Welcome to MinimStreamer!

[Peter@57m]

(17-12-2013 22:32)scrutney2 Wrote:  Hi Simon,

Firstly, many thanks for 0.8.1 - the Artist container is now correctly displaying all my tracks without an AlbumArtist tag!

Now, onto transcoding, which is the other feature I've been looking forward to... I've installed MinimStreamer and added alac:wav24 to the stream.transcode property (my files are ALAC on a Synology DS110j and my player is a Linn Majik DS); the stream.converter property is set to the default ffmpeg, which I believe should work? However, when I play a track there is no sound! The track counts down as if it is playing and Kinsky shows that it is WAV format.. But no music.

I think I've followed the user guide correctly - is there anything I've overlooked?

Simon

Looking at the user guide, it states you need the converter installed on your PC or Nas - see below. Could this be the reason?


For many transcoding combinations (noted in the list below), the stream.converter property needs to be set. This property can be set to avconv to use Libav as a transcoding converter or ffmpeg to use FFmpeg as a transcoding converter. The transcoding converter program specified in this property must be installed on the computer or NAS that is running MinimStreamer, and it must be available in one of the directories in the PATH environment variable.

[scrutney2]

I did think that, but I changed the stream.converter property from ffmpeg to avconv, and got a message saying this program is not installed, which suggests that ffmpeg is installed.. If in fact I don't have a transcoding converter installed, any pointers would be appreciated!

[simoncn]

(18-12-2013 09:35)scrutney2 Wrote:  I did think that, but I changed the stream.converter property from ffmpeg to avconv, and got a message saying this program is not installed, which suggests that ffmpeg is installed.. If in fact I don't have a transcoding converter installed, any pointers would be appreciated!

Your setup is correct. I am able to reproduce this problem when transcoding ALAC files using ffmpeg on my Synology. The audio is playing OK when I transcode ALAC files using ffmpeg on my QNAP, so I suspect there is some issue with the version of ffmpeg that is preinstalled by Synology. I'll do some investigation and post back here when I have more information.

[retraite]

Hello Simon

Firstly, thank you for your continuing efforts on our behalf. They are much appreciated.

I would appreciate your guidance on a problem I’m having with transcoding.
I would first say that I find the sound from files transcoded from FLAC to WAV24 on my DS players (Klimax and Renew) preferable to the FLAC files played directly. Whether better or not is another matter, but certainly preferable and not just to my ears.

I’m happy to say that via Minimstreamer, I’m still able to enjoy that benefit and did not find it difficult to set the software up for that purpose.

However, I am having difficulty with the transcoding of streamed content. I followed the instructions in the guide to include Linn Classical in my playlists and the two versions were listed as your guide indicates. The version that is not transcoded pays in mp3 without problem, but when played through Minimstreamer the music will continue for about two minutes and then stops and does not restart unless the DS player is cycled through standby. This happens with settings as “mp3:wav, mp3:wav16 and mp3:wav24. I have not been able to get it to continue beyond two minutes with any combination.

I have tried it with a QNAP 459, QNAP ts219 and a PC and the problem is the same with them all. The stream.converter in each case is ffmpeg, as I too am told that I do not have avconf installed. I have looked at LIBAV with a view to installing it, but don’t feel I have the expertise to interfere with my NAS boxes.

Normally in these situations, I assume that I am at fault, given both my lack of technical expertise and a less than methodical approach, but given that I have got the transcoding to work temporarily, I felt that this time I should outline my experience on the forum and ask for further guidance.

Could I also suggest that a little more explanation in the guide of how to prepare an M3U file might be helpful to people with less time to experiment than a retired type like me has.

I look forward to your response

[simoncn]

(18-12-2013 10:50)simoncn Wrote:  

(18-12-2013 09:35)scrutney2 Wrote:  I did think that, but I changed the stream.converter property from ffmpeg to avconv, and got a message saying this program is not installed, which suggests that ffmpeg is installed.. If in fact I don't have a transcoding converter installed, any pointers would be appreciated!

Your setup is correct. I am able to reproduce this problem when transcoding ALAC files using ffmpeg on my Synology. The audio is playing OK when I transcode ALAC files using ffmpeg on my QNAP, so I suspect there is some issue with the version of ffmpeg that is preinstalled by Synology. I'll do some investigation and post back here when I have more information.

It appears there was an incompatible change to the spelling of an ffmpeg option in November 2012. Before that date, this option was specified as '-request_sample_fmt flt' and after that date it was specified as '-request_sample_fmt float'. The problem with ALAC and Synology is caused by MinimStreamer's use of the older 'flt' syntax, which is rejected by the newer ffmpeg version installed by Synology.

The best solution I can think of at the moment is for MinimStreamer to do "dummy" invocations of ffmpeg with each spelling to find the spelling that works, then use this spelling in the "real" invocation of ffmpeg.

Edit: This problem isn't caused by an incompatible change to FFmpeg. See this post for details.

