Transcoding means converting media from one format to another. Suppose your music files are in a format different to MP3 and your media player only understands MP3 format. In that case, you need to convert your music files to MP3. This conversion task is done by transcoder programs. There are various transcoding programs available, such as ffmpeg and avconv. These programs need codec before they can convert media from source format to destination format. We need to separately install and configure these components.
Ampache supports on-the-fly transcoding of media files. That is, your music that is not in an MP3 format can be converted into the MP3 format just before it is delivered to your music player, and your high definition video content can be optimized for mobile consumption to reduce bandwidth use.
In this recipe, we will learn how to install and configure transcoding programs with Ampache.
Getting ready
Make sure you have working a setup of the Ampache server.
You will need access to a root account or an account with root privileges.
How to do it…
Ampache depends on external libraries for transcoding to work. We will first install the dependencies and then configure Ampache to work with them:
First, add the ffmpeg PPA to the Ubuntu installation sources:
$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media
$ sudo apt-get update
Now, install ffmpeg and other required codecs:
$ sudo apt-get install flac mp3splt lame faad ffmpeg vorbis- tools
Next, we need to configure Ampache and enable transcoding. Open the configuration file located at /var/www/ampache/config/ampache.cfg.php, find the following lines in the file, and uncomment them:
max_bit_rate = 576
min_bit_rate = 48
transcode_flac = required
transcode_mp3 = allowed
encode_target = mp3
transcode_cmd = "ffmpeg"
Here, we have set ffmpeg for the encoding/decoding of media files. You can choose any encoder of your choice. Change the value of transcode_cmd respectively.
Next, enable debug mode to get details of the transcoding. Find the debug section in the configuration file and set it as follows:
debug = true
Enable log file path which is, by default, set to null
log_path = "/var/log/ampache"
Save the changes to the configuration file and reload the Apache web server:
$ sudo service apache2 reload
Now your transcoding setup should be working. You should be able to upload media in a different format and play it as MP3 or other respective formats.
It often happens that we have content in a format that is not supported by the device we are using for playback. Maybe the device does not have the required codec or the hardware is not capable of playing a high bit rate. We may even need to convert content to a lower bit rate and reduce the bandwidth used to stream. The transcoding feature of Ampache helps us to cover these scenarios.
With transcoding, you can convert the content to the desired device-supported format before actually starting the streaming. This is called on-the-fly transcoding. The contents are encoded in a new format as and when needed. Once the conversion is completed, the new format can be cached for repeat use. In the above example, we set Ampache to convert FLAC files to MP3 using the ffmpeg tool. Now whenever we request a file that is originally available in the FLAC format, Ampache will convert it to MP3 before streaming it to our device.
Ampache uses external, well-established media conversion tools for transcoding. Any tool that works with the Ubuntu command line can be configured to work with Ampache. Refer to the Ampache configuration file to get more details and configuration examples.
