Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Woodnut thanks for the reply. i looked at EAC but it was trying to get me to pay even though it's supposed to be free! i then looked at dbpoweramp and it was easy. i ripped flac at the standard setting of 5 i've not got the touch yet and the hard drive is on order. When i was ripping for the first time ever last night, beatles albums were taking around 5 mins and oasis/modern takes about 10 mins, real easy to use! I'll have a look round today for the best prices for the touch. Cheers Chris -- silvermilnec silvermilnec's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38940 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
spile;558451 Wrote: You surely have that the wrong way round? EAC is free, there is no chargable option. DBPA is the non-free product. That's what i thought! i must have done something wrong. To be honest the DBPA was so easy to use and quick i might just keep that. Can someone explain how i can have a album in flac for the touch and then the same album in mp3 for the ipod/iphone, can i make an mp3 from the flac file? do i keep the mp3 in the same place as the flac or hold it in a different file? I'm sure that doesn't make any sence but hoppefully someone knows what i'm on about. Cheers Chris -- silvermilnec silvermilnec's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38940 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
silvermilnec;558457 Wrote: That's what i thought! i must have done something wrong. To be honest the DBPA was so easy to use and quick i might just keep that. Can someone explain how i can have a album in flac for the touch and then the same album in mp3 for the ipod/iphone, can i make an mp3 from the flac file? do i keep the mp3 in the same place as the flac or hold it in a different file? I'm sure that doesn't make any sence but hoppefully someone knows what i'm on about. Cheers Chris It makes a lot of sense and many people have duplicate libraries for various devices. I don't use DBPA but I know it has a batch converter option so you could easily convert an entire library of tagged FLACS to a separate MP3 library. -- toby10 toby10's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12553 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
toby10;558460 Wrote: It makes a lot of sense and many people have duplicate libraries for various devices. I don't use DBPA but I know it has a batch converter option so you could easily convert an entire library of tagged FLACS to a separate MP3 library. Yes, one of the dbpa probrams is the batch converter. Open it, point to the top level of your FLAC directory and a few mouse clicks and you can convert your entire flac archive to a separate directory containing mp3 files. They have a good forum as well for any questions you might have. p.s. this is what I do (FLAC for home and archive, mp3 (lame -V2) for ipods/iphone. -- garym garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
cheers for the replies -- silvermilnec silvermilnec's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38940 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Hello silvermilnec, To answer your question on how I am getting on with the touch... I found it easy to get setup and did so without any problems. I have started ripping my CDs using EAC which is taking a long time per CD but I think it is worth it. I Have only done around 15 albums so far and have ripped in FLAC level 0 as I thought this would give the Touch CPU the easiest time decoding and I think I should be fine for space. So far so good, no problems connecting. The only thing I can't really get my head around is accessing the touch from my computer to move new music to the attached harddrive. As for sound quality, into my DAC it sounds amazing. A real step up from my TEAC CD transport. I guess this is partly due to the SB Touch and partly the use of EAC. For sound quality alone I am blown away. Very smooth! -- woodnut woodnut's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38846 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Thanks. Does the file format FAT32 or NTFS make a difference to the Touch in terms of ease of access? I am tempted to rip the Flac files at 0 if this helps the Touch decode the Flacs more easily. I have read conflicting reports on this all over the web some say the decoding is nearly the same for all levels, some say 0-2 is better for ease of decoding. I read a report where a user claimed that anything above 0 intruduced jitter caused by the CPU having to work harder. I guess the NAS is something for the future if I run into problems. I really want to avoid having the computer on if it is possible. -- woodnut woodnut's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38846 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
