We are using windows. And we would like to benefit from the new improvements in Opus 1.2.1 (personally I'm looking at the music quality improvements at lower bit rates, like 32 kbps)
In any case, LS 1.1.1 is old, the latest win32 build of liquidsoap is 1.2.0 and it's on their github:
https://github.com/savonet/liquidsoap/releases/tag/1.2.0
I DO get tag support when using built-in encoder, but not with external. But I can tell the quality difference at 32kbps. If you look for differences in stereo separation and higher frequencies (full-band) you will find them right away.
output.icecast(
%opus( bitrate = 32, application = "audio", signal = "music", vbr = "constrained", complexity = 10, max_bandwidth = "full_band", stereo ),
host = ...,
mount = "32.opus",
s)
output.icecast(
%external(process = "\"C:\...\opus-tools-0.1.10-win64\opusenc.exe\" --quiet --cvbr --bitrate 32 - -", restart_on_metadata),
format = "audio/ogg",
icy_metadata = "guess",
host = ...,
mount = "external.opus",
s)
complexity = 10, max_bandwidth = "full_band", stereo
This was my attempt at matching the quality improvements of the external encoder. But I usually don't add those parameters (they should be defaults anyway?). I've also tried unconstrained vbr.
And as a test I tried the qaac encoder as an external encoder, and that passes tags just fine.