High Bitrate Music Stuttering on Chromecast Audio: Can Plex Transcode Flac Files to Target Bitrate?

Plex Players Streaming Devices
,
1

Server Version#: 4.39.1
Player Version#: Chromecast Audio / Google Cast Groups

My Chromecast Audio og Google Cast Groups are struggling with Flac files in high bitrates. Works fine with Flac file up to 2000 kb/s but songs with higher than 2000 kb/s (96KHz, 24bit) are stuttering. According to Google the Chromecast audio should support files up to 96KHz/24-bit.

Is it possible to have Plex Media Server transcode Flac files to at target bitrate for my Chromecast Audio devices?

Or maybe there are better solutions?

This plays well
plays-well
This stutters
stutters

1 Like
3

Thanks for your quick and detailed response.

I played the track for 2 minutes where it was stuttering 5-6 times. When it stuttered, I could see in the Dashboard web view, that it was buffering.

I paused the track after 2 minutes, waited another 2 minutes, and then downloaded the attached log.

I also copy/pasted the file info XML below. Hope it helps.

<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="4" librarySectionTitle="Music" librarySectionUUID="09949a2e-0d21-4494-b960-5d268edfd748" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1595237496">
<Track ratingKey="4680" key="/library/metadata/4680" parentRatingKey="4678" grandparentRatingKey="4628" guid="plex://track/5d07cdb0403c640290f490d7" parentGuid="plex://album/5d07c174403c64029084746a" grandparentGuid="plex://artist/5d07bbfc403c6402904a6355" type="track" title="Dreams" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/4628" parentKey="/library/metadata/4678" librarySectionTitle="Music" librarySectionID="4" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/4" grandparentTitle="Fleetwood Mac" parentTitle="Rumours" summary="" index="2" parentIndex="1" ratingCount="665075" viewCount="2" lastViewedAt="1596300565" thumb="/library/metadata/4678/thumb/1596293604" art="/library/metadata/4628/art/1596300120" parentThumb="/library/metadata/4678/thumb/1596293604" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/4628/thumb/1596300120" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/4628/art/1596300120" duration="258816" addedAt="1596293578" updatedAt="1596300144" hasPremiumLyrics="1">
<Media id="5455" duration="258816" bitrate="2906" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="flac" container="flac">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="5575" key="/library/parts/5575/1596293187/file.flac" duration="258816" file="/volume1/music/library/Fleetwood Mac/[1977] Rumours [Digital] [2013]/02 Dreams.flac" size="94502820" container="flac" deepAnalysisVersion="4" hasThumbnail="1" requiredBandwidths="2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647">
<Stream id="12598" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="flac" index="0" channels="2" bitrate="2906" albumGain="-8.81" albumPeak="0.988564" albumRange="12.081157" audioChannelLayout="stereo" bitDepth="24" endRamp="-51.00 0.12;-39.32 5.72;-29.99 6.32;-23.57 6.82;-20.79 7.12;-17.96 7.42;-14.71 7.82;-11.81 8.22;-8.62 8.72;-5.91 8.92;-2.25 9.32;0.07 10.02;3.36 11.32;6.12 42.52;" gain="-8.81" loudness="-13.76" lra="5.08" peak="0.988564" requiredBandwidths="2908,2908,2908,2908,2908,2908,2908,2908" samplingRate="96000" startRamp="-22.45 0.00;-2.18 0.10;1.63 0.20;4.44 1.30;7.02 72.80;" displayTitle="Unknown (FLAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Unknown (FLAC Stereo)"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Mood id="3228" filter="mood=3228" tag="Bittersweet"/>
<Mood id="3286" filter="mood=3286" tag="Poignant"/>
<Mood id="3297" filter="mood=3297" tag="Sensual"/>
<Mood id="3502" filter="mood=3502" tag="Somber"/>
<Mood id="3188" filter="mood=3188" tag="Yearning"/>
<Mood id="3114" filter="mood=3114" tag="Delicate"/>
<Mood id="3185" filter="mood=3185" tag="Melancholy"/>
<Mood id="3117" filter="mood=3117" tag="Plaintive"/>
<Mood id="3698" filter="mood=3698" tag="Restrained"/>
<Mood id="3190" filter="mood=3190" tag="Soothing"/>
<Extras size="0"> </Extras>
<Related> </Related>
</Track>
</MediaContainer>

Plex Media Server Logs_2020-08-02_10-20-45.zip (7.3 MB)

5

UPDATE: Ok, what happened was that the link to the log, was in the preformatted text brackets.

You’re right. I don’t know what happened. I’m trying here again. Plex Media Server Logs_2020-08-02_10-20-45.zip (7.3 MB)

7

Thanks a lot for taking the time to look through it. It sounds plausible that it is my wireless connection messing it up. I hadn’t thought of that.

Is it possible to have Plex transcode my files to at more wireless friendly bitrate? I would rather have that than manually compressing all my files.

9

Thanks a lot. I’m open for trying to transcode them on the fly. I only have one proper setup where the flac file quality would be audible, amd I can have an ethernet connection drawn fairly easy for that room. But for multiroom playback on Google Cast Groups, transcoding to MP3 wouæd be just fine. I Actually have another app from Synology which can do that, but I like the Plex app better, so would be open for experimenting.
Can you provide some info on how I would go about transcoding to MP3?

11
  1. Having the same problems Chromecasting to speaker groups
  2. MP3 is dead. Opus is where it’s at followed by AAC.
  3. When casting to Google Home/Nest Mini speakers, you’re not going to notice the fidelity loss on these small speakers going from FLAC to Opus.

Besides, Opus was built for low latency.

1 Like
12

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