Universal Binary with libs?

[joshpar]

Hi Sindre (and everyone else),

Just started using the app this week and really appreciate it. I had been using SimplifyMedia before it disappeared a couple weeks ago, but now I'm glad it did!

I think this is mostly a question / comment for Sindre - I noticed that you are having users on Mac install the external libs with MacPorts... if you think there would be interest (on your part or for others), I would like to donate some time and try to put together a Universal Binary of Subsonic with the libs located internally to the app... If this sounds like something you would like to offer, let me know and I'll chip in some time.

Thanks for the app... works wonderfully so far.

Best,

Josh

[sindre_mehus]

Hi Josh,

Thanks for offering your help. Yes, I would be very much interested in getting statically linked universal binaries of lame and ffmpeg. Then I can include them in the Subsonic app (I use Package Maker to assemble it).

Thanks,
Sindre

[joshpar]

Hi Sindre,
The transcode folder here:
http://www.realizedsound.net/josh/transcode.zip
contains Universal Binary builds of ffmpeg and lame. I was able to put these into the transcode folder in /Library/Application Support/Subsonic/transcode (replacing the symlinks) and transcoding worked for me (Apple Lossless => 192 k mp3) on both PPC and Intel Macs. Hopefully these are useful!
Best,
Josh

[sindre_mehus]

Josh,

That's excellent! Just one thing; the ffmpeg binary seems to be very old (at least four years old). Would it be possible to build a more recent version? (The one in MacPorts is much newer)

Thanks,
Sindre

[einsteinx2]

Josh,

That's excellent! Just one thing; the ffmpeg binary seems to be very old (at least four years old). Would it be possible to build a more recent version? (The one in MacPorts is much newer)

Thanks,
Sindre

Also, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you also include builds of any other encoders necessary to enable all types of transcodes that Subsonic supports? It would be awesome if it could play anything right out of the box.

p.s. didn't check the file you uploaded so if there are already more in there, then disregard this post

[sindre_mehus]

Also, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you also include builds of any other encoders necessary to enable all types of transcodes that Subsonic supports? It would be awesome if it could play anything right out of the box.

ffmpeg supports encoding/decoding of virtually all audio and video formats. Starting with Subsonic 4.0, lame and ffmpeg are the only bundled transcoders.

Sindre

[einsteinx2]

Also, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you also include builds of any other encoders necessary to enable all types of transcodes that Subsonic supports? It would be awesome if it could play anything right out of the box.

ffmpeg supports encoding/decoding of virtually all audio and video formats. Starting with Subsonic 4.0, lame and ffmpeg are the only bundled transcoders.

Sindre

Oh awesome! I had just looked at my transcoding page, that's why I asked.

[joshpar]

Hi Sindre,
I spent some time compiling the newer versions yesterday, and have run into a few problems with cross-compiling. It looks like I don't have a problem handling the x86_64 and i386 binaries, but the ppc binaries are giving me strange failures due to Mac OS SDK issues. I will try to compile on PPC tonight and see what I can get together then use 'lipo' to create the UB. My main concern at this point though is whether or not these binaries will run on pre 10.5 machines!
Do you have a minimum OS you support for Mac?
Best,
Josh

[sindre_mehus]

Josh,

Thanks for your continued effort - I appreciate it!

The Mac installer package currently requires 10.5 or later. I'm considering to lower it to 10.3, but haven't yet decided.

What percentage of potential Subsonic users would you guess are on 10.5 or later?

Sindre

[joshpar]

My pleasure... hopefully I can get something to work soon.

As far as users and systems, it is hard to say. I develop a sound synthesis app (SuperCollider) and for the time being we are trying to support back to 10.4. Though most users are on intel macs (and probably moving to 10.6 soon), 10.4 and 10.5 are the two latest PPC systems, so there is a good argument to try and keep support for 10.4 going for us.
However, I imagine many people are using Subsonic in the way that I am. I have an older PPC PowerBook with a broken screen... not the best laptop anymore, but it certainly works fine sitting on a shelf and streaming audio. I have 10.5 on it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see people in a similar situation using 10.3.
If you have a number of people helping you develop and they are using older versions of Mac OS, I would say leave it up to them to help support the older system. If it is only you, then supporting multiple platforms with the current OS is already a lot of work! I will say that it has been a couple of years since I have seen a request for 10.3 support for SuperCollider, but it would be hard really to compare the two projects - I imagine the user base is pretty different.
Josh

[sindre_mehus]

Thanks for your input. Sounds like I ought to support 10.3 and onwards. Just have to make sure that Java is available on those versions.

[einsteinx2]

Thanks for your input. Sounds like I ought to support 10.3 and onwards. Just have to make sure that Java is available on those versions.

10.3 definitely has Java installed. Judging from this Apple support post, it's Java 1.4.1 or 1.4.2 unless there have been newer updates: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1537

[sindre_mehus]

I need Java 1.5 or later. From what I gather that came in Mac OS 10.4, so I'll set that as the minimum requirement.

Thanks,
Sindre

[einsteinx2]

I need Java 1.5 or later. From what I gather that came in Mac OS 10.4, so I'll set that as the minimum requirement.

Thanks,
Sindre

That's good, then at least PPC users will be supported as long as they have Tiger. So at least PPC isn't excluded entirely. I think you'd be hard pressed to still find a Mac with 10.3 on it unless it's someone's grandma that's had it for 10 years or something. But she's probably not going to be setting up something like Subsonic anyway

[GregF]

I have an older Mac running OSX 10.3.9 and would love to be able to run Subsonic on it instead of my newer PC laptop, which I'm less happy leaving on for extended periods. Like someone else said, serving music files is a great use for an older computer. Anyway, if you're thinking of supporting 10.3.x, here's one vote for yes!

Thanks.