Still can't transcode FLAC to WAV...help!

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 10:18 pm

I've followed the instructions here: http://www.twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... 258#p26801
I've also set all files in cgi-bin and plugins to execute-enable (chmod +x)

But on 3 different clients I see the mime type show up as audio/x-flac and then selecting an item just says that it can't be played.

In the clients.db file, what should a client look like that should only receive WAV data? The meaning/purpose of TR and MT are not clear: does a TR line indicate what formats are acceptable on the client or what formats on the server need to be transcoded to something else? Is MT just meant to be a simple way to avoid having to rename files so they show up as a different mime type?

Do I need to update transcoding.db in any way? It has a definition for WAV but not FLAC. Also, I want Twonky to transcode on demand, so should anything be done for background transcoding or is that something different?

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Sun Mar 13, 2011 6:58 pm

I think that may have to edit the transcoding.db

From this post

http://twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... ure#p33582

There is a link to this document

http://www.dbstalk.com/attachment.php?a ... 1208634481

The document does help clear a few things up, I havent gone down the path yet
But it may be of some use to you

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Sun Mar 13, 2011 11:42 pm

thanks for the info!

Ok, so first off it answers my transcoding.db question right away: transcoding.db describes the target media types - after any transcoding is done.

I'll try to read it more thoroughly to see if it can't lead me to some greater detail on the MT and TR (and ??) triggers in clients.db.

thanks!

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:45 pm

The links provided don't have any info on clients.db, so I'm still uncertain about what's wrong there...

transcoding.db and my .desc and .location files would seem to be in good shape, though.

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 3:49 pm

If you hade a PS3

I think the following is how to do it, but not exactly sure if this is correct
Not sure if we need to bother with the MT stuff

// MT MIMETYPE conversion - client needs alternative mime type for given file extension (case insensitive)
// TR support for this transcoded formats
// TP <target name>,<extra parameters> add extra parameters to transcoder

NA:PS3
HH:PLAYSTATION
DB:FIX
XM:DLNA10
XM:DATETIME
XM:NOEMBEDDEDALBUMART
XM:NOBYTES_IN_TIMESEEK_RESPONSE
DL:MP4DLNA
HP:chunked
HP:1.0PROXYRESPONSE
TR:MPEG,JPEGORG,MP4,FLAC
MT:mpeg,mpeg2,vdr,spts,tp,ts,mpg,mpg-tts video/mpeg
MT:m4a audio/mp4
MT:avi,divx video/avi
MT flac audio/x-flac
TP FLAC
TP:MP4,-suppress_amr -add_isom -update_stss
MT:3gp not-supported

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:02 pm

No luck, unfortunately. My main goal is to get a Sony BD-S570 Blu-Ray player to work but since it's so far away from my computer I've been testing against two DLNA clients on an iPad: eyecon and MediaFusion.

I've tried every combination of the following in clients.db:
TR:FLAC versus TR:WAV
Including/Excluding MT:wav audio/x-wav and MT:flac audio/x-flac
Including/Excluding TP:FLAC

In all cases above, the media is browsable but still shows up as x-flac, which can't/won't be played by the iPad or the Sony. I did notice that in upgrading to 6.0.32 the folder images started showing up on the clients (as icons for each flac file) so there's some improvement there.

The most interesting thing I saw happen was if I added a line for background transcoding of WAV in transcoding.db, restart twonkyserver, checked the box to enable background transcoding on the config page, and ran the service script in a terminal window I could see it running the flac program to decode all of the music to wave. Unfortunately, not even the files I saw get transcoded showed up as wave or became playable when listed as flac. Something is still missing...

