USB problem

[John Parkinson]

I've had a B2 for a couple of years and have only gotten around to making playlists to export to a USB drive. When I export to the USB drive and then plug it into another device I get and 'error' message (on my workshop boombox) or 'no song' (when in the car). The USB drives have been formatted on the B2 and I've checked to make sure they are FAT32 by plugging it into the computer. The only place that will play back the music playlist is on my computer so I know the music has been exported to the USB. The B2 has a littler over 20,000 songs all recorded using FLAC compression. Does the Flac compression make a difference when exporting to certain devices? Should I have copied my CD collection using one of the MP3 options? I don't know enough to know if this makes a difference. I have tried using three different brands of USB sticks and get the same result with all of them. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

John

[Peter Lowham]

Hi John,

Some music devices are not capable of playing flac files, so you will need to check whether or not the other devices can play flac files.

The B2 has a 'mirror' files feature where it creates 'mp3' duplicates from the 'flac'  files and stores them in the B2 music folder along with the 'flac' files.  However the initial mp3 creation process on the B2 is very slow, and we have developed ways of making that much faster.  If you want to  know more about this then just post back here.

Regards,

Peter.

[John Parkinson]

Peter,

Yes, please let me know more about this feature.

Regards,

John

[Daniel Taylor]

The B2 comes with the default setting to compress your music files to the FLAC format.  Using the Compression command in the Settings menu, you can also choose MP3, or FLAC+MP3, or no compression.  Peter was referring to the FLAC+MP3 setting.  In that case, the B2 will first convert all your music to FLAC.  When that is all done, then it will go back and make an MP3 copy of each file (the FLAC files are not deleted) and put them in a new folder (named mirror) under the album folder.  All the compression happens only after the unit has been idle for five minutes (including not having the WebUI open).  So it does take quite a long time.  Once the FLAC+MP3 compression is complete, you can copy the MP3 files to a USB stick for playing in the car, using the Export MP3s command in the Playlist menu.

[John Parkinson]

Daniel,

Thank you, it might be a couple of days before I get a chance to work on this but I will get back to you to let you know if I managed to work it out.

Best regards,

John

[John Parkinson]

Daniel,

When I select the FLAC+MP3 option the display immediately reads "SAVED". Does the B2 have a default setting that would have automatically saved both the FLAC+MP3 versions when I initially copied the CD's? I am still having problems with exporting a playlist onto the USB stick only now I don't have anything when I plug it into the computer and my other devices still read "error". I deleted the playlist I was originally trying to export after running the FLAC+MP3 compression and made a playlist of just one song. I have tried a Web Upgrade which hasn't made any difference. I have also tried saving after each step, not sure if this is necessary.

Regards,

John

[Daniel Taylor]

Hi John,

It's not so quick as to just set the compression to FLAC+MP3.  It can take a long time, and you won't necessarily know which albums have been converted.  After you changed the setting to FLAC+MP3, how long did you wait?  Did you use the Export MP3s command?  Did you inspect your USB disk to see what wat there?  And that the files were MP3s?

[John Parkinson]

Daniel,

Thanks for getting back to me. When I press to select FLAC+MP3 the word "Saved" is displayed immediately and the display returns to the clock with the usual info scrolling, CD Empty, Bluetooth Ready etc. as if the machine is ready to go. There is nothing to indicate that the B2 is doing anything. When I do select FLAC+MP3 the scroll reads "Compression both formats stored" I'm not sure if that means they are already stored? Yes, I did use the Export MP3's command. There was nothing on the USB stick when I checked it on my computer. The USB is formatted to FAT32.

Regards,

John

[Daniel Taylor]

All that means is that the choice of compression method has been saved.  The compression does not start until the unit has been idle, with the WebUI closed, for at least five minutes, OR you invoke the Compress Now command (Settings menu).  As I said, it takes quite a long while.  And it won't start on the MP3 compresson until all files have been converted to FLAC first.  Leave it on overnight, and it will begin to make progress.  Don't forget to close all windows that have the WebUI (aka App) open.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

It is my belief that the FLAC + MP3 compression option is best selected after first having finished a FLAC compression over the entire music collection. 

As I understand it and taking a starting point of a WAV file as ripped form a CD.

Selecting WAV (no compression) will leave all WAV, MP3 and FLAC files found in the "music" folder just as they are.

selecting FLAC compression will convert all WAV files (but NOT MP3 files) found in the "music" folder to FLAC files.

Selecting MP3 compression will convert all WAV files (but NOT FLAC files) found in the "music" folder to MP3 files. 

Selecting FLAC + MP3 compression will make a mirrored copy of all FLAC files  found in the "music" folder as MP3 files.

Fred

[PMB]

Hi John,

The FLAC to MP3 copy and conversion is very (very) slow - it can take several days if you have a lot of files to convert. The B2 converts FLAC to WAV and then to MP3, so it's a two stage process.

Some owners tell me they do a backup, copy the backup to their computer and use 3rd party software to do the FLAC to MP3 conversion.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[John Parkinson]

Thank you all for your input. I left the B2 on over night, the red light is flashing, is this an indication that the B2 is converting the files and how will I know when it's completed? 

Best regards,

John

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi John

Yes blinking red = disk IO happening. When blinking stops the compression will have finished.

Fred

[Peter Lowham]

Hi John,

First of all, my apologies for not getting back to you more quickly, but I discovered that the 'flac+mp3' conversion process was updated a while ago so I had to run through some more tests on my B2s to see what the differences are.

The red flashing light indicates that the flac to mp3 generation is running.

To cut a long story short, your B2 will require about 43 days running 24 hours/day to complete this operation, so it is a somewhat slow process!

Another option is to use a PC based product such as 'dBpoweramp' which can be set up to automatically generate the 'mirror' folders and files.  This is my preferred method and on my music collection of about 7200 flac files, it will generate the mp3 files in about 18 hours, so for your collection that would equate to about 2.5 days.

It does require a NAS connection between the B2 and the PC to be set up.  NAS is already running by default on the B2, so it just requires some setup on the PC.  I have attached a set of instructions for setting up dBpoweramp, so if you want to try this then let us know.

dBpoweramp is a free download from the Web, but it has a 21 day trial period, so you can run the process at no cost initially.  Personally, I found that it is so good that I purchased a licence (i think that it was about £30 for a permanent licence for 1 PC).

Regards,

Peter.

On Thursday, 24 February 2022 at 11:25:42 UTC jparki...@gmail.com wrote:

[John Parkinson]

Thanks to everyone, this has all been very helpful and has forced me into menu areas of the B2 I didn't know existed. The B2 has been running for about 12 hours now and I can see the display telling me how many tracks have been compressed. 

Peter, thank you for the very detailed instructions for the 'dBpoweramp'. I am a Mac user and noticed that you specified that it is a PC based product, so I might just leave this as is for now.

I don't buy too many CD's anymore so, is it advisable to compress files as I go from now on? And, will the B2 only compress new files as opposed to running through my complete collection?

Best regards,

John

[Peter Lowham]

Hi John,

dBpoweramp is available for the Mac as well, so that is still a viable option.

Regards,

Peter.

[John Parkinson]

Thank you Peter.

John