Transcoding Issues with Ubuntu 8.04

[colli419]

I have been working with subsonic for a few days to set it up. So far:
1.) I can access my server from any computer.
2.) I can listen to mp3's.
3.) I can't listen to m4a, ogg, or basically anything else.

I feel like I have read and re-read all the guides I could find but to no avail. How I have it set up now is I downloaded flac and faad and then copied the folders to the /var/subsonic/transcode folder and set the permissions so that they were owned by tomcat55 (the default user). I suspect the problem might have to do with the command line inputs that are coming from subsonic but I am unsure as to what they should be. Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

[lemay86]

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04. Here is an example, for ogg, of how I have my transcode settings setup.

name: ogg > mp3
Convert from: ogg
Convert to: mp3
step 1:any2Mp3 %s %b

I left the remaining steps blank.

The any2Mp3 is a script in my transcodes folder here is the source for it:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
song=$1
bitrate=$2

/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i "$song" -ab $bitrate -f mp3 - 2>/dev/null


After that I chmod +x (make executable) the any2Mp3 script.

If you don't want to do the script thing the line:

Code: Select all

/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i $song -ab $bitrate -f mp3 -


That is all you should need. Just put that in for step one. The /usr/bin/ffmpeg is the location of ffmpeg so if you create a symbolic link in the transcode directory to ffmpeg you can just put ffmpeg.

Videos
That is for music for videos I did a similiar script called any2flv

Its code is:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
movie=$1

/usr/bin/ffmpeg -re -y -i "$movie" -ar 44100 -ac 2 -async 2 -sameq -f flv - 2>/dev/null


I hope this helps you.

[colli419]

Thanks for the reply. I have implemented the second methodology you suggested simply using the line you instructed to put in the settings of subsonic in the administrative tab. The problem is it still does not seem to be behaving. I read that symlinks were not supported somewhere so I put the binary in the transcode directory directly and insured that it was executable. The problem is that the song file loads but stops playing immediately after is starts (i.e. the file shows up in your player but no sounds comes out). I looked at the man file for ffmpeg briefly but I was wondering if you needed to specify the input file type or something like that...

[colli419]

I am still having trouble with transcoding. I have tried both strategies that were explained by lemay86 (thanks again!) with no success. I feel like I must be doing something stupid and don't know enough to realize it, only to get into the trouble in the first place. I know that this can work and I feel like I have done everything that others have done but still can't get it to work. Will someone help me please! Thanks!

[colli419]

I realized that it might also be pertinent to post the log output for this it is as follows:
[2009-09-08 14:40:52,437] INFO StreamController - Starting stream Mike@127.0.0.1:40963 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009080316 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.13)
[2009-09-08 14:40:52,451] INFO PlaylistInputStream - Opening new song Entertainment/01 The Best Revenge.m4a
[2009-09-08 14:40:56,090] INFO StreamController - Stopping stream Mike@127.0.0.1:40963 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009080316 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.13)
[2009-09-08 14:41:08,241] INFO StreamController - Starting stream Mike@127.0.0.1:40964 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009080316 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.13)
[2009-09-08 14:41:08,249] INFO PlaylistInputStream - Opening new song Entertainment/03 Money Can't Dance.m4a
[2009-09-08 14:41:12,217] INFO StreamController - Stopping stream Mike@127.0.0.1:40964 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009080316 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.13)
[2009-09-08 14:41:14,506] INFO StreamController - Starting stream Mike@127.0.0.1:40964 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009080316 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.13)
[2009-09-08 14:41:14,507] INFO PlaylistInputStream - Opening new song Entertainment/08 Door Train Home.m4a
[2009-09-08 14:41:18,614] INFO StreamController - Stopping stream Mike@127.0.0.1:40964 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009080316 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.13)[/code]

[Journeyman]

I have exactly the same problem when using glassfish, cause if i stay on jetty from the stand-alone version everything works .... but actually i need glassfish to manage various Java EE Web Applications, so i cant run it on jetty (and using both of them is a waste of memory)

There's no solution?

[colli419]

I found this in one of the other forums and it works. Hope this helps somebody because I had a lot of trouble finding a solution that would work.

step1: faad -o - %s
step2: lame -h -b %b - -

[semtex41]

How and where do I create the little transcoding scripts?

I am running 9.04 (i think) and same as everyone else. MP3 works fine, FLac doesnt.

Is there an ubuntu walkthrough for transcoding? I have been searching for the last few days with zero findings.

Thanks

[lemay86]

How and where do I create the little transcoding scripts?

I am running 9.04 (i think) and same as everyone else. MP3 works fine, FLac doesnt.

Is there an ubuntu walkthrough for transcoding? I have been searching for the last few days with zero findings.

Thanks

My scripts above go into the subsonic transcode folder. /var/subsonic/transcode/ on my server. Just "chmod +x location/of/file/and/filename" them then you are good after you add the name of the script and %s as the first argument to pass in. Example: Setp 1: should be "any2flv %s".

It seems though video wont work with flash in subsonic 3.7 atleast I cant get it to work. So if you want video in flash you might want to get 3.6. and hope it is fixed for 3.8.

[mjthfx]

Okay... sorry if this is duplicate. I've tried searching the forums so my apologies if it is.

If someone can direct me to a help or walk through, that would be great. I have lame and flac installed in Ubuntu 8.04 server, but there is nothing in my /var/subsonic/transcode folder so is that why i get

Notice: LAME does not seem to be installed.
Click Help button for more information.

?? Can i make a link in transcode folder to my lame?

When people say make a script in the transcode folder, do you make a file with a .sh extention and add the lines of code? Do you need to run the shell script or does Subsonic do that for you?

Again, if someone can direct me to a tutorial or prev post, that would be great.

Thanks

Mark

[colli419]

Hi Mark:

There are two ways of going about fixing your transcoding issue. You can put the executable for Lame and Flac in the /var/subsonic/transcode folder, or you can make symlinks to the exectuable in your transcode folder if you have other applications that are accessing them. For me, I just put them in files themselves in the transcode folder because I didn't need them for anything else... There was a post about making the symlinks if you don't already know how to do it.

Cheers

[akaihola]

On my Mythbuntu 9.10 box, subsonic 3.8 seems to ignore transcoding settings altogether, at least when trying to play .flac files.

See bug 2905622 for more information.

[akaihola]

On my Mythbuntu 9.10 box, subsonic 3.8 seems to ignore transcoding settings altogether, at least when trying to play .flac files.

See bug 2905622 for more information.

My work-around for this issue is this transcode/lame script:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

( if [ "$5" != "${5%.flac}" ]; then
    flac -c -s -d "$5"
  elif [ "$5" != "${5%.ogg}" ]; then
    oggdec -Q -o - "$5"
  fi ) | /usr/bin/lame $1 $2 $3 $4 $6 -