[slim] Re: Itunes and aiif
One mild warning about ripping to aiff files: There seems to be some sort of issue in more recent versions of Slimserver with not reading all the tag information correctly (for me, at least). If I have use iTunes turned off, Slimserver seems to only sporadically pick up certain tag fields (disk #, composer, occasionally even some more common fields), sometimes doing different things for different tracks of the same CD. It DOES seem to work properly if I have use iTunes turned on, but then it isn't really reading track info from the files, but from your iTunes XML file. (Why would you want to set use iTunes off? Well, for example, I don't want my audiobooks to show up in Slimserver, so I keep them in a separate directory and just have Slimserver scan the music folder. I wish I knew a different way to exclude a genre from Slimserver without affecting iTunes...) I did try to bring this up with Slimdevices tech support, but was told that Slimserver didn't support tags in aiff files and they were just like wav files, where it tries to figure out the info from directory structure. This clearly is not the case (otherwise how could it pick up composer info for at least SOME tracks?), but the person I was emailing lost interest when I found that setting use iTunes on would take care of things, so I doubt anybody is actually looking into the intermittent way tag info is read. I have heard rumors that the next version of OS X (Leopard) might support FLAC files natively. If that DOES turn out to be true, then I will be converting everything over to FLAC's, but for the time being aiff's seem a decent choice, if you have the disk space. -- mmcguff mmcguff's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5278 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31176 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Why use iTunes
One thing that I think a lot of people aren't really aware of is that, while aiff and wav files are functionally similar (i.e., uncompressed formats and I believe they are actually just minor variants of each other), iTunes treats them differently in one VERY important way. If you rip directly into iTunes, it will tag both formats and allow you to add/modify tags for other files not ripped into iTunes. However, for wav files, that information is stored in the iTunes database file, not in the sound file itself. For aiff files, this information is stored in the actual audio file (even under Windows). So, if you rip to wav's and rearrange (or move) your audio library in some other program (or move the library from one computer to another), iTunes will lose most of those tags. If you always use iTunes to manage/move files (and keep your iTunes database backed up), then this probably won't be that big a deal. However, with aiff files all the tagging info is stored in the file, so it doesn't matter if you have to do some library maintenance outside of iTunes; when you rescan, it's all still there. Other programs (including Slimserver) can read those tags as well (though I'm not sure that other programs would be able to modify those tags). I discovered this when I first started ripping a couple of years ago, but don't see it mentioned in many of these discussions. Since I was still experimenting with different storage strategies (internal vs. external vs. network drives), this became an important issue for me. This was before ALAC came out, so I'm not sure if I were starting all over today whether I would still go aiff, but I suspect I would. If you use an iPod, FLAC files won't work, so that would require an extra transcoding step to use those files on an iPod. ALAC would work, but last I checked, the Squeezebox doesn't support FF or RWD within ALAC files (aiff files are fine). WAV really has no advantages I can see over aiff and the (to me) very important disadvantage I mentioned. I have considered moving to FLAC anyway, but iTunes doesn't support it and there really don't seem to be all that many other alternatives on a Mac (I use both Mac's and Windows, so the dual-platform nature of iTunes is a real advantage). -- mmcguff mmcguff's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5278 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27729 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Library Scan fails
This may not do any good for you, but I found a similar problem myself recently (though I'm running a Mac Slimserver with music on a Terastation NAS) where the library was completely blank after a a delete all rescan. I quit Slimserver, went in and deleted slimserversql.db and related files (not sure where it is in Windows, but it is under Caches in OS X) and restarted Slimserver. After a complete rescan, everything showed up once again. I have no idea what happened, but nothing I did from within Slimserver seemed to do any good. (This is with Slimserver 6.3, by the way.) Out of curiosity, I just started another rescan from scratch and everything seems to be working fine now. Perhaps the slimserversql.db file got corrupted somehow? You might give this a try anyway... -- mmcguff mmcguff's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5278 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=24573 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Mac Slimserver more resource hungry than Windows?
Thanks for the suggestions. I discovered that something appears to be screwed up with the 6.3 nightlies for Mac; once it finally occurred to me to try 6.2.2, I was able to install without any problem and, after sucking up system resources rescanning my files (yet again), I seem to be up and running now. I'll see if I have problems with dropouts any more, but I appear to not be suffering from the runaway server sucking up all available CPU time like 6.5 was (for me at least). If this one seems stable, I think I'll wait a good long time before trying 6.5 again... I'm hoping that an Intel dual core Mac mini will be a bit snappier when I'm doing other things than my Powerbook, though. Thanks again for the comments. -- mmcguff mmcguff's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5278 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23492 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Mac Slimserver more resource hungry than Windows?
My Win 2000 server died the other day. I COULD fix it, but I have been looking for an excuse to move to a Mac Mini (Intel, dual core) for my server, so this seemed like a good time to do that. So, to test things out, I installed Slimserver on my Powerbook (1.25 GHz G4, 1.5 Gb). I had been using 6.5 on Windows, so I went with that for the Mac. Under Windows (2 GHz Athlon, 512 Meg), I wasn't having any real problems with dropouts. On my Powerbook, I have been having constant dropouts. Since both servers were wired, wireless reception should be identical. It will play a track or so, then it will just play a fraction of a second and then freeze for 10-30 secodns, then play another fraction, etc. During this time, response to the remote control is glacial, at best. (Oddly enough, even after power off, it continues to play for another stutter or two.) So, this brings up a few questions: 1) Is this NORMAL on a Mac? If not (hopefully), does anyone have any ideas what is going on here? Further system details: Streaming from 4/29 nightly of 6.5 (also tried 6/22, I think) to one SB2 and one SB3. Same problems on each. Internet radio works fine, but streaming AIFF (like WAV) files has the problem. OS X 10.4.6. The activity monitor shows perl pegged between 50-80% pretty consistently with NOTHING being streamed. It appears to have finished rescanning my library (6000 traks on external Firewire drive, though same problems with network monted Terastation), so I have no idea what it is doing; there isn't even any web server access. If I have other resource hungry apps running, the stuttering just fades away into no sound at all. I don't see anything unusual in the log. 2) How do you downgrade to an earlier version on the Mac? I tried just deleting the prefpane (in /Library), but when I tried installing an earlier 6.3, the server would never start. When I replaced that with the 6.5 install, it at least started again. I imagine there must be something else I have to delete, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about the Mac Slimserver to know what. 3) So, are the new Intel Mac Minis (with lots of memory) going to be signficantly more capable than my Powerbook for this? I would like to be able to use it as both a server and my desktop machine (web, email, Dreamweaver, no fancy graphics) without things bogging down. Any help/suggestions/opinions would be appreciated. Thanks. -- mmcguff mmcguff's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5278 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23492 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Mac Slimserver more resource hungry than Windows?
radish Wrote: Is it reading/updating iTunes? No, I actually have iTunes sync turned off entirely. danco Wrote: As regards downgrading, I think there is a difference in the database file. Im addition to deleting the preference pane, you should probably delete the SlimServer preferences (this may not be needed) in the Preferences section of your Library at com.slimdevices.slim.plist. and the database at silimserversql.db in the SlimServer section of the Caches. Thanks. I just tried that, but the server still won't start if I load 6.3 (the log has lots of Compilation failed at require in... in it). If I reload 6.5, it will load. At first, CPU usage isn't too bad; however, once I start playing a track, it goes in and starts sucking up all the remaining CPU time and skipping. Sigh... -- mmcguff mmcguff's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5278 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23492 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
