Serviio

BongMong wrote:Hi Folks,

I just recently got the Pure EVOKE Flow internet radio and I am using Serviio to run a transcoding server to it. WMP does do the job, but it won't transcode. I have distributed my profile code on the Pure support forums and Pure's head of support is going to push my guide as the standard transcoding solution in their support site FAQ, so it's a pretty standard approach for Pure radio users who want to play their OGG music collection but don't want to buy in a full blown commercial package. This allows me to play OGG and FLAC files on my Pure, ideal:

  Code:

<Profile id="14" name="Pure EVOKE Flow" extendsProfileId="1">
<Transcoding>
<Audio targetContainer="mp3">
<Matches container="lpcm" />
<Matches container="flac" />
<Matches container="ogg" />
</Audio>
</Transcoding>
</Profile>

Dead simple. This can easily be modified for all Pure audio products. Thanks to Serviio, from the Pure community.

One question, is there any chance that Serviio will ever recognise the Pure EVOKE Flow in the future? I have to reserve an IP address for it in the router because it shows up as an 'Unrecognized device' in Serviio and so to apply a profile it needs to stick with the same IP address all the time.

BongMong wrote:Ooo, ta. Well, unfortunately Device Spy can't find it, and I did scan for it whilst connected to Serviio and playing. Trying to manually add the IP to Device Spy fails as well. I suppose that's bad for getting it added? I can ask for info from Pure support if you like. They usually get back to me fairly swiftly. What should I ask for?

Actually, do you have any influence in the world of Serviio? If so, I could ask Jason Voice (head of technical gubbinry at Pure radios) to get in contact with you. He could provide you with the details for their internet radios so you could get them all easily added I'm sure. They have about 6 internet models I believe. One of which may even be able to stream video but I'm not sure about that.

Currently Pure provide Twonky with their radios, but it is an older version that does not support transcoding. The new version direct from Twonky does, and the Pure provided registration code works with it, but I don't think this version is strictly paid for by Pure and so they don't promote it. Also, the transcoding in the new version of Twonky is a real bind to work with, and I don't know anyone who has got that working with the Pure radios. Twonky is only used by Pure owners who have an old non-streaming version of WMP because it offers nothing extra.

Jamcast works well, but that's a paid for package and a bit over the top for someone who just wants to play their OGG and FLAC collections.

WMP is great for playing things the Pure radios can play natively, but Serviio is the only free proven option for transcoding on Pure products and it includes open source elements keeping it free. So Pure could promote Serviio as a main option. I expect my profile would work for all Pure internet radios, so if you wanted a generic profile for Pure radios you could probably just change the first line to:

  Code:

<Profile id="14" name="Pure Flow" extendsProfileId="1">

The only problem is that one has to muck about with reserving an IP address in the router as Pure radios are unrecognised by Serviio. Not ideal for Jack Average. If that can be solved then loads of Pure customers will be hankering after Serviio.

An additional point, if you are interested. The main reason why some Pure owners choose to buy Jamcast instead of using Serviio, except for the ease of use issues already detailed, appears to be because Jamcast allows one to stream Windows audio output directly to the radio. Not something I'm interested in personally, but if Serviio had that feature as well as sorting the detection of the radios then it would capture all the Pure market. Those that don't just use WMP that is.

BongMong wrote:Nice! That works for the Pure EVOKE Flow and I fully expect all Pure models to have 'PURE' in the id code.

I will now decant to the Pure forums and get some testing done with this by others with different models. If all goes well I will get back to you about getting this packaged with a Windows build of Serviio.

For now, the Pure generic beta profile code is as follows:

  Code:

   <Profile id="14" name="Pure Flow" extendsProfileId="1">
      <Detection>
         <HttpHeaders>
            <User-Agent>.*PURE.*</User-Agent>
         </HttpHeaders>
      </Detection>
      <Transcoding>
         <Audio targetContainer="mp3">
            <Matches container="lpcm" />
            <Matches container="flac" />
            <Matches container="ogg" />
         </Audio>
      </Transcoding>
   </Profile>

Ta folks, you really are top fellows all.

Watch this space...

Cerberus wrote:change the first line to match this:

  Code:

<Profile id="14" name="Pure DLNA Devices" extendsProfileId="1">

then it will match all there devices

BongMong wrote:

Cerberus wrote:change the first line to match this:

  Code:

<Profile id="14" name="Pure DLNA Devices" extendsProfileId="1">

then it will match all there devices

Well, not really. All Pure internet radios are Pure Flow devices (Flow is their internet capable product branch), mine is the Pure EVOKE Flow, but none of them are DLNA certified. They are strictly only UPnP devices, but largely do the DLNA thing anyway. They just aren't certified, but I should be accurate.

BongMong wrote:I have a further question. What is the default bitrate Serviio produces when transcoding audio to MP3?

Thanks for your help.

aBitrate - optional; audio bitrate [kbit/sec] to use for transcoding, default is 192

BongMong wrote:Ah, right. Well, I've tried upping it to the maximum the Pure EVOKE flow will handle, 320 kb/s (I think it's the same for their other models), to try to mitigate the loss of quality due to transcoding from OGG or FLAC to MP3. The code is below. Should that work and have the effect I expect?

  Code:

   <Profile id="14" name="Pure Flow" extendsProfileId="1">
      <Detection>
         <HttpHeaders>
            <User-Agent>.*PURE.*</User-Agent>
         </HttpHeaders>
      </Detection>
      <Transcoding>
         <Audio targetContainer="mp3" aBitrate="320">
            <Matches container="lpcm" />
            <Matches container="flac" />
            <Matches container="ogg" />
         </Audio>
      </Transcoding>
   </Profile>

ADDITIONAL:

I've just noticed the following from the Serviio site support page re. the parameters for audio transcoding:

aBitrate - optional; audio bitrate [kbit/sec] to use for transcoding, default is 192

Is this right or are you right, regarding default bitrate?

BongMong wrote:Hmm, I'm not sure you're right there. I say that because my Evoke Flow started to glitch slightly at 320 kb/s. I suppose it doesn't like running on the edge (small buffers and slow cpus in portable internet radios).