So my new question would be what controls the way JRiver streams a file? Why would a flac file streamed through JRiver show as a wav file?
In MC Options for the server, you can select three streaming modes
- Original -- Means that MC will push the original file. And if the renderer does not support that format, the renderer will fail to play it
- Always Convert -- see below
- Convert unsupported formats -- see below
When 2) is selected (and sometimes when 3) is selected) then MC will transcode the file to another format and send that to the renderer. Currently MC supports three other formats that it can convert to:
- MP3
- L16 with Header; which is actually WAV by any other name -- see below
- L16 no Header; which is actually PCM or RAW by any other name -- see below
- L24 with Header; which is actually WAV by any other name -- see below
- L24 no Header; which is actually PCM or RAW by any other name -- see below
The format L16 means Linear PCM with 16-bit depth, 2-channels, and 44100 Hz or 48000 Hz bit rate.
The format L24 means Linear PCM with 24-bit depth, 2-channels, and 44100 Hz up to 192000 Hz bit rate. Although not all players can do this...
For most compatibility use Always Convert, L16 No Header format, since this is the common denominator format that all DLNA devices
must support.
{ foot note: (guys at MC please check if this statement is still valid in current versions) the last time that I did a trace on MC I noticed that it was pushing L16 and L24 No Header streams using a URL having the .wav file extension. This means that even though the stream is actually PCM or RAW format (without any WAV RIFF header), some renderers just notice the .wav in the file extension and inform the user that they are playing a WAV file rather than a PCM file -- but, so long as the music plays, who cares what the player says... }
PS perhaps the MC guys will move this post over to the Media Network forum...