Krusty;184473 Wrote: > Why can't Slimserver play 5.1 surround audio *.ac3 files directly?
As cjk32 says, it requires knowledge of the format: each AC3 frame must be encapsulated in a different type of frame so that it ends up looking a bit like a WAV file. The player would have to fool the digital output into thinking it was sending normal PCM data; the receiver is in on the scam and spots the special format when it comes in over the digital connection. But you can pre-convert your AC3 files into the special WAV format; see this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=19260 ...then convert the WAV files into FLAC. They do take up more space unfortunately, the FLAC being about 1.5 to 2 times the size of a full bitrate AC3 file. However, there's also the great advantage that FLAC supports tagging, so after a simple one-time conversion of a set of AC3 files you can tag the FLACs properly and it'll be just like any other album to SlimServer. It also works for DTS files. I would have liked to donate the code to Slim Devices for use in the firmware, but it wasn't possible -- to make the conversion work for DTS files I had to use a table of values from the xine project, which is under the GPL, so I released the conversion utility under the GPL as well. (If I could find a reference for that table I would (I think!) be able to donate it that way, but I'm not certain. And since the firmware isn't written in Python, there would still be work required by somebody at SD to implement the same functionality... I suspect that customer demand just isn't there, as the ability to convert the files ahead of time suits most needs.) So there should be no problems playing AC3/DTS albums on a SB2/SB3 -- take a look at the guide in the other thread and post there if you have any difficulties. -- smst ------------------------------------------------------------------------ smst's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=752 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=33194 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
