track, multiple tracks, or the entire show. Thanks to Jeremy Clark of the FurthurNET team for the feedback. The examples and programs below have been updated to reflect the change.
• November 23, 2001: Release version 1.0. This is the initial release of the HBX file format. Please try out the module and send bug reports to topeka@catchen.org.

• Provides a simple way to archive live shows to facilitate trading, collecting and compiling them.
• Once a show is stored in HBX format, it can easily be converted to text, HTML or used to make CD covers.
• Using the format, it becomes relatively easy to load shows into a database, or extract them out.
• It is an open format, with Free utilities provided to work with it. Storing a show in HBX format ensures that the show will never be lost due to the loss of a proprietary program used to read it.

All of the following Perl utilities were written and tested on a Debian GNU/Linux system. They should run on other platforms, but I haven't tested them on any other platform. Send bugfixes to topeka@catchen.org. They are all pretty simple to run, type

utility.pl -h

• HBX Perl Module: This module provides a very simple interface to parse HBX-formatted files.
  • Download the HBX module: Hbx-0.80.tar.gz
  • View the HBX documentation: Hbx.pod.html
• shn2hbx.pl: This Perl program will create a new HBX archive. It allows you to enter in tracks by hand (with the help of tab-completion) and then reads a shn archive to get all the track times, md5 signatures and filenames.
  • Download the program: shn2hbx.pl
• hbx2txt.pl: This Perl program will convert an HBX archive to plain text.
  • Download the program: hbx2txt.pl
• hbx2html.pl: This Perl program will convert an HBX archive to HTML.
  • Download the program: hbx2html.pl
• hbx2ps.pl: This Perl program will create a set of CD covers from the HBX archive. It uses LaTeX to create a postscript file which can be fed to the printer. Here is an example that was produce with the following command:

  $ ./hbx2ps.pl -i Phish-12-08-1999.xml -f ./phishlogo.eps -s 1-3

  Here is the XML file: Phish-12-08-1999.xml and the CD cover (which I converted to PDF to display on the web): Phish-12-08-1999.pdf.
  • Download the program: hbx2ps.pl

The following DTD definition defines the HBX file format. Most XML parsing libraries will validate the contents of an HBX file with this DTD. It defines what XML tokens are allowed to appear in a file and what data they can hold.

<!ELEMENT recording_archive (format, performer, venue, location, 
                             date, source, recorder, tracks, noteref*, notes)>

<!ELEMENT format (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT performer (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT date (day, month, year)>
<!ELEMENT year (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT month (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT day (#PCDATA)>

<!ELEMENT noteref EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST noteref id ID #IMPLIED>

<!ELEMENT venue (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT location (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT recorder (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT source (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT tracks (track)+>
<!ELEMENT track (title, filename?, md5?, time?, noteref?, segue?)>
<!ATTLIST track set    CDATA #REQUIRED
                disc   CDATA #REQUIRED
                number CDATA #REQUIRED>

<!ELEMENT title (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT filename (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT md5 (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT time (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT segue (#PCDATA)>

<!ELEMENT notes (note)*>
<!ELEMENT note (#PCDATA)>
<!ATTLIST note id IDREF #IMPLIED>

The following XML code is a partial sample of what an HBX file looks like. Below it there are links to complete examples.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE recording_archive SYSTEM "http://catchen.org/hillsboro/hbx.dtd">
<recording_archive>
  <format>shn</format>
  <performer>Phish</performer>
  <venue>Thomas & Mack Center</venue>
  <location>Las Vegas, Nevada</location>
  <date>
    <day>31</day>
    <month>10</month>
    <year>1998</year>
  </date>
  <source>Schoeps CMc6/MK41 -> Sonosax SX-M2</source>
  <recorder>John Doe</recorder>
  <tracks>
    <track set="1" disc="1" number="1" id="N.111">
      <title>Axilla I</title>
      <filename>ph98-10-31d1t1.shn</filename>
      <md5>asdf</md5>
      <time>350</time>
      <segue>false</segue>
    </track>
    <track set="1" disc="1" number="2" id="N.112">
      <title>Punch You In the Eye</title>
      <filename>ph98-10-31d1t2.shn</filename>
      <md5>d347183871d3e3795e20b13fbc0cbbb2</md5>
      <time>350</time>
      <segue>false</segue>
    </track>
    <track set="1" disc="1" number="3" id="N.113">
      <title>Punch You In the Eye</title>
      <filename>ph98-10-31d1t2.shn</filename>
      <md5>d80e02158649bd7aa4e0863e03144ea6</md5>
      <time>350</time>
      <segue>false</segue>
      <noteref id="1" />
    </track>
  </tracks>
  <noteref id="2" />
  <notes>
    <note id="1">With Guest on Guitar.</note>
    <note id="2">Set II was the "musical costume", the album "Loaded" by 
          The Velvet Underground</note>
  </notes>
</recording_archive>

Here are three examples of full shows that were created with shn2hbx.pl and are stored in HBX format:

• TreyAnastasio-07-27-2001.xml
• TreyAnastasio-08-05-2001.xml
• Phish-05-15-2000.xml

1. Create the HBX file:

   $ ./shn2hbx.pl -a ./ph00-07-07.shnf

2. Generate an HTML file from the HBX file:

   $ ./hbx2html.pl -i Phish-07-07-2000.xml

3. Generate the Plain Text file:

   $ ./hbx2txt.pl -i Phish-07-07-2000.xml

4. Generate PostScript CD covers:

   $ ./hbx2ps.pl -i Phish-07-07-2000.xml -f ./worcester.eps -b ./phishlogo.eps -s 1-3 -dt

The HBX format and utilities used to interoperate with it were created by Julian Catchen.