Battery Utilization observations/questions --- (not again!!!!)

[scorche]

Also, it is better if you use enough song in the playlist to fill up the buffer, rather than just one song.

[TexasRockbox]

I'm utilizing the entire "Pet Sounds" album, not just the song.  The album was compressed with .OGG Q7.  The battery benchmark indicated to use an album, so I did so.

OK, whatever the WPS battery readings indicate are meaningless.  The Battery Benchmark plugin shows that the player played for 12h 1m 19s -- can it be assumed that that number is correct?  If so, is 12h 1m 19s playing exclusively .OGG files with a headphone load and the bass and treble controls slightly elevated (not using either the software or hardware EQ) a bad, good, or outstanding figure?  From reading various posts 12+ hours with Rockbox with ipod 5G Video 80GB would seem to be a very good figure.

Not trying to cloud the discussion but to further understanding:   If the WPS figures are meaningless how to explain the sudden jump from a consistent 4h 49m to a consistent 14h 0m -- it must mean something to some piece of software or firmware even if we don't understand what it is -- it doesn't appear to be a random number.

I think to some extent all consumer battery remaining indicators are only (at best) generally accurate.  So 14hours indicated lasted 12hours in actuality -- I don't think that's too bad -- 85% accurate.  I'm certainly not going to sweat the minutes.   I think the number indicated in the WPS is adaptive and represents a formulated figure based upon usage (current draw) over some period of time.  Therefore, I would expect the actual, raw numbers to go up and down a bit (giving the appearance of meaningless, inaccurate, etc).  Rockbox has the ability to display the raw numbers while the ipod uses a segmented display.  The accuracy of the reported numbers may be good enough for a 4 or 5 segmented display (accurate to 25% or 20%).

Has this type of battery WPS behavior (sudden 7h swing upward) been reported before?

I wish I had copied the first battery test results off the ipod HD (I did rename it though).  So I won't have anything further to report until either very late tonight or tomorrow morning.

[soap]

12 hours is good in a battery bench.

For the last time - ignore the WPS time estimates.
I'm assuming you first saw the 14h estimate on or after the 14th of July?
Right after http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/7216 got committed?
Have you seen the 100%=4h estimate since?
Regardless, it doesn't matter.  Actual runtime, not estimated runtime, is the test.  (Unless you want to hook your opened iPod to a bench power supply and measure amperage)

[TexasRockbox]

Yes it was noted after the 14th of July -- on the 19th when I opened the topic.
My Rockbox might be a July, 16th build or a July, 19th build.  Not shure about the 7216 fix but since it appears to be available beginning with the July 14 build, I woud think that it is installed.
Have not seen the 100% = 4h 49m on the WPS since the 19th but did see it on the 18th, 17th, 16th....  back to since I had obtained the player.

The second Battery plugin test is still running.  I'll verify it all when it completes sometime late tonight.

[TexasRockbox]

Second test completed (returning ipod settings to default):

Rockbox version r13922-070716, Bass +5, Treble +5, Sony Ex90LP 16ohm, Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" album repeated, encoded Q7 ogg Vorbis.

The second test ran for 11h 59m 55s by the benchmark figures.  Looking at the "%" figures thorughout the test, those percentages would seem to be generally accurate enough for a 4 segment battery indicator  -- not perfect by any means but close enough to give a rough estimation of remaining time -- my view, anyway.

[Llorean]

So, evidence then shows that the Apple firmware's settings don't affect Rockbox, as you were told in the beginning?

[TexasRockbox]

Not certain.  I still can't explain the jump from 4h49m to 14h 0m in the WPS.  Something changed.  I was also told that the WPS battery indication is beyond worthless -- evidence shows the  battery plugin data would seem to indicate that the battery data would have some worth (if utilized properly) as a general indicator of battery time remaining.

[Llorean]

You were told the time remaining is worthless. I don't understand why you seem unwilling to accept this. What SVN revision were you using when it said 4h49m?

The percent remaining isn't useless, but it's not strictly accurate. But it's not the only thing used to create the estimate for time remaining.

[TexasRockbox]

The exact time remaining isn't really such a big deal to me -- I was just reporting a sudden change in value that seemed to coincide with making changes to enabled features in "ipod mode".   When it was 4h 49m it was probably a build from a day or two earlier than the 070716 build.

I'm not trying to hold anyone accountable for the accuracy of the time or percentage remaining.  I've seen it reported time and again that the firmware was based upon some educated guesswork and perhaps trial and error.  Whether or not it is 100% accurate or 0% accurate is of no real matter.  Data was requested, data was gathered.  If some of the data gathered is meaningless (although it does seem to be generally close), so be it.

What does matter is that I'm getting 12h of playtime with some bass and treble boost playing into a 16ohm load with OGG Q7 files.  That makes me very, very happy.

[PaulJam]

I could imagine that the change in the remaining runtime estimation is related to this change:
http://svn.rockbox.org/viewvc.cgi?view=rev&revision=13885

[TexasRockbox]

Yes, that fix was indicated earlier.  Could very well be an answer to the question.