FLAC or WAV ?

[USAudio]

I have a wireless SqueezeBox3 and all my music files were ripped in Apple Lossless using iTunes.

In my slim server's FILE CONVERSION FORMAT SETUP, File Format Apple Lossless is checked to Stream in Formats FLAC and WAV.
Is the server going to stream in FLAC or WAV?

Will I get better network performance if I uncheck the Apple Lossless -> WAV conversion to force it to use FLAC?
Or is it likely streaming with FLAC anyways?

[norman12]

It will be converted on the server to FLAC, slimserver will always convert (or use) the first format selected.

[SteveEast]

You can always check to see what's actually being used by looking at the processes that are running while playing. If you're transcoding to FLAC then alac.exe and flac.exe will be running. Transcoding to WAV will only show alac.exe.

The above is only true for Windows, but I assume a close variant of it is true for the other platforms.

Steve.

[RalphO]

You can always check to see what's actually being used by looking at the processes that are running while playing. If you're transcoding to FLAC then alac.exe and flac.exe will be running. Transcoding to WAV will only show alac.exe.

The above is only true for Windows, but I assume a close variant of it is true for the other platforms.

Steve.

How do look at what processes are running?

[SteveEast]

Task Manager. Right click on an empty space in the Taskbar and select Task Manager.

Steve.

[RalphO]

Task Manager. Right click on an empty space in the Taskbar and select Task Manager.

Steve.

Thanks. I have never noticed the Processes tab before.

[SteveEast]

Different strokes for different folks. I pretty much permanently have a CPU sorted process list running.

Steve.

[Wilfred]

I find the whole FILE CONVERSION FORMAT SETUP page very confusing. I know that I have seen some explanation in some post, but the search function is not too useful. For example, searching for the key words FILE CONVERSION gives no hits, even though it is in the OP's lead post. How do I know that Slimserver is sending FLAC files to my SB3? If I uncheck the FLAC/WAV line box, which it seems to make sense to do, the SB can't open any files.

[USAudio]

It will be converted on the server to FLAC, slimserver will always convert (or use) the first format selected.

Thanks! In my case, the first one selected is Apple Lossless -> FLAC.

Followup question: It's my understanding that I can't FWD or REW songs with my SqueezeBox3 because I ripped my songs with Apple Lossless... but if the song is being converted to FLAC on the fly before it's streamed to the Squeezebox3 then shouldn't I be able to FWD and REW songs since it's FLAC when the SqueezeBox3 receives it?

How does that all work?

[snarlydwarf]

I find the whole FILE CONVERSION FORMAT SETUP page very confusing. I know that I have seen some explanation in some post, but the search function is not too useful. For example, searching for the key words FILE CONVERSION gives no hits, even though it is in the OP's lead post. How do I know that Slimserver is sending FLAC files to my SB3? If I uncheck the FLAC/WAV line box, which it seems to make sense to do, the SB can't open any files.

Well, I would recommend you just not change the defaults. The defaults Do The Right Thing most of the time.

The SB can do FLAC just fine... so why not just send FLAC to the SB? It can do WAV, but why waste the bandwidth? By default it will convert WAV to FLAC on the fly.