Using Mac Subsonic 4.4, subAir won't play AACs

[epstewart]

I have been trying to get the subAir application on my MacBook Pro to play AAC tracks from Subsonic 4.4 on my iMac. They won't play, and the developer of subAir, Jim Resnowski, who has been working with me to solve the problem, has no more suggestions (he runs Subsonic and subAir, which is Java-based, on PCs, not Macs).

He has suggested I make sure to turn on aac > mp3 transcoding and also under Players select the appropriate player, subAir[username], and make sure aac > mp3 transcoding is active. I did those things and the problem persisted.

On the Subsonic-server Mac, I've tried running the ffmpeg and lame Unix executables in /Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode in Terminal and I get errors suggesting they cannot find their required shared library files.

I am able to play my AAC files in the Subsonic browser interface on my MacBook Pro client machine.

When I use subAir instead, no joy. I can see all my Subsonic albums and tracks in the subAir window, and I can play my MP3 tracks, but when I try to play an AAC track, nothing happens. I have looked in Subsonic's logs on my server, and I see the INFO PlaylistInputStream username listening to "___.m4a" that appears in response to my attempt to play an AAC in subAir ... but in subAir itself no playback happens.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can solve this problem for me ...

[manwithaplan]

Hey Eric, I am also running Subsonic 4.4 on a Mac - in my case, a loaded up Mac Mini. For some reason, and you may have seen my posts, my issue is with video files, as in, I cannot get any simple .m4v or .m4p files to play. These are known good simple little sample videos and no luck, I get the No file found or access denied crap every time. I know what I'm doing when it comes to video files, and these are not playable at all. My analysis so far is that something is different on the Mac's, because I know plenty of people now running the same video files just fine thru a Windows or Linux install.

So, back to your problem. I don't use .AAC files but I can try one and let you know. I also have never used SubAir, always use the browser itself, but can try that for you too. But I actually have a sneaking suspicion that our 2 issues are really 1 issue. That is, clearly I have a problem with ffmpeg and I believe you do too. Let me know which commands you were running and I'll try them on my Mac Mini and tell you what I find.

Thank you sir!
Brian

[epstewart]

Let me know which commands you were running and I'll try them on my Mac Mini and tell you what I find.

Brian,

My aac > mp3 transcoding settings are ...

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Step 1: ffmpeg -i %s -v 0 -f wav -
Step 2: lame -b %b --tt --ta %a --tl %l -S --resample 44.1 - -

... as suggested by subAir developer Jim Resnowski. Prior to that they were ...

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

... which are the defaults. Jim also suggested I go to Settings: Players and select the "subAir[username]" player. Then, scrolling down, I was to put a check mark by the aac >mp3 transcoding to make it active.

I am not sure why you think your issue is the same as mine, though. I don't get my problem at all when I stick to the browser interface. I see no evidence of "no file found" or "access denied" in the Subsonic logs.

The "access denied" suggests to me that you have a Unix file/folder permissions issue that has nothing to do with either Subsonic per se or the internal content or structure or format of your files. Have you ruled that possibility out?

Thanks ...

[manwithaplan]

Eric, very interesting. Are you saying that you can play video files in the web browser via the built-in JWplayer just fine??? That's what I need to know. If so, then I believe you're correct that it could be something in my permissions, but I'd appreciate a direct dialogue with you, so I can finally get this nailed up. I would be greatly appreciative. If video's are playing for you in the built-in web browser interface, and you're using SS on a Mac, then I'd love to compare file structures a bit to see if maybe I have a Unix permissions issue or an ffmpeg version issue, or something of that sort.

Please let me know when you get a sec. Thanks a ton!

Brian

[epstewart]

Eric, very interesting. Are you saying that you can play video files in the web browser via the built-in JWplayer just fine??? That's what I need to know. If so, then I believe you're correct that it could be something in my permissions, but I'd appreciate a direct dialogue with you, so I can finally get this nailed up. I would be greatly appreciative. If video's are playing for you in the built-in web browser interface, and you're using SS on a Mac, then I'd love to compare file structures a bit to see if maybe I have a Unix permissions issue or an ffmpeg version issue, or something of that sort.

Please let me know when you get a sec. Thanks a ton!

Brian

Brian,

Well, I don't play videos via Subsonic, Mac to Mac. Just music. My problem concerns music, but if I wanted to set it up to play videos, how would I do that? Would I add a folder that contains movies to Subsonic under Music Folders: Add Music Folder???

