Streaming FLAC to WMP11

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aleg
Posts:4
Joined:Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:32 pm
AV Hardware:QNAP TS-209 II Pro
Vista Home Premium
Popcorn Hour A100 (almost)
Streaming FLAC to WMP11

Post by aleg » Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:47 pm

Hi to you all

I have been trying to setup my Vista Home Premium PC with WMP 11 as a Upnp client for my TwonkyVision 4.4.5 on my QNAP NAS.

I have been able to get it running for all my video types and for MP3 but I don't get it to work with FLAC audio files.

WMP 11 can access the album and song on TwonkyVision AV server but when opening a FLAC song it says "Opening Media" and it keeps displaying this for ages and in the end it says ""Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or a required codec might not be installed on your computer."
The FLAC codec is installed on my Vista PC and functioning because when I access the FLAC-file on the NAS directly via SMB, WMP will play the FLAC.

I had a similar issue with accessing the AVI/XVID videos but that was resolved by cleaning the codecs on the VISTA PC and installing just one codec package (K-LITE full version). But I can't seem to get this FLAC streaming to work.

Is there anyone who has this resolved?
Like to hear from you

aleg

billzab
Posts:6
Joined:Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:50 pm
AV Hardware:ReadyNAS-Duo

Re: Streaming FLAC to WMP11

Post by billzab » Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:59 pm

Hi Aleg,

Just to say that I too have this very same problem. I have searched high and low for an answer but came up with nothing. Will keep watching your post to see if you get an answer but don't hold out too much hope as most of the technical questions on this forum go unanswered.

If you do find an answer elsewhere, I would be really gratefull if you could post it back here.

Cheers, Bill.

aleg
Posts:4
Joined:Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:32 pm
AV Hardware:QNAP TS-209 II Pro
Vista Home Premium
Popcorn Hour A100 (almost)

Re: Streaming FLAC to WMP11

Post by aleg » Sat Aug 02, 2008 3:23 pm

Hi Bill

I have no answer yet, but I think I know now that FLAC in itself can't be streamed.

As I understand it now, the FLAC should be contained in a ogg container (then called OGG FLAC and now to be used with a .oga extension) for it to be able to be streamed.
"the Ogg container format, suitable for streaming (also called Ogg FLAC)"
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC
• Ogg FLAC format:
- This is not a format change, but changed default extension for Ogg FLAC from .ogg to .oga, according to new Xiph specification (SF #1762492).
source: http://flac.sourceforge.net/changelog.html#flac_1_2_1
This doesn't help much because the FLAC-file transcoded into a ogg-container can still not be read by WMP11 when streamed from a TWONKY mediaserver.

Still hoping for some support from TWONKY-media itself :(

Cheers

aleg

billzab
Posts:6
Joined:Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:50 pm
AV Hardware:ReadyNAS-Duo

Re: Streaming FLAC to WMP11

Post by billzab » Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:43 pm

Hi Aleg,

Thanks for the update. It is very frustrating trying to get something to play Flac files via Twonky. What I don't get is how if I access the Twonky server and click on a song from the Twonky interface (web page) it then starts up WMP and plays perfectly without a glich. Main problem with this is you can't get Twonky to play more than one file at a time.

Cheers, Bill.

aleg
Posts:4
Joined:Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:32 pm
AV Hardware:QNAP TS-209 II Pro
Vista Home Premium
Popcorn Hour A100 (almost)

Re: Streaming FLAC to WMP11

Post by aleg » Sat Aug 02, 2008 5:01 pm

Hi Bill

What codecs are you using at the moment for playing flacs?

At the moment I'm having trouble to get WMP11 on Vista to flacs in any way be it directly from disk or from streams.

When using the directshow filters from www.xiph.org (the official way to play flac from WMP11), WMP11 immediately crashes on opening a flac file.

I haven't been able to repair this with any of the codec packs, be it K-Lite, VistaCode, CCCP-pack.

So I had to revert to using Foobar 2000 again for playing my music flacs.
Nothing wrong with foobar but I would like to combine video and audio into one client capable of acting as a Upnp-client to Twonky AV-server.

Cheers

aleg

billzab
Posts:6
Joined:Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:50 pm
AV Hardware:ReadyNAS-Duo

Re: Streaming FLAC to WMP11

Post by billzab » Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:18 pm

Hi Aleg,

I downloaded the Flac codec from http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/ . It seems to work some of the time. Then sonetimes WMP won't play a flac file. I have a couple of mp3's on the NAS just to make sure it is not a connection problem, but it definatley a flac problem. Very frustrating.

Cheers,

Bill.

aleg
Posts:4
Joined:Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:32 pm
AV Hardware:QNAP TS-209 II Pro
Vista Home Premium
Popcorn Hour A100 (almost)

Re: Streaming FLAC to WMP11

Post by aleg » Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:00 pm

Those are the same I tried, although they are now maintained by xiph.org.

WMP11 immediately crashes on accessing a flac-file when those directshow filters are installed.

I suspect it all has to with installed codecs, but I can't figure it out.

Cheers
aleg

sxr71
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Joined:Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:12 pm
AV Hardware:HP Mediasmart Server, Nokia N95, Nokia N78, Windows Vista Media Center, Windows Media Player 11 on Lenovo X60s, Xbox 360, PS3

Re: Streaming FLAC to WMP11

Post by sxr71 » Fri Aug 22, 2008 6:14 pm

I have tried with CoreFlac and the illuminable filters and oddly enough it will play a Flac right after the install and maybe after a reboot. Wake up the next day and it doesn't work. Playing the file from the remote server directly works fine, but the uPNP served Flacs will not play and it gives me the codec error.


In my short experience, I find WMP11 to be a joke in terms of how long it takes to display my library from the Twonky Media Share. Don't even get me started on Vista Media Center. They made it simple, sure but there is no way to diagnose anything on that platform. You can't even determine what the format of a given file is. I realize that I don't need either on my laptop since I could just have WMP11 add my files to its library and be done with this uPNP sharing. Still, I want to try to get it working here before I even try on my Xbox 360 or PS3. From what I'm hearing the PS3 does the best job of anything out there, so maybe I'll try that and come back to horrid state of affairs on the MS side (WMP11, Media Center and Xbox 360). Uh.

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