WMA Lossless to mp3 - problem with recent Subsonic release

[Edward Lowy]

From 4.3 I think - cannot transcode WMA Lossless to mp3 when downloading to an Android device.

This was working fine up to and including 4.2 (I think), but recent releases, something has changed.

Log extract this morning :

Starting transcoder: [c:\subsonic\transcode\wmadec] [-b] [16] [C:\Users\Daddy Lowy\Music\Adele\21\03 Turning Tables.wma] [-]
[1/30/11 11:38:42 AM GMT] DEBUG TranscodeInputStream Starting transcoder: [c:\subsonic\transcode\lame] [-v] [-b] [2147483647] [-r] [-]
[1/30/11 11:38:43 AM GMT] DEBUG InputStreamReaderThread (c:\subsonic\transcode\lame) Assuming raw pcm input file
[1/30/11 11:38:43 AM GMT] DEBUG InputStreamReaderThread (c:\subsonic\transcode\lame) LAME 3.98.4 32bits (http://www.mp3dev.org/)
[1/30/11 11:38:43 AM GMT] DEBUG InputStreamReaderThread (c:\subsonic\transcode\lame) CPU features: MMX (ASM used), SSE (ASM used), SSE2
[1/30/11 11:38:43 AM GMT] DEBUG InputStreamReaderThread (c:\subsonic\transcode\lame) Using polyphase lowpass filter, transition band: 17249 Hz - 17782 Hz
[1/30/11 11:38:43 AM GMT] DEBUG InputStreamReaderThread (c:\subsonic\transcode\lame) Encoding to
[1/30/11 11:38:43 AM GMT] DEBUG InputStreamReaderThread (c:\subsonic\transcode\lame) Encoding as 44.1 kHz j-stereo MPEG-1 Layer III VBR(q=4)
[1/30/11 11:38:43 AM GMT] DEBUG InputStreamReaderThread (c:\subsonic\transcode\lame) INTERNAL ERROR IN VBR NEW CODE, please send bug report

help!

Thanks

Edward Lowy

[Edward Lowy]

Bump!

Ok, I'll just chat to myself over in the corner here.

Have returned to Subsonic 4.2 and by using the following settings from another thread can now once again transcode WMA lossless to my HTC Desire running Froyo.

Step 1 : wmadec -b 16 %s -
Step 2 : lame -v -b %b -r - -

I have been unsuccessful with any settings in Version 4.4 to get WMA Lossless zapped to my phone.

Would appreciate any guidance so that I can get back to using the latest version of Subsonic.

Thanks in anticipation

Edward

[GJ51]

http://forum.subsonic.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5121

[Edward Lowy]

Thanks for the reply Gary - so forgive me but does that mean that the WMA Lossless to MP3 transcoder is :

Step 1 : ffmpeg -v 0 -i %s -f mp3 -acodec libmp3
Step 2 : lame -ar 44100 -aq 0 -ac 2 -map_meta_data 0:0 -

?

Why I wonder are the correct transcoding details not built into Subsonic?

Kind regards

Edward

[GJ51]

Thanks for the reply Gary - so forgive me but does that mean that the WMA Lossless to MP3 transcoder is :

Step 1 : ffmpeg -v 0 -i %s -f mp3 -acodec libmp3
Step 2 : lame -ar 44100 -aq 0 -ac 2 -map_meta_data 0:0 -

?

Why I wonder are the correct transcoding details not built into Subsonic?

Kind regards

Edward

You have two options using Stozher's settings, both are one step transcoding.


Honestly, don't ask me the difference, Stozher's the expert in this department, but both should work. I'm just guessing, but I think you might want the VBR.