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 5:08 pm

As far as the background ones not showing up,
If I remember, they are not added to the list, as they might not be in a folder,
that is part of the scanning, as to not show duplicates and what not

// MT MIMETYPE conversion - client needs alternative mime type for given file extension (case insensitive)

As I understand it MT flac audio/x-flac
means what it says accoring to the notes
It means that for .flac files tell client mime type is audio/x-flac
So if one did this MT flac audio/wav
In theory it should tell the client the mim type is audio/wav

Does it do this without transcoding? Not that I can see
Do we need to do this for transcoding to work? Not sure

// TR support for this transcoded formats

This says to me that I need to add the "FLAC"
And I use "FLAC" as that is exactly how I see it used in the transcoding.db

// TP <target name>,<extra parameters> add extra parameters to transcoder

This may or may not be needed at all, but not really sure
As it looks like it is only needed to add parameters

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:49 pm

Interesting...so using MT:flac audio/wav does make the audio files show up as wave on the client but unfortunately, both ipad clients see through the lie - when I select any of them the clients still give the "can't play flac" error.

My guess is that either the file extension or some flac file header info is still coming through. If the latter is true, Twonky simply isn't transcoding anything. If the former is true, it might be transcoding but is leaving the wrong extension on...so for that I tried modifying the flac-wav.desc by changing $infile to ${infile}.wav to force the extension but that didn't seem to work.

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:56 pm

I could be wrong in this assumption
But what you just possibly proved is that MT is not related to Transcodeing

I think you tried this already, but what if you omit the MT:flac audio/wav or MT:flac audio/flac
and not use it, but keep the TP and TR stuff

Its a real shame there isnt a manual for this, were just wasting time, and chewing on tums LOL

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 2:42 am

or leftover candy canes in my case...

i had tried the TR+TP / no MT lines, as well as TR only configs before...no luck.

twonkyserver can definitely run the linux flac program to decode flac files (requires good flac-wav.desc and flac.location files, plus a new WAV=WAV entry in transcoding.db). it's pushing a bunch of good info to the clients (full list of all files, alleged mime type, folder.jpg is showing up as thumbnails (6.0.32 only)). there's gotta be something simple about the overall configuration missing between those two activities...

i've got a another problem coming up - my trial license is going to expire in a few days. i may try the windows version in a wine environment on the same linux server if i can't get it to work "normally" in linux soon.

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 3:23 am

Th only thing I can think of at the moment
In a post here in the forums, there was talk about flac in linux and something to do with root
they had a workaround for it
But trying to serach in here is da worst!
I'll try and see if I can dig it up however painful it is =)

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 11:28 am

I do have everything running as root, which I don't particularly like, and I've removed the "-D" as one thread suggests is required to allow transcoding to work, though, I really do want the dlna server to run as a proper background service so I consider that to be a fairly significant bug if it really is necessary.

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:49 pm

the thread with the "-D" is the one I was refering to

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 4:16 pm

I think from a sanity point of view
is to ask this question
can we even get any other type of transcoding to work?
basically take .flac out of the equation until one can get the supposed basics working

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 5:37 pm

Ya know I am really starting to wonder about 6.x and transcoding
What works in 5.x does not work 6.x
and there isnt much different if at all between them in how you accomplish the settings
I about give up on trying to get transcoding to even attempt to work in 6.x
as I cant even get 6.x to transcode anything of any kind
but in 5.x I can get it all working, go figure!

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 3:16 am

well why didn't you say so before!?!?!?! hahaha...just kidding

v5.x sounds promising, though. i'll give that a shot and the windows v6 in wine, too.

I can't believe the amount of work I've put in over this. I bought the bluray player specifically because it advertised the ability to play stuff off a network - I was imaging it would work much like my WD TV player, letting me pull/stream ISO's yet also let me pop in physical discs. I should learn to read manuals before buying stuff!

scsibluesmaster · Post by **scsibluesmaster** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 6:17 am

Sorry...I've given up on DLNA in general - it's just not ready for prime time. DLNA servers need to be able to transcode anything-to-anything reliably without much configuration effort, if any at all. Plus, clients shouldn't be so limiting in what formats they'll accept.