woodnut;557328 Wrote: Thanks. Does the file format FAT32 or NTFS make a difference to the Touch in terms of ease of access? I am tempted to rip the Flac files at 0 if this helps the Touch decode the Flacs more easily. I have read conflicting reports on this all over the web some say the decoding is nearly the same for all levels, some say 0-2 is better for ease of decoding. I read a report where a user claimed that anything above 0 intruduced jitter caused by the CPU having to work harder. I guess the NAS is something for the future if I run into problems. I really want to avoid having the computer on if it is possible. 1. 99% of what you read about jitter on the internet is wrong, wrong, wrong. 2. compressing at zero is really a waste of space. I keep up with these discussions, and I've only seen serious discussion about issues with more than 5 on hi-rez files. If you use 5, you should be good to go. I use 5 for my flac files (with embedded album art). Remember FLAC is lossless. If you ripped at 5 and decided later that you wanted 0, you simply point and click at a batch of your files (50,000 even), and go away for 48 hours. When you return you'll have new FLAC files with a different compression. This is the beauty of having lossless to begin with. I used dbpa to convert all my FLAC -8 files to FLAC -5, with two or three mouse clicks. 3. Search this forum for comments on NAS's. Remember a NAS is a computer, just a small one. If you want a small computer to run your SB, consider the vortexbox appliance, an atom nettop, or a sheevaplug. And of course the beauty of SB stuff, is that your computer/NAS/harddrive can be in a completely different location than the SB. -- garym garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Thanks again for those recommendations. The SheevaPlug looks very interesting and not too expesnive either. Maybe one for the future. Yes I did take the jitter comments with a pinch of salt but was interested in hearing any further thoughts on compression levels and how this affects decoding. I haven't yet received my Toshiba 1TB external USB drive yet but does anyone know if it is a standard feature for all modern drives that the sleep modes can be adjusted or turned off? If the sleep mode causes issues with playback as some have reported I hope this is user adjustable on the drive I have bought. Thanks. -- woodnut woodnut's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38846 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
woodnut;557358 Wrote: Thanks again for those recommendations. The SheevaPlug looks very interesting and not too expesnive either. Maybe one for the future. Yes I did take the jitter comments with a pinch of salt but was interested in hearing any further thoughts on compression levels and how this affects decoding. I haven't yet received my Toshiba 1TB external USB drive yet but does anyone know if it is a standard feature for all modern drives that the sleep modes can be adjusted or turned off? If the sleep mode causes issues with playback as some have reported I hope this is user adjustable on the drive I have bought. Thanks. If jitter is an issue for you, then buy a Transporter. The Touch is completely fine for 99% of the Users out there, so don't worry about jitter with the Touch for you're not going to be able to hear any jitter during playback. As for FLAC compression, I am of the opinion it has NO affect on audio quality for the file is the file is the file IE music in the form of ones and zeros. After the lossless file is decompressed the ones and zeros are identical to the original CD that was ripped no matter what level of compression that was selected. Unlike MP3 where the file is no longer a copy of the original because data has been thrown away to make the file smaller, FLAC uses file compression similar to how one uses Zip to make a Word doc smaller to send over the Internet. So again, how can there be any impact on audio quality? The compression level in my mind has two main effects, one is the amount of disk space required for the file and two being the amount of CPU processing power needed to decompress the file. Zero means one needs loads of disk space and very little CPU time while -8 means least amount of hard drive space but loads of CPU time and a better processor. Its a compromise no matter what one picks but NOT a compromise in audio quality no matter what one picks. If one uses -5, this subject can basically be swept aside and the music enjoyed! Don't worry about the Toshiba USB drive. Get your music on it after it comes, let Touch scan it, and enjoy the music. If you see issues when coming back to the Touch with it not wanting to start playing music, then we can look at sleep/spin down but only if its a problem. What is that movie line, There is nothing to worry about until there is something to worry about!. -- iPhone *iPhone* Media Room: Transporter, VTL TL-6.5 Signature Pre-Amp, Ayre MX-R Mono's, VeraStarr 6.4SE 6-channel Amp, Vandersteen Speakers: Quatro Mains, VCC-5 Reference Center, four VSM-1 Signatures, Video: Runco RS 900 CineWide AutoScope 2.35:1 Living Room: Duet, ADCOM GTP-870HD, Cinepro 3K6SE III Gold, Vandersteen Model 3A Signature, Two 2Wq subs, VCC-2, Two VSM-1 Kitchen: Squeezebox BOOM Bedroom: Second Boom Bathroom: Squeezebox Radio Ford Thunderbird: Duet, Mac Mini Ford Expedition: SB Touch, USB drive iPhone's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13622 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
