No FLAC support in Sage 3.0??

[frobnitz]

hi. I was noticing in the sage 3.0 manual that sage doesn't include FLAC in the list of supported audio formats. Given that FLAC is the most popular audio format, and that GPL code is available for both windows and linux, as well as an open specification, why wouldn't Sage support it?

I was thinking about using sage as a consolidated media solution, and dropping jriver's media center for audio and DVD, and getting HD PVR as a big bonus. But I have multiple hundreds of CD's that have been encoded in FLAC format, and really need for it to be supported.

Can someone verify FLAC really isn't supported, and if not, could it be added before 3.0 goes final?

TIA,
Frob

[danward79]

I had a similar problem previously, it is possible to by a core driver, which would allow any media player to play flac.

check out this I think it is the site.

http://corecodec.org/

[mikesm]

I was thinking of using FLAC for lossless compression too. So basically, if WMP has a codec loaded to enable it, Sage will be able to play it? What about reading the FLAC tags for song metadata, will Sage be able to read those as well?

Thanks,
Mike

[JasonJoel]

Well I think the millions and millions of MP3 and AAC files out there would disagree with that statement.

But the other posts are correct, if it Windows Media player can play it (aka see the codec) then you have a shot. Although that is no guarantee either.

Jason

Originally Posted by frobnitz

Given that FLAC is the most popular audio format

[stanger89]

Your best bet for lossless audio is Windows Media Lossless. It currently works in Sage 3, but not the metadata yet.

As for FLAC, it's a nice codec, but definitely not one of the more popular, MP3 is obviously the most popular probably followed by WMA and/or AAC.

[mikesm]

Sorry, I meant in terms of lossless codecs. Of course MP3 is the most popular by far!

As near as I can tell, there are a ton of programs that prefer FLAC in terms of integration as opposed to WMA, but in any case, the question is whether or not Sage would be able to read FLAC tags if loaded with a FLAC codec for WMP.

Sorry if I'm missing something, I'm not clear about how Sage reads it metadata. Does it have code to do this itself, or is provided through a plug in?

Thanks,
Mike

[danward79]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Your best bet for lossless audio is Windows Media Lossless. It currently works in Sage 3, but not the metadata yet.

As for FLAC, it's a nice codec, but definitely not one of the more popular, MP3 is obviously the most popular probably followed by WMA and/or AAC.

I would agree that one would be better of with WMA. But.... I would not like to have to convert or reencode all my CD's to it. It would take months!

Wheather Sage will read the Metadata correctly is another thing, I would try it and see?

It will definately play them thou. (Well it worked when I tried it in the early stages of V2)

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by danward79

I would agree that one would be better of with WMA. But.... I would not like to have to convert or reencode all my CD's to it. It would take months!

J River Media Center or DBPowerAmp can convert your entire collection from one lossless format to another without intervention. I did that to convert my collection from Monkey's Audio to WMA Lossless

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by Stanger89

J River Media Center or DBPowerAmp can convert your entire collection from one lossless format to another without intervention. I did that to convert my collection from Monkey's Audio to WMA Lossless

I used dbPowerAmp's free encoder to batch convert my collection from flac to wma lossless and it took 6 weeks + to do the job start to finish on a P4 1.8 GHz system!

[danward79]

Since I don't need to convert, I will stay as I am I think. I use JRMC and Netremote for my audio system so am covered nicely

Hopefully *IF* I ever need to convert it will be in years to come when I have a 10Ghz dual processor pc and it will take an hour! ;-)

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by danward79

I had a similar problem previously, it is possible to by a core driver, which would allow any media player to play flac.

check out this I think it is the site.

http://corecodec.org/

Yep. this is likely your best bet. I'll try it tonight when I get home as I allready have their codecs installed for Zoom Player.

[mikesm]

Well, I tried this tonight. When loaded with a flac codec, WMP can play flac fine, but it screws up the metadata. Every thing is unknown except for the song title. No album, artist, etc...

Is there any way for Sage to add support for reading FLAC tags? Many other such packages support it. Lots of this code is open source and could be added pretty easily.

Thanks,
Mike

[something fishy]

Sage 3.0.7 will play wma but it doesn't read the tags (at least not with the SageMC STV). I've converted my library from ape to wma in anticipation that this will be fixed. I second dbpoweramp btw, it's excellent and if it fails (it doesn't like umlauts etc in file names) it just logs the error and carries on with the next file.

Mine took about 1-1/2 days, it's not a huge collection and I was used three PCs simultaneously, two of which are P4s overclocked to 3.8GHz which were giving me 24x realtime encoding.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by something fishy

Sage 3.0.7 will play wma but it doesn't read the tags (at least not with the SageMC STV). I've converted my library from ape to wma in anticipation that this will be fixed. I second dbpoweramp btw, it's excellent and if it fails (it doesn't like umlauts etc in file names) it just logs the error and carries on with the next file.

Mine took about 1-1/2 days, it's not a huge collection and I was used three PCs simultaneously, two of which are P4s overclocked to 3.8GHz which were giving me 24x realtime encoding.

So does this mean WMA lossless tags aren't read either? Is tagging supported in ANY lossless format on Sage? This is a big problem! I may have to revisit using Meedio...

Thanks,
mike

[something fishy]

I found that wma would not show up if I was viewing anything other than "sort by song" I presume that this was because it didn't recognise any of the tags (all the files should have been fully tagged but I can recheck this).

Viewing "sort by songs" revealed all files in the music folder and all subfolders as a single list. wma files in subfolders appeared as
\artist name1\album name1\song1
\artist name1\album name1\song2
\artist name1\album name1\song3
\artist name1\album name1\song4

so I couldn't even browse by filestructure elegantly (I wouldn't have minded this the directory structure reflects the tags).

I would hope that Sage (or the STV I don't care which) at least gives the ability to browse audio files by directory structure (as it does with video files). Best of all of course would be to support wma/flac/ape tags.

Cheers
Eric

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by something fishy

...
so I couldn't even browse by filestructure elegantly (I wouldn't have minded this the directory structure reflects the tags).

I would hope that Sage (or the STV I don't care which) at least gives the ability to browse audio files by directory structure (as it does with video files). Best of all of course would be to support wma/flac/ape tags.

Cheers
Eric

I agree. This is a major shortcoming in making Sage a reasonable music jukebox. Am I missing something here? I mean Sage allows you to sort on artist etc... How can it do this without reading the tags?

Thanks,
Mike

[mlbdude]

Sage does read MP3 tags, and will need to read WMA tags before it goes out of beta. Any updated music player works off of tags now so it should be a requirement ands would think this is just a work in progress item for Sage right now.

[mikesm]

mlbdude, I completely agree. Virtually all players now depend on tag support for their displays, and WMA is getting very popular because of DRM protected content out there.

I didn't see tag support explicitly called out in their 3.0 spec, but I had assumed it was just there as part of audio support. FLAC lossless is very popular, and the code for parsing it's tags is publically available, so it would be great if they could incorporate FLAC tags support into 3.0 as well.

Thanks,
Mike

[mlbdude]

I would love FLAC support as well. I am just assuming that WMA tag support will be in there. After all, without it WMA support is useless.

[something fishy]

@ mlbdude
I think that you're right (at least I hope you are) I transcoded from APE to WMAL in anticipation of Sage adding WMA tag support.

A thousand thanks for SageMC also. Without it I wouldn't use SageTV.

Cheers
Eric