Subsonic 6.0.beta1 released

[daneren2005]

I have been using the beta for a while now and really like it. Seems to be a good step up terms of both usability and viewability. Good work! I also like that we can now have a one time video conversion process because of how CPU intensive converting video is. It might be nice to just be able to do have something auto convert all video before hand as it is added to make sure we can always just start using it.

[mitrailer]

My two cents:

I would like the index view would be organized by column (like a music store), instead of row. Take the next example:

Instead of:
A.N.I.M.A.L. A. R. Rahman A$AP Rocky AAVRAM A Band of Bitches
Los Abandoned ABBA ABC Abdullah Ibrahim AC_DC Ace of Base Ace Ventura

better:
A.N.I.M.A.L. A$AP Rocky A Band of Bitches ABBA Abdullah Ibrahim Ace of Base
A. R. Rahman AAVRAM Los Abandoned ABC AC_DC Ace Ventura

Hope make myself clear

Either way... superb update. Thanks!!!

[xtxer]

I have been using the beta for a while now and really like it. Seems to be a good step up terms of both usability and viewability. Good work! I also like that we can now have a one time video conversion process because of how CPU intensive converting video is. It might be nice to just be able to do have something auto convert all video before hand as it is added to make sure we can always just start using it.

since you seem to understand this (and like it), do you mind explaining it to me? what was cpu intensive before... on the server side? i have a six year old mini-dell that has always seemed to support streaming to around three to four people no problem, although i have to admit ive never actually looked at the cpu usage while it was streaming.

i've just never even seen this before.. youtube nor any other streaming video site ive ever seen has ever asked me to do a 'one time conversion' that essentially creates a new file, which then doubles the space taken on disk on the server.

im guessing there has to be benefits to this (or am i understanding it wrong?) so i'm all ears, but to me this just seems like something that's going to cause
1. my friends/family to be annoyed that they have an extra step before they can watch a movie or tv show
2. me to have to delete a significant portion of my library so that my raid has enough space as my friends/family click the "convert" button and my videos start duplicating

[dirkal]

I've been a Subsonic user for many years.
I hate to say this because I've been an enormous fan of Subsonic since its inception... Each version was a welcome upgrade up until the current ver. 6.0 beta 1.

I'm not a fan of the changes, by any means. While I usually welcome an application's makeover... I feel that this one sacrifices too much usability.
For starters... I miss the old left panel. Most of my users start there and spend a lot of time there. I love to see the left pane have it's old function back. Right now (ver 6.0b1) the functions within the left pane should likely be buried in a settings option.

Unfortunately, I had to revert back to ver 5.3.
Version 5.3 was so intuitive. I've never known any of my users to have any difficulty navigating the interface.
I have Shortcuts , Playlists, Internet Stations, and a Quick link to A-Z (Artist Names) on the left pane.
The Right pane has Past & Present Featured music, with occasional notes and recommendations.

I get that people like to view Tiles. They're pretty. But can be very limiting and tough to navigate with a large and varied library. Please give us the ability to select both List and Tile options on any screen.
Regarding playlists... I find that having the playlists listed individually in the pane allows the user to see at a glance if a new playlist has been added. A nice feature that a banner link does not offer.

Given how long I've been an avid supporter of Sindre's work on this application, it pains me to criticize any Subsonic release (even betas) But this is the first version that I just can't roll out.
Hopefully the final version 6.0 will be more usable for me.

Here's a screenshot of my interface just to give you an idea of the way we use it. I use tile view for just the Home screen and the Recently Added. The rest is displayed in List mode.
In a previous version the left pane was either covered or hidden by default. I never knew how much it was used until it was missing. The version restoring the option to view that pane was so welcome.
Unfortunately, it's gone once again. Hopefully not for long.