I picked up another WD TV Live Plus box for about $80: it can directly browse my media library via samba, play/stream ISO DVD backups (with full DVD menus) directly, play/stream FLAC files (even 24-bit 192Khz DVD-Audio lossless backups) - all wirelessly (extra adapter needed) and it's dead silent.

phibertron · Post by **phibertron** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:36 pm

The current state of media streaming has come far, on the server side and on the client side.
But sure, there is always room for improvement, on both sides.
Going with a client that supports access via smb, does alleviate part of the media type support
But it too isnâ€™t a complete solution, as it has to natively support something, in order to play it
Recently the hardware clients have become very powerful, thatâ€™s for sure

I hear you on the transcoding, but personally I hate transcoding, and avoid it if I can
I took a different approach to the problem, that does involve some transcoding/encoding
I chose an mp4 format that pretty much anything can play except for the psp
I re-encode everything with handbrake, and mitigate the need to transcode on the fly
The exception to this is for the HD stuff, which I do a separate encode for,
And those of course are more client device restrictive
Sure there is some upfront work involved, but it has given me a lot of client device freedom

I just donâ€™t want to have to build a powerhouse of a box to do the on the fly transcoding
As In my opinion, the resources needed to that are dynamically intensive
Not an easy thing to pull off on a lower powered NAS device, if at all

But yeah, the user shouldnâ€™t have to know anything, which is kind of sad when you think about it, were all becoming dumbified!
However, I agree, it should be made to work more reliably and be easier to configure.

Gblenn · Post by **Gblenn** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:38 pm

[quote="scsibluesmaster"]Sorry...I've given up on DLNA in general - it's just not ready for prime time. DLNA servers need to be able to transcode anything-to-anything reliably without much configuration effort, if any at all. Plus, clients shouldn't be so limiting in what formats they'll accept.

I picked up another WD TV Live Plus box for about $80: it can directly browse my media library via samba, play/stream ISO DVD backups (with full DVD menus) directly, play/stream FLAC files (even 24-bit 192Khz DVD-Audio lossless backups) - all wirelessly (extra adapter needed) and it's dead silent.[/quote]

You are not alone, I have spent days and nights trying to get things to work. My focus has been on Video but with similar results like you. I had given up on DLNA long ago, knowing that Mediaplayers like WD TV Live or the Xtreamer which I have, can handle almost anything regardless of where it is in my network.
But having recently bought a new Sony Bravia HX series, and playing around with PlugPlayer on the iPad I thought I found a new area where DLNA starts to make sense again. I want to use an iPad/Android tablet or similar as a control point and my TV as the renderer. And of course just using the remote for the TV to access video is nice as well...

BUT, since things don't work as advertized, and no amount of effort that I put in seems to help, I am at the end of the line...

Perhaps in a few years time it will actually start to work like it should, as advertized...

j0ep · Post by **j0ep** » Fri Apr 29, 2011 12:09 pm

Same issue here, whatever I try I can't get FLAC transcoding to work. Wasn't a big problem until I got a Samsung LCD with nuilt in DLNA client. It's quite a decent media player, but it doesn't support FLAC. Whatever I try with Twonky Server 6.0.32, it just doesn't want to transcode FLAC on my MSS2:

- FLAC * ffmpeg installed and working (command line transcoding)
- convert.location is pointing to /opt/bin
- flac.location is pointing to /opt/bin
- testes with default flac-wav.desc
- tested with Flac-wav.desc:
# transcode audio (flac to wav)
#(c) 2010 by PacketVideo
exec: flac --silent --decode "$infile" -o "$outfile"
# capabilities
from=audio/x-flac
to=audio/x-wav
synchronous
priority=idle
- Tried flac2wav as described in: http://www.twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... wav#p34689

If anyone has a solution...

parnott · Post by **parnott** » Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:24 pm

j0ep wrote:If anyone has a solution...

