I have seen a few reports from users that the SC200 does not handle variable bit rate MP3 correctly, adding 30s or more of silence at the end of the track. I don't know if this happens with the Pinnacle media server or with uPnP on Windows Media Player, however it does happen if you play a file directly off a USB memory stack, and with my preferred server (Wizd). What seems to be happening is that the SC200 reads the first frame of the MP3 file to get the bit rate and then calculates the runtime based on this figure and the length (bytes) of the file. Fine for CBR files but useless for VBR files. This is very poor since VBR files usually have a header that indicates the number of frames and the sample rate, which will allow calculation of the runtime.

Searching around revealed a fix using add the custom HTTP header  "TimeSeekRange.dlna.org: npt=0-/nnn" where nnn is the length of the file in seconds, to the server response. I tested this out and the SC200 will play the MP3 file for the specifed time, however it only works the first time that it is used. Subsequent requests ignore the TimeSeekRange.dlna.org header, until the SC200 is rebooted. I don't know if this a bug or something that I am doing wrong.

Anyway I did find a fix. By removing the HTTP header "Content-Length" from the server response, the SC200 cannot work out how long the file is, so it just starts playing the file and stops when the data runs out. Off course you cannot see how much time is remaining to play on the song, which is better than the random silence at the end of the song.

 Trevor