DSD transcoding to lossy formats

General Discussions
1

Hello,

I have a small collection of .DSF files in my library but find they’re “transcoding DSD_LSBF_PLANAR to AAC” on an iOS 11.0.3 device (which supports FLAC, ALAC, WAV) and Firefox Quantum beta 10 on Windows 10. I’m wondering if there’s a way we can get DSD transcoding to a lossless PCM format directly, such as 24/88.1, or if there is a configuration problem I’m not seeing as I don’t see much discussion on the problem I’m having… thanks

2

Alright, so it looks like I have to do this myself. Let’s start with my Chromecast Audio device.

Currently everything DSD transcodes to Opus when cast to this device. So by creating a local version of Chromecast.xml and changing the line:

<MusicProfile container="mkv" codec="opus" />

to

<MusicProfile container="flac" codec="flac" />

Plex now states it’s transcoding DSD_LSBF_PLANAR to FLAC. Great! Except it crashes the Chromecast Audio and the iOS app and doesn’t work at all now when playing DSF files. Probably because of this little problem:

Oct 29, 2017 18:16:04.860 [5136] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=86797 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=84941 part=(id=131677 decision=transcode protocol=http streams=(Audio=(id=184501 decision=transcode bitrate=2147483647 encoder=flac channels=2 rate=352800))))

bitrate=2147483647 encoder=flac channels=2 rate=352800

Also found during the conversion:

-codec:0 flac -ar:0 352800

Chromecast Audio probably can’t handle a 352,800 KHz sample rate (spec is max 96k) so let’s add this in:

<VideoAudioCodec name="*">
                      <Limitations>
                        <UpperBound name="audio.samplingRate" value="96000" />
                      </Limitations>
</VideoAudioCodec>

This did nothing to help. Putting just name=“flac” also didn’t do anything. So I’m wondering how we can get Plex to stop trying to pass this huge sample rate to ffmpeg.

3

You are way ahead of me. I too have some 6 channel DSF files. While they play on the various player apps {Windows, Xbox one, iOS and android) the quality is horrific! The PS4 player appears to be playing in 6 channels, but again very poor quality.

Can you tell me where you are making these line adjustments?

My chromecast audio doesn’t playback the 5 channel audio at all, however I’ll hook up my optical cable as output to the receiver and test.

Thanks for the info. I hope plex evolves towards an audiophile DSD-capable player as well.