[sindre_mehus]

I'll be the first to admin that the video conversion step is annoying, but here's the rationale behind it (as well as some thoughts about improvements):

1.Video streaming is tricky Different browsers on different OS-es support different formats, and do progressive download in different ways.
2. The only universally supported video format is mp4 container with aac audio codec and h264 video codec.
3. I can't use the flv (Flash Video) format any longer, as it requires the Flash plugin.
4. It's theoretically possible to make on-the-fly mp4 transcoding work, but I don't have the development capacity to make it work for all format/OS/client combinations.
5. The upside of pre-conversion is: excellent video quality, faster skipping, easier implementation of new Subsonic clients/apps + it saves cpu if videos are viewed more than once.
6. The downside is of course: Annoying to wait for conversion to happen + uses extra disk space.
7. Note that conversion only happens if the source format is not already mp4/h264/aac. Also, if the video track is already h264, but stored in a different container, say mkv, then the video track is not re-encoded but just repackaged into an mp4 container. This is fast and not cpu-intensive, and preserves the original video quality.

Some ideas for improvements:

1. Better conversion management, e.g., being able to specify where converted videos should be stored and how much disk they are allowed to use. Add option to automatically convert all (or some) videos.
2. Offer HLS as an alternative. Subsonic already supports HLS, but only Safari and Edge browsers support it.
3. Offer MPEG-DASH as an alternative. This is a relatively new standard, but it should hopefully work across a wide range of browsers/clients. The upside of HLS and DASH is that they support adaptive bitrate switching, automatically adjusting to the network bandwidth.

Personally, I think a combination of 1 and 3 would be nice, i.e., videos are by default streamed with DASH (if I can get that to work) but leaving in an "Optimize video for streaming" option which converts it to mp4.

Sindre

[Soorploom]

Mmmm, sorry to say but Subsonic 6 beta, no. Absolutely no.

I bunged the beta on yesterday and it has caused so much confusion. Far, far too messy. Not so bad with the audio but video and all that conversion blabble, nope. Not workable on so many levels.

My system is used by all sorts of people from IT gurus to the old lady up the road who loves listening to my classical stuff on her phone. Not that she knows how it all works but that's the exact point.

I appreciate the effort behind this version and the reasoning behind the changes but one has to acknowledge that not everyone is a media expert and understands different formats, etc. Most users, mine anyway, are just people who quite rightly want to listen or watch and no more.

Maybe a bit of a rethink on this beta version might be wise, especially given that there are now more contemporary streaming applications available.

I've gone back to 5.3 where it will stay unless the new version is radically different to Subsonic 6 beta.

[xtxer]

I'll be the first to admin that the video conversion step is annoying, but here's the rationale behind it (as well as some thoughts about improvements):

1.Video streaming is tricky Different browsers on different OS-es support different formats, and do progressive download in different ways.
2. The only universally supported video format is mp4 container with aac audio codec and h264 video codec.
3. I can't use the flv (Flash Video) format any longer, as it requires the Flash plugin.
4. It's theoretically possible to make on-the-fly mp4 transcoding work, but I don't have the development capacity to make it work for all format/OS/client combinations.
5. The upside of pre-conversion is: excellent video quality, faster skipping, easier implementation of new Subsonic clients/apps + it saves cpu if videos are viewed more than once.
6. The downside is of course: Annoying to wait for conversion to happen + uses extra disk space.
7. Note that conversion only happens if the source format is not already mp4/h264/aac. Also, if the video track is already h264, but stored in a different container, say mkv, then the video track is not re-encoded but just repackaged into an mp4 container. This is fast and not cpu-intensive, and preserves the original video quality.

Some ideas for improvements:

1. Better conversion management, e.g., being able to specify where converted videos should be stored and how much disk they are allowed to use. Add option to automatically convert all (or some) videos.
2. Offer HLS as an alternative. Subsonic already supports HLS, but only Safari and Edge browsers support it.
3. Offer MPEG-DASH as an alternative. This is a relatively new standard, but it should hopefully work across a wide range of browsers/clients. The upside of HLS and DASH is that they support adaptive bitrate switching, automatically adjusting to the network bandwidth.

Personally, I think a combination of 1 and 3 would be nice, i.e., videos are by default streamed with DASH (if I can get that to work) but leaving in an "Optimize video for streaming" option which converts it to mp4.