[manwithaplan]

Yes, exactly. If you wouldnt mind, try a video or two, I could really use the validation that either I'm doing something wrong or it's the way Macs are configured by default that is the issue. Use an .m4v or .mp4 if you would. Let me know if you're able to do the simply web streaming, no Adobe Air, just simple web streaming. I can't do even that for some reason that I'm trying to isolate. Music has worked fine for me for months now. It's video I'm trying to test with some other Mac user.

Thanks so much!
Brian

[epstewart]

Let me know if you're able to do the simply web streaming, no Adobe Air, just simple web streaming

Brian,

I have found a way to get Subsonic to play movies. At first I was getting the file-not-found, access-denied weirdness you mentioned. I had to go to "Players" settings in Subsonic and:

(1) Under "Select player" I had to select the Subsonic player that I intend to use for movies. I chose "Player 18," but I guess any player would do.

(2) Scrolling down, I turned off "Active transcodings" for every movie file format I want to be able to play in Subsonic -- for example, I unchecked "mp4 > flv" and "m4v > flv", among others. Then I clicked "Save".

Notice that at this point, Subsonic's "Transcoding" settings that determine how it is supposed to call "ffmpeg" no longer made any difference -- for Player 18, that is. They were still in force for all other Subsonic players that still had the appropriate "Active transcodings" set.

Once I did all that, I was (using Subsonic's Web browser interface) able to play MP4 and M4V movies in Player 18 on both the Mac hosting the Subsonic server and another Mac acting as a Subsonic client.

There were certain caveats, though:

(1) I could not use Subsonic to play M4Vs purchased from the iTunes Store in Apple's proprietary AAC format. However, I could use Subsonic to download those movies to the client Mac and then add them to and play them in iTunes on that Mac.

(2) Some movies did not play with the proper aspect ratio. I think this applies to anamorphically encoded movies whose "Pixel Aspect Ratio" (PAR) is other that 1:1, i.e., "square" pixels. The video player the Subsonic is using apparently does not honor PAR other than 1:1. HandBrake, depending on what profile is used, often uses anamorphic encoding.

(3) Movies seemed to have to be completely finished downloading before they would start to play on the client Mac. That could impose a long wait on a slow network connection.

[epstewart]

Brian,

I did some more experimenting -- see report below:


Subsonic's default (for example) "mp4 > flv" ffmpeg transcoding call is:

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ffmpeg -ss %o -i %s -async 1 -b %bk -s %wx%h -ar 44100 -ac 2 -v 0 -f flv -


I suspected a problem with Subsonic ffmpeg calls stemming from the ffmpeg that is included with Subsonic not being able to find its "dynamic shared libraries" or .dylib files, since those files do not appear to exist in the same folder with ffmpeg itself:

/Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode

So I tried this: I made a backup copy of /Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode on my desktop and then hid its original ffmpeg file in a subfolder of /Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode itself. Then I copied another ffmpeg, along with its several .dylib files, from

/Users/eric/Desktop/kmttg_v0p7t/ffmpeg

to /Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode. (Fiddling around with the contents of /Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode required repeated authentications using my account password.) I next set up Subsonic, which was already running in Google Chrome on my server Mac, to use Player 17. That player still had active transcoding on for all video formats, using the above ffmpeg call. I then tried to play a video that had played successfully in Player 18. I got the same result as before I made the ffmpeg switch:

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Video not found or access denied:
/stream?pathUtf8Hex=2f566f ... 6d7034&maxBitRate=1000&timeOffset=0&player=17


So I (still using the Subsonic web browser interface on the server Mac) clicked on the Subsonic logo at the upper left, to see the Subsonic log. Scrolling down to the most recent entries, I saw (just after trying to play "/Volumes/Songcatcher 2 2/Users/songster/Music/Main iTunes Library/iTunes Music/Movies/Little Big Man Intro.mp4" as "Movies/Little Big Man Intro.mp4" in Player 17):

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[4/22/11 11:06:47 AM EDT]   INFO   PlaylistInputStream   epstewart listening to "Movies/Little Big Man Intro.mp4"
[4/22/11 11:06:47 AM EDT]   DEBUG   TranscodeInputStream   Starting transcoder: [/Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode/ffmpeg] [-ss] [0] [-i] [/Volumes/Songcatcher 2 2/Users/songster/Music/Main iTunes Library/iTunes Music/Movies/Little Big Man Intro.mp4] [-async] [1] [-b] [1000k] [-s] [480x360] [-ar] [44100] [-ac] [2] [-v] [0] [-f] [flv] [-]
[4/22/11 11:06:47 AM EDT]   DEBUG   InputStreamReaderThread   (/Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode/ffmpeg) dyld: unknown required load command 0x80000022


