Advantages of MinimStreamer

[simoncn]

(16-04-2014 07:30)gnomus Wrote:  As part of my progress on this steep learning curve, I have installed MinimStreamer and now have WAV playing through my renderer rather than the FLAC that I had yesterday.

I am not sure, however, what, if any, advantage I gain by doing this? Can someone help me understand? I had understood that FLAC and WAV were "bit identical".

I have only just seen this post. FLAC and WAV contain identical audio information, but they require different processing for playback in the renderer. With some renderers, this difference may change the sound that is reproduced.

Quote:I understand that it is possible to convert the 16-bit FLAC files to 24-bit WAVs (once I get a renderer capable of playing these). Again, however, I am struggling to understand what I gain by doing this. Surely the quality of the sound will be limited by the source 16-bit file. We cannot conjure extra sonic detail out of nothing.

Am I missing something? I'm not trying to be negative, I'm genuinely curious to hear the argument.

The 16-to-24-bit conversion pads the original 16 bits with zeros. The 16-bit stream and the 24-bit stream contain identical audio information, but they may require slightly different processing for playback in the renderer. With some renderers, this difference may change the sound that is reproduced.

Quote:One thing I have noticed. When running MinimStreamer, I no longer seem able to fast forward through the track. If I tap half-way into the track timeline, the player will stop for a second or so and then skip to the next track on the playlist. Is that to be expected?

This shouldn't be happening. Please produce two debug logs by doing the following for MinimServer playback and repeating the same process for MinimStreamer playback:

1) From the minim icon, select 'Show log'
2) In the log window, set the logging level to Debug
3) Leave the log window open
4) Start playing the track
5) After about 10 seconds of music, try to fast-forward the track
6) After another 15 seconds, click 'Save as' to save a log file
7) In the log window, set the logging level back to Info

Zip the two log files and attach them to a post here. I will compare the log files and try to find what is causing this problem.