[simoncn]

(18-12-2013 11:03)retraite Wrote:  Hello Simon

Firstly, thank you for your continuing efforts on our behalf. They are much appreciated.

I would appreciate your guidance on a problem I’m having with transcoding.
I would first say that I find the sound from files transcoded from FLAC to WAV24 on my DS players (Klimax and Renew) preferable to the FLAC files played directly. Whether better or not is another matter, but certainly preferable and not just to my ears.

I’m happy to say that via Minimstreamer, I’m still able to enjoy that benefit and did not find it difficult to set the software up for that purpose.

However, I am having difficulty with the transcoding of streamed content. I followed the instructions in the guide to include Linn Classical in my playlists and the two versions were listed as your guide indicates. The version that is not transcoded pays in mp3 without problem, but when played through Minimstreamer the music will continue for about two minutes and then stops and does not restart unless the DS player is cycled through standby. This happens with settings as “mp3:wav, mp3:wav16 and mp3:wav24. I have not been able to get it to continue beyond two minutes with any combination.

I have tried it with a QNAP 459, QNAP ts219 and a PC and the problem is the same with them all. The stream.converter in each case is ffmpeg, as I too am told that I do not have avconf installed. I have looked at LIBAV with a view to installing it, but don’t feel I have the expertise to interfere with my NAS boxes.

Normally in these situations, I assume that I am at fault, given both my lack of technical expertise and a less than methodical approach, but given that I have got the transcoding to work temporarily, I felt that this time I should outline my experience on the forum and ask for further guidance.

This is working fine for me on a PC and on a QNAP NAS (20 minutes and counting), streaming to my Klimax Renew DS. In terms of sound quality, I find that transcoding the Linn Classical MP3 stream sounds slightly worse, and transcoding the BBC Radio 3 AAC stream sounds significantly better (when streaming to the KRDS in both cases).

At the moment, I can't think of anything that would cause the stream to stop after two minutes. It might be an network issue. To obtain more information, you could try enabling tracing in the log window after about 1 minute 45 seconds and making a copy of the minimserver.log file after the music stops playing. If you're doing this on Windows, the log file is in the folder C:\Users\<your-user-name>\AppData\Roaming\MinimServer\data. The AppData folder is hidden in Explorer, so you need to type the full path into the Explorer address bar. Please PM me when you have a saved copy of the log.

Quote:Could I also suggest that a little more explanation in the guide of how to prepare an M3U file might be helpful to people with less time to experiment than a retired type like me has.

I look forward to your response

M3U is an industry standard format, but I take your point that some users might not be familiar with it. I'll try to make it clearer what's needed.

[simoncn]

(18-12-2013 12:24)simoncn Wrote:  At the moment, I can't think of anything that would cause the stream to stop after two minutes.

My stream has stopped after about 30 minutes. The problem might be related to the issue described in this thread. When you get the problem, does the log window show a stream of messages similar to this?

11:33:23.069 Thread-49: TaskInputFilter: critical shortage of input data

[retraite]

Have now tried Radio 3 using the info you supplied and transcoding aac:wav. The stream ran for just over 50 minutes before stopping. Previously the stream stopped and would not restart, this time restart was continually attempted and successful for a moment before it dropped again. After pressing stop and play in Kinsky, the stream has now re-established itself properly and been running for nearly 10 minutes.

I'll keep experimenting

[simoncn]

(18-12-2013 15:52)retraite Wrote:  Have now tried Radio 3 using the info you supplied and transcoding aac:wav. The stream ran for just over 50 minutes before stopping. Previously the stream stopped and would not restart, this time restart was continually attempted and successful for a moment before it dropped again. After pressing stop and play in Kinsky, the stream has now re-established itself properly and been running for nearly 10 minutes.

I'll keep experimenting

It's slightly off topic, but I'm interested whether you noticed any improvement in sound quality with wav transcoding of the Radio 3 stream. My impression is that there is a noticeable difference, especially when wav24 is used.

I will continue to think about how to solve the problem with the stream stopping. The puzzle is why this happens with transcoding but not without transcoding.

[maniac]

Working well also on Qnap 689pro - thank you!

But i'm having trouble getting streaming of radio into the player via minim server.
I have created .M3U file in one of my folders containing exactly this text:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,[Linn] Linn Radio Classical
http://radio.linnrecords.com/cast/tunein...aylist.pls

After rescanning I can see folder "LINN" inside which is "file" playlist.pls , but trying to stream it to upnp player won't work. Same stream url works via iTunes fine.

I have created other .M3U file for other radio, this one plays, but it's not being processed (or transcoded) by minim server, but rather player streams directly from radio servers:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:69,[FM] - Slovak 4 Radio FM
http://live.slovakradio.sk:8000/FM_256.mp3

In "System" preferences inside minim watch I have set:

stream.converter = ffmpeg
stream.transcode = flac:wav24, mp3:wav24

Transcoding of local flacs and mp3s to wav24 works fine.

Any clue what I'm doing wrong?

Thank you.