Java iTunes client and transcoding

[Ted Harper]

I just found an open source Java application called GetItTogether which acts as a DAAP client. See http://getittogether.sourceforge.net/

Anyway, it _almost_ works with Firefly (svn-1206). That is, it works perfectly for MP3 files, but fails for my WMA files – it looks to be delivering them as-is to GetItTogether rather than transcoding to WAV as it does to an iTunes client.

I think if Firefly recognised GetItTogether and transcoded WMA (etc) files to GetItTogether identically to what it does to an iTunes client, we would be in business. Actually I think the safest logic for Firefly 1.0 – ie before there is fine-grained user configurability of transcoding per user agent – should be something like “when serving via DAAP, media should always be transcoded to an iTunes-compatible format *except* when the user agent is specifically a Soundbridge one”.

Anyway, this GetItTogether application would seem to offer a very useable PC-based playback solution from a music library already being served (via Firefly) to SoundBridge devices, specifically for computers which run an OS not supported for iTunes, _or_ where the user doesn’t want to install iTunes for whatever reason.

BTW I can’t get the “experimental applet” in Firefly to work here at all (with either IE or Firefox, latest Java runtime is installed and working) – it paints its window ok, but then I get a DAAP failure when it tries to get itself going with the Firefly server. I guess I wouldn’t be so interested in GetItTogether if that experimental applet was working for me, but for Spouse Compatibility it would still be good to have an application (rather than an applet) that could play from the Firefly library.

Anyway, I hadn’t seen mention of that application before, and I know the question of a PC-based (non-iTunes) client has come up before.

ted.h.

[rpedde]

@Ted Harper wrote:

Anyway, it _almost_ works with Firefly (svn-1206). That is, it works perfectly for MP3 files, but fails for my WMA files – it looks to be delivering them as-is to GetItTogether rather than transcoding to WAV as it does to an iTunes client.

Strange. Right now the logic is based on the user-agent that gets handed to the server. Generally, it looks like this:

iTunes* – don’t transcode mpeg, mp4a, wav, mp4v or alac
Roku* – don’t transcode mpeg,mp4a, or wav
otherwise – don’t transcode mpeg or wav

So it shouldn’t be transcoding. Maybe it doesn’t play .wav files?

BTW I can't get the "experimental applet" in Firefly to work here at all (with either IE or Firefox, latest Java runtime is installed and working) - it paints its window ok, but then I get a DAAP failure when it tries to get itself going with the Firefly server. I guess I wouldn't be so interested in GetItTogether if that experimental applet was working for me, but for Spouse Compatibility it would still be good to have an application (rather than an applet) that could play from the Firefly library.

Yeah, I really can’t either, or it varies based on jvm. I had hoped that someone would pick up that applet (I didn’t write it) and work on it, but hasn’t happened. I guess there isn’t a critical mass of interest in it. It’s actually been axed in svn.

wrt GiT, I’ll download it and see if I can figure why it’s so strange.

— Ron

[Ted Harper]

@rpedde wrote:

@Ted Harper wrote:

Anyway, it _almost_ works with Firefly (svn-1206). That is, it works perfectly for MP3 files, but fails for my WMA files – it looks to be delivering them as-is to GetItTogether rather than transcoding to WAV as it does to an iTunes client.

Strange. Right now the logic is based on the user-agent that gets handed to the server. Generally, it looks like this:

iTunes* – don’t transcode mpeg, mp4a, wav, mp4v or alac
Roku* – don’t transcode mpeg,mp4a, or wav
otherwise – don’t transcode mpeg or wav

So it shouldn’t be transcoding. Maybe it doesn’t play .wav files?

I agree it would seem it should fall into the “otherwise” case cleanly (or at worst it is spoofing the iTunes useragent and that would be ok too).

I didn’t download the source and didn’t see any obvious notes/restrictions from my looking on the GiT website that it wouldn’t play .wav. My wife’s Mac Mini running iTunes plays all the content from Firefly just fine (MP3 as-is, WMA via transcoding, etc), so I think it’s safe to say the actual transcoding and running Firefly in my network is fine. Firefly-to-GiT for MP3 files seems to work perfectly too, just something disappointing and mysterious is happening with WMA files (and they’re not DRMed ones, or Lossless or anything, just common-or-garden 128-160kbps or thereabouts WMA files).

