Streaming BIG files

Posted by: Chris Bell on 10 January 2014

Purchased the 192K AIFF Miles Davis Kind of Blue album from HDTracks.  My NDS can only play 30 seconds before the buffer fails.  Is this due to the speed of my NAS drives (Western Digital Red) or a bottleneck in my network? Using UnitiServe SSD and Synology NAS which are both downstairs from my NDS system. 

 

I can play the file off a USB stick, but it does not sound as good a the same file on the NAS.  

 

Advice welcome.  

Posted on: 14 January 2014 by Singlespeed
Originally Posted by Aleg:
Sounds like the processor on the NAS can't cope to transcode the FLAC realtime And ND5XS doesn't want to wait any longer So it skips to another track.

 

cheers

 

Aleg

Yes Aleg, it's not major as I'm happy with the SQ of my Flac files anyway...

Posted on: 15 January 2014 by The Man With Nonaim

I had exactly the same problem as the OP with an NDX.  Replacing the NDX with a squeezebox touch and psu not only solved the problem but was an improvement in sound quality.

 

Perhaps a bit controversial so I might spend the next 6 months in a bunker somewhere.......

Posted on: 17 January 2014 by Ikoun

It is probably a NAS issue. I used to stream from Mac mini to my HDX and had the same poblem with High def files. Once uprgaded to 2TB and everything stored locally, problem was solved. Network seems to be ok o, your side as it works with other files.
Should think to upgrade your NAS for something more powerfull and performant.

The software update will not solve the problem, the previous version didn't use to make peculiar problem with High def files.

Good luck!

Posted on: 17 January 2014 by Sorren

It could be a NAS problem but it seems very strange. My Synology streams 24/192s to my UQ2 without any problem whatsoever though I do have transcoding turned off, and I don't have the UnitiServe. I would try turning transcoding off and see if it makes a difference before investing in a new NAS. If it all works fine with no transcoding then you've found your problem, if not then you've saved yourself an awful lot of money.

 

Russell

Posted on: 17 January 2014 by Bart

A little late to this, but absent a fault, I'm 100% certain it's not a limitation in either the NDS or uServe.  I stream that very data to my NDS from my uServe over an ethernet cable that is at least 50 feet long running through my walls.  No issues whatsoever with anything I stream at home; I've never had a glitch in the music or the buffer not remain full.

Posted on: 17 January 2014 by Singlespeed
Originally Posted by Sorren:

It could be a NAS problem but it seems very strange. My Synology streams 24/192s to my UQ2 without any problem whatsoever though I do have transcoding turned off, and I don't have the UnitiServe. I would try turning transcoding off and see if it makes a difference before investing in a new NAS. If it all works fine with no transcoding then you've found your problem, if not then you've saved yourself an awful lot of money.

 

Russell

Russell

 

I'd be interested to know if you get the issue I mentioned if you turn transcoding on on your DS212j?

 

cheers

Posted on: 18 January 2014 by Sorren
Originally Posted by Singlespeed:
Originally Posted by Sorren:

It could be a NAS problem but it seems very strange. My Synology streams 24/192s to my UQ2 without any problem whatsoever though I do have transcoding turned off, and I don't have the UnitiServe. I would try turning transcoding off and see if it makes a difference before investing in a new NAS. If it all works fine with no transcoding then you've found your problem, if not then you've saved yourself an awful lot of money.

 

Russell

Russell

 

I'd be interested to know if you get the issue I mentioned if you turn transcoding on on your DS212j?

 

cheers

Hi Singlespeed.

 

I tried this morning and can confirm that my DS212j doesn't like transcoding hires files. The Qute doesn't play the tracks at all and just moves onto the next track. I guess the NAS just doesn't have the 'horsepower'. As it's only a 212 and a couple of years old I'm not really surprised. It is strange though that it had no problem transcoding hires to high bitrate LPCM for the Sony players I had before the Qute (maybe a bug transcoding hires to wav?).

