Re: [Banshee-List] Automagic transcoding especially with iPod

[gregdavisfromnj <gregdavis ieee org>]

First, I used fdisk to blow away the ipod's FAT disk partitions, let itunes
restore the ipod from scratch, and then put the first mp3 file with Banshee. 
Banshee told me it had to rebuild the itunes database.  Probably because
that was the first file to go onto it after restoring.  I let it rebuild the
db, the mp3 went on without a hitch, and the freespace issue is officially
attributed to an fouled up disk partition.  I hate FAT.

Now, the main transcoding issue doesn't seem to be that of the referenced
bug report.  I wish it was!  No, Banshee is able to tell that the origin
file in the media library is a FLAC file, and knows it has to transcode it
to something.  It doesn't know to-what, or how-to.  I was hoping for a
transcoding options page some place, but it seems like that work is deferred
to gstreamer.  I understand that gstreamer is the audio backend.  As such,
it seems pretty cryptic in configuration, and doesn't look like something
that should be mucked with directly.  I found a
"gnome-audio-profiles-properties" utility, but I only get a "know what?"
feeling when I click around.

When I drag the FLAC file to the iPod device listnode, an "Errors" node pops
up as a child to the ipod node.  It has an ominous red icon, and its details
view shows a grid of errors with 2 columns for each error row.

The error column has this:
"The flac format is not supported by the device, and no converter was found
to convert it"

The details column has the file:///yada/yada/yada.flac URL of the file.

I got all the gstreamer plugins through Yum (good, bad, ugly), and made sure
I have FAAC/FAAD and the associated shared libraries.  Same for FLAC.

If still interested, I used sound-juicer, kaudiocreator(?), and Winamp to
rip the FLAC files.  I tried to copy all forms to the ipod, all resulting in
the same error (above).

Thanks though,
greg


2008/12/21 gregdavisfromnj <gregdavis ieee org>

>
> I can't seem to figure out how to set up transcoding from my hard disk to
> an
> iPod device.  I have ripped a lot of CDs to my hard disk using FLAC
> encoding.  They are imported into my Banshee media library, and play quite
> well.  Now I want to transfer them to my 2nd gen iPod nano.  So, (using
> manual music management) I drag the files I want on the player from my
> media
> library.  I expect they would be transcoded (decoded from FLAC, encoded to
> something else).  Instead, I get an error for each file to the effect of
> "cannot find a converter."  Terrific.  I opened the properties for my iPod
> device in the left navigation tree, and in the properties page there is an
> area for "Encode to" with a greyed out combo-box and edit button.  The
> text
> for the combo-box is "No available profiles."  What gives?  I can't seem
> to
> find anyone else with this problem, although I see lots of posts
> indicating
> that I should be able to transcode from FLAC to, say, AAC, to transfer to
> my
> iPod.
>
...
> Using Banshee as grabbed from Fedora10 x86-64 repository (v1.4.0.1).
>
> I'd love to help put a wiki node in your support wiki for how to get
> transcoding working, but I still can't figure it out!


Sounds like:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558526

There is a patch, however it has not been commited to svn. I will ask the
Fedora maintainer to issue an update with it applied (however that is likely
only going to fix this for newly ripped cds since it's the tags not being
set correctly).

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