A year ago I ripped all of my classical CDs to FLAC, and planned on streaming them from my computer to my sound system. Then my spouse decided to get an AppleTV, which of course only streams iTunes, and allows no other apps to be added.
I thought PlexConnect would solve my streaming problems. I followed the instructions, downloaded everything, installed in accordance with the guides, and it all worked....except playing FLAC. They would play for about 3-4 seconds, then I would get an error message. Something like "transcode error, please try again later."
Did I do something wrong? Is there a setting I need to change?
I think that your better option is to convert your music from FLAC to ALAC. Otherwise you will run into trouble. I've seen some posts with users claiming that PMS does a lousy job transcoding from FLAC to other formats.
Some claim that we cannot hear the diference between MP3 @ 320K and the lossless formats. I can hear in classic music but not in rock. MP3 is more universal than any other music format.
I don't have Plex on other devices. I just want to stream from my computer at home. Also, all my CDs are gone now, so can't re-rip, and not real anxious to convert to AAC. I was really looking forward to PlexConnect working, since I'm stuck with appleTV - spouse preference, can't change.
There are tools out there allowing conversion from FLAC to WAV (another lossless format), and from there you can convert to ALAC (or AAC, or MP3, but these are not a lossless codecs, so better to keep the FLAC files as well).
You want to stream to which devices ? If they are iDevices, then ALAC (or AAC, or MP3) is the way to go, if they are Android you need to select a music player that has a format compatible with the AppleTV, and convert to that format.
I don't have Plex on other devices. I just want to stream from my computer at home. Also, all my CDs are gone now, so can't re-rip, and not real anxious to convert to AAC. I was really looking forward to PlexConnect working, since I'm stuck with appleTV - spouse preference, can't change.
There's software out there that will convert your FLAC files to ALAC, which is just Apple's proprietary lossless format that they created because they're Apple. The quality is identical to FLAC as is the file size. Only difference is iTunes will play ALAC natively, as will the Apple TV and any iOS device. You can set iTunes to automatically rip CD's in ALAC also.
As a last resort I may convert the FLAC to ALAC but I really don't want to do that. I may get a streaming box for myself - I'm waiting to see what the new android TV boxes do, and whether you can add apps to them.
Just curious - what actually plays the music file when you are using PlexConnect? Is it the player in PMS, and the resulting stream is then sent to ATV through the trailers app?
The file URL is passed to the ATV’s inbuilt player (video or audio) and then the ATV plays the file. If the format does not fit the ATV profile then PMS transcodes the file into a format that it supported and provides it over the url originally provided.
"The file URL is passed to the ATV's inbuilt player (video or audio) and then the ATV plays the file. If the format does not fit the ATV profile then PMS transcodes the file into a format that it supported and provides it over the url originally provided."
The file URL is passed to the ATV's inbuilt player (video or audio) and then the ATV plays the file. If the format does not fit the ATV profile then PMS transcodes the file into a format that it supported and provides it over the url originally provided.
So apparently the problem is in the PMS transcoding. Is there anything in the transcoding settings in PMS that might help, or is this a known problem in PMS and PlexConnect?
"The file URL is passed to the ATV's inbuilt player (video or audio) and then the ATV plays the file. If the format does not fit the ATV profile then PMS transcodes the file into a format that it supported and provides it over the url originally provided."
So apparently the problem is in the PMS transcoding. Is there anything in the transcoding settings in PMS that might help, or is this a known problem in PMS and PlexConnect?
Did baa not already say he thought it was a transcoded issue
Looks like an PMS/transcoder issue to me. Do you see issues using Plex clients on iPhone or other "low power" devices?
I would suggest you do a search of the PMS forums to see if it's a known issue.
And 0.9.11.7 has gone public, probably with that issue corrected. Thanks for clarifying. I wonder though if PMS will transcode to ALAC / WAV / AIFF (the lossless formats supported by the ATV) or to MP3/AAC.
I think the posters in that thread said that FLAC files were not playing on their iPhones. One said that FLAC files were playing OK on the ATV with PlexConnect. My problem is that they don't