 

It may turn out that the Synology is the problem in your system, I was just a little concerned that you had been advised to just discard it and buy a bigger NAS without any sort of check that it was actually the problem. For me I am happy just letting the Qute play the native formats. It sounds great anyway 

 

Russell

Posted on: 18 January 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by Singlespeed:

On my Synology DS212j if I use transcoding then I get problems playing back flac files transcoded to wav at or above 24/96. No issues if I turn transcoding off. ND5XS says connecting but will then automatically jump forward to a track it can play?

If your using Synology DSM later than 3.2 build 1955 then theres a good chance transcoding flac to wav wont work if your using the built in media server app. There has been a bug in media server since this build and i think its up to DSM 4.3 now.

 

You can use another upnp server, i use Minimserver on my 212j and transcoding works fine even on 24/192 files.

 

Graeme

Posted on: 18 January 2014 by Sorren
Originally Posted by Foxman50:
Originally Posted by Singlespeed:

On my Synology DS212j if I use transcoding then I get problems playing back flac files transcoded to wav at or above 24/96. No issues if I turn transcoding off. ND5XS says connecting but will then automatically jump forward to a track it can play?

If your using Synology DSM later than 3.2 build 1955 then theres a good chance transcoding flac to wav wont work if your using the built in media server app. There has been a bug in media server since this build and i think its up to DSM 4.3 now.

 

You can use another upnp server, i use Minimserver on my 212j and transcoding works fine even on 24/192 files.

 

Graeme

Hi Graeme

 

Good to know. At the moment I am happy letting the UQ2 do the work but if that ever changes it's good to have options. 

Posted on: 19 January 2014 by Sorren
Originally Posted by Sorren:
Originally Posted by Foxman50:
Originally Posted by Singlespeed:

On my Synology DS212j if I use transcoding then I get problems playing back flac files transcoded to wav at or above 24/96. No issues if I turn transcoding off. ND5XS says connecting but will then automatically jump forward to a track it can play?

If your using Synology DSM later than 3.2 build 1955 then theres a good chance transcoding flac to wav wont work if your using the built in media server app. There has been a bug in media server since this build and i think its up to DSM 4.3 now.

 

You can use another upnp server, i use Minimserver on my 212j and transcoding works fine even on 24/192 files.

 

Graeme

Hi Graeme

 

Good to know. At the moment I am happy letting the UQ2 do the work but if that ever changes it's good to have options. 

Hi Chris, everyone.

 

I got curious so I installed Minim along with Java on my DS212J. It is currently running along side the in built UPnP server transcoding FLAC and MP3 to WAV with no problem whatsoever so 'Mr Fox' was right, horsepower isn't the problem. Even 24/192 tracks pose no challenge for it.

 

Having set it up I will now leave both running. Minim is a little clunky to set up compared to the built in server but once done it will transcode to WAV on the fly and it sends high quality album art to the control point software (Bubble, UpnPlay, n-stream, etc.) rather than the low quality images sent by the inbuilt software.

 

Now that I have transcoding switched back on for the Synology server it can provide my Bluray player etc with things like my hires Tubular Bells 5.1 mix. Thanks to Chris for raising the question in the first place and to everyone who gave assistance to him and inadvertently to me 

Posted on: 19 January 2014 by Foxman50

in the transcoding section there are a couple of settings. You can do flac:wave or.flac:wav24, i prefer the later, which also changes standard cd format to 24bit bit by padding out with zeros, apparently.

 

Anyway have a play see what you think.

 

Graeme

Posted on: 19 January 2014 by Sorren
Originally Posted by Foxman50:

in the transcoding section there are a couple of settings. You can do flac:wave or.flac:wav24, i prefer the later, which also changes standard cd format to 24bit bit by padding out with zeros, apparently.

 

Anyway have a play see what you think.

 

Graeme

Thanks Graeme, I'll give it a try 

Posted on: 20 January 2014 by Singlespeed

 

Hi Singlespeed.

