Subsonic Forum

Subject says it all. Is anyone successfully playing FLAC files in Jukebox mode without transcoding to MP3 first ? How are you doing it ?

I've tried ffmpeg, flac, and sox, none of which work completely. ffmpeg doesn't play at all, flac plays one files but won't go to the next, and sox will suddenly die in the middle of the second song of a playlist.

ccandreva wrote:Subject says it all. Is anyone successfully playing FLAC files in Jukebox mode without transcoding to MP3 first ? How are you doing it ?

I've tried ffmpeg, flac, and sox, none of which work completely. ffmpeg doesn't play at all, flac plays one files but won't go to the next, and sox will suddenly die in the middle of the second song of a playlist.

Hi there - it's interesting to hear that these problems exist on Linux as well as on Windows: The lossless playback is unfortunately not implemented properly (yet?) - FLAC to WAV only plays one track at this time, and has done so for the past year - a search should bring up a few threads on this topic. Maybe you can add yourself to the 'me-too' list requesting proper implementation of this feature. Let's hope Sindre can find the time to work on this.

Best wishes,
ff

Well knowing it was happening on Windows too means it wasn't a problem with my versions of ffmpeg, etc. So I think the definition of the problem is now:

Jukebox mode will only talk correctly to lame as the last program in a filter pipeline.

So the workaround is to make lame the last program in the pipeline, even if we don't need it. I've set up flac > wav like this:

Step 1: ffmpeg -i %s -f wav -
Step 2: lame --decode - -

The '--decode' option tells lame to decode to wav. Since the input is a wav, this should end up doing nothing, but since subsonic is now talking to lame instead of ffmpeg -- IT WORKS !

I've listened to two albums all the way through this way.

In fact, you can use this to listen to MIDI files in Jukebox mode now. Add .mid as a file type, install timidity++ and make sure it works (comes with most Linux distros, no idea how to get it on Windows), link it from /var/subsonic/transcode, and set up the pipeline thusly:

Step 1: timidity -Ow -o - %s
Step 2: lame --decode - -

If mikmod could write WAV data to a pipe I'd have MOD files playing too.

Seems there is one more issue. The internal player has a problem switching between MP3 and WAV files, it either hangs up, or starts to play static.

The solution, of course, is to make sure it always plays only WAV files !
Set up an MP3 > WAV transcoder, exactly the same as the FLAC>WAV transcoder, and so far all transitions between MP3/FLAC have worked.

@ccandreva,

thanks for this great workaround. One question: do you have a 'click' sound whenever the next track is started with your setup? Playlists are correctly played with your method, but this 'click' or ultra-brief static sound is a bit bothersome. Wondering if this is the same for you.

Thank you.

ff

Yes, the same happens. Also really long playlists sometimes stop in the middle. I tlooks like ffmpeg or lame dies and Subsonic doesn't know, and thinks the track is still playing.

thanks! added to the wiki

https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ ... rs#Jukebox

Is this obsolete?

I turned off the default mp3 transcode for my jukebox players, and FLAC plays without any other intervention. As per the log, it looks like ffmpeg is being used to transcode to pcm.

Ideas?

Yes, this is obsolete. Starting with 4.6 the Jukebox is handled differently, ffmpeg is used to convert everything.

Hmmmm so with 4.6 and later, how do we get un-modified audio to play for external players and/or the juke box?

-m

It just works now.

ccandreva wrote:It just works now.

I disagree. I can force a transcode to 320k, but I can't find a way to play a FLAC file without transcoding. This was working in previous versions w/ the solution i added to the wiki.
I know, I know, I know... I can't hear the difference between a 320k mp3 and flac -- but I need the audio-geek bragging rights here

-m