favor flac over mp3 when both exist?

[adrian]

I have been ripping my collection into flac and mp3, and at the moment, the files are together in one directory. When I used the default server that came with my synology NAS it would show me both the flac and mp3 (with no way to tell which was which). MinimServer appears to be preferentially playing the mp3 and ignoring the flac. The ideal thing would be that when both flac and mp3 are present it plays the flac, but if only the mp3 exists, then it plays the mp3. Is there some way to get this behavior?

(Alternatively I can of course move the mp3 files to a location that is not indexed by the server. But that makes it more difficult to manage the tags consistently.)

[simoncn]

(11-06-2014 17:05)adrian Wrote:  I have been ripping my collection into flac and mp3, and at the moment, the files are together in one directory. When I used the default server that came with my synology NAS it would show me both the flac and mp3 (with no way to tell which was which). MinimServer appears to be preferentially playing the mp3 and ignoring the flac. The ideal thing would be that when both flac and mp3 are present it plays the flac, but if only the mp3 exists, then it plays the mp3. Is there some way to get this behavior?

(Alternatively I can of course move the mp3 files to a location that is not indexed by the server. But that makes it more difficult to manage the tags consistently.)

MinimServer doesn't play anything. It's up to the control point to select which files to play.

If the FLAC and MP3 files have the same tags, they should appear together in the list of album tracks, so each track would appear twice (as you were seeing with the Synology server). If the FLAC files aren't appearing, there may be a problem with how they are tagged. Have you checked the MinimServer log for error or warning messages?

When you have solved the problem that's preventing the FLAC files from being displayed, you can view only the FLAC files without showing the MP3 files by adding #AudioFormat to indexTags. This displays an additional #AudioFormat menu choice that allows you to select only the FLAC files.

[adrian]

(11-06-2014 17:23)simoncn Wrote:  MinimServer doesn't play anything. It's up to the control point to select which files to play.

If the FLAC and MP3 files have the same tags, they should appear together in the list of album tracks, so each track would appear twice (as you were seeing with the Synology server). If the FLAC files aren't appearing, there may be a problem with how they are tagged. Have you checked the MinimServer log for error or warning messages?

When you have solved the problem that's preventing the FLAC files from being displayed, you can view only the FLAC files without showing the MP3 files by adding #AudioFormat to indexTags. This displays an additional #AudioFormat menu choice that allows you to select only the FLAC files.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the tags, which are being automatically generated by abcde. (Easytag doesn't find them to be erroneous.) But I will check the logs. I am wondering if it's possible that the difference is Avia vs BubbleUPnP. I thought that it was the switch to MinimServer that caused the double tracks to go away. But maybe I was mistaken.

It sounds like this #AudioFormat menu choice doesn't really do what I want. I have albums where some tracks are available in flac and mp3 but other tracks are only mp3, and I also have albums only in mp3. I want to play a flac if it's available and the mp3 if the flac doesn't exist. I don't want to show just flac, since that will eliminate some material that is only in mp3. The user shouldn't have to know the format of the material.

So it sounds like I need to go the route of segregating the files into two directory structures, only one of which is indexed.

[adrian]

The behavior appears to be non-repeatable. I'm now seeing all the tracks in pairs.

[simoncn]

(11-06-2014 17:54)adrian Wrote:  It sounds like this #AudioFormat menu choice doesn't really do what I want. I have albums where some tracks are available in flac and mp3 but other tracks are only mp3, and I also have albums only in mp3. I want to play a flac if it's available and the mp3 if the flac doesn't exist. I don't want to show just flac, since that will eliminate some material that is only in mp3. The user shouldn't have to know the format of the material.

So it sounds like I need to go the route of segregating the files into two directory structures, only one of which is indexed.

I can't think of any other way to get what you want.

[Peter@57m]

I create hi-rate mp3 versions of hi-res flac albums so that I can play them on my Sonos which can't handle 24bit or greater than 44.1. The hi-res plays fine on Linn.

I have just simply added mp3 to the album title when creating the mp3 version.

[adrian]

Well, I don't (at least not yet) have any thing higher than 44.1 or sampled with more than 24 bits, so that's not a going concern. I'm making the mp3 files so that I can put them on portable devices that don't have enough storage to accommodate flac files. But I have some content that I bought in mp3 format, so there's no flac. I suppose I could create flacs for these. I hadn't thought about that, though my initial thought is that it seems kind of silly. The only disadvantage I see of separating the flac and mp3 files is that it makes it harder to keep the tags consistent if I find I need to change them. If I can nail down my tagging before splitting the files it shouldn't be too bad....though I admit that getting the tagging right looks pretty tricky.

[simoncn]

(12-06-2014 13:48)adrian Wrote:  Well, I don't (at least not yet) have any thing higher than 44.1 or sampled with more than 24 bits, so that's not a going concern. I'm making the mp3 files so that I can put them on portable devices that don't have enough storage to accommodate flac files. But I have some content that I bought in mp3 format, so there's no flac. I suppose I could create flacs for these. I hadn't thought about that, though my initial thought is that it seems kind of silly. The only disadvantage I see of separating the flac and mp3 files is that it makes it harder to keep the tags consistent if I find I need to change them. If I can nail down my tagging before splitting the files it shouldn't be too bad....though I admit that getting the tagging right looks pretty tricky.

For files where the FLAC version is the master copy, you could make tag changes in the FLAC file and then use dBpoweramp to generate a new MP3 file from the updated FLAC file. The generated MP3 file will have an exact copy of the tags in the FLAC file.

I don't think there is any point in creating a FLAC file from an MP3 file.

[Peter@57m]

(12-06-2014 13:48)adrian Wrote:  Well, I don't (at least not yet) have any thing higher than 44.1 or sampled with more than 24 bits, so that's not a going concern. I'm making the mp3 files so that I can put them on portable devices that don't have enough storage to accommodate flac files. But I have some content that I bought in mp3 format, so there's no flac. I suppose I could create flacs for these. I hadn't thought about that, though my initial thought is that it seems kind of silly. The only disadvantage I see of separating the flac and mp3 files is that it makes it harder to keep the tags consistent if I find I need to change them. If I can nail down my tagging before splitting the files it shouldn't be too bad....though I admit that getting the tagging right looks pretty tricky.

sorry for delay in replying - I have been travelling

I do the same thing for my iPod so that I can fit on all my music. If I use the native format it runs out of space.
I use MediaMonkey to manage the content on my iPod rather than iTunes. With the Gold version of MediaMonkey you can create 320bps mp3 or whatever versions of albums in hi-rate (CD and hi-res) on the fly as you sync the iPod with your library.
Works fine for me and means I don't have to maintain low res versions for the iPod