It seems to me that Touch playback from USB is in the realms of Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. About all you can do is try it see what happens. Maybe it will work as you want maybe it won't. Unfortunately nobody, apparently not even Logitech, can provide details of a configuration that is guaranteed to work as you want it to. I tried one with both a mains powered Seagate Freeagent 750GB a bus powered Samsung S2. The results were identical. Painfully slow scans, random hanging, disjointed playback of playlists random selections. I'm in the process of trying to return mine. -- rbz5416 rbz5416's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12089 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Hello all, Many many thanks for all of your replies, I am fairly new to using FLAC files and was unaware there were different levels of compression. Is 5 an average level that won't put too much strain on the processor of the Touch? Would a lower level give me a better chance of smooth operation? I have not noticed controls to adjust sleep times for external hard drives I have used in the past, does anyone know if this is a standard option for all external hard drives? I am wondering whether I will be able to disable or adjust this on the Toshiba I have ordered. Flac is definitely what I shall use given the advice received here and I shall rip with EAC using MP3tag to tag the files. I won't bother with any artwork and shall try and keep everything neat and simple to give the Touch the best chance of smooth operation. Fingers crossed it will work as the external USB drive option is the most attractive feature and the main reason for this purchase. Cheers. -- woodnut woodnut's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38846 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
FLAC compression is 0 to 8. 5 seems to be the default average. All levels of compression are LOSSLESS, it is just a function of how much space is saved. And yes, the more compressed, the more work the decoder does. This said, I've not seen any problems with the 5 level. And even the 8 level is fine for non-hirez files based on most reports. This said, I recommend the 5 level. It is a relatively small size file (for FLAC) and easy to decode for most players. I'm not sure I would give up the artwork. Just have EAC put the album cover in the album directory (this would be a single jpg file). I really doubt the use of artwork is going to be a problem for you. And you will eventually regret not having the artwork associated with your albums. I've always ignored all the USB drive setup info myself as well. But I'm sure you can find info on your drive when it arrives (either in the instructions or online). enjoy! woodnut;556989 Wrote: Hello all, Many many thanks for all of your replies, I am fairly new to using FLAC files and was unaware there were different levels of compression. Is 5 an average level that won't put too much strain on the processor of the Touch? Would a lower level give me a better chance of smooth operation? I have not noticed controls to adjust sleep times for external hard drives I have used in the past, does anyone know if this is a standard option for all external hard drives? I am wondering whether I will be able to disable or adjust this on the Toshiba I have ordered. Flac is definitely what I shall use given the advice received here and I shall rip with EAC using MP3tag to tag the files. I won't bother with any artwork and shall try and keep everything neat and simple to give the Touch the best chance of smooth operation. Fingers crossed it will work as the external USB drive option is the most attractive feature and the main reason for this purchase. Cheers. -- garym garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
I have 1300 albums in flac + album art on a 500g Lacie USB drive attached to my Touch. The Lacie has it's own power. It just works. The only time I've run into buffering issues is in playback of 24/96 hi-res files. Interestingly, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't so I'm not sure what the issue is. I haven't tried yet to recompress those flac files from -5 to a lower number to see if that would make a difference. -- mdconnelly Mike mdconnelly's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10312 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
The latest firmware that comes with 7.5.1 has some flac decoder enhancements that should help to alleviate the problems some have found with hi rez flac decoding. BEFORE this upgrade 24/96 flacs with -8 compression played off an attached USB drive had a fairly high probability of having problems. Unfortunately several of the online music download services encode their hi rez flac files with -8. There have been reports that the new firmware allows these to play fine. Flacs encoded at -5 have had far less problems and ones encoded at -0 almost never have a problem. Regular 44.1 flac files have also not had any problems. John S. -- JohnSwenson JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
