The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

[Ney]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Actually, you can make a squeezebox server on your PC that currently plays the music, and then control that server from your other pc's using the web-apps available, thus eliminating the need for remote desktopping. (and no need to buy a squeezebox :p)

Edit: To elaborate; what I mean is that you on your media-PC install both Slimserver http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html and then also install Softsqueeze http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/. This will make said PC behave as if it were a Squeezebox!

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

I'm actually responsible for an MP3 juke/server (PHP or ASP) that has been out since about 1999/2000 -- I didn't mention it because I didn't want to seem as if I was coming here to plug it, but it's Andromeda -- basically, Andromeda presents a music collection (typically MP3s) as a complete Web site you can browse and play, either locally or over the Internet.

And that leads to my next question -- I generally play my files via M3U playlists, so I downloaded a few FLAC files, put them in an M3U, but neither K-Lite's player nor WMP could manage that.

Does anybody use FLAC within M3U playlists? If so, what player are you using?

If not, I'd love to hear more about how you play FLAC -- both locally *and* over a network.

Thanks! -Scott

[Ney]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Winamp does FLAC in M3U perfectly

This is the M3U file for 3 Marilyn Manson songs:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:185,Marilyn Manson - The Love Song
01 - Marilyn Manson - The Love Song.flac
#EXTINF:246,Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus
02 - Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus.flac
#EXTINF:206,Marilyn Manson - Mobscene
03 - Marilyn Manson - Mobscene.flac

Hope it helps

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

fwiw, here's what I have so far:

My home media server has my media files on attached drives, and is running Andromeda. My laptop (over wi-fi) can display the collection stored on the server as a Web page, and when I click play it sends the M3U playlist with the FLAC files, and it starts playing on the laptop.

Neat.

I was actually a bit surprised at how well it works over the LAN -- the FLAC file starts playing almost immediately (which means that it seems it can "pseudo-stream" or "play progressively"). I was especially surprised that I could shuttle ahead, to parts of the file that I would guess hadn't yet transferred.

I need to see if I can bottleneck the network, but so far this is great.

Just curious: does anybody here use VLC?

And for the Winamp folks -- do you think it has started to lean in the "bloatware" direction?

[jtbse]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Actually, you can make a squeezebox server on your PC that currently plays the music, and then control that server from your other pc's using the web-apps available, thus eliminating the need for remote desktopping. (and no need to buy a squeezebox :p)

Edit: To elaborate; what I mean is that you on your media-PC install both Slimserver http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html and then also install Softsqueeze http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/. This will make said PC behave as if it were a Squeezebox!

Ney...

But doesn't this transcode everything to mp3 though? IIRC that was what SlimServer did the last time that I used it when playing via http or softsqueeze.

On topic....

I think FLAC is the way to go....imho. Most of the others are proprietary or less universally compatible in some way.

I stream to Roku devices using Firefly (aka mt-daapd) on an unslung NSLU. Library is a combination of FLAC and AAC/M4A. If I had it to do it over again, everything would be FLAC. The key word for me is "flexibility". With FLAC and tools like dMC, I can transcode/reencode to any format I need to...depending on the application. Can't say that with lossy codecs because once the bits are gone, they're gone. Alas, the Roku's don't play FLAC natively, but Firefly transcodes to .wav for this purpose.

Don't listen as much as I used to on the 'puter, but when I do, it's Winamp...for many of the reasons already stated...but also because I can deal with FLAC and transcode everything to fixed bitrate .m4a when transferring to my iPod.

[Ney]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

As far as I know, no it will not transcode to Mp3, it will simply play back flac. It might be different on a real hardware squeezebox though, been a while since i toyed with the idea of getting one.

From the softsqueeze webpage:
Native playback of Flac, MP3, WAV and AIFF audio.
Support for Ogg Vorbis, WMA and AAC by transcoding in the Slimserver.

As to winamp, I havn't found any bloat sofar. I mean sure there is videoplayback compabilites, but if you dont use it you dont see it, and its not resource heavy in anyway. I use the classic layout, and I havnt noticed any differences when i upgraded from 2.7 to 5.whatever

[hagak]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

I have a squeezebox.

When playing slimserver back to either the softsqueeze or hardware squeezebox v3 or later it will not transcode unless you tell it to.

The original squeezebox could not handle FLAC natively and as such the server would transcode to WAV, because the squeezebox could handle WAV fine. You can ask it to transcode to mp3 if you prefer.

Now the very first device by Slimdevices was the Slimp3 and this device only played mp3 files so the slimserver would transcode all files to mp3.

Note Slimserver can handle most non-drm audio formats, and will just transcode if need be to a format the player can handle. However if you have the latest slim hardware FLAC is by far the preferred since it does not require transcoding.

edit: forgot the other method of getting audio from slimserver. HTTP streaming, you can point anything (winamp for example) to play a stream from the slimserver. This is of course transcoded to mp3.

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

fwiw, I just tried VLC, and it struck me as nice and simple (it also adds DVD playback, which is a plus for me).

VLC worked with M3U playlists consisting of http:// URLs pointing to FLAC files.

I also tried Winamp, but it didn't seem to work with M3U playlists consisting of http:// URLs pointing to FLAC files.

So, so far I've had luck with Foobar2000 and VLC -- and I'm leaning toward VLC becuase it also adds DVD support, and it's nice that its open source.

-Scott

[Ney]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Just be sure that it does not transcode the files! I mean it would suck to have all your music in flac only to have VLC transcode it with LAME on the fly :p

[anthonydddd]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

ney...

In an earlier post in this thread I mentioned that I use Media Monkey 3 as the player/organizer for a very large library of ripped CD's. I just thought I'd add that all of my tracks are saved as FLAC files. Aside from the minor difficulty I explained in my other post Media Monkey has worked flawlessly with them.

[turnstyle]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

Hey Ney,

What makes you think VLC would transcode FLAC to LAME?

Also, I think you said earlier that you had Winamp working with M3Us of FLACs -- but that didn't seem to work for me if the FLACs in the M3U had http:// type paths -- have you ever tried that with Winamp? (it did seem ok with VLC and Foobar2000).

-Scott

[Ney]

Re: The "Big Rip" -- what's the "smart" way to go?

No I have never tried FLAC with http:// in the tags.
And I personally does not like VLC because you have no control over what is happening, it just plays. Thus I'd be worried that it somehow transcodes because the playlist has http:// tags, but I'm paranoid , and got no REAL reason to suspect it :D