Announce: WaveInput for Linux

[bpa]

It's become very plain to me that Linux could never replace Windows as a mainstream general purpose O/S. Too few people would have the time or energy, let alone detailed knowledge, to get it to do what you want.

Horses for courses.

PS

If you want to waste time you should try an all MS solution to streaming PC audio with Windows media Encoder (or whatever MS is calling these days) and then you might appreciate the flexibility of the Linux originated tools such as VLC.

[PasTim]

Horses for courses.

True.

PS

If you want to waste time you should try an all MS solution to streaming PC audio with Windows media Encoder (or whatever MS is calling these days) and then you might appreciate the flexibility of the Linux originated tools such as VLC.

I know quite a few non-computer people who would make a good go of getting VLC to stream audio on Windows 7. The Standard Direct Show worked fairly easily with the GUI, once I realised I had to try different HTTP ports. Straying into less common codecs would, of course, lead to much greater difficulties.

I know very few people who would be able (or prepared) to fight the current release of vlc to get it to work on linux with pulseaudio. On the GUI, vlc doesn't make it clear that much else other than v4l2 is available (whatever that is), and that doesn't work on my laptop.

For 'computer people' the decision is different. Even without linux knowledge, and underlying understanding of computers, familiarity with command line interfaces and so on, make it at least feasible. For the general public there's little realistic choice.

[bluto99]

It took many, many hours, but I got vlc to work in the end.

On my debian (wheezy) laptop, obtained the latest vlc version 1.2 and built it (I tried 2.1 but couldn't get it to build properly). This was a painful process, requiring many libraries to be added. When some could not be added, sometimes removing one of the conflicting ones, then adding it back in (getting a slightly different version) eventually worked. Some of the missing libraries were said by the vlc ./configure command not be be critical, but I found out later that they were.

Finally with a vlc that would recognise 'pulse' as an input I got it to work. My command line is:

cvlc pulse://alsa_output.pci-0000_00_lf.5.analog-stereo.monitor :sout='#transcode{vcodec=none,acodec=mp3,ab=320,ch annels=2,samplerate=44100}:http{dst=:8079/st.mp3}' :no-sout-rtp-sap :no-sout-standard-sap

A few notes:

- cvlc runs vlc silently (I use killall vlc to stop it)
- the alsa_output..... name comes from looking at the information shown by the same pacmd command you used.
- I tried using acodec=vorb for OGG but overloaded the laptop and got breakup
- I didn't get flac to work - no doubt some form of codec issue
- I am using my headphone socket adaptor plugged in to stop the audio via the speakers on the laptop (I couldn't find a way to stop the audible laptop sound without also stopping the streaming).
- I found pavucontrol (not originally installed) helpful in showing what was going on.

Two tweaks that may also have helped. vlc has a 'real time' option under tools, preferences, show 'all'.

Pulse audio has a file under /etc/pulse called daemon.conf. There's a line containing
; realtime-scheduling=yes
Change this to
realtime-scheduling=yes
And
; default-fragment-size-msec = 25
to
default-fragment-size-msec = 10

Poured myself a beer, or 2.

Thanks so much for the hard work! Had spent many hours trying to get VLC system audio streaming working in OS X and Ubuntu Linux without success until I found your post, with some minor modification on the source info am now streaming Pandora One (in order to get 192 vs. 128) from Ubuntu to my Squeezebox Touch and FWIW Ubuntu is running within OS X via Virtualbox
It might be worth starting a new thread since this most excellent and useful solution is within the linux waveinput thread...and the related info in your VLC Windows streaming post was helpful too....anyway, thanks again

[PasTim]

Thanks so much for the hard work! Had spent many hours trying to get VLC system audio streaming working in OS X and Ubuntu Linux without success until I found your post, with some minor modification on the source info am now streaming Pandora One (in order to get 192 vs. 128) from Ubuntu to my Squeezebox Touch and FWIW Ubuntu is running within OS X via Virtualbox
It might be worth starting a new thread since this most excellent and useful solution is within the linux waveinput thread...and the related info in your VLC Windows streaming post was helpful too....anyway, thanks again

Glad to be of some help

[lstepnio]

I'm working to enable Apple Airplay audio streaming to my SB and I seem to be running into difficulties with the WaveInput configuration required for named pipes as documented on http://blog.stuart.shelton.me/archives/762. I have been successful in validating that Shairplay is correctly streaming audio to the named pipe and that audio steam is valid. The last piece of the solution is the WaveInput configuration which appears to be failing. I've included my custom-convert.conf and full debug level logging if anyone is willing to give my setup a second look over.

