C-3PO plugin, a trnscoding helper.

[PasTim]

I had trouble with this plugin being present and using other plugins, such as "Castbridge", even though I have turned off support for those players in C-3PO (in the player settings). I don't understand what was happening, and didn't see anything obvious on logs, but I was getting white noise on my Chromecast device (TV) and the "UPnP bridge" plugin failed to play at all on one of my UPnP renderers. Removing this plugin fixed the problem straight away.

I don't really need this plugin, I was just experimenting with it, so for me it's no great loss. You may, however, want to take a look at whether there are side-effects of this plugin being installed and other squeezelite-based plugins.

[marcoc1712]

I had trouble with this plugin being present and using other plugins, such as "Castbridge", even though I have turned off support for those players in C-3PO (in the player settings). I don't understand what was happening, and didn't see anything obvious on logs, but I was getting white noise on my Chromecast device (TV) and the "UPnP bridge" plugin failed to play at all on one of my UPnP renderers. Removing this plugin fixed the problem straight away.

I don't really need this plugin, I was just experimenting with it, so for me it's no great loss. You may, however, want to take a look at whether there are side-effects of this plugin being installed and other squeezelite-based plugins.

C-3PO works in two ways:

a. as a Transcoder, invoked instead of SOX, Flac and others (in this case you see C-3PO in the commmand line)
b. as an helper to build the command line, but then SOX, FLAC,... are used at runtime.

No parts of LMS is replaced, so there is no way 'side effects' could take place outside the command line itself. What is probalbly going on here is that first enabling then disabling C-3PO could easily move to a different File Type/convert setting.

Could you please post the 'LAST EXECUTED COMMAND' as presented in the players settings when you experiment problems? Or, even better, the "RESULTING COMMANDS" table? I know other people are using UPNP plugin with no probs. To help me understand the problem, you should compare the 'tokenized command' issued when the plugin is disabled with the one resulting when the plugin is enabled.


Tanks.

Marco

[PasTim]

C-3PO works in two ways:

a. as a Transcoder, invoked instead of SOX, Flac and others (in this case you see C-3PO in the commmand line)
b. as an helper to build the command line, but then SOX, FLAC,... are used at runtime.

No parts of LMS is replaced, so there is no way 'side effects' could take place outside the command line itself. What is probalbly going on here is that first enabling then disabling C-3PO could easily move to a different File Type/convert setting.

Could you please post the 'LAST EXECUTED COMMAND' as presented in the players settings when you experiment problems? Or, even better, the "RESULTING COMMANDS" table? I know other people are using UPNP plugin with no probs. To help me understand the problem, you should compare the 'tokenized command' issued when the plugin is disabled with the one resulting when the plugin is enabled.


Tanks.

Marco

Well, naturally, having raised the issue I can't get it to go wrong now. I guess I did something silly, although I don't see what it can have been. Never mind. C-3PO is back installed and all is well. I am just left scratching my head.

If it goes wrong again (unlikely I guess) I will record the information you requested.

Thanks for your attention and apologies for wasting your time.

[PasTim]

I have found one peculiarity that has caused me some confusion. Without C-3PO being installed I have a flac file table as per the 1st image.

After installing C-3PO it is as per the 2nd image. I have lost the flac to flac (native) transcode, which I want to use much of the time. Instead I get transcoding to aif for my Touch, which I don't want.

The flac to flac (Disabled) is a transcode I sometimes enable to use with sox to convert stereo flacs to mono to play on a specific Touch using headphones (I have poor hearing in one ear and this sometimes helps).
The flac to flac (flac) transcode is for a specific UPnP player that needs it with the UPnP Bridge. Neither player has C-3PO enabled (but another squeezelite player does).

[marcoc1712]

The page "File Types Transcoding Table" inside the C-3PO player settings shows same information as Fyle Types advanced settings page (the one you posted) , but with the Id and model of the player printed in clear, so it's easier understand what's going on.

Could you please post the situation BEFORE and AFTER enabling C-3PO for the player you want to exit flac and not AIFF?

thanks a lot.

[PasTim]

The page "File Types Transcoding Table" inside the C-3PO player settings shows same information as Fyle Types advanced settings page (the one you posted) , but with the Id and model of the player printed in clear, so it's easier understand what's going on.

Could you please post the situation BEFORE and AFTER enabling C-3PO for the player you want to exit flac and not AIFF?

thanks a lot.

Apologies, I've clearly not explained myself well enough.

Neither of the players in question ever have C-3PO enabled. The 2 pictures I posted are with and without the plugin being installed at all. I can't show a picture of the C-3PO view of the translations when C-3PO is not installed.

[marcoc1712]

Apologies, I've clearly not explained myself well enough.

Neither of the players in question ever have C-3PO enabled. The 2 pictures I posted are with and without the plugin being installed at all. I can't show a picture of the C-3PO view of the translations when C-3PO is not installed.

I see, my fault, I was thinking C-3P0 was installed but disabled for specific players.

Sorry for that.