ABR:

ffmpeg -v 0 -i %s -f mp3 -acodec libmp3lame -ar 44100 -ab %bk -ac 2 -map_meta_data 0:0 -

VBR:

ffmpeg -v 0 -i %s -f mp3 -acodec libmp3lame -ar 44100 -aq 0 -ac 2 -map_meta_data 0:0 -

[Edward Lowy]

Thank you for your help Gary, will reinstall 4.4 and will report back

Kind regards

Edward

[Edward Lowy]

Unfortunately I cannot get any of those settings to work with 4.4 transcoding WMA Lossless to Android 2.2

Help!

Works OK in 4.2 but not thereafter for me

[GJ51]

You might want to ask Stozher. He really knows this stuff way better than I do.

[Edward Lowy]

Bump bump bumpity bump!

Sindre, help!

Cannot transcode WMA Lossless on Android FroYo 2.2 (HTC Desire). Transcoding works fine on 4.2, but broken from 4.3 and upwards.

On the server, I have Squeezebox Server running - can that make any difference? have always been running SB Server, but mention it incase it is important.

Would appreciate a fix

Many thanks

Edward Lowy

[citynomad]

I was also having problems when trying to play WMA Lossless files with default transcoding settings - it looks like ffmpeg is not capable of transcoding WMA Lossless at all.

Ironically, I was finally able to get it to work with wmadec using the settings you mentioned a few posts up (which were not working for you):

Step 1: wmadec -b 16 %s -
Step 2: lame -v -b %b -r - -

Are these settings still not working for you?

[mjones73]

Switch lame -v -b %b -r - - to lame -b %b -r - -

I had the same problem, taking out the -v flag did the trick for me.

-v is supposed to be the same as adding -V 4 for VBR, not sure why it's not working.

[Edward Lowy]

Switch lame -v -b %b -r - - to lame -b %b -r - -

I had the same problem, taking out the -v flag did the trick for me.

-v is supposed to be the same as adding -V 4 for VBR, not sure why it's not working.

Brilliant! Many thanks, that did it. So to summarise, WMA Lossless transcoding with 4.4 works for me with :

Step 1: wmadec -b 16 %s -
Step 2: lame -b %b -r - -

Kind regards

Edward

[muiz]

Switch lame -v -b %b -r - - to lame -b %b -r - -

I had the same problem, taking out the -v flag did the trick for me.

-v is supposed to be the same as adding -V 4 for VBR, not sure why it's not working.

Brilliant! Many thanks, that did it. So to summarise, WMA Lossless transcoding with 4.4 works for me with :

Step 1: wmadec -b 16 %s -
Step 2: lame -b %b -r - -

Kind regards

Edward

OMG thx !!!! finaly !!

[ameyers]

I've also been successfully streaming WMA lossless to Android devices (and Mac OS X) using the following settings:

wmadec %s -
lame -b %b -r - -

I'm guessing the extra -b 16 to wmadec above just forces it to output 16-bit PCM audio? In any case it doesn't appear to be strictly necessary at least if you've used WMP to rip to WMA lossless.

Any reason these shouldn't be the default settings for WMA->MP3 transcoding for Windows? I don't believe that wmadec is available for other platforms but non-Windows users are extremely unlikely to be using WMA lossless anyway. The wmadec decoder ships with subsonic on Windows as well so it seems that these settings should be the default since they cover all WMA codecs.

[Edward Lowy]

I've also been successfully streaming WMA lossless to Android devices (and Mac OS X) using the following settings:

wmadec %s -
lame -b %b -r - -

I'm guessing the extra -b 16 to wmadec above just forces it to output 16-bit PCM audio? In any case it doesn't appear to be strictly necessary at least if you've used WMP to rip to WMA lossless.

Any reason these shouldn't be the default settings for WMA->MP3 transcoding for Windows? I don't believe that wmadec is available for other platforms but non-Windows users are extremely unlikely to be using WMA lossless anyway. The wmadec decoder ships with subsonic on Windows as well so it seems that these settings should be the default since they cover all WMA codecs.

I quite agree - why doesn't Subsonic ship with working WMA transcoding settings?