Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mastiff]

I use a bunch of streaming channels from NRK, the Norwegian National Broadcasting. They recently dropped WMA and went AAC instead. They stream MP3 too, but I have since last summer been unable to use that because every now and then it suddenly stops abrupt and sounds like a cd with a scratch in it (rapidly repeating one or two letters). AAC sounds better anyway, but there is one strange thing: One of the channels is of a lower volume than the rest, and every time there is a bit of silence there, it will start loud and drop down to the low volume again within seconds, almost like there is some strange normalizing feature in use there. This is with both MC 16 & 17, and with VLC. I downloaded iTunes (crossing myself three times to avoid the evil influences from The Fruity Empire...), and that does not have this problem. I am completely sure this isn't a problem with the sound card or computer, I have the same results both on my laptop and the media server that I have built to send multi-zone sound to the house. If you want to check it out yourself you can check these two channels:

http://lyd.nrk.no:80/nrk_radio_p2_aac_h
http://lyd.nrk.no:80/nrk_radio_alltid_nyheter_aac_h

The first one is the problem channel.

Is there any way to fix this, for instance by using another filter or something like that?

[Matt]

I can reproduce the issue with that stream, but I don't know why.

I'm guessing there's some gain level that's unsupported by our decoder.

For now, you could set AAC to 'JRiver audio engine (using DirectShow filter)' in Options > File Types.

[Mastiff]

Thanks, Matt! That helped! Weird, though. I thought the directShow filter used by MC is the same as the standard one, and also the same as VLC uses, since I had the same problem in VLC. Or are both you and VLC using something that's not DirectShow for AAC?

[Mastiff]

Darn (you know what I mean but anything stronger will be censored by the board)! The method with 'JRiver audio engine (using DirectShow filter)' has artifacts (pops and clicks in the sound. Is it possible to get a better DirectShow filter to use for this? I have tried to install the Core AVC AAC filter, but it seems like it doesn't want to work. I think it may be because it does not have a 64 bit version, and I run 64 bit on the computers. Does that sound logical?

Edit: I found the Core AAC 2.0 professional filter (well, bought it, actually....) and that unfortunately didn't really help. But I'm not positively sure that MC is using it. How do I force MC to use it? I tried to add it as "Other filters", but it's not used. When I open the configuration of Core AAC it says "Sample rate 0" and so on, which I'm pretty sure means that it isn't used.

[JimH]

Last night's build had a change for this.

[Mastiff]

Wow! (Moving to download area...) Thanks, Jim!

[Mastiff]

I did not see antyhing in the changelog about this (but then I'm an idiot...), but when I use Automatic now on the latest JRMC17 the volume is level on all the channels. Thank you very much! Talk about quick fix.

Nope, it wasn't.  I pressed the wrong channel... The P2 is lower volume and has the same problem. What is the change that should help on this?

[JimH]

I thought that this was for you:
3. Changed: Improved handling of bitstream errors in RAW AAC streams.

I may be wrong.

[Mastiff]

Sorry, my mistake. I was looking at the regular version, not the Beta Team version... Embarassing. The pops and clicks maybe slightly better, but they are unfortunately not gone. I still wonder if it would be working if I could in some way force MC to use the Core AAC 2.0 Pro filter instead of the built-in windows that I seem to be using now. Is that possible in any way?

[Matt]

The change Jim mentioned was a result of me looking at the AAC code, but it does not change what I said above.

For now, use a Directshow filter method.  Don't pick any additional filters, as by default we'll use LAV Audio which works fine with that station.

[Mastiff]

OK, thanks! LAV audio doesn't work well as long as it isn't installed, though... But I still get clicks and pops after a short while. I also get dropouts. Do you think it's because of other components in my computer? I don't have that problem with iTunes, but then I would never use that for anything but testing.

[Matt]

OK, thanks! LAV audio doesn't work well as long as it isn't installed, though... But I still get clicks and pops after a short while. I also get dropouts. Do you think it's because of other components in my computer? I don't have that problem with iTunes, but then I would never use that for anything but testing.

LAV Audio should be auto-downloaded and used as part of the Red October system.  Did you try, or is audio playback not handling auto-install?

[Mastiff]

No Red October as far as I can see, no. I have not had any message boxes mentioning installing Red October or anytthing else either. But then I haven't tried it on a computer with Blu-ray.

[Mastiff]

Has anything happened to this? Unfortunately another channel has fallen for the same problem, this time it's P1, the largest channel in the NRK system. And that means that I can't use AAC streaming for what my wife listens to, she's in the "cow dung and non-offenting music" listener segment that P1 caters to!

[Matt]

With v17 (and I think v16), you just set Options > File Types > AAC to "JRiver audio engine (using DirectShow filter)".  Leave everything else as automatic.

Then when you play the stream, LAV will be downloaded and used automatically.

I just tested and it's working here.

[Mastiff]

OK, weird. I have tried that several times the last days, and I still get those clicks and pops. I think that means that there is no LAV, or am I wrong? Does LAV still click and pop on the addresses that I mentioned in the first post?

[Matt]

Are you using the latest v17?

[Mastiff]

17.0.49, it says. I thought that was the last. It's from the beta board.