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Author Topic: FLAC transcoding problem  (Read 1094 times)

PDP8User

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FLAC transcoding problem
« on: March 20, 2012, 12:25:53 am »

When I try to transcode any of my collection of lossless audio files from Monkey's Audio (.ape) to FLAC, I'm getting one of two problems, depending on settings.

1) If I set "Use OGG as transport layer" to off (the default), I get a successful transcode of the audio, but the metadata tags are all Null-terminated strings.
This is counter to the "FLAC Tags"/"Vorbis Comments" spec (http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html) which states that:
Quote
The comment header logically is a list of eight-bit-clean vectors; [...]. The vector length is encoded; the vector contents themselves are not null terminated.
Unfortunately this breaks or confuses some of the other tag reading/editing software that I want to use (such as Jaikoz), and makes moving the files to other platforms a problem.
If I convert the files using the standard FLAC 1.2.1b release, I get clean tags, but this doesn't give me the full set of metadata that MC passes through to other formats.

2) If I set "Use OGG as transport layer" to off (in an attempt to avoid the null-terminated tags problem), the conversions break entirely.
A relevant log file extract is:
Quote
Media Center; Version: 17.0.106; Types: 1537
0037625: 3164: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Start
0037625: 3164: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Change: 1; UI Mode: -999
0037625: 3164: General: CMCUICore::GetEnableMonitorChange: Finish (result: 1) (0 ms)
0040282: 3164: General: CMCResourceHelper::GetIsModalPopupShowing: Menu showing
0042188: 3164: General: CMCUICore::GetPopupShowing: popup showing=TRUE, window class name=#32770
0043657: 3164: General: CMCUICore::GetPopupShowing: popup showing=TRUE, window class name=#32770
0043672: 1056: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::CFlacEncoder: Start
0043672: 1056: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::CFlacEncoder: Finish (0 ms)
0043672: 1056: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::CFlacEncoder: Start
0043672: 1056: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::CFlacEncoder: Finish (0 ms)
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: Start
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased:   m_nFileSize is now 81602640
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: Passed WaveFormatEx valid
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: nSamples is now 20400660
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: Successfully completed Encoder setup
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: Setting up MetaData blocks
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: Adding SeekTable
0043719: 256: Encoders: EncoderImpl::SetSeekTable(&st, 20400660, 0)
: Start
0043719: 256: Encoders: EncoderImpl::SetSeekTable(&st, 20400660, 0)
: Finish (0 ms)
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased:     Adding Padding Block
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: Initializing the encoder with the following settings:
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: bits per sample = 16
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: verify          = True
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: ERROR - Failed to init
0043719: 256: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::StartBufferBased: Finish (0 ms)
0043719: 1056: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::~CFlacEncoder: Start
0043719: 1056: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::~CFlacEncoder: Finish (0 ms)
0043719: 1056: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::~CFlacEncoder: Start
0043719: 1056: Encoders: CFlacEncoder::~CFlacEncoder: Finish (0 ms)

I'm running Windows 7, 64-bit.

Regards
Brian
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Brian

Alex B

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FLAC transcoding problem
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2012, 03:58:47 am »

When I try to transcode any of my collection of lossless audio files from Monkey's Audio (.ape) to FLAC, I'm getting one of two problems, depending on settings.

1) If I set "Use OGG as transport layer" to off (the default), I get a successful transcode of the audio, but the metadata tags are all Null-terminated strings.
This is counter to the "FLAC Tags"/"Vorbis Comments" spec (http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html) which states that:Unfortunately this breaks or confuses some of the other tag reading/editing software that I want to use (such as Jaikoz), and makes moving the files to other platforms a problem.
If I convert the files using the standard FLAC 1.2.1b release, I get clean tags, but this doesn't give me the full set of metadata that MC passes through to other formats.

Here's a couple of past threads/posts in which FLAC + null termination is mentioned:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=61542
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49155.msg338471#msg338471

Could you please start a new thread for this issue? (EDIT: an administrator already took care of this.)

Quote
2) If I set "Use OGG as transport layer" to off (in an attempt to avoid the null-terminated tags problem), the conversions break entirely.

I guess you actually mean on.

The "Use OGG as transport layer" option is a relic from the past. It is supposed to create OGG container files that contain FLAC encoded audio. MC has never supported playback of such files and the option should probably be removed (regardless if it works correctly or not) or alternatively playback support should be added.
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