Why transcode?

[DavidHB]

(21-10-2017 06:36)whoof62 Wrote:  dsf and dff files can not play directly? Do I need to turn them into wav?

As DSF and DFF are file types supported by MinimServer and MinimStreamer (for local content), whether they will play or not will be a function of your streaming device. Both file types can be input types to MinimStreamer, and WAV24 would, I guess, be the preferred output type, assuming that the player supports it and your network can reliably provide the required bandwidth.

To answer the question posed in the thread title, transcoding is sometimes used to give a (typically quite small) improvement in sound quality and sometimes to play files in formats the player does not support, in both cases while leaving the original file intact. I use transcoding for sound quality purposes. The difference is, as I said, not large, but it is noticeable and, now it is set up, the process is entirely automatic and the improvement comes for free.

David