@rpedde wrote:

BTW I can't get the "experimental applet" in Firefly to work here at all (with either IE or Firefox, latest Java runtime is installed and working) - it paints its window ok, but then I get a DAAP failure when it tries to get itself going with the Firefly server. I guess I wouldn't be so interested in GetItTogether if that experimental applet was working for me, but for Spouse Compatibility it would still be good to have an application (rather than an applet) that could play from the Firefly library.

Yeah, I really can’t either, or it varies based on jvm. I had hoped that someone would pick up that applet (I didn’t write it) and work on it, but hasn’t happened. I guess there isn’t a critical mass of interest in it. It’s actually been axed in svn.

I have the latest Sun JVM for Windows installed, and tried with it hosted within both IE and Firefox (on two different PCs, the Firefly server one and a laptop). Same results in all cases; that is the JVM starts up, loads the applet, paints the frame (frame is navigable, etc), but then fails with a DAAP link failed error.

If I get a chance, I’ll grab the applet source and have a look. I think as it is maybe it should be at least disabled in the default config for Firefly 1.0 (ie so it isn’t visible on the menu), in order that it doesn’t become blown out of proportion as a broken/unfinished piece of functionality in Firefly 1.0, as opposed to being seen as a cool and optional “extra”, when Firefly 1.0 officially releases.

@rpedde wrote:

wrt GiT, I’ll download it and see if I can figure why it’s so strange.

Ta, if it can be made to work and has some ongoing developer interest, maybe it is a good cross-platform DAAP-based client for Firefly to be able to point to when people ask. Certainly I’d be using it on my laptop (which doesn’t have iTunes) if it was working with Firefly for WMA files as well as it is already for MP3. If it had an RSP plugin also (and I’m _not_ putting my hand up for coding this (smile)), it would be a _very_ nice thing, as it would then potentially facilitate PC+Soundbridge multi-device synchronised playback from a Firefly server, which I just know people are going to want as soon as there is any synchronised playback support at all in the Soundbridge world.

ted.h.

[DylanMuir]

I’ve been using Get It Together as a linux client for iTunes on some machines here, with mt-daapd. I think Get It Together will not play .wav files; that’s why playing of transcoded files fails. When mt-daapd is able to transcode and stream .mp3, then we’ll be in business.

DRM

[Ted Harper]

@DylanMuir wrote:

I think Get It Together will not play .wav files; that’s why playing of transcoded files fails.

I thought GetItTogether _did_ play .wav files. The http://getittogether.sourceforge.net/ website says “The Java-based MP3 player included with Get It Together (called “Java” in the Settings panel) only supports MP3 and WAV files.” so I had assumed that meant the GiT side of it was ok and that the issue was with the transcoding (or not) of the files on the Firefly side.

I haven’t had time to do any debugging on this, but today I found another Java DAAP client application. This is also open source and called ourTunes; download from http://ourtunes.sourceforge.net/ I have downloaded it but haven’t tried it yet; maybe it will work where GiT doesn’t with Firefly and transcoded WMA files?

ted.h.

[DylanMuir]

Hmm, you’re right.

Here’s the error I get when using the internal player from GIT, when attempting to play a transcoded file:

org.git.player.PlayerException: Gain control not supported
at org.git.player.JavaPlayer.play(JavaPlayer.java:256)
at org.git.player.JavaPlayer.play(JavaPlayer.java:178)
at org.git.client.swing.GetItTogether$18.construct(GetItTogether.java:908)
at org.git.client.swing.SwingWorker$2.run(SwingWorker.java:109)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:613)

I presume this relates to the gain equalisation that iTunes supports. Any chance of switching off gain information being sent to the GetItTogether client?

DRM

[rpedde]

@DylanMuir wrote:

Hmm, you’re right.

Here’s the error I get when using the internal player from GIT, when attempting to play a transcoded file:

org.git.player.PlayerException: Gain control not supported
at org.git.player.JavaPlayer.play(JavaPlayer.java:256)
at org.git.player.JavaPlayer.play(JavaPlayer.java:178)
at org.git.client.swing.GetItTogether$18.construct(GetItTogether.java:908)
at org.git.client.swing.SwingWorker$2.run(SwingWorker.java:109)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:613)

I presume this relates to the gain equalisation that iTunes supports. Any chance of switching off gain information being sent to the GetItTogether client?

DRM

There isn’t anything sent to clients when transcoding besides the minimal wav header and wav data. No metainfo at all gets sent. I’m not sure what it’s saying.

— Ron

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