Bugzilla – Bug 3059
Transition between tracks causes audible artifacts
Last modified: 2008-09-15 14:38:25 UTC
I have encoded my CD collection of operas using WMA lossless compression. Unfortunately playback through the slimserver to a wirelessly connected SB3 produces audible artifacts during some of the track changes, when they occur in the middle of the program material. This is probably limited to operatic materai, since most other CDs (both classical and popular) have track changes at the end of each song, where they logically belong. Let me elaborate: Unfortunately, most Opera CDs have been produced with a great number of tracks - some or even most involving track changes in the middle of the program material; this is done so one can select a particular segment for whatever reason. It is really an unused "feature" for most listeners, who just like to settle back and listen to the entire CD without interruptions. When you play the Opera CD back in Windows Media player, you do not hear these track changes.... the player plays smoothly through the track changes and you do not hear that they "are there"... (the same happens when you play these CD on a CD player)... BUT, when I play the same CD back using the Slimserver/SB3 combo, you can hear what - for lack of a better word - I will call artifacts... it's subtle in some cases (where the producer chose a silent moment to be used for inserting the track change) ... or it is very noticable when it happens in the middle of a musical passage. It is almost like Slimserver makes a complete stop/start (instantaneously) at every track change! To eliminate the possibility that this is caused by the wireless connection, I also tested the same opera CD using Softsqueeze... and the same artifacts were audible. Soooo, this is a long-winded way to get to my question: Is it possible to include a feature in the next version of Slimserver to make the playback of this type of CD as smooth as it is using Windows Media player - by not stopping/starting the stream every time there is a track change? My setup is Windows XP (SP 2 and upgrades), A Pentium 3.2 processor with 2GB of memory and all media files on a fast RAID disk array. All other apps turned off when testing for the above bug. Thanks for your attention, cvj
I'm seeing similar using SlimServ 6.2.1 and SoftSqueeze 2.3. Track transition is audible. Crossfade is enabled in the player via settings. Oddly SlimServ web-UI used to have a section in player settings for Transition Duration but this is now gone. Not sure where it went, is it because SoftSqueeze emulates a pre-SB2 device? ...dtw
Richard - I'm tossing this your way, as it sounds like a crossfader issue. I set the target as 6.3, but feel free to change as you see fit.
WMA Lossless files are transcoded to flac by the slimserver. This bug is probably caused by Bug 1434 where gapless flac playback was not working correctly in some situations. This is now fixed in firmware 52 that will be released in the slimserver 6.3 and 6.5 nighlies soon. Chris Ownes, could you please confirm WMA lossless now plays back losslessly. (I am confused by David's comments as Softsqueeze never supported crossfading, and the original bug report is not about crossfading)
This bug fix is now part of a released version, and so has been marked closed. If you are still experiencing this problem, please reopen the bug.