woodnut;556989 Wrote: Hello all, Many many thanks for all of your replies, I am fairly new to using FLAC files and was unaware there were different levels of compression. Is 5 an average level that won't put too much strain on the processor of the Touch? Would a lower level give me a better chance of smooth operation? I have not noticed controls to adjust sleep times for external hard drives I have used in the past, does anyone know if this is a standard option for all external hard drives? I am wondering whether I will be able to disable or adjust this on the Toshiba I have ordered. Cheers. I am of the opinion that -5 FLAC Ripping is just a good all around compromise. As in going to -6 through -8 really doesn't save that much more space on a hard drive (not enough because large drives are cheap and the CPU price that must be paid) but really adds to the load on the CPU. At zero there is basically hardly any CPU load and one better have lots of disk space. -5 is a good compromise between 0 and -8. I am using Toshiba drives with the Touch without issue. Hopefully you will have the same luck/results. -- iPhone *iPhone* Media Room: Transporter, VTL TL-6.5 Signature Pre-Amp, Ayre MX-R Mono's, VeraStarr 6.4SE 6-channel Amp, Vandersteen Speakers: Quatro Mains, VCC-5 Reference Center, four VSM-1 Signatures, Video: Runco RS 900 CineWide AutoScope 2.35:1 Living Room: Duet, ADCOM GTP-870HD, Cinepro 3K6SE III Gold, Vandersteen Model 3A Signature, Two 2Wq subs, VCC-2, Two VSM-1 Kitchen: Squeezebox BOOM Bedroom: Second Boom Bathroom: Squeezebox Radio Ford Thunderbird: Duet, Mac Mini Ford Expedition: SB Touch, USB drive iPhone's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13622 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
JohnSwenson;557030 Wrote: ... Unfortunately several of the online music download services encode their hi rez flac files with -8. ... John S. Ah! I wasn't aware of that and that could very well have been the problem I was running in to since they were flacs that I downloaded from the a couple online hi-res sites. I'll take a closer look when I get home tonight. I agree that flacs at -5 are a good compromise and going to -8 may very well create more issues than benefits. -- mdconnelly Mike mdconnelly's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10312 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Many thanks for all the really useful information an tips. Can't wait to get the touch, I am pretty determined to get it to work for me. One other factor which occurred to me is the hard drive format, will this affect performance FAT32 or NTFS? The Toshiba I ordered is FAT32. Should I leave it or reformat? I think there is a 4GB file limit per file on FAT32. I may be jumping the gun a bit here but would using the Touch with a NAS be a much smoother and more stable option with a large library? The reason I ask is that I have just read that the external Toshiba USB HDD that I have just purchased ( http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145041 ) is actually a Western Digital WD10EAVS Sata 1TB drive in a toshiba enclosure. Does that mean that I could put this drive into a NAS enclosure at a later date for the fully functional and presumably more stable SB software running from the NAS rather than TinySC? I don't know much about NAS drives and whether or not they are easy to set up with the touch but I have seen a couple of NAS enclosures for around £50 in the UK. ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arkara-Gigalan-Entry-SingleBay-Enclosure/dp/B00375MXN2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8s=electronicsqid=1277242080sr=8-1 ) Would this Arkara Gigalan Entry Level SingleBay NAS Enclosure (or something similar in price) run the SB software and take my Toshiba Sata 1TB drive? Many thanks! Sorry the above question is a bit off my original topic. -- woodnut woodnut's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38846 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
My advice is to keep things simple. Managing a NAS has it's own headaches and a collection of 800 CDs is probably only going to take about 300+ gig in flac, so no real need for a NAS I wouldn't think. But do be sure to by a spare drive to backup your the hard disk. Depending upon your setup, you may find that running SqueezeCenter and feeding the Touch via wired or wireless from your LAN might be just as good as running TinySC. There are a few benefits from doing so such as browser access to SqueezeCenter and some of the plugins, but it does require you to keep you computer running SqueezeCenter up all the time. Not such a bad thing. -- mdconnelly Mike mdconnelly's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10312 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
The touch plays FLAC natively, so not sure you gain anything with WAV files. -- garym garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Hello, Thanks for the reply. I am just getting my head around all of this. So lossless FLAC poses no greater stress on the Touch and TinySC than an uncompressed WAV? I thought that as it had to uncompress the FLAC file this ate up processing power. -- woodnut woodnut's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38846 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
