.m4a Thecus question for N5200!

[Itlan]

Hi Andreas, I just installed ( 2.00.01) onto my 5200Pro and it works great! Only problem is when I try and playback a m4a file I just get a loud hissing noise.

I saw your response below in another thread on this issue and didnt know if that was one of the major things included in the 2.00.01 update or is scheduled in a 2.00.02 update potentially. The beta date appears to be dated after release of .01 so I'm guessing it's not in .01 release?

I might be wrong since .01 references fixes for faad and ffmpeg which I thought were the m4a related codecs etc, so maybe it was fixed and and I'm not reading the dates right.

If a new update is coming soon I might just wait for it rather then tinker with the setup. If the .01 was supposed to fix it then I'll try Mikes fix from the end of this thread.

Thanks for the hard work, it really is very very very cool! I cant say thanks enough for providing this!

"I took some time and I'm now able to play m4a files. The only problem was the missing lame executable. I've compiled the newest version available (3.98 beta 6 Apr 13 2008)."


Apparent conf fix:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...&highlight=m4a

[n5200]

Please try the fix in the thread you mentioned manually as I'm still busy in China and next week in Korea, so I will not have time to incorporate the fix in the next 2 weeks, sorry.

And please post if this fix helped you too.

Andreas

[Itlan]

No apologizes neccessary!

I'll try the fix tonight and post back.

[Itlan]

That fix worked like a charm!

No ill effects that I can see. Normal mp3's play fine and m4a's play without a hitch!

[mikeselectricstuff]

I think the wrong thread is linked to above - the fix for hissing m4a files on the receiver ( may not affect other players)is to change the -endian parameter in convert.conf - http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=45926

[Itlan]

Hey Mike,

I used the fix below you posted in that thread I linked to fix m4a streaming to my SB3. It worked so I'm not complaining. Not sure what the two fixes were targeted at, did the one below not work for you, was the endian one for softsqueeze. Now im really confused, but atleast it works!

"The original convert.conf had translations for mov mp3 and mov flc. I commented out both of these. I added this at the end of the file :

Quote:
mov wav * *
[mplayer] -really-quiet -vc null -vo null -af volume=0,resample=44100:0:1,channels=2 -ao pcm:nowaveheader:file=- $FILE$ 2>/dev/null "


Cheers!

[bpa]

The endian switch settings depends on the processor and OS of SC such as
Windows vs XP
PPC vs x86
OSX on PPC vs OSX on Intel.

and also whether the SC provided endian variables are used in the rule. The player used is not relevant

The original thread was about XP and x86 processor systems. Unfortunately some subsequent comments about the endian switches were not clarified by the fact the change was needed for a Linux system.

[mikeselectricstuff]

After loading the 2.00.01 SC module on the Thecus, the endian change was the only change I needed to the standard install. Softsqueeze (which Andreas had been testing with) doesn;t appear to care about this setting, the receiver does.

[Itlan]

At least both work! I wonder what the effect of commenting out mov mp3 and mov flc will have. m4a and mp3's play fine and I dont anticipate playing other formats so no loss to me if thats the effect.

The only thing I could think of was maybe the fix I'm using was adding some extra transcoding but the CPU shows 2% when playing a song back and the quality sounds great so I have no issues with performance or quality.

From BPA's response it looks like the endian switch setting wasn't compliant with the SC architecure so that tweak fixes that. While the fix I used potentially points to a compatible SC codec (mplayer).

Two ways to skin this cat I guess!

The endian way is probably the better way your not commenting things out and potentially breaking something else but Im of the midset, if it aint broke dont fix

One question, if the fix I used originally worked for you, why did you research the endian switch?

[mikeselectricstuff]

One question, if the fix I used originally worked for you, why did you research the endian switch?

I did a lot of messing about with the 2.00.00 module, but when I installed the 2.00.01, I got white noise on m4a files, and guessed that it might be an endian-ness issue so tried swapping it.