Bugzilla – Bug 9205
SC attempts to play audio & visual m4a podcast
Last modified: 2009-07-31 10:27:31 UTC
I added the url http://www.stephenfry.com/podcasts/rss.xml to my Podcast list, without realising the m4a files were in fact "audio & visual" rather than plain audio. This URL was accepted by the podcast screen, and when selecting it in the podcast menu itself, the server listed all the files contained and allowed them to be selected and played. When actually playing any of them though, a very unpleasant electronic noise is generated. I imagine this could be potentially damaging to hifi equipment as well. Is it possible to somehow check that m4a files (maybe all podcast files) are actually legitimate, audio only files before attempting to play them? This would be best done at the point a podcast is added (maybe check the latest file listed). A helpful "Not a supported format" type message could then be generated. I realise this would add a small delay, but I think it would be worth it!
Hm, this should "just work", in that the audio should be transcoded and played back on the player (without the video).
Hm, this should "just work", in that the audio should be transcoded and played back on the player (without the video). Steven: Can you get one of these files and reproduce?
So there are two rss podcast feeds from Stephen Fry. The first rss feed are m4a and the second is mp3. We have no problem playing the mp3 feed from http://www.stephenfry.com/podcasts/rss2.xml but we try playing the m4a feed from http://www.stephenfry.com/podcasts/rss.xml as mp3! If I download the m4a podcasts locally I can play them without a problem in SqueezeCenter. The odd thing is Safari will add a .mp3 file extension after the .m4a extension if I select to "download linked file" while it does not if I select "download linked file as". For example fry-podcast-episodes-04-1.m4a.mp3. Weird.
The server is sending m4a files using a content-type of audio/mpeg. They should be using audio/x-m4a. Suggest using the mp3 podcast in rss2.xml.
Reduce number of active targets for SC