woodnut;556862 Wrote: Hello, Thanks for the reply. I am just getting my head around all of this. So lossless FLAC poses no greater stress on the Touch and TinySC than an uncompressed WAV? I thought that as it had to uncompress the FLAC file this ate up processing power. read this post (and thread). Note that the issue in most of this thread is when headphones are plugged in. http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=535660postcount=25 Others should chime in, but if you are asking about whether the TOUCH running tinySC will work fine with FLAC, the answer is yes. The threads you are likely reading are more related to sound quality at the upper end of the quality perspective, of which it likely requires golden ears and very, very, very good equipment to detect these differences (and reasonable people even debate whether any of these differences, if they exist, are audible). You can drive yourself crazy thinking too hard about the threads on power supplies, CPU decoding interference, PCM vs FLAC vs WAV, etc. These topics are interesting, but way beyond the basic issue of will the TOUCH play bit perfect FLAC files well into either analog outputs or digital outputs using the tinySC software. A more important issue for you at the moment is the CD ripping itself. You want to do this once, and do it right. You need a secure ripper, preferably one with accuraterip. In windows, this means EAC or dbpoweramp (not itunes or WMP). I use dbpoweramp. Mp3tag will also be your friend for tag work after ripping, if needed. I rip to FLAC and then create mp3 copy for use on ipods, etc. And WAV doesn't have standard tagging. So FLAC is also better in that regard. -- garym garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Many thanks Garym, It is not the quality of the playback that I am worried about at this moment but more the user reported issues when using an external hard disk with the touch. I have read many posts where larger libraries put too much strain on the Touch and TinySC causing dropouts, stutters, misreads, endless scans etc. I wondered if ripping in WAV would help with the Touch's underpowered processing capacity, especially with larger libraries. -- woodnut woodnut's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=38846 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
woodnut;556870 Wrote: Many thanks Garym, It is not the quality of the playback that I am worried about at this moment but more the user reported issues when using an external hard disk with the touch. I have read many posts where larger libraries put too much strain on the Touch and TinySC causing dropouts, stutters, misreads, endless scans etc. I wondered if ripping in WAV would help with the Touch's underpowered processing capacity, especially with larger libraries. I can't really answer the question based on personal knowledge. Hopefully someone else can chime in. I have a touch, but use my SbS to stream to it. I can say I set up a Touch for my brother and he uses the tinySC. He has a 500GB harddrive attached to it and has about 54,000 mp3 files and it works perfectly for him. you might search for IPHONE posts on this topic. I recall he had a beta touch and used the internal server for a very large FLAC library. edit: and I understand that much of the buffering, etc. was with hi-rez files. -- garym garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
I have been using an attached hard drive for about a month now. Every weekend I add anywhere between 20 to 30 gb of music (50/50 mp3/FLAC) to the 200gb already stored on it from my music collection on my NAS. This is the same music that has always worked with my Touch/PC/NAS arrangement, except I deleted all the non-music files except for one cover.jpg for each directory. The attached drive uses external power because the Touch doesn't supply enough power for it to work right (not a big deal to me). I really haven't witnessed any buffering problems or error messages. So, I suggest, for quick and dirty ripping, rip to mp3 but if you want to conserve music quality rip to FLAC using moderate compression. -- carib carib's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=34240 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
Just my opinion, but if already in WAV, convert to FLAC. If ripping for the first time (or re-ripping) rip to FLAC at -5. Touch handles FLAC as native. And as for large HHD, it is my opinion that external powered drives are best. The issues I have seen with external drives have been the power saving features of those drives and how that affects the expected performance of the Touch as in if the drive goes to sleep or likes to spin down every couple of minutes. My large Seagate USB was giving me fits until I disabled all the power saving/sleep crap. If you run into issues, call or email Tech Support or tell us what is happening and the Forum Members will try to troubleshoot it. It was straight forward for me, but I was in the Beta and went through all the growing pains from the beginning when one had to SSH into the Touch to run lines of code to get it to mount the drive, scan the drive, start TinySC. Those days are now long gone. Sometimes I wish everybody could have used it back then to see really how far its come and all the work, ease, and features the guys have added now. -- iPhone *iPhone* Media Room: Transporter, VTL TL-6.5 Signature Pre-Amp, Ayre MX-R Mono's, VeraStarr 6.4SE 6-channel Amp, Vandersteen Speakers: Quatro Mains, VCC-5 Reference Center, four VSM-1 Signatures, Video: Runco RS 900 CineWide AutoScope 2.35:1 Living Room: Duet, ADCOM GTP-870HD, Cinepro 3K6SE III Gold, Vandersteen Model 3A Signature, Two 2Wq subs, VCC-2, Two VSM-1 Kitchen: Squeezebox BOOM Bedroom: Second Boom Bathroom: Squeezebox Radio Ford Thunderbird: Duet, Mac Mini Ford Expedition: SB Touch, USB drive iPhone's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13622 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
Re: [SlimDevices: Touch] Touch Standalone with HDD Which File Format?
