Requests For Features

[Jim web]

In article <55B364D4.8060606 at errichel.co.uk>, Budgie
<ajebay at errichel.co.uk> wrote:
> On 22/07/15 09:33, Jim web wrote:
> > In article <55AE85BF.6070408 at errichel.co.uk>, Budgie
> > <ajebay at errichel.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> > 2) You may find that simply passing the file though ffmpeg or avconv
> > adds in sequential timestamps. i.e. using
> >
> > ffmpeg -i infile.<ext> cleanfile.<ext>


> To start at the beginning and why this is on GiP list is that all the
> problem downloads are from GiP and are BBC 3 classical music downloads
> such as The Early Music Show or Opera on 3 and they are mostly "hi fi"
> stereo or supposed to be!

FWIW I use gip a lot to fetch R3 files and don't get such problems. I
usually play them with Audacious without any problems.

> The problems I have date from the various times when my GiP setup was
> flawed or atomic parsley not installed, all through my ignorance.  They
> fall into two categories, those that play but must be played from
> beginning to end (no time markers,) and those which do not play at all
> and stall the control app.   (I am using BubbleDS control app and Linn
> Majik renderer playing files served by Minimserver from NAS.)

So presumably your problem may be down to the player/renderer or something
odd about your setup when the files were fetched.

FWIW I keep files on a NAS and play them via access using a standard
network filing system. Just use general purpose programs - audacious for
audio and VLC for AV. Fairly basic and simple.


> The files are delivered by my GiP setup as .m4a files and there is no
> video but there is usually a thumbnail and useful metadata about the
> particular recording which I would like to retain.

OK, I tend to use --no-tag which I think means to discard any tagging. But
I may be wrong about that.


> The simple command with ffmpeg you gave above halved the size of the
> file but it would not play.  I tried various other variations, some
> using winff GUI but none worked.

Ah. Be warned that using the command with no codec specifications at all
might change the codec/payload. You should use one of the ways we've
already described to specify keeing the codec payload unchanged. e.g. the
way I add

-acodec copy -vcodec copy

or the alternatives people have explained.

If you don't do that ffmpeg might have changed the content to some defaults
it thinks appropriate for you. Hence the change in file size.
Alternatively, the files may have junk in them for some reason I don't
know.

Do your playing programs report the codec, bitrate, etc, so you can see
what they think they are getting?

> If you or others have time I would appreciate some further help and it
> may be appreciated if I went off group or started a new thread until I
> can announce success!

I can't say what others feel about this being relevant. But if it isn't
welcome here you could ask on a newsgroup like uk.rec.audio since your
interest is audio for this.

ffmpeg is accompanied by probe and play programs. If you have these one
will give info on a file. The other will try to play it. If it plays it
will confirm that ffmpeg can make sense of it even if your usual players
can't.

If all else fails for the broken files you could try using ffmpeg to
generate an LPCM wave file as its output. If that works it is easier to
check, and could then be converted to something like flac for use if the
problem is otherwise unsolvable.

Afraid the above is only general comments as I'm not clear on the cause of
your problem. I haven't used the other things you mention so have no idea
what they may have done.

Jim

-- 
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