Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

magister · 15-01-2013, 03:02

I see that the most recent version of MinimServer can transcode FLAC to WAV. I run MinimServer on a Synology NAS with a 1.0Ghz processor and very little memory. Is it even worth trying transcoding on a low-end machine like this?

David

simoncn · 15-01-2013, 07:13

(15-01-2013 03:02)magister Wrote: I see that the most recent version of MinimServer can transcode FLAC to WAV. I run MinimServer on a Synology NAS with a 1.0Ghz processor and very little memory. Is it even worth trying transcoding on a low-end machine like this?

David

It's definitely worth trying. Transcoding from FLAC to WAV doesn't use much memory, and you should have enough CPU power to be able to handle up to 24/96 files. (24/192 might be possible, but this would be pushing the limits.)

You can look at the CPU and memory usage by using the 'top' command from an SSH console window.

magister · 15-01-2013, 11:31

Thanks, Simon. I'll try it. I do have some 192/24 files, so we'll see what happens.

magister · 20-01-2013, 08:03

For Synology owners or anyone else who's curious: success! I set MinimServer to transcode to wav24 and restarted. Synology supplies a nice utility as part of their diskstation manager that shows CPU and memory usage. No matter what I do with the NAS, memory usage always hovers around 40%, and this did not change when transcoding. CPU usage went up, as expected. With a 176/24 file it spiked sometimes up to about 85% and then settled back down at a lower level, maybe 70%. I didn't try a 192/24 file tonight, but I expect it would be similar to the 176/24. Sound is definitely different, and mostly for the better, at least based on one day's testing.

David

uk75 · 10-10-2013, 20:06

my ds211+ won't transcode flac 192/24 on the fly. Cpu peaks at 100% and music drops out every 2 seconds or so... Is there a setting to keep minim from transcoding such hires files?

simoncn · (This post was last modified: 10-10-2013 21:19 by simoncn.)

(10-10-2013 20:06)uk75 Wrote: my ds211+ won't transcode flac 192/24 on the fly. Cpu peaks at 100% and music drops out every 2 seconds or so... Is there a setting to keep minim from transcoding such hires files?

There isn't any way to exclude hi-res files from transcoding.

The DS211+ has a 1.6 GHz ARM processor, which should be fast enough to transcode 192/24 FLAC to WAV on the fly. I am running MinimServer on a 1.2 GHz ARM NAS (QNAP TS-119) and this is able to transcode 192/24 FLAC to WAV with about 20% CPU consumption. Is there some other software running on your NAS and consuming a significant amount of CPU and/or memory? You can see this by logging in with SSH and using the 'top' command.

Another possibililty is that you might be running the wrong version of Java. You need to use the Oracle EJRE, not the OpenJDK JRE. The OpenJDK JRE for ARM is about 5x slower than the Oracle EJRE for ARM for a CPU-intensive workload.

uk75 · 14-10-2013, 13:08

OK, I redownloaded the JAVA package (patters), now it is Java 7. Do I have to reinstall Minim? It still drops out when transcoding 192/24...

simoncn · (This post was last modified: 14-10-2013 15:50 by simoncn.)

(14-10-2013 13:08)uk75 Wrote: OK, I redownloaded the JAVA package (patters), now it is Java 7. Do I have to reinstall Minim? It still drops out when transcoding 192/24...

If you have installed Java using this package, it is the correct version. You don't need to reinstall MinimServer, but it would be a good idea to stop and restart it from the Package Center.

What do you have set for the logging level in the MinimWatch log window? This should be Info or Verbose for normal operation. If it is set to Trace, you will definitely have problems with excessive resource usage. If it is set to Debug, this might work, but I would recommend changing it to Info or Verbose.

Is there some other software running on your NAS and consuming a significant amount of CPU and/or memory? You can see this by logging in with SSH and using the 'top' command.

winxi · 14-10-2013, 19:20

(14-10-2013 15:49)simoncn Wrote: Is there some other software running on your NAS and consuming a significant amount of CPU and/or memory? You can see this by logging in with SSH and using the 'top' command.

From the Synology web interface, you can also choose 'Main Menu -> Resource Monitor -> Process tab' to view the CPU and memory consumption of running processes.

uk75 · 17-10-2013, 13:54

I think it also was related to an old hub in-between, Netgear d104... it is only capable of 10/100, which may be too little (even though the Devolo "in front of it" is only a 150 AV)