The ffmpeg command line, with brackets removed and quotes used where necessary to allow spaces in file paths, was:

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"/Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode/ffmpeg" -ss 0 -i "/Volumes/Songcatcher 2 2/Users/songster/Music/Main iTunes Library/iTunes Music/Movies/Little Big Man Intro.mp4" -async 1 -b 1000k -s 480x360 -ar 44100 -ac 2 -v 0 -f flv -


I tried that command in Terminal and got:

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dyld: unknown required load command 0x80000022
Trace/BPT trap


I then changed the location of ffmpeg to one with the necessary .dylib files:

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"/Users/eric/Desktop/kmttg_v0p7t/ffmpeg/ffmpeg" -ss 0 -i "/Volumes/Songcatcher 2 2/Users/songster/Music/Main iTunes Library/iTunes Music/Movies/Little Big Man Intro.mp4" -async 1 -b 1000k -s 480x360 -ar 44100 -ac 2 -v 0 -f flv -


In Terminal, that got what looked like a successful invocation of ffmpeg, but the output was getting spewed into the Terminal window itself, so I tried specifying an output file at the end of the ffmpeg command line:

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"/Users/eric/Desktop/kmttg_v0p7t/ffmpeg/ffmpeg" -ss 0 -i "/Volumes/Songcatcher 2 2/Users/songster/Music/Main iTunes Library/iTunes Music/Movies/Little Big Man Intro.mp4" -async 1 -b 1000k -s 480x360 -ar 44100 -ac 2 -v 0 -f flv "/Users/eric/Desktop/Little Big Man Intro.flv"


That seemed to work! The .flv output file played in VLC, though with incorrect aspect ratio. (It wouldn't play in QuickTime Player, though.) So it looked as if my suspicion that the basic problem concerns the absence of ffmpeg's .dylib files was right. I decided to play around again with substituting a "complete" ffmpeg, including the .dylib files, for the one Subsonic is using, since I couldn't explain why my first attempt to do so failed to give me a satisfactory result.

This time I completely deleted the ffmpeg that came with Subsonic in /Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode and copied into /Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode the entire contents of /Users/eric/Desktop/kmttg_v0p7t/ffmpeg, including the associated .dylib files. I then closed the Google Chrome tab with Subsonic in it on my server Mac and opened an entirely new Subsonic tab in Google Chrome, on the theory that maybe Subsonic (in the old tab) had established its link to ffmpeg and would not "see" a replacement ffmpeg.

After I did all that, I played "Little Big Man Intro.mp4" with success in Google Chrome/Subsonic/Player 17 on the server Mac, including a proper aspect ratio! I could also play the same file in Google Chrome/Subsonic/Player 17 on my client Mac!

This seems to indicate that the problem causing "Video not found or access denied" is the same as that causing "dyld: unknown required load command 0x80000022": specifically, ffmpeg's inability to find its .dylib files.

[manwithaplan]

Eric,

Question for you...where did you get the ffmpeg file package that you used? I want to follow your steps as exactly as possible, as I think you are definitely on to something here. I am able now to stream some movies if I disable all transcoding, so great suggestion there. But I ultimately want to be able to transcode to .flv on the fly so that remote users can stream without waiting so long for the entire movie to download.

Is your experience that flv will be preferred for remote streaming compared to .mp4 or .m4v???

Thanks a TON, I am almost there I think, just need a little add'l guidance.

Brian

[manwithaplan]

Eric,

Just an update here, disregard my prior post. I was able to get videos working now in transcoding to flv also! I used your tips in combination with some others.

Basically, I downloaded a totally new copy of ffmpeg and the associated dynlib files as you pointed out. Here is where I got my copy of ffmpeg and all other files...

http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/autobuilds/f ... 64/shared/

I took his latest build from January 2011 and used that. Now if I could figure out how to use his presets and such, I need to find a good balance for transcoding strings to use. Basically, all of my files are .m4v files from Handbrake, and they are all original BluRays of mine. I can stream locally no problem on my LAN, but am wondering if I need a different string for the remote users coming in on less bandwidth than I have here.

Thoughts?

[epstewart]

Eric,

Just an update here, disregard my prior post. I was able to get videos working now in transcoding to flv also! I used your tips in combination with some others.

