CBH file format

[shiv]

Thanks!

This is useful for at least 2 reasons.

One would be a cbh to scid or pgn converter. I know a few people who keep an old version of chessbase or fritz just for this reason.

The second reason is less obvious, but many chess players have complained to me that their cbh file is damaged and they have lost their data. In fact, a grandmaster friend of mine said that he had lost his analysis because of cbh corruption. He become upset and in future, backed up his analysis frequently.

[gcramer]

A CBH decoder is implemented in Scidb (http://scidb.sourceforge.net/) and is working, but only for standard chess games. CBH version 10 supports chess 960 games. The decoding doesn't work for chess 960 games. ChessBase has changed either the game data decoding (move decoding) or the encryption. The game setup format has changed a bit, too. Does anybody have information about chess 960 decoding?

[OliverUwira]

A CBH decoder is implemented in Scidb (http://scidb.sourceforge.net/) and is working, but only for standard chess games. CBH version 10 supports chess 960 games. The decoding doesn't work for chess 960 games. ChessBase has changed either the game data decoding (move decoding) or the encryption. The game setup format has changed a bit, too. Does anybody have information about chess 960 decoding?

At least in ChessBase 10 there is no Chess960 support. The last time I checked, playchess.org also didn't offer genuine Chess960. Only Shuffle Chess was available, which is Chess960 without castling.

However, I've been hearing that ChessBase made a special build for the Chess Classic organizers so this might be why there's some support for Chess960 in the CBH format.

[overtond]

You don't need too if all you are trying to do is open a record stored in a .CBH format from another application, lets say, ShredderClassic. All you need to do is once you have created/saved your .CBH file then create a .CBF file {New DB then Save As .CBF} and once done just drag and drop the .CBH file on to the .CBF file and copy all records across. From this point forward you will be able to open all the records stored in the .CBF file from your GUI application of choice - in my case ShredderClassic! )

[M ANSARI]

I think Aquarium figured out a way to read and use .ctg files, so .cbh files should be no different. Nothing wrong with doing that as this is simply making your software inter operable with that format. What I do know about .cbh files is that when you do open it, it makes a mess of new files all over the place. I think the .cbv file format is also interesting as it seems to compress the .cbh file, which would be very useful on mobile devices.