FLAC will not stream to IOS (but works fine on a laptop with Firefox browser)

[Jeff Kennedy]

I've got 3.8 running with no issues in a standard laptop browser now, including streaming of FLAC files; however, streaming of FLAC files does not work on my IOS 8 iPhone. I've tried numerous different settings, but haven't met with any success. Interestingly enough, using the SubSonic backend works fine for MP3's on Ampache, but I cannot get FLAC files to stream from Ampache to my IOS device.

 

I also have SubSonic running on the same server, and, SubSonic is capable of streaming FLAC files to my iPhone with no problem. My SubSonic configuration has a "two step" transcoding configuration, which works great, but I can't seem to figure out how to implement this same "two-step" configuration in Ampache.

 

SubSonic streaming settings are as follows:

 

flac audio    flac    mp3    Step 1: flac --silent --decode --stdout %s    Step 2: lame --silent -h -b %b -

My SubSonic Downsampling command is: ffmpeg -i %s -map 0:0 -b:a %bk -v 0 -f mp3 -
ffmpeg -ss %o -t %d -i %s -async 1 -b:v %bk -s %wx%h -ar 44100 -ac 2 -v 0 -f mpegts -c:v libx264 -preset superfast -c:a libmp3lame -threads 0 -

Does anyone in the group know how I could implement these same settings in the Ampache configuration file, or, elsewhere as required?

[Jeff Kennedy]

Bueller?

[Andy Pastuszak]

IOS does not support FLAC.  If you want to stream FLAC, you'll need to use iSub. It uses a third party library to play audio, so it supports FLAC and OGG VORBIS.

If you want to play lossless files on iOS, you should convert to ALAC.

Andy

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On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 7:33 PM -0700, "Jeff Kennedy" <jeffke...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bueller?

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[Andy Pastuszak]

The only native formats that iOS supports are MP3, AAC, and ALAC.  It might do WAV also.

Sent from Outlook

[Jeff Kennedy]

I'm sorry. I don;t think I was as clear as I should have been. I have a Lnux machine that is running SubSonic and an iPhone 5s running the AVSub client. This setup streams FLAC files with no issue and sounds great. I also have Ampache 3.8 running on the same Linux machine, and it will stream mp3 files to my AVSub client; however it will not stream the exact same FLAC files that work on SubSonic. I was hoping I could configure the exact same streaming settings for FLAC in Ampache SubSonic backend as I actually use in SubSonic, since those settings actually work. Ampache doesn;t seem to support 2-step streaming commands like SubSonic does, or I just don't know how to configure that type of streaming setting in Ampache. Does that make more sense now?

[jjnew...@gmail.com]

I came from Subsonic too and it took me awhile to figure out Ampache transcoding as well.  I transcode to AAC so I'll just put my setting here and you can use them to help figure out your MP3 settings, or you can use these to stream AAC.

max_bit_rate = 192 (or whatever you want)
transcode_flac     = allowed
encode_target_flac = aac
transcode_cmd = "C:\transcode\qaac_2.45\x86\ffmpeg.exe" (change to your ffmpeg file location)
transcode_input = "-i %FILE%"
encode_args_aac = "-v 0 -f wav - | C:\transcode\qaac_2.45\x86\qaac.exe -a %SAMPLE%K --adts - -o - -o -" (change to your ffmpeg file location)

[jjnew...@gmail.com]

[Andy Pastuszak]

Not really.

Are you trying to stream, a FLAC file to your iPhone 5S without transcoding it to something?

Cause that's not going to work with AVsub.

I have the following two transcode command in my config file:

transcode_cmd = "avconv"

encode_args_mp3 = "-vn -q:a 0 -c:a libmp3lame -f mp3 pipe:1"

Andy

[Jeff Kennedy]

Thanks! I will give these settings a try. I tried streaming to mp3 for FLAC files, but what you are suggesting makes a lot more sense, given that AAC is natively supported in IOS and native mp3 is not. The only reason I was trying mp3 is based on successfully streaming FLAC files through SubSonic.

[Jeff Kennedy]

On Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 10:44:11 AM UTC-4, Andy Pastuszak wrote:

Not really.

Are you trying to stream, a FLAC file to your iPhone 5S without transcoding it to something?

    No. Transcoding is absolutely required in order to "stream." As you know, FLAC files are not natively supported on IOS, and, even if FLAC was natively supported, I'd want to stream for performance reasons. While converting my FLAC files to ALAC might sound like a viable option, I strongly suspect that I'd be constantly waiting for ALAC files to load between songs during data transfers. I simply want to stream the audio content to my iPhone so that the transfer delays are limited to small portions of the file. This works seamlessly with AVSub and SubSonic, but, as I stated earlier in this thread, I don't see a way for the Ampache SubSonic backend to be configured with a 2-step transcode.

Cause that's not going to work with AVsub.

I have the following two transcode command in my config file:

transcode_cmd = "avconv"

encode_args_mp3 = "-vn -q:a 0 -c:a libmp3lame -f mp3 pipe:1"

Thanks. I had something similar to this in an earlier iteration. I will give this a shot if AAC settings do not work.