Rockbox Technical Forums

Support and General Use => Recording => Topic started by: VanJay011379 on April 06, 2005, 02:20:00 PM

Title: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: VanJay011379 on April 06, 2005, 02:20:00 PM
Hello,

I have an Archos Jukebox 20 mp3 recorder.

Is there any way I can record lossless such as wav, flac, ape?

Archos said it will not be supported at http://www.archos.com/support/faq/faq_jukebox_recorder.html#category_4

Also, I noticed the manual on this site at http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockboxManual says wav cannot be done.  How about another lossless format?

Sincerely,

Chris
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on April 06, 2005, 03:00:36 PM
Only MP3 is possible.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: PaRu on April 08, 2005, 11:25:08 AM
it is a little bit like the question which i had with the aac files.
can anybody tell me what sort of hardware the jukebox does have? why isn't it possible to encode / decode other codecs? wav files should be at leesed possible because you only have to take the result from the AD-converter and write it down in a file.
if games and other self written stuff can be played, why ain't it possible to create wav-files?
Patrick
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on April 08, 2005, 02:54:04 PM
The jukebox has a dedicated MP3 chip called MAS3507D (Player/Studio) or MAS3587F (Recorder). This chip can only handle MP3. In theory, we can reprogram the DSP in the MAS35xx to handle WAV, but the full documentation for the DSP is not publicly available...
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: [IDC]Dragon on April 09, 2005, 03:12:07 AM
I'm working on this. Both Archos and Micronas decisionmakers have agreed to publish the MAS software to us, I was present in that meeting (at the CeBIT).
Now they just have to move, wrap and ship this this. I'm expecting it any day.

Jörg
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on April 09, 2005, 03:32:12 AM
Hehe, that's quite good news, I must say.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: PaRu on April 09, 2005, 05:56:48 AM
how powerfull is the MAS35xx? may it be possible to decode aac? a problem could be, that the memory of the flash of dsp could be to small to store other codecs?
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on April 09, 2005, 10:43:18 AM
The program memory of the MAS is very limited. I'm afraid there isn't much more we can do than WAV.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: freelunch on April 09, 2005, 11:22:52 AM
Being able to record wav would be an outstanding addition to Rockbox for these models!

As you are well aware, not many devicse support stereo wav recording.



Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: PaRu on April 11, 2005, 12:13:04 PM
@LinusN

the V2 and the Recorder have the same dsp, so the have the same program memory, but the recorder doesn't decode jpg and divx. So this part of the program memory is unused. so it could be possible to implement other codec on the recoder?
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on April 12, 2005, 01:18:51 AM
The V2 doesn't decode divx either. Both can decode jpg, but that isn't done by the DSP.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: PaRu on April 12, 2005, 08:24:56 AM
Sorry, maybe i haven't understood something generall. Ain't the Archos Jukebox Multimedia 20 and V2 the same? I have the Multimedia 20 and it can decode divx/xvid.
Patrick
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on April 12, 2005, 04:17:39 PM
No, they are not the same. The V2 is an FM recorder without radio.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: PaRu on April 13, 2005, 06:55:57 AM
so the rockbox does not support the multimedia 20? :'(
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on April 13, 2005, 07:23:18 AM
No.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: VanJay011379 on April 14, 2005, 06:12:16 PM
Hi,  thanks for the replies.

The exact model I have is at http://ecoustics-cnet.com.com/4505-6496_7-8408812.html?part=ecoustics-cnet

So there may be a way to record wav?  How about any other lossless format? 

Anything better than mp3 would be fine.  How about AAC?
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on April 15, 2005, 12:40:23 AM
Like I said earlier in this thread, we can barely do WAV, since the MAS memory is so small.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Stringrazor on June 14, 2005, 04:09:08 PM
Like I said earlier in this thread, we can barely do WAV, since the MAS memory is so small.