Sindre

Automatic conversion could possibly work. Sonarr downloads on average 5 tv shows per day for me, i'm sure as hell not going to manually keep track of this and convert everything myself throughout the day. That still leaves me with the issue of my internal network- I use Kodi, and having two files for every single video will duplicate my entire database. My next step, if you are able to implement automatic video conversion, is the need to automatically delete the original. But, and excuse me for my lack of compression knowledge, doesn't any video conversion reduce quality? I'd then be sacrificing quality on my internal network because a handful of my friends want to watch stuff on my subsonic? I'd be tempted to be selfish in that regard and just tell them subsonic is music only now (and to be honest, none of my friends use it for music, everybody apparently uses spotify which I'm not a fan of at all)

If your option 3 works for the three main OSs and various browsers, and doesn't require the need to convert the videos, I truly hope you decide to go that route.

How did subsonic stream html5 before? I put 5.3 on my server again and it's playing html5 video perfectly fine. I don't have adobe-flash installed on my gentoo box at all and it's playing mkv, avi, mp4, everything perfectly.

[acroyear]

yeah, the duplication is an issue for auto-scanners for other systems, though at least with plex, you can write up a .plexignore file that could keep the "streamable" file out of the system.

That said, I prefer plex's UI(s) on the whole, which is why i use that for video. I use subsonic for audio because of the flexibility of clients and the fact that I could (and did) write my own. As such, the API improvements are more than worth it.

However, the standardization of the video streaming to the web-standard h264/mp4 could allow me to add video support to subfire at some point, but I've got other projects (like smart playlists / "radio stations") in mind first.

[daneren2005]

Can you add m4v to the list of accepted formats? Handbrake for example defaults to m4v even though it appears to be an identical format to mp4.

[sauriodino]

A big update in cosmetic changes on the UI, is working fine for me and thanks @sindre for the keys shorcuts

[jeanloup]

Thanks for this new version, great work. No bug for me, the new version run on two servers. I prefer the previous left panel but the 6.0.beta1 is excellent, there are improvements in each new software version, congratulations.

[an_otter]

How do I get out of ugly-mode:



I can't even tell how to get the left-nav artist index back, and it's all framed in white, chunky borders.

[an_otter]

It looks like a forced mobile version, but I'm on my desktop. :/

[lbvagrant]

I agree with most above the change was a bit too much for some of us
and the loss of the ability to have the listing on the left is a stick in the side.
switchable is fine but don't lose it all together.

would like to see an option to have certain text not seen in a search for the lastfm info
as an example I have ABBA 14 cd and it does not show info for ABBA but if I remove the 14 cd it shows the lastfm info
if I could put the #of cds in a () or {} [] or something to make it not be read it would be a great tool for some
I don't know if anyone else needs something like this but it lets people know how many of a collection is avail, a lot laugh at the thought of ELVIS 73 cd...

back to the beta...
ya the double file thing is a BIG issue and as some have mentioned losing quality for a full conversion is a bad idea, if a complete conversion is possible of a collection without losing any quality and still playable by other players... I guess everyone would be happy... but I don't see that happening any time soon.

2,262 artists
8,691 albums
99,502 songs
4350.78 GB
15,676 hours

and only 550 gig of this is mp3s so that leaves a lot of video to worry about

I like the idea of a separate folder for the converted files and could work as a cache or temp file where a size would be set and files rotated out as viewed
and yes this would lead to files being converted more then once, but it would only be if it was after a period of time that caused it to be flushed out the system.

and maybe as a last ditch effort a 50/50 solution of: anything lower quality perm conversion to a streamable format and if higher quality just do the cache setup... so we don't lose quality of better videos and still speed the system up for the other half...lol
plus I miss the feature of google search for images for videos... liked the poster image as opposed to the video clips.

so all in all subsonic 4.5 stars
new beta... sadly 1 star as it is forward movment...but otherwise a flop

[sindre_mehus]

It looks like a forced mobile version, but I'm on my desktop. :/

Try to force reload the page, or clear the browser cache.