Yes-
1) Re-encode the files to a format that the TV can play
2) Get a new NAS that has the performance to do transcoding. It is extremely unlikely that MSS2 can do the transcoding. The only NAS devices that I know of that could possibly do this are the high-end and very expensive QNAP devices with Atom processors.

dholldorff · Post by **dholldorff** » Thu May 05, 2011 10:26 pm

j0ep wrote:Same issue here, whatever I try I can't get FLAC transcoding to work. Wasn't a big problem until I got a Samsung LCD with nuilt in DLNA client. It's quite a decent media player, but it doesn't support FLAC. ...

I'm sorry for butting in this way, but I simply have to ask: why do you want to play audio files on your TV? I also use the FLAC format for my music, but I have some nice audio equipment that plays it.

I assume you do too!

Daphne

S80UK · Post by **S80UK** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 3:37 pm

parnott wrote:
j0ep wrote:If anyone has a solution...
Yes-
1) Re-encode the files to a format that the TV can play
2) Get a new NAS that has the performance to do transcoding. It is extremely unlikely that MSS2 can do the transcoding. The only NAS devices that I know of that could possibly do this are the high-end and very expensive QNAP devices with Atom processors.

Sorry to dig up an old post, but FLAC to WAV takes very little processing power (that's one of the nice things about FLAC). I used to run it on the NSLU2 in the old days (133 or 266MHz cpu) without any issues (not with Twonky in that case though). My old Phatbox (in-car media player) decodes FLAC on a 75MHz ARM-7 processor, without issues.

Audio transcoding to formats other than LPCM or WAV will take more effort of course, and video transcoding is much more demanding.

parnott · Post by **parnott** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 1:39 am

Then share with us how you did it.

SceneGate · Post by **SceneGate** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:09 am

Had the same problem a while ago, while porting TMS to the Albis-Technologies Set-Top-Box family SceneGate.
On this device i have my own MediaCenter (DMP/DMR) implementation which can of course decode FLAC, but
i like to use the Set-Top-Box as cheap DMS for my kids at home.

The following description is based on TMS 6.0.32 for SH4 CPU

After some research i discover the following thing about FLAC->WAV transcoding

Twonky sends two Resources for that

04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Number of resources [2] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:373]
04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Resource[0].uri [http://10.10.8.217:9000/disk/NON-DLNA/O0$1$8I123147.flac] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:376]
04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Resource[0].profile [http-get:*:audio/x-flac:*] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:377]
04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Resource[0].duration [145] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:383]
04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Resource[0].size [49470463] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:390]
04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Resource[1].uri [http://10.10.8.217:9000/cgi-bin/Xflac-wav.desc/NWAV/NON-DLNA/O0$1$8I123147.wav] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:376]
04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Resource[1].profile [http-get:*:audio/x-wav:*] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:377]
04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Resource[1].duration [145] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:383]
04.05.2011 10:52:38 [778884312] TRACE mp.upnp.mediabrowser - Resource[1].size [18446744073709551615] [upnp/UPnPMediaBrowser.cpp:390]

The resource (URI) entry for clients which can decode FLAC is:

http://10.10.8.217:9000/disk/NON-DLNA/O0$1$8I123147.flac

The resource (URI) entry for WAV is:

http://10.10.8.217:9000/cgi-bin/Xflac-wav.desc/NWAV/NON-DLNA/O0$1$8I123147.wav

The issue is, that the cgi-bin script needs to be named Xflac-wav.desc and not flac-wav.desc!

If i copy cgi-bin/flac-wav.desc to cgi-bin/Xflac-wav.desc FLAC->WAV transcoding is working!

Verification can be done simply by using linux wget:

wget http://10.10.8.217:9000/cgi-bin/Xflac-wav.desc/NWAV/NON-DLNA/O0$1$8I123147.wav

My used Xflac-wav.desc file (cgi-bin/Xflac-wav.desc)
# transcode audio (flac to wav)
#(c) 2010 by PacketVideo
exec: flac $infile -d -o $outfile
# capabilities
from=audio/x-flac
to=audio/x-wav
#synchronous
#priority=default

br

Michael Schenk

Twonky Forum

Still can't transcode FLAC to WAV...help!

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