Any update on WAV recording? I sure would like to see this feature in Rockbox!
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: paulheu on June 21, 2005, 06:28:02 PM
bump..

any word on doing wav?
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Stringrazor on June 27, 2005, 02:10:25 PM
Bump...just wondering WAV recording is a real possibility or still a pipe dream
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on June 30, 2005, 02:06:53 AM
AFAIK, we are still awaiting a MAS code delivery from Archos.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Stringrazor on November 20, 2005, 04:49:23 PM
I may be the only person still interested in this topic. That said, any news?
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Max90125 on February 10, 2006, 04:43:33 PM
I tried to download PCM microcode into MAS3587F (according to PCMAudioRecorder_Documentation.pdf) but without success -  seems that chip hungs on any command after call to mas_run(0x1000) ;
Is anybody else working on PCM playback for Archos? Or there is no hope...

Regards,
Max.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: [IDC]Dragon on February 14, 2006, 08:44:44 AM
There is hope, we now officially have the MAS firmware to do WAV (since quite a while, actually, as some of you may know), see the datasheet section.

I had no time to try it out. It's a suggested topic for the DevCon2006, but most developers are interested on other platforms these days...

Jörg
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: ta on February 25, 2006, 05:45:23 PM
I had no time to try it out. It's a suggested topic for the DevCon2006, but most developers are interested on other platforms these days...

But I think that many (or most?) users still use Rockbox installed on Archos hardware.
And many of them would welcome a lossless recording feature.

The old standard answer "if you miss a feature, add it yourself" doesn't work in that case because only the gurus have the specs...

I think re-programming the MAS and adding lossless recording for Archos Recorders at the DevCon would be appreciated by a larger amount of users than any feature addition to Ipod, Iriver & co.

But I also understand the developers, which are probably bored by the Archos platform and want to play with new toys... ;)
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LinusN on February 26, 2006, 05:19:00 AM
The old standard answer "if you miss a feature, add it yourself" doesn't work in that case because only the gurus have the specs...
The specs are on the datasheet page:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/pub/Main/DataSheets/PCMAudioRecorder_Documentation.pdf
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/pub/Main/DataSheets/WavMAS.zip
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Max90125 on February 27, 2006, 06:13:38 AM
As I wrote a couple of posts before that DSP code didn't work for me >:(
Anybody else tried?
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Christoph on March 31, 2006, 02:28:15 PM
Hi there,

as some of you might already know, Jörg ([IDC]Dragon) and Jens (amiconn) wrote a working plugin for the playback of WAV files.

See
http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/4902/edit
and
http://www.rockbox.org/mail/archive/rockbox-archive-2006-03/0397.shtml
onward.

The plugin made it into the daily builds, so everyone can try it out.

Unfortunately, nobody has tried to write a test plugin for recording of WAV / PCM files yet. Now that the DSP code is downloaded correctly on the MAS and has been tested for playback, maybe someone in this forum could try to get the recording part done? How about you, Max?

As I have already written in the Rockbox mailing list a couple of times, I too am really interested in doing lossless recordings. I think it would be a great new feature for the Archos Recorders!

Greetings
Christoph
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: [IDC]Dragon on March 31, 2006, 03:31:23 PM
I have started on a WAV recording plugin.
Can't say when it'll be ready, it's a "background task" of mine.

Jöörg

Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Luna on March 31, 2006, 03:54:36 PM
started on a WAV recording plugin

Brilliant!
 ;D
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: catstevecam on April 01, 2006, 12:47:21 PM
Really looking forward to testing WAV recording on the JBR - I've been using an iRiver H120 purely for that - and would be very happy to return to the ease of use of the Rockbox interface.
Many thanks to you all for the effort and willingness to share skills and time. Appreciated.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Llorean on April 01, 2006, 12:50:40 PM
Umm... the iRiver H120 has Rockbox. Is the interface for Rockbox on the Archos Recorder specifically very different?
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: ta on April 08, 2006, 08:05:05 PM
GREAT!!
 8)
We owners of the old AJR have not been forgotten! :)

Is the playback plug in already included in the daily builds?

