Changes to WAV transcoding in MinimStreamer 2.1

[simoncn]

MinimStreamer 2.1 has been released. It has new support for WAV transcoding for network streams and local files to handle large streams that exceed the size limit of 4GB imposed by the WAV specification (or 2GB for some renderers).

This support is provided by a new wavLimit option in the stream.options property. For details of how this option works, see this section of the MinimStreamer user guide.

Please post any questions about this here.

[lostinsound]

I have my server on a Synology DS218+ and I'm finding that I'm required to specify wavLimit for it to work, otherwise nothing plays and I get exceptions in the Log. Is that supposed to be the case? The webpage says 4GB is the default, which I thought would mean you don't need to specify it.

My settings:
stream.options: convOut=-af volume=replaygain=album
stream.transcode: mp3:wav, flac:wav;

If I add wavLimit=4GB to stream.options it all works fine.

[RSJ]

Following today's update, MinimServer is no longer working. While it is running (on a QNAP NAS), the playlist runs through without any tracks playing.

Update: It seems that the following stream.transcode instruction no longer works - flac:wav24;192

[simoncn]

This problem should be fixed now in MinimStreamer 2.1.1, just released. My apologies for the inconvenience this has caused.

[lostinsound]

Just tested it and it's working great! Thank you for the quick response.

[Charles7]

The user guide says, "The stream ID can be any identifier of your choice or it can be specified as an asterisk (*)."

I installed Minimstreamer version 2.1.1. I set
stream.transcode: *:wav;
but when I played a .flac file, it remained .flac according to BubbleUpNP, rendering to a HEOS device. I had to set
stream.transcode: flac:wav,aac:wav,mp3:wav,*:wav;
in order to get all those files and streams to be transcoded.

Do I misunderstand what an asterisk does?

[RSJ]

(05-12-2025 18:23)simoncn Wrote:  This problem should be fixed now in MinimStreamer 2.1.1, just released. My apologies for the inconvenience this has caused.

All good, now. Thank you.

[simoncn]

(06-12-2025 00:43)Charles7 Wrote:  The user guide says, "The stream ID can be any identifier of your choice or it can be specified as an asterisk (*)."

I installed Minimstreamer version 2.1.1. I set
stream.transcode: *:wav;
but when I played a .flac file, it remained .flac according to BubbleUpNP, rendering to a HEOS device. I had to set
stream.transcode: flac:wav,aac:wav,mp3:wav,*:wav;
in order to get all those files and streams to be transcoded.

Do I misunderstand what an asterisk does?

The stream ID is not part of the stream.transcode property. It appears in a .m3u playlist that contains network streams that need to be routed through MinimStreamer for transcoding or other processing (see this section).

An asterisk in the stream.transcode property is used to specify transcoding settings for network streams of unspecified type (see this section). It does not affect transcoding of local files.

[Charles7]

(06-12-2025 21:04)simoncn Wrote:  ...
An asterisk in the stream.transcode property is used to specify transcoding settings for network streams of unspecified type ... It does not affect transcoding of local files.

I found that *:wav; does not cause transcoding of local files nor of network streams. The streams are of specified type, such as .mp3 or .aac.

Anyway, it is clear that an asterisk here is not a general wildcard as it is in other contexts like directory commands in Windows and Linux.

[simoncn]

*:wav transcodes network streams of unknown type, not all network streams. A network stream is of known type if the type is specified in the .m3u file. For example, the stream

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

has unknown type and would be transcoded by *:wav. If instead this stream were specified as

#EXTINF:-1,[Linn;mp3] Linn Radio Classical
http://radio.linnrecords.com/cast/tunein.php/linnclassical/playlist.pls

the stream would have the known type mp3 and would not be transcoded by *:wav.