Is there a timeline for providing support for flac on Windows and mobile platforms? Now that Windows 10 supports flac, I am going to re-rip all my CDs to flac format.
The native OS support for FLAC has no relevance for the Plex environment.
That being said, Flac is currently being read by the server just fine. If you however want lossless playback in the client, this is only possible with Plex Home Theater at the moment.
All other clients, especially the mobile ones, get an automatically converted 320 kbps mp3 from the server at playback time.
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Maybe I’m doing something wrong. I was using Plex on Windows 10, and a FLAC
recordings would not play. Windows 10 is where my Plex server is running. I
started the Plex app and tried to play the FLAC files. Nothing happened.
Gary
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Please define what you mean by “plex app”
there is
- the media manager (also called plex web)
- plex home theater
- the plex app for windows (app store / metro)
Which is it?
also the mediainfo XML of your flac would be interesting
Media manager.
@gwthornt said:
Media manager.
Which then begs the next question: which browser do you use?
well this is somewhat awkward. Plex is making allot of public relation with that they have super quality when you play something and then they are using the shittiest format (MP3) for audio? I mean the second format is form Apple (yes M4A uses AAC) but they coming form the opensource side but dont implement FREE CODECs?
I dont know about enterprise polictics but this is in my eyes the wrong way. They just picked the most used formats but did not implement real quality. I mean hello, MP3 for music? Everything gets compressed and you
are loosing allot of quality.
I mean rather to implement cloud stuff or connection to all those different remote shares or support for documents Plex should finally implement free lossless codec support for Audio AND Video. I also rather see less device support and more work on the quality side (Server software).
How they push plex enterprise right now is just to get more money as more ppl are using it, nothing else. Because this is not going on for almost 2 years, where they are telling us the support will come. I mean even ogg vorbis is not supported.
Did you even read this thread?
Flac files are being read and played just fine. It depends totally on the client whether it gets served the original Flac or a transcoded MP3.
If you use PHT, you get flac.
If you use one of the mobile clients or a web browser you get an mp3 (automatically converted from your original flac on the server), because these do not support flac.
I have several 10.000 files of flacs on my Plex server - I know they work.
@OttoKerner said:
@gwthornt said:
Media manager.Which then begs the next question: which browser do you use?
I am trying to play flacc files on Windows 10 through the Plex media manager. They will not play. I have tried Chrome and Edge. Neither will play the files. The files were ripped with Windows 10 media player app. Anyone know why this is not working?
Gary
@gwthornt said:
The files were ripped with Windows 10 media player app.
Which media player app are you referring to? The one that comes with Windows 10 pre-installed?
I didn’t know it can rip discs as FLAC at all. Are you sure that what you have there are really FLAC files?
Please test these files in your own music library
http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-downloads-testfiles.aspx
My FLACS stopped playing after the last update
Every time they have updated they broke something - NO DLNA and no NO FLACS
Totally pissed off at this - paid good money and it is NOT doing much any more 
@OttoKerner said:
@gwthornt said:
The files were ripped with Windows 10 media player app.I didn’t know it can rip discs as FLAC at all. Are you sure that what you have there are really FLAC files?
I am sure this is correct too
Plex Media Server 0.9.16.3 on Ubuntu.
PlexMediaPlayer embedded 1.0.6.236 on Raspberry Pi2.
FLAC (and APE) playback over LAN is always transcoded here. Tried changing output from 7.1 to plain old stereo but still the dreaded transcode and 200% CPU use on my lame-o Celeron.
Had always assumed this was as intended but reading above it sounds like FLAC should be native?
EDIT: Media Info
Codec FLAC
Channels Stereo
Bitrate 883 kbps
Audio Channel Layout stereo
Bit Depth 16
Bitrate Mode VBR
Sampling Rate 44100Hz
@creise said:
FLAC (and APE) playback over LAN is always transcoded here. Tried changing output from 7.1 to plain old stereo but still the dreaded transcode and 200% CPU use on my lame-o Celeron.
Had always assumed this was as intended but reading above it sounds like FLAC should be native?
I can’t confirm that.
Unless you have forbidden ‘Direct Play’, playback should be untranscoded.
on the Pi: Settings - Video - Direct Play [x]
@OttoKerner said:
@creise said:
FLAC (and APE) playback over LAN is always transcoded here. Tried changing output from 7.1 to plain old stereo but still the dreaded transcode and 200% CPU use on my lame-o Celeron.
Had always assumed this was as intended but reading above it sounds like FLAC should be native?I can’t confirm that.
Unless you have forbidden ‘Direct Play’, playback should be untranscoded.
on the Pi: Settings - Video - Direct Play [x]
Thanks for the reply @OttoKerner.
Direct play/stream enabled. Digging a little deeper and trying some combinations of settings revealed that changing: ‘Audio > Device’ from [Auto Select] to [ALSA] halted the transcoding of FLAC.
Though now that I switch back to [Auto] to try to replicate the transcoding, it is still halted. Same media, same setup, same builds, same everything but much happier CPU (<0.3%).
