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Author Topic: SACD ISO files and media servers  (Read 9941 times)

HamDog

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SACD ISO files and media servers
« on: October 07, 2015, 04:14:00 pm »

My music files (consisting of FLAC and SACD ISO) are located on a network drive (NAS).  To me, the beauty of jriver is that it can read the ISO files.  This works great while using a computer.  But what about streaming via Android tablet.

What I have found is that no UPNP/DLNA server/client configuration can read ISO files.  So I'm wondering if such a thing may be possible with jriver Android client and jriver running on a separate computer in my home.  Here is what I want to do:

My NAS is connected to a Windows 7 computer running 24x7 (in the basement).  This windows computer has jriver installed and running.  In my listening room (living room), I want to stream the music to my Oppo 105 (via network) and be able to control it with my Android tablet.  I know this is possible, but can it read and play the SACD ISO (meaning can I see the individual tracks on my Android tablet and play them)? 
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blgentry

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Re: SACD ISO files and media servers
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2015, 05:16:45 pm »

Anything that MC can play, it can play via DLNA.  It might need to transcode some formats... like it might need to transcode DSD to PCM, or to MP3 or something.  But it can play it.

As a test I just played songs from an SACD ISO.  The ISO is on a local disk on my Mac running MC21.  I played to a DLNA renderer on my network.  I then controlled playback from Gizmo on my android phone.  I was able to select individual tracks from the ISO and of course I was able to mix other songs (regular files) into the now playing list and go back and forth from track to track no matter what the format was.

I think the short answer to your question is YES.  :)

Brian.
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HamDog

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Re: SACD ISO files and media servers
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2015, 05:20:04 pm »

Brian, thank you very much for your reply.  This is exactly what I was hoping for.  I will now take the time to learn the software!
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lkypeter

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Re: SACD ISO files and media servers
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2015, 11:06:20 am »

Might consider converting sacd iso to DSF files as the metadata is embedded and portable in case you want play on another platform. No walk in the park though.
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Mark_Chat

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Re: SACD ISO files and media servers
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2015, 12:56:31 am »

Might consider converting sacd iso to DSF files as the metadata is embedded and portable in case you want play on another platform. No walk in the park though.

I would recommend against using DSF files. (Despite being incredibly easy to do using Iso2DSD)
.dsf files do have the bonus of embedded tag metafile data, which is stored at the end of the DSD data but there is a major potential problem with .dsf

.dsf is a file format which contains the data in fixed length file packets.

When a .dsf is created, there is almost always a need to add some padding to the end of the DSD data stream to fill up the final data packet. This is multiple zeros. The metafile is then "tagged" to the end

The problem is that this "silent" padding is now part of the data stream so if you try to gapless play sequential .dsf files, the original audio will not now be gapless.
This is dreadful for live recordings or contiguous music tracks where the audio from one segues into the next and although I am not a classical fan, I can imagine it will affect this badly.

Extracting to .dff individual .dff files for each track is also possible with Iso2DSD.
.dff does not have this problem with file padding, but has the downside of not being able to contain metafile data.

Personally, I do extract my .iso SACD backups using Iso2DSD but convert using the third option of the "DSDIFF edit master" file format plus cue file.

This process gives you a single .dff file for the whole stereo or multichannel album plus cue files. It needs to be used separately for the MCh and 2Ch portions of the SACD iso giving you two .dff and two .cue

Note that the cue files usually need quite extensive manual editing for artist and track as it simply contains the artist and track text that displays on the SACD player window during playback and thus is not standardised for capitalisation so looks a real mess. At least a tenth of SACD have incorrect metadata embedded into them with wrong or no artist info and abbreviated or no or wrong track names. Companies were and continue to be extremely sloppy in their SACD-Text quality control.

The reason I extract to dff is that any DST is decompressed so playback is less processor intensive and so playback can be done on any old PC plus my "mp3" played is a FIIO X5 which can playback DSD files (dsf or dff) but cannot decompress DST DSD (a very processor heavy action and certainly not possible on any portable digital audio player)
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amz

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Re: SACD ISO files and media servers
« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2015, 10:14:02 am »

Hi,

it may not fit completely to the topic but which part of the iso is selected by MC for 2ch (dff,dst) ?

Thx
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lkypeter

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Re: SACD ISO files and media servers
« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2015, 01:32:06 pm »

Thanks Mark as I did not know about the padding problem for GAP less  play. Have tried a few GAP less and did not notice sizeable silence in between.

You idea of dsddiff master edit seems a possible way out.

The metadata in sacd for classical music is especially cumbersome like Long form names only on first movements are short formed.

Using jriver which is user friendly to edit is already a challenge and I cannot imagine editing in cue files.

On last advantage of DSF is it's easy deployment to handheld players.

What do you think?


[squote author=Mark_Chat link=topic=100667.msg699020#msg699020 date=1444802191]
I would recommend against using DSF files. (Despite being incredibly easy to do using Iso2DSD)
.dsf files do have the bonus of embedded tag metafile data, which is stored at the end of the DSD data but there is a major potential problem with .dsf

.dsf is a file format which contains the data in fixed length file packets.

When a .dsf is created, there is almost always a need to add some padding to the end of the DSD data stream to fill up the final data packet. This is multiple zeros. The metafile is then "tagged" to the end

The problem is that this "silent" padding is now part of the data stream so if you try to gapless play sequential .dsf files, the original audio will not now be gapless.
This is dreadful for live recordings or contiguous music tracks where the audio from one segues into the next and although I am not a classical fan, I can imagine it will affect this badly.

Extracting to .dff individual .dff files for each track is also possible with Iso2DSD.
.dff does not have this problem with file padding, but has the downside of not being able to contain metafile data.

Personally, I do extract my .iso SACD backups using Iso2DSD but convert using the third option of the "DSDIFF edit master" file format plus cue file.

This process gives you a single .dff file for the whole stereo or multichannel album plus cue files. It needs to be used separately for the MCh and 2Ch portions of the SACD iso giving you two .dff and two .cue

Note that the cue files usually need quite extensive manual editing for artist and track as it simply contains the artist and track text that displays on the SACD player window during playback and thus is not standardised for capitalisation so looks a real mess. At least a tenth of SACD have incorrect metadata embedded into them with wrong or no artist info and abbreviated or no or wrong track names. Companies were and continue to be extremely sloppy in their SACD-Text quality control.

The reason I extract to dff is that any DST is decompressed so playback is less processor intensive and so playback can be done on any old PC plus my "mp3" played is a FIIO X5 which can playback DSD files (dsf or dff) but cannot decompress DST DSD (a very processor heavy action and certainly not possible on any portable digital audio player)

[/quote]
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