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[bob]

To elaborate on the upnp changes some:

The Playstation 3 is a DLNA device (other DLNA devices include the Streamium 5200).

DLNA devices support mp3's, wma (if enabled in ps3 settings), ac3 (supposedly) and L16 (big endian) wave (and a couple more obsolete sony formats like atrac).

The upnp server now will convert to L16 wave so you can play flac's, ogg's, whatever. To do this, in the upnp options dialog select "convert when necessary" and "uncompressed wave".  This will convert all formats to L16 unless they are already in that format. If you just have mp3's and wma's choose "never convert".

If you have a streamium with the latest firmware you could select "convert when necessary" and "mp3" if you wanted to reduce bandwidth at an increased cpu cost.

[Magic_Randy]

The Playstation 3 is a DLNA device...

... in the upnp options dialog select "convert when necessary" and "uncompressed wave".  This will convert all formats to L16 unless they are already in that format.... If you just have mp3's and wma's choose "never convert".

These are the settings I used for the test. All of my files are 320kbs MP3 except for my test Flac files. I'm not sure what happens if you have a mix of files that require conversion (like Flac) and ones that don't require conversion (like MP3). So to be safe, I turned off the conversion after the test.

If I had the option set to "convert when necessary" and I had a mix of Flac and MP3 files, would MC convert the MP3 files anyway?

[bob]

...
If I had the option set to "convert when necessary" and I had a mix of Flac and MP3 files, would MC convert the MP3 files anyway?

Yes. The logic using "convert when necessary" is convert everything that isn't already the file type of the selected encoder.

Since the DLNA compatible servers can handle a wider range of media types it would probably make sense to have a table of formats that can be handled natively instead of the logic above, though if you have reasonable bandwidth there is no reason not to convert the mp3's to L16 anyway since it never touches the original file just does a streaming conversion.

[JimH]

I've added Bob's instructions above to the Wiki entry on PS3.

[Magic_Randy]

Yes. The logic using "convert when necessary" is convert everything that isn't already the file type of the selected encoder.

Since the DLNA compatible servers can handle a wider range of media types it would probably make sense to have a table of formats that can be handled natively instead of the logic above, though if you have reasonable bandwidth there is no reason not to convert the mp3's to L16 anyway since it never touches the original file just does a streaming conversion.

Thanks Bob...

[surge]

Just switched back to MediaCenter support of UPNP and now DLNA for my RokuSoundbridge.  For at least a year I have been using the DLNA support of my NAS, but was never happy with its limited options and lack of FLAC support.  After trying to step a little bit into installing Firefly server on the NAS in Linux, and having difficulties, I stumbled upon the new DLNA support in MediaCenter which I use for everything else.

DLNA has grown up in MediaCenter while I wasn't looking.  It is great and very flexible to drive the Roku's navigation.

My library is almost all FLAC, so using the Always Convert to MP3 works great for the Roku.

But, being a little bit of a audio-snob (only a little), I tried Always Convert to Uncompressed Wave and used the Roku Soundbridge.  Surprisingly, the songs all played FAST with raised pitch.  My estimate would be between 15-25% fast but that is only an estimate (I told you I wasn't that much of an audio snob).

Is this a known issue?

[JimH]

I'm not sure what that is.  It isn't a known problem.  I've used convert to wav successfully on another box.

But FLAC and WAV will give you identical sound output.

Build 140 at the top of this board would be our best for DLNA.

[Matt]

But, being a little bit of a audio-snob (only a little), I tried Always Convert to Uncompressed Wave and used the Roku Soundbridge.  Surprisingly, the songs all played FAST with raised pitch.  My estimate would be between 15-25% fast but that is only an estimate (I told you I wasn't that much of an audio snob).

I'm guessing the device assumes WAV input is at 48 KHz even though it's being fed a CD which is 44.1 KHz.

We might be able to add a resampler into the server conversion chain.  I've thought other DSP like Replay Gain would be neat.

This is sort of a big change, so it might not happen for a while.

If the Roku supports FLAC, that might be a workaround for lossless delivery.