Best file size for battery life?

[mnhnhyouh]

I am currently using my 5G 60Gb iPod a lot for some language tracks. These are nearly 60 minutes long and as they are 128k mp3 the files are about 60 mb in size.

It *seems* to me (I have not tested this) that I am