 

I tried this morning and can confirm that my DS212j doesn't like transcoding hires files. The Qute doesn't play the tracks at all and just moves onto the next track. I guess the NAS just doesn't have the 'horsepower'. As it's only a 212 and a couple of years old I'm not really surprised. It is strange though that it had no problem transcoding hires to high bitrate LPCM for the Sony players I had before the Qute (maybe a bug transcoding hires to wav?).

 

It may turn out that the Synology is the problem in your system, I was just a little concerned that you had been advised to just discard it and buy a bigger NAS without any sort of check that it was actually the problem. For me I am happy just letting the Qute play the native formats. It sounds great anyway 

 

Russell

Thanks for testing Russell - appreciate the nfo

Posted on: 20 January 2014 by Singlespeed
Originally Posted by Foxman50:
Originally Posted by Singlespeed:

On my Synology DS212j if I use transcoding then I get problems playing back flac files transcoded to wav at or above 24/96. No issues if I turn transcoding off. ND5XS says connecting but will then automatically jump forward to a track it can play?

If your using Synology DSM later than 3.2 build 1955 then theres a good chance transcoding flac to wav wont work if your using the built in media server app. There has been a bug in media server since this build and i think its up to DSM 4.3 now.

 

You can use another upnp server, i use Minimserver on my 212j and transcoding works fine even on 24/192 files.

 

Graeme

Graeme I remember previous posts about the bug in transcoding on the Synology NAS whereby it was displaying (&playing) hi def tracks as CD quality 16/44. Nice to know it's not a hardware limitation & just poorly executed application. May look into minim if the need arises...

 

cheers!

Posted on: 23 January 2014 by A. Lawson
Just curious why people transcode if they don't need to? It takes a lot of CPU power to do that, right? I mean I would assume it does.

2gb of RAM is more than enough for a server, what is the chipset in these Naim servers you are using?
I know that the Atom line of chips can be hard to find drivers for sometimes, it may not matter with what you are doing with it though. If it's dual core and above 2.0ghz it should not be a hardware problem. T100 is good enough. A crap router could cause this though. Crap meaning really old. Are you using wired? If not I would try it and see if it works.

Someone above me said that the naim systems automatically scan, I'm guessing for new files I'd turn that off or set to manual. Like the other person above said.

Your HD shouldn't matter but is it 5400 or 7200rpm? If it's a red nothing else should be relevant.

Just go through step by step and try each thing that everyone said one at a time until it solves the problem.

If someone could educate me on the hardware that Naim uses that would be great, is there a sticky? Or in the FAQ?
Posted on: 23 January 2014 by dayjay

I still don't understand how a flsc file transcoded to a wav file can sound different but I spent a good chunk of Tuesday listening to both options and on my system it clearly sounds better with asset transcoding to wav from my PC, significantly different in fact and I wouldn't go back. I'd love to know why though?

Posted on: 23 January 2014 by A. Lawson

me either but I will have to try some .wav files.

 

The only thing I can think of is that a FLAC file is still compressed. AIFF and WAV are not compressed. So sound quality could be better from the latter two formats. Those using AIFF should  be using Mac's because Apple created AIFF...but either should work just as well.

Posted on: 24 January 2014 by Gandalf_fi
Originally Posted by A. Lawson:

The only thing I can think of is that a FLAC file is still compressed.

It can be, levels 0-8 but there is uncompressed FLAC option as well.

Posted on: 24 January 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by A. Lawson:

me either but I will have to try some .wav files.

 

The only thing I can think of is that a FLAC file is still compressed. AIFF and WAV are not compressed. So sound quality could be better from the latter two formats. Those using AIFF should  be using Mac's because Apple created AIFF...but either should work just as well.

I store all my flac's with zero compression and the file size is slightly larger than the equivalent wav, i think due to the meta data. I transcode to wave also because it sounds more natural, not sure what other term to use.

 

ive no idea why although there has been much speculation on this forum.

 

Graeme

Posted on: 24 January 2014 by A. Lawson

good to know seems as though I will have to try it myself and see what I think.

 I found this too...

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file.