Logitech Media Server Version: 7.7.2 – r33893
WaveInput (v1.04)

custom-convert.conf: http://majjix.com/~lstepnio/custom-convert.conf

Full DEBUG level output: http://majjix.com/~lstepnio/server.log
-- Slim::Player::TranscodingHelper::getConvertCommand 2 (425) Error: Didn’t find any command matches for type: wavin

I do appreciate any pointers.

[PasTim]

That whooshing sound is this issue rushing past and over my head I'm afraid. Good luck!

[bpa]

I-- Slim::Player::TranscodingHelper::getConvertCommand 2 (425) Error: Didn’t find any command matches for type: wavin

What are the entries for WaveInput under WebUI Settings/Advanced/FileTyes ?

[lstepnio]

What are the entries for WaveInput under WebUI Settings/Advanced/FileTyes ?

WaveInput

FLAC = ecasound/flac
MP3 = ecasound/mp3
WAV ecasound

Thanks for the attention here, I know it's something silly that I'm missing.

[bpa]

There is no "wavin pcm" entry in your custom-convert.conf file at a guess whoever you copied conf file is using LMS 7.4 or older.

This could be the problem especially if you have changed the default "Settings/Advanced/FileTypes" - in any case it would be better to add in a "wavin pcm" line with appropriate commands and options.

[lstepnio]

There is no "wavin pcm" entry in your custom-convert.conf file at a guess whoever you copied conf file is using LMS 7.4 or older.

This could be the problem especially if you have changed the default "Settings/Advanced/FileTypes" - in any case it would be better to add in a "wavin pcm" line with appropriate commands and options.

Huge thanks for the attention and time to reply but the audio stream is not PCM and the sample custom-convert.conf.eca that ships with the current version of the plugin does not include a PCM entry. I'm not making the connection to PCM based on the DEBUG logs. I really appreciate the hand as I work through this one but can you kindly clarify a bit?

root@data:# diff custom-convert.conf custom-convert.conf.eca
2c2
< # wavin
---
> # wavin
5,6c5,6
<       # IFR
<       [ecasound] -q -z:db -b:4096 -f:16,2,44100 -i /var/lib/squeezeboxserver/airplay-fifo.raw -o stdout
---
>       # R
>       [ecasound] -q -z:db -b:4096 -f:16,2,44100 -i:alsa,$FILE$ -o stdout
8,9c8,9
<       # IFRB:{BITRATE=-B %B}D:{RESAMPLE=--resample %D}
<       [ecasound] -q -z:db -b:4096 -f:16,2,44100 -i /var/lib/squeezeboxserver/airplay-fifo.raw -o stdout | [lame] --silent -r -x -q $QUALITY$ $RESAMPLE$ -v $BITRATE$ - -
---
>       # RB:{BITRATE=-B %B}
>       [ecasound] -q -z:db -b:4096 -f:16,2,44100 -i:alsa,$FILE$ -o stdout  | [lame] --silent -r -x -q $QUALITY$ -b $BITRATE$ - -
11,12c11,13
<       # IFRD:{RESAMPLE=-r %d}
<       [ecasound] -q -z:db -b:4096 -f:16,2,44100 -i /var/lib/squeezeboxserver/airplay-fifo.raw -o stdout | [flac] -cs --totally-silent --endian=little --channels=2 --sign=signed --bps=16 --sample-rate=44100 --compression-level-0 -
---
>       # R
>       [ecasound] -q -z:db -b:4096 -f:16,2,44100 -i:alsa,$FILE$ -o stdout  | [flac] -cs --totally-silent --endian=little --channels=2 --sign=signed --bps=16 --sample-rate=44100 --compression-level-0 -
>