I think a Rockbox implementation would not be complete without wave support on the original platform after you've got the specs. The whole AJR community has been waiting so long for those data sheets, it would have been a pity if the developer team hadn't used them in the end for such a long desired feature. ;)

THANX!
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: kupietz on April 20, 2006, 08:47:58 PM
Oh, wow, I've been away from the rockbox community for a while while my jbr was temporarily dead... news of work on lossless recording is a pleasant thing to come back to! Wish I had the skills to help myself, but I just wanted to post a note of support and thanks for the folks working on this long-awaited feature.

Thanks,
Mike
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: jbills on May 16, 2006, 08:17:24 PM
I don't have anything new to add - but I'd just like to add another bump of support for the possible WAV recording plugin.  Wow, that would make an already awesome system that much better!

I love my JBR's recording functions under rockbox - as anyone who does this sort of thing a lot, I do a lot of editing of my recordings after the fact.  having an uncompressed WAV/pcm source would really help me out and be a huge boost to the functionality of the archos as a recorder.  Not to mention being a big coding acheivement by squeezing WAVs out of that chip, which was never intended! 

Rockbox really rocks.  I wish I was a coder, I'd jump in!  Maybe it'll inspire me to start learning...

Please keep us posted on any WAV rec progress...    drooling...  at...  the...  possibilities.   ;D
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: LoveLearn on June 18, 2006, 05:33:38 PM
These comments may be totally out dated because I've been away from this community since the end of 2003. But a feature I wanted much more than lossless recording was changing playback speed while maintaining constant pitch. This time slicing and reintegration technique has been available in some devices for at least 20 years. I know that because I owned one that long ago. For lectures and spoken language listening it was great. University use studies indicated that listener content retention significantly increased with faster playback on many recordings. They speculated that listeners become bored by slow-speakers so by speeding up their playback, listener interest became more sustainable. Plus the fact that listening time per recording is reduced so you can learn more per unit time.

As I recall, this capability was supposed to be available in Archos board chips but lack of access to information about how to use that capability had prevented RockBox developers from enabling it for Archos owners. Does release of this long-sought information change that situation so we may have constant frequency variable rate playback added?


Funny that this forum management software shows me to be a "newbie" yet it recognized my user name and password which have been in my browser memory files since my previous posts years ago. Like Archos, it may be showing symptoms of insufficient buffer space. Even if limiting the search space to prevent excessive search times, this still seems strange.

John

Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: ta on June 22, 2006, 01:30:49 PM
BTW: I think "lossless recording and playback on the AJR !" should not be forgotten in the news of the start page and in the feature comparison list Archos OS vs Rockbox. ;)
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Febs on June 22, 2006, 06:09:22 PM
Well, the feature comparison is a wiki.  Feel free to edit it.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: catstevecam on June 23, 2006, 05:51:50 AM
I'd like to add my vote for JBR lossless recording - I currently convert JBR mp3 files to WAV for editing - then back to mp3 for daily use. Having lossless would improve the quality of my source files - and hopefully be audible on the finished mp3 result.

Thanks to everyone who contributes to Rockbox development - I look forward to the next full 'official' release.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: ta on June 23, 2006, 06:30:03 PM
Well, the feature comparison is a wiki.  Feel free to edit it.

I'm talking about the official feature list which exists somewhere on rockbox.org. The one with the red and green coloured comparison tab.  ;)

That page: http://www.rockbox.org/docs/features.html
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Christoph on August 14, 2006, 03:10:01 PM
It seems that quite a few people are interested in this feature...

Now that this important topic already went to page [2] of the Archos Jukebox Recorders section :-[, it's to write a post to keep it on page [1]!  ;D

Are there any news about your WAV recording plugin, Jörg?

