Is Asset transcoding flac to wav even when NO transcoding options are set?

[dvdr]

Spoon
would you be so kind and have a look into this:

Asset 2, latest beta in conjunction with a Sneaky DS (plays flac natively!).
Loading a flac-track with Linn Kinsky Desktop into my Sneaky, playing it and saving this "playlist" as a socalled "local Playlist" in Kinsky.
Now, please take a look at the code in this playlist. It seems to me, that this code - because of referring to .wav a few times - is telling sneaky to get itself a transcoded .wav for playing. I may be completely wrong (in this case I apologize in advance for this), but please have a look at this, in case this might be a bug.
Needless to point out, that of course I have disabled ALL transcoding options for all file formats in Asset config, just to be sure....

<linn:Playlist version="3" xmlns:linn="urn:linn-co-uk/playlist">
  <linn:Track>
    <DIDL-Lite xmlns="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/DIDL-Lite/">
      <item id="30617-au446.flac" parentID="\\Twonky\Audio\Playlist\flac.dpl" restricted="False">
        <dc:title xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">  1   Come On, Come Out</dc:title>
        <upnp:class xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">object.item.audioItem.musicTrack</upnp:class>
        <res size="27091387" duration="00:03:35.000" bitrate="125578" sampleFrequency="44100" bitsPerSample="16" nrAudioChannels="2" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/x-flac:DLNA.ORG_OP=01">http://192.168.178.102:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/30617.flac</res>
        <res size="38055344" duration="00:03:35.000" bitrate="176400" sampleFrequency="44100" bitsPerSample="16" nrAudioChannels="2" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/wav:DLNA.ORG_PN=WAV;DLNA.ORG_OP=01">http://192.168.178.102:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/30617.wav</res>
        <res size="38055300" duration="00:03:35.000" bitrate="176400" sampleFrequency="44100" bitsPerSample="16" nrAudioChannels="2" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/L16;rate=44100;channels=2:DLNA.ORG_PN=LPCM;DLNA.ORG_OP=01">http://192.168.178.102:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/30617.l16</res>
        <res size="27091387" duration="00:03:35.000" bitrate="125578" sampleFrequency="44100" bitsPerSample="16" nrAudioChannels="2" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/x-flac:DLNA.ORG_OP=01">http://192.168.178.102:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/30617.flac</res>
        <upnp:genre xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">Pop</upnp:genre>
        <upnp:artist role="Performer" xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">A Fine Frenzy</upnp:artist>
        <upnp:artist role="Conductor" xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">(Unknown Conductor)</upnp:artist>
        <upnp:artist role="AlbumArtist" xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">A Fine Frenzy</upnp:artist>
        <upnp:album xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">One Cell in the Sea</upnp:album>
        <upnp:originalTrackNumber xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">1</upnp:originalTrackNumber>
        <dc:date xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">2007-01-01</dc:date>
        <upnp:albumArtURI xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">http://192.168.178.102:26125/albumart/Art-27794531.jpg/cover.jpg</upnp:albumArtURI>
      </item>
    </DIDL-Lite>
  </linn:Track>
</linn:Playlist>

Now, to give you further information, here is, what happens, if I load one track (the first one) from Asset, and the second track is added to the playlist from Twonky (ver. 4.4.17). Please note, that in the second half of the code (the part coming from twonky), no wav whatsoever is present in the code