BTW, I've found that you could not select anymore "Native" in File Type advanced settings for a player with C-3P0 disabled when C-3PO is installed. It's a bug i'm going to fix, thanks for your help, but i could not understand what's wrong with AIFF conversion? Sems to me was enabled also without C-3P0, wasn't it?

[PasTim]

I see, my fault, I was thinking C-3P0 was installed but disabled for specific players.

Sorry for that.

BTW, I've found that you could not select anymore "Native" in File Type advanced settings for a player with C-3P0 disabled when C-3PO is installed. It's a bug i'm going to fix, thanks for your help, but i could not understand what's wrong with AIFF conversion? Sems to me was enabled also without C-3P0, wasn't it?

Nothing wrong with flac to aiff apart from the fact I wasn't expecting it and it isn't needed when native will do.

Glad to hear you've found a bug - I wondered if I was going crazy there for a while!

[marcoc1712]

Nothing wrong with flac to aiff apart from the fact I wasn't expecting it and it isn't needed when native will do.

Glad to hear you've found a bug - I wondered if I was going crazy there for a while!

Not sure how to handle that.

If "Native" (or any transcoder) is enabled before install C-3PO for the player, it will remain enabled and selectable after install (and disable) of the plugin.

If somehow (i.e. altering convert.conf or via some plugins) the transcoder is not enabled at install time, will become not selectable after install (and disable)

I understand your needs to have native AND flac mono choice, but some plugin does needs to have ONLY a specific line enabled, then I suggest you to insert both lines adding the mac address of your touch, so they will stay enabled after install.

[PasTim]

Not sure how to handle that.

If "Native" (or any transcoder) is enabled before install C-3PO for the player, it will remain enabled and selectable after install (and disable) of the plugin.

If somehow (i.e. altering convert.conf or via some plugins) the transcoder is not enabled at install time, will become not selectable after install (and disable)

I understand your needs to have native AND flac mono choice, but some plugin does needs to have ONLY a specific line enabled, then I suggest you to insert both lines adding the mac address of your touch, so they will stay enabled after install.

I don't understand is why none of my various players can use "Native" when C-3PO is installed.

[marcoc1712]

I don't understand is why none of my various players can use "Native" when C-3PO is installed.

I can't reproduce that, shall I see your Custom-convert.conf and convert.conf file?

thanks.

[PasTim]

I can't reproduce that, shall I see your Custom-convert.conf and convert.conf file?

thanks.

This turns out to be a rather subtle 'feature'. Note that I'm only playing flacs.

If I just have a local squeezelite, a UPnP player that has a specific flac transcode set up, and my Touch powered up when I start LMS, I get no 'native' flac to flac codec in the LMS file list. If I have another device powered up, such as a UPnP player with no specific MAC-matching entry in my custom-convert.conf file, the 'native' codec re-appears in the file list!

So as I think you suggested, it's down to which devices have specific flac transcodes set up.

For my Touch C-3PO reports:

        flc	aif	[flac]	*	00:04:20:22:70:65
	flc	[DISABLED]	*	00:04:20:22:70:65
	mp3	[lame|flac]	*	00:04:20:22:70:65
	pcm	[flac]	*	00:04:20:22:70:65

The DISABLED entry is there because I sometimes want to play in Mono and that entry goes to SOX to convert to mono. Without C-3PO installed at all it defaults back to native. With C-3PO installed it goes to AIF.

So I have now added an entry for flc to flc to be native for the Touch MAC, but can't get it to work. It seems things get confused if I have more than one entry for flc to flc. Never mind - I can manage without. It's not your plugin's problem, it's my strange habits! Sorry for taking up your time.

[weuw]

Hello

I own a Dac Mojo which can play DSD256. I installed Squeezelite-R2 on my Fedora laptop and I added the plugin C-3PO to LMS.
I start squeezelite-R2 with these args -a 40:3:: -f /var/log/squeezeboxserver/squeezelite.log -r 192000-192000 (or without -r).

When I use the plug in settings I try to pick the DSD items, but it's impossible.

What's the problem with DSD upsampling ?

Thanks for help.

[marcoc1712]

Hello

I own a Dac Mojo which can play DSD256. I installed Squeezelite-R2 on my Fedora laptop and I added the plugin C-3PO to LMS.
I start squeezelite-R2 with these args -a 40:3:: -f /var/log/squeezeboxserver/squeezelite.log -r 192000-192000 (or without -r).

When I use the plug in settings I try to pick the DSD items, but it's impossible.

What's the problem with DSD upsampling ?

Thanks for help.

C-3PO needs a special version of SOX to handle DSD (see the plugin settings page for informations or follow instructions here: http://audiodigitale.eu/), also then be sure the squeezelite version you are using is compiiled with DSD option.

Regards.

MArco

[weuw]

C-3PO needs a special version of SOX to handle DSD (see the plugin settings page for informations or follow instructions here: http://audiodigitale.eu/), also then be sure the squeezelite version you are using is compiiled with DSD option.

Regards.

MArco

Hi, thanks, how can I check that the versions I used are correct ?