Regards,
Christoph
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: [IDC]Dragon on August 16, 2006, 10:53:41 AM
Plans yes, but no priority nor time. I have so much other stuff todo, and when I don't I'd like to relax a bit. I don't even know where my Archos is. (Although it's still my #1 player, I don't have any of these newer platform models)
After devcon, I gave it a quick try, but no data was coming out of it.
Maybe winter time helps.

Jörg
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Christoph on August 22, 2006, 05:15:13 PM
Jörg, ain't the weather we have currently in Germany enough of "winter time" to give the WAV recording plugin another try? ;)

Christoph
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: jbills on August 17, 2007, 01:59:19 AM
Hi - was just checking in on this and noticed that on the new features list:

DONE 2007-05-19: WAV recording working as a plugin on Archos (Recorder V1, V2, FM and Ondio FM).

however, I can't find any documentation on this plugin, nor can I find it in the list?  have searched high and low.  Anyone have any links or info?  (maybe I'm just dense)
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: pixelma on August 17, 2007, 04:21:54 AM
Pitily this plugin is not yet documented (hopefully to be changed soon).

If you have the latest current build, i.e. at least after the plugin reordering, you should find it if you browse:
Plugins > Applications > wavrecord.

The plugin itself is quite self-explanatory, just set the options in the list, then chose "start recording", stop as everywhere...
Edit: And I forgot to mention that the wav files will automatically be stored in a "recording" directory  which will be created if not existent yet.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: jbills on August 19, 2007, 05:19:21 PM
This is fantastic - will be a huge asset to us "old school" archos users!  I can't believe my little ondio is an uncompressed recorder now.  HUGE!

hey, it's working for me, but the only question I have - how do you control the input gain?  the recordings I just tried weren't clipping or anything, but I just can't wrap my head around recording without gain controls.  anyone know?
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: pixelma on August 19, 2007, 07:21:00 PM
At the moment you can't control the gain from within the plugin but: wavrecord will use the gain you set in the recording screen; just set it there before starting the plugin. It's not very user friendly but this exists as a plugin to demonstrate that the feature works and one can already use it. The plan is to have it integrated in the core as "just" another recording setting, *one day*.

I can't believe my little ondio is an uncompressed recorder now.  HUGE!
You probably already noticed that wavrecord will only record to the MMC because those usually have more storage than the internal memory. Due to the fact that write speed can vary a lot between cards, there is a possibility that wavrecord can fail on one or the other - you'll notice that the filesize won't increase anymore at the point where it just can't write the data away fast enough; but you can still turn it off. For me one of my MMCs isn't fast enough, the other is. :)

P.S. Yes, yes, I know. I'll put that wiki page up tomorrow and hopefully start the tex file for the manual.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: jbills on August 20, 2007, 09:03:09 AM
Incredible!  thank you thank you thank you for this, and for the explaination.  Will definitely put this to use - LOTS!  especially once it's integrated into the core.  Thanks again.  can't say that enough.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: Christoph on August 20, 2007, 05:00:02 PM
This is really big news!! ;D

I made some test recordings with wavrecord this weekend (via internal mic and via SPDIF) and it worked like a charm!

Since the file size of a single recording is limited to 2 GB by the file system, it is possible to record up about 3 hours (@ 48 kHz, stereo) or 3 hours, 15 minutes (@ 44,1 kHz, stereo) at a time. This should be sufficient for most purposes... :)

Has anybody tried if the batteries allow recordings of 2 or 3 hours? The hard drive of my Recorder v1 (with 8MB RAM mod) spins up about every 40 seconds while recording in WAV format, so it might drain the batteries faster than recording in MP3 format. On the other hand, the MAS chip probably eats less power if it does not have to encode in MP3 format!?

Many thanks to everyone involved in the WAV playing and recording plugins! You did a great job!