<linn:Playlist version="3" xmlns:linn="urn:linn-co-uk/playlist">
  <linn:Track>
    <DIDL-Lite xmlns="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/DIDL-Lite/">
      <item id="30617-au446.flac" parentID="\\Twonky\Audio\Playlist\Mischung.dpl" restricted="False">
        <dc:title xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">  1   Come On, Come Out</dc:title>
        <upnp:class xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">object.item.audioItem.musicTrack</upnp:class>
        <res size="27091387" duration="00:03:35.000" bitrate="125578" sampleFrequency="44100" bitsPerSample="16" nrAudioChannels="2" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/x-flac:DLNA.ORG_OP=01">http://192.168.178.102:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/30617.flac</res>
        <res size="38055344" duration="00:03:35.000" bitrate="176400" sampleFrequency="44100" bitsPerSample="16" nrAudioChannels="2" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/wav:DLNA.ORG_PN=WAV;DLNA.ORG_OP=01">http://192.168.178.102:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/30617.wav</res>
        <res size="38055300" duration="00:03:35.000" bitrate="176400" sampleFrequency="44100" bitsPerSample="16" nrAudioChannels="2" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/L16;rate=44100;channels=2:DLNA.ORG_PN=LPCM;DLNA.ORG_OP=01">http://192.168.178.102:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/30617.l16</res>
        <res size="27091387" duration="00:03:35.000" bitrate="125578" sampleFrequency="44100" bitsPerSample="16" nrAudioChannels="2" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/x-flac:DLNA.ORG_OP=01">http://192.168.178.102:26125/content/c2/b16/f44100/30617.flac</res>
        <upnp:genre xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">Pop</upnp:genre>
        <upnp:artist role="Performer" xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">A Fine Frenzy</upnp:artist>
        <upnp:artist role="Conductor" xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">(Unknown Conductor)</upnp:artist>
        <upnp:artist role="AlbumArtist" xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">A Fine Frenzy</upnp:artist>
        <upnp:album xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">One Cell in the Sea</upnp:album>
        <upnp:originalTrackNumber xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">1</upnp:originalTrackNumber>
        <dc:date xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">2007-01-01</dc:date>
        <upnp:albumArtURI xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">http://192.168.178.102:26125/albumart/Art-27794531.jpg/cover.jpg</upnp:albumArtURI>
      </item>
    </DIDL-Lite>
  </linn:Track>
  <linn:Track>
    <DIDL-Lite xmlns="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/DIDL-Lite/">
      <item id="1$13$744776805$3026478627" parentID="\\Twonky\Audio\Playlist\Mischung.dpl" restricted="False" refID="1$268435466$2013266793">
        <dc:title xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">The Minnow &amp; the Trout</dc:title>
        <dc:creator xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Unknown</dc:creator>
        <upnp:class xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">object.item.audioItem.musicTrack</upnp:class>
        <res size="28893863" protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/x-flac:*">http://192.168.178.102:9000/disk/music/O1$13$744776805$3026478627.flac</res>
        <upnp:genre xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">Pop</upnp:genre>
        <upnp:artist xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">A Fine Frenzy</upnp:artist>
        <upnp:album xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">One Cell In The Sea</upnp:album>
        <upnp:originalTrackNumber xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">2</upnp:originalTrackNumber>
        <dc:date xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">2007-01-01</dc:date>
        <upnp:albumArtURI xmlns:upnp="urn:schemas-upnp-org:metadata-1-0/upnp/">http://192.168.178.102:9000/cgi-bin/O1$13$744776805$3026478627/W160/H160/S1/L1/Xjpeg-jpeg.desc.jpg</upnp:albumArtURI>
      </item>
    </DIDL-Lite>
  </linn:Track>
</linn:Playlist>

Also, in this case, ALL transcoding options of Asset were disabled!

I came across this by pure chance, since I wanted to stream m music from "Spotify" to my DS using a little plugin called "dsbridge". It transcodes the Spotify-output to mp3 and streams it over http to the DS - it is called by a simple m3u playlist (see Linn Forum, if interested). I could not get it to work with Asset. With Twonky, all was fine. After some tests, the only possibility for it to fail with Asset was, that there might be some server-side on-the-fly transcoding going on, which most likely is the fact....

Thanks for having a look into this and please accept my apologies, should I mistakedly have created a "false alarm"!!!

[Spoon]

Re: Is Asset transcoding flac to wav even when NO transcoding options are set?

We pass out 4 entries with FLAC first and last, the idea being a renderer which cannot support flac would walk down the list to play the wave file. The DS would pick the first one (flac) and play that.

We currently cannot support a m3u playlist with external http address.

[dvdr]

Re: Is Asset transcoding flac to wav even when NO transcoding options are set?

Thank you Spoon for looking into this and providing an explanation! Sorry, if I might have caused any inconvenience!

[okli]

Re: Is Asset transcoding flac to wav even when NO transcoding options are set?

We pass out 4 entries with FLAC first and last, the idea being a renderer which cannot support flac would walk down the list to play the wave file. The DS would pick the first one (flac) and play that.

Is this still the case in v3, because I came across it yesterday with my Asset v3? I found it very contra-intuitive to disable the transcoding and nevertheless to get a transcoded version of my FLACs. Can you please disable this "feature" - if I want transcoding I'm supposed to set this so and if I don't want it then I really DON'T want it. Or have I misunderstood something?

Thanks,
Ilko

[Spoon]

Re: Is Asset transcoding flac to wav even when NO transcoding options are set?

There would be no transcoding if the player is able to play flac, it is not possible for the control point to pick the middle items, it would either pick the first or last which are flac.

[okli]

Re: Is Asset transcoding flac to wav even when NO transcoding options are set?

There would be no transcoding if the player is able to play flac, it is not possible for the control point to pick the middle items, it would either pick the first or last which are flac.

Just to understand - what happens if the renderer CAN'T play FLAC?

[Spoon]

Re: Is Asset transcoding flac to wav even when NO transcoding options are set?

The control point might pick one of the transcoded offered streams, or it might not.

[okli]

Re: Is Asset transcoding flac to wav even when NO transcoding options are set?

The control point might pick one of the transcoded offered streams, or it might not.

Exactly this is the issue - if I set "FLAC as is" I expect to get error message, if the renderer does not support this particular format, otherwise the setting is meaningless, thus my wish to remove this "behind the scenes" format conversion. If I want transcoding I can set it through the provided options. Prior to find this out, my first thought was - why the sound from Asset is so bad compared to my other UPnP server - I got LPCM16 transcoded version of 24/96 FLAC!!!