Thanks for clearing that up. I think that there should definitely be a way to continue to stream raw WAV data to the SB from FLAC files - after all, it's not really worth storing music in FLAC to always play it transcoded to MP3. However, the option to transcode is very useful for those with problems playing the raw data.
At the risk of complicating the conversion file or user interface, I wonder whether it would be possible to provide some kind of bitrate aspect of each entry - that way you could have two entries for FLAC->squeezebox, one for FLAC->WAV and one for FLAC-MP3, together with an indication of an approximate maximum bitrate that the entry would produce. In the HCI you could then specify how beefy your connection is and then the SlimServer would choose the entry that provides the highest bitrate stream without going above your maximum.
It might then be possible to have a simple user interface describing your network performance such as "10Mbit wired", "100Mbit wired"... (then my creativity runs out when trying to think of ways of describing combinations of wireless speeds, WEP settings and signal strength, but you get the idea). Anyway, it's an idea.
To avoid spotting similar 'problems' in the future (which are actually legitimate changes that I just didn't know about), is there anywhere I should look for a list of changes for the nightly releases (perhaps it's in CVS)? As far as I can tell, the CHANGELOG only gets updated for official releases.
Thanks for the continued development and the prompt responses to queries - it's very much appreciated.
Stuart
dean (AT) slimdevices (DOT) com wrote:
> Hi Stuart,
>
> The behavior that's changed is that SlimServer got a little smarter
> about guessing the right conversions.
>
> If you have LAME installed and you are using wireless, SlimServer will
> try to use LAME for conversion. This should help folks who are having
> problems with marginal wireless network connections.
>
> We need to improve the user interface of the File Types setup so that
> it's more obvious what's going on. Any suggestions in this area are
> most welcome.
>
> -dean
>
> On Apr 5, 2004, at 4:26 PM, Stuart Hickinbottom wrote:
>
> > Using the "2004-04-05" nightly I see that when playing FLAC though the
> > Squeezebox it's actually piping through LAME and converting to MP3 to
> > play. I've checked my "slimserver-convert.conf" and commented the
> > lines out to be sure, and it's still doing it.
> >
> > In the web interface, "server settings->file types", unchecking the
> > "FLAC/MP3/*" row seems to prevent the conversion and FLACs seem to
> > play fine through the SB.
> >
> > Is there a problem with recent nightlies in this area? I'm pretty
> > certain it was working OK with a stock 1.1.1, but haven't been
> > watching closely enough to know when this incorrect behaviour started.
> >
> > Hope that's enough - I can raise a bug if it seems to be valid.
> >
> > Stuart
> >
At the risk of complicating the conversion file or user interface, I wonder whether it would be possible to provide some kind of bitrate aspect of each entry - that way you could have two entries for FLAC->squeezebox, one for FLAC->WAV and one for FLAC-MP3, together with an indication of an approximate maximum bitrate that the entry would produce. In the HCI you could then specify how beefy your connection is and then the SlimServer would choose the entry that provides the highest bitrate stream without going above your maximum.
It might then be possible to have a simple user interface describing your network performance such as "10Mbit wired", "100Mbit wired"... (then my creativity runs out when trying to think of ways of describing combinations of wireless speeds, WEP settings and signal strength, but you get the idea). Anyway, it's an idea.
To avoid spotting similar 'problems' in the future (which are actually legitimate changes that I just didn't know about), is there anywhere I should look for a list of changes for the nightly releases (perhaps it's in CVS)? As far as I can tell, the CHANGELOG only gets updated for official releases.
Thanks for the continued development and the prompt responses to queries - it's very much appreciated.
Stuart
dean (AT) slimdevices (DOT) com wrote:
> Hi Stuart,
>
> The behavior that's changed is that SlimServer got a little smarter
> about guessing the right conversions.
>
> If you have LAME installed and you are using wireless, SlimServer will
> try to use LAME for conversion. This should help folks who are having
> problems with marginal wireless network connections.
>
> We need to improve the user interface of the File Types setup so that
> it's more obvious what's going on. Any suggestions in this area are
> most welcome.
>
> -dean
>
> On Apr 5, 2004, at 4:26 PM, Stuart Hickinbottom wrote:
>
> > Using the "2004-04-05" nightly I see that when playing FLAC though the
> > Squeezebox it's actually piping through LAME and converting to MP3 to
> > play. I've checked my "slimserver-convert.conf" and commented the
> > lines out to be sure, and it's still doing it.
> >
> > In the web interface, "server settings->file types", unchecking the
> > "FLAC/MP3/*" row seems to prevent the conversion and FLACs seem to
> > play fine through the SB.
> >
> > Is there a problem with recent nightlies in this area? I'm pretty
> > certain it was working OK with a stock 1.1.1, but haven't been
> > watching closely enough to know when this incorrect behaviour started.
> >
> > Hope that's enough - I can raise a bug if it seems to be valid.
> >
> > Stuart
> >
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