woodnut;556852 Wrote: Hello all, After spending hours and hours reading reviews and forum posts on the Squeezebox touch, I have today bitten the bullet and ordered one. I have also ordered a 1TB external HDD as I intend (like many others) to attempt to use the Touch without a computer (except to rip my CD collection). I am of course very worried about about the many user reports of problems when using an external USB HDD, and admit that I have placed the order against my better judgement given the posts I have read. I am crossing my fingers that it will work, as it is exactly what I am looking for if it will work in this way. I really don't want to have the computer involved with my HiFi, apart from the initial ripping of CD albums. My main question is this: If I can fit my CD collection (or the majority of it) onto my HDD in Wav uncompressed format rather than FLAC will this reduce the strain on the Touch being used as a server and hence decrease my chances of running into issues with buffering, dropouts etc.? My CD collection is very roughly around 800 albums. I don't intend to use the album artwork feature and 99% of the files will be CD quality as my external DAC can't handle high def files, though I may get a few just to see how they sound through the Touch's DAC. The HDD won't be used for storing anything else apart from music for the Touch. The HDD I have ordered is : Toshiba StorE Alu 1TB External Hard Drive USB 2.0 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145041 It runs from it's own power adapter which I realise is one possible problem area. If anyone has any comments on this external hard drives suitability also that would be great! Many thanks in advance for your time and comments By using a powered drive it's plausible that you bypassed most of the troubles peoples are seeing, many USB powered drives are notUSB certified and draws more power than the USB standard specifies and the Touch can provide (many pc's actually provides more power than standard) . Look here: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Squeezebox_Touch_as_a_Home_Music_Server http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Setting_Up_Squeezebox_Touch_Server Choosing FLAC as file formats is good to, given thats it's the format with best support in squeezeboxes and squeezeboxserver . Encoding thoose at -5 and use reasonable sized cover art 500*500 in jpg format. Organize the albums in folders on the drive artis/albums/songs and put a cover.jpg file in each folder (this being the cover art), Maybe you should not embed cover art in each file but use the cover.jpg approach, nothing wrong with embedded art (I use it all the time) but Touch as a server is not that fast so scanning takes time . If you use EAC or dBp + mp3tag you will get you metadata in order pls do not mix tagging standards in the files Ie both FLAC tags and id3v(1) tags in the same file . Do not bother with cue sheets and whatnots . WAV and tagging is not that well supported . Oh the wiki links might not be perfectly up to date the do some changes from time to time. -- Mnyb Main hifi: Touch + CIA PS +MeridianG68J MeridianHD621 and assorted amps SiriuS, Classe' Primare and Dynadio speakers, Contour 4 Contour Center, and Contour 1.3SE for the rear ch. Rel Stadium 3 sub. Bedroom/Office: Boom Kitchen: SB3 + powered Fostex PM0.4 Miscellaneous use: Radio (with battery) I use a Controller various ir-remotes and a Eee-PC with squeezeplay to control this Mnyb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4143 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=79896 ___ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