Basically, I downloaded a totally new copy of ffmpeg and the associated dynlib files as you pointed out. Here is where I got my copy of ffmpeg and all other files...

http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/autobuilds/f ... 64/shared/

I took his latest build from January 2011 and used that. Now if I could figure out how to use his presets and such, I need to find a good balance for transcoding strings to use. Basically, all of my files are .m4v files from Handbrake, and they are all original BluRays of mine. I can stream locally no problem on my LAN, but am wondering if I need a different string for the remote users coming in on less bandwidth than I have here.

Thoughts?

Brian,

OK, first of all, I congratulate you on your managing to solve the problem of where to get a working ffmpeg!

I think it needs to be pointed out that the ffmpeg you located is for 64-bit Macs only, I believe. Those who have 32-bit Macs such as the one I'm using as a Subsonic server will probably not be able to use it. I have uploaded a ZIP archive of my own as

http://epstewart.home.comcast.net/Subsonic%20transcode.zip

and those who have a 32-bit Mac and need it are welcome to download and use it. They should locate their

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/Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode/

folder and replace it with the expanded ZIP archive. To do so will probably require that they "authenticate" by typing in their password at least once. They will then have versions of ffmpeg and lame that hopefully will work in all the situations discussed in this thread. Also,

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/Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode/Subsonic transcode - original/

will contain what on my own system are the original (non-working) versions of ffmpeg and lame, in case the user ever wants to fall back.

As for your questions re: ffmpeg settings, I don't know the answers. So I really can't advise you in depth at this time. Over a home LAN with my server and client Macs hooked to my AirPort Base Station router by Ethernet cables, I find that the default ffmpeg transcoding string

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ffmpeg -ss %o -i %s -async 1 -b %bk -s %wx%h -ar 44100 -ac 2 -v 0 -f flv -

works poorly for my MP4 and M4V files from HandBrake and other sources. I get a lot of "macroblocking." It looks like ffmpeg is starting with "-b %bk" and winding up with "-b 1000k" as its bitrate (I'm getting this from looking at the Subsonic log). That's not a very high bitrate. So if you want to constrain the bitrate but avoid heavy macroblocking, you might want to start by putting something like "-b 2500k" in place of "-b %bk" in the ffmpeg command string.

You can find out more about ffmpeg command parameters at http://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-doc.html.

[manwithaplan]

Thanks again Eric. I'm currently using this:

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ffmpeg -v 0 -ss %o -async 1 -i %s -f flv -b 3500k -s %wx%h -acodec copy -

The quality is good for my .m4v's, including BluRay sourced Handbrake encodes. However, I still see minor macroblocking, even on the local LAN here. I'm wondering if maybe I could sacrifice a little audio quality (ie, reduce the bandwidth that audio is using) to the benefit of the video in the file. In other words, instead of 'acodec copy', maybe I should reduce the sound quality a bit and let the video portion dominate the bandwidth usage more. Does that makes sense? For a movie, any decent 2-channel audio is fine when viewed over the web, I don't need insane audio quality like I do for my FLAC files. I would rather emphasize the video quality.

Thoughts? Thanks again Eric, I really appreciate bouncing ideas off of you.

Brian

[epstewart]

Thanks again Eric. I'm currently using this:

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ffmpeg -v 0 -ss %o -async 1 -i %s -f flv -b 3500k -s %wx%h -acodec copy -

The quality is good for my .m4v's, including BluRay sourced Handbrake encodes. However, I still see minor macroblocking, even on the local LAN here. I'm wondering if maybe I could sacrifice a little audio quality (ie, reduce the bandwidth that audio is using) to the benefit of the video in the file. In other words, instead of 'acodec copy', maybe I should reduce the sound quality a bit and let the video portion dominate the bandwidth usage more. Does that makes sense? For a movie, any decent 2-channel audio is fine when viewed over the web, I don't need insane audio quality like I do for my FLAC files. I would rather emphasize the video quality.

Thoughts? Thanks again Eric, I really appreciate bouncing ideas off of you.

Brian

Brian,

It's hard to say about whether it makes sense to reduce audio bitrate to get higher video bitrate in your situation. I note that the default ffmpeg audio parameter for video transcoding to FLV is "-ac 2" (which forces multiple-channel audio into 2 channels) but there is no "-acodec" parameter specified. I am not sure what that implies. It may imply "-acodec copy", or it may do something else entirely. Experimenting with deleting "-acodec copy" and possibly specifying "-ac 2" to force stereo audio might (or might not) solve the macroblocking.

