Subsonic Forum

Hi,

I am running the latest stable Subsonic (4.6) on Windows 7 64-bit. I am noticing that whenever I play flac music on either ipad, iphone or android phone, the conversion is always happening at 128k bitrate.

My transcoding setting is the default one (running latest 4.6 official release).

ffmpeg -i %s -ab %bk -v 0 -f mp3 -

Here is what I see in the log:

[5/24/12 5:54:27 PM PDT] DEBUG TranscodeInputStream Starting transcoder: [c:\subsonic\transcode\ffmpeg] [-i] [H:\Sorted Music\Jazz\Diana Krall\When I Look In Your Eyes\Diana Krall - When I Look In Your Eyes - 01 - Let's Face the Music and Dance.flac] [-ab] [128k] [-v] [0] [-f] [mp3] [-]

If I change the transcoding setting to force 320k by replacing %bk with 320k, then transcoding does happen at 320k. However, I see that each track gets cut off (i.e. the current track stops playing and the next track starts playing) after about 40% played. I changed 320k to 256k and then each track gets cut off at 50%. So, it looks like that the client app is somehow expecting certain number of bits to read for the mp3 file and then ignores the rest.

I ran the transcoding command with 320k manually and directed the standard output to a foo.mp3 file. If I play this foo.mp3 file on the PC then it plays for the entire duration of the track. So, ffmpeg is doing the transcoding correctly when I change %bk to 320k. However, the client apps are somehow expecting only a certain number of bits (based on 128k bitrate) and then seems to simply ignore the rest of the bits from the pipe.

In both iSub and Subsonic android app, I have selected to use Unlimited bitrate for transcoding. This happens both on local wi-fi at home and on 3G.

This is really annoying as flac files sound very bad at 128k bitrate. Any suggestions to fix this issue?

Thanks,
Osho

Use 320k option in the player- unlimited actually is the default ffmpeg transcode bitrate which for flac is 128k,
Yep I know slight naming problem.

flac > ogg is 10X better on Android. I've never tested it on other mobile devices, but you're welcome to test your iPhone or any others on my site if you like. Just send me a PM and let me check off the player for the transcoding after you log in as it won't pick it up automatically.

I've already submitted a suggestion for a seperate mobile transcoding framework for mobile devices, but I don't see it on the board yet.

BKKKPewsey wrote:Use 320k option in the player- unlimited actually is the default ffmpeg transcode bitrate which for flac is 128k,
Yep I know slight naming problem.

Yeah, that worked!!

This is really counter-intuitive! Shouldn't unlimited bitrate be as good as 320k?

Osho