HLS audio quality vs stream (audio only)

[rich600]

Hi everyone,

I'm creating an iOS app to stream music (only) from Subsonic.

My current server installation is 4.9.

I've got streaming working using HLS (using iOS AVPlayer) but the audio quality is much lower than using the stream.view command.

I don't believe that the app is the issue - even if I access files over HLS in the browser the audio quality is much lower. Using the bitRate setting has no effect. The transcoding settings are the 'out of the box' settings and bitrate wise they look the same as the MP3 transcoding settings.

I would love to use the Stream command, but I can't get it to work using iOS's AVPlayer - not sure whats happening here as the communication with the server dies after the first interaction, whereas a browser based request sends a few requests before starting to play.

HLS supports audio only, but I'm not sure why the quality is so low and cannot be controlled by using the bitRate parameter (rather than messing with transcoding options).

Any help or pointers would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Rich

[airander]

I've seen this as well. You can easily see the problem with the mediavalidator provided by Apple.

mediastreamvalidator "https://*****/rest/hls.m3u8?u=admin&p=*****&v=1.10.2&c=Airsub&f=json&id=66120&bitRate=128&bitRate=320"
mediastreamvalidator: Beta Version 1.1(140602)

Validating master playlist https://*****/rest/hls.m3u8?u=admin&p=* ... itRate=320
Validating media playlist /hls/hls.m3u8?id=66120&player=12&bitRate=320 [320.00 kbits/sec]
Validating media playlist /hls/hls.m3u8?id=66120&player=12&bitRate=128 [128.00 kbits/sec]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://*****/rest/hls.m3u8?u=admin&p=* ... itRate=320
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Playlist Syntax:

Warning: (0:-12274) PROGRAM-ID has been deprecated and is no longer a valid attribute for #EXT-X-STREAM-INF
--> #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=128000

Warning: (0:-12274) PROGRAM-ID has been deprecated and is no longer a valid attribute for #EXT-X-STREAM-INF
--> #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=320000

Alternate playlist(s):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/hls/hls.m3u8?id=66120&player=12&bitRate=128
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Playlist Syntax: OK

Processed 23 out of 23 segments: OK

Average segment duration: 9.94 seconds
Playlist target bitrate: 128.00 kbits/sec
Segment bitrate: Average: 74.39 kbits/sec, Max: 74.82 kbits/sec

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/hls/hls.m3u8?id=66120&player=12&bitRate=320
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Playlist Syntax: OK

Processed 23 out of 23 segments: OK

Average segment duration: 9.94 seconds
Playlist target bitrate: 320.00 kbits/sec
Segment bitrate: Average: 74.39 kbits/sec, Max: 74.82 kbits/sec

[a7medo778]

so whats the solution to this ? i am in the exact same boat right now