I'm fairly new to the list but reading over the old topics have seen some disturbing ideas concerning SHNs. Mainly they refer to converting SHNs in order to make an audio disc for someone. The main post that I read stated that "I convert SHNs to WAV to make a disc for someone, then when I convert them back, it adds the new files to the md5, so the md5 fails verification." This is not how you want to deal with your SHN files. Every time you convert to or from SHN it changes some of the information. The author of the above quote is right, the md5 will not be able to recognize your new files. Instead of converting back and forth, convert but leave your SHNs alone. MKW conversion tool has an option to convert SHN files to WAV without deleting the original SHN. Use the WAVes to create your audio CD, then delete them. Your SHNs, complete with md5, stay right where they are. Down the road, if anyone wants them, they are ready to go.
The main reason for the md5 files was to ensure that the files always stayed the same. Etree maintains a database of md5 files for seeded shows. You can download a concert from someone, then go get the md5 file from etree and make sure that it is the same quality and data that was originally seeded.
I have read people's posts saying that SHN and md5s are crap, but what is the goal here. The goal is to make sure that the music is available in the same quality ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. The alternative, ignore the quality, keep passing around copies of mp3, waves, etc, in twenty years there won't be a listenable copy of a Hip concert from 1992.