Christoph
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: ta on September 01, 2007, 12:47:41 PM
I agree, great Job. 8-)

Quote
The hard drive of my Recorder v1 (with 8MB RAM mod) spins up about every 40 seconds while recording in WAV format, so it might drain the batteries faster than recording in MP3 format. On the other hand, the MAS chip probably eats less power if it does not have to encode in MP3 format!?

I suppose that a hard disk spinning up consumes more energy than a MAS encoding MP3 in realtime, since the MAS is specialized to do the encoding with low battery usage.

I'm really looking foward to see the WAV recording feature integrated into the core recording system of Rockbox. If Rockbox monitored the file size and began a new file after reaching 2 GB it would be perfect. ;)

But neveretheless the wav plug-ins are more than I've ever dreamed about.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: freud on December 17, 2007, 09:50:47 AM
I tried to download PCM microcode into MAS3587F (according to PCMAudioRecorder_Documentation.pdf) but without success -  seems that chip hungs on any command after call to mas_run(0x1000) ;
Is anybody else working on PCM playback for Archos? Or there is no hope...

Regards,
Max.

I've exactly same problem, the chip hangs after the run command. Do someone else get it working ?  ???

Thanks in advance,

David
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: pixelma on December 17, 2007, 10:19:00 AM
I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve here, but both plugins are now in SVN - wavplay and wavrecord.

If you want to write your own code or plugin, you could take a look at the source of these two (both are in apps/plugins).
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: freud on December 17, 2007, 10:42:51 AM
Thanks for your reply !

Yes, I'm working on a new hardware based on MAS3539F Decoder chip, decoding and encoding part (ADPCM) works fine from/to an SD memory card. My main processor is a NXP LPC2378 (ARM7 CPU) which handles man machine interface (LCD, rotary encoder, USB mass storage, Ethernet TCP/IP, SD card driver and bitstream to/from the micronas chip). The project is working except to few bugs to be fixed. I saw a nice plugin from the Rockbox project which allow the WAV record/playback (PCM code provided by Archos) and I would like to test it on my hardware (recording part in WAV rather than ADPCM is a nice feature since I'm a guitar player and need to get highest sound quality).

I studied the plugin code (PCM Audio Recorder) and my code is similar to the RockBox ones. After transferring the PCM code, I got same issue as Max90125.. the MAS chip hangs after a Run Command  ??? I'm pretty sure the MAS DSP core is same between MAS3539F and MAS3587F chip (they are both same pinout though, so it's easy to swapf one by the others ;D)

My other solution would be to use the I2S interface in my ARM7 to connect a nice codec (DAC/ADC) to play/record wav. As I found out the MAS could do it, I prefered tested before :P but with no success...

David
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: heyitsmejess on December 30, 2007, 10:59:49 AM
hello!  recently recieved a loanaer AJB20 (old) and tried using wavrecord.

it works for about 10 seconds, then i get his message....

I04 : IllInstr
at 097F825C

any ideas?  im new to rockbox.

thanks in advance!

-----

edit : it freezes up when i try to record in mp3 as well.

maybe a bad hard drive?

it seems to happen around 1 meg of recording.
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: scoz on January 05, 2008, 10:14:51 AM
wow.  I'd given up hope when the last time I looked for this thread it had dissappeard.  (It was in my bookmarks for ages, I presume there must have been a messageboard software update or something since my bookmarking it)
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: heyitsmejess on January 07, 2008, 09:57:47 PM
ive got it working now.

just and fyi - i got 90 min out of cheap alkaline batteries recording in wav
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: kersu on March 29, 2009, 10:55:31 AM
Hello
Where can I find a release or plugin to record in lossless ?
Thank

Olivier
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: petur on March 29, 2009, 03:00:11 PM
all plugins are included when you install/upgrade RockBox
Title: Re: Jukebox Recorder 20 record in lossless?
Post by: kersu on March 30, 2009, 05:59:20 PM
I have put french language in my archos, an i did'nt understand
"Plugins > Applications > wavrecord", I thought it was a old link or other

Now, all is allright
Thank you