I'm betting it won't, because audio bandwidth needs are so much smaller than video bandwidth needs anyway, no matter what. (Check me on this, though.)

I'm betting your macroblocking has more to do with "-b 3500k," which may (I imagine) set a constant bitrate that is pretty high but ... maybe it is not high enough. If you are like me in how you have HandBrake set up, you are using for your Video Quality setting something like "Constant Quality RF: 20". My understanding is that Constant Quality (CQ) uses "variable bit rate" (VBR) encoding, meaning that HandBrake boosts the moment-by-moment bitrate of the video output to accommodate scenes with a lot of motion and/or detail. The bitrate is lowered for less complex scenes.

So at any given moment the actual bitrate of the video might exceed 3,500 kbps by quite a margin, and when ffmpeg transcodes it on the fly with a 3500k limit, you could see macroblocks.

You could set up handbrake to produce lower CQ (which I believe requires a higher RF number) and see if that solves the problem. Or you could set handbrake to use a particular Average Bitrate (such as 3500 kbps) instead of Constant Quality. If the Average Bitrate is high enough, if the -b parameter you pass to ffmpeg is commensurate, and if your network speed can accommodate that bitrate, you should be in business!

Of course, using a high Average Bitrate in handbrake might mean your output file size would be huge!

[manwithaplan]

Eric,

I use the AppleTV2 preset in Handbrake and not going to change that. I've learned the hard way that the AppleTV2 preset is perfect for both DVD's and Bluray's for my highest needs purpose (the AppleTV2 playback) and also works nicely for things like iPad and even iPhone4, both of which I occasionally use for playback. And yes, the RF I use is 20 for BluRay sources and 19 for DVD sources.

You had recommended going to 2000k for constant bitrate, so I figured with my network quality being super high, low latency and gigabit throughout, I would jack it to 3500K, for the same reasons you recommended 2000K. Are you backing off your suggestion of 2000K? I will also try using ac2 instead of acodec copy.

Thanks again,
Brian

[epstewart]

Eric,

I use the AppleTV2 preset in Handbrake and not going to change that. I've learned the hard way that the AppleTV2 preset is perfect for both DVD's and Bluray's for my highest needs purpose (the AppleTV2 playback) and also works nicely for things like iPad and even iPhone4, both of which I occasionally use for playback. And yes, the RF I use is 20 for BluRay sources and 19 for DVD sources.

You had recommended going to 2000k for constant bitrate, so I figured with my network quality being super high, low latency and gigabit throughout, I would jack it to 3500K, for the same reasons you recommended 2000K. Are you backing off your suggestion of 2000K? I will also try using ac2 instead of acodec copy.

Thanks again,
Brian

Brian,

I wonder what would happen if you removed the "-b ____k" parameter altogether. Maybe ffmpeg would use the actual instantaneous bitrate of the original MP4 video from one moment to the next in transcoding the MP4 to FLV. If so, then maybe you would get no macroblocking.

I use the AppleTV 2 preset with handbrake myself, by the way, and I agree that it gives good results.

Since you have a fast network, I'm wondering why you oughtn't set up a Subsonic player that disables transcoding entirely and then use that player when you're on your fast LAN. When you're on a slower connection, use a different Subsonic player, one that has transcoding turned on. If removing the "-b ____k" ffmpeg parameter doesn't give you satisfactory results, you might set up this alternate player to use (say) "-b 3000k" (at the cost of some macroblocking). You'd have to experiment to see what "-b ____k" works best for you, since Subsonic doesn't let you set up a different ffmpeg command line for each player.

I use an app on my iPhone called Air Video that, although it is not a Subsonic client, does the same sort of thing. The Air Video Server software that runs on my Mac contains a copy of ffmpeg that the server invokes for purposes of throttling down the bitrate automatically, in response to the client (or the server, I'm not sure which) detecting a slow network connection. When I am watching a movie in Air Video, using "Live Conversion," the quality of the picture can get pretty bad sometimes. But at least the movie continues to play (most of the time) without irritating stops and starts.

Sadly, Subsonic doesn't implement logic to change the bitrate on the fly. What I'm now suggesting is that you use two players, one with no transcoding and the other with a compromise bitrate, to do something of the same thing.

Another thought ... I believe it's possible for the user of an account with admin privileges to change the ffmpeg transcoding command from a client computer! I'm not sure whether you have users other than yourself while at a remote location, or if you want them to have admin privileges, but this might be a way to adjust the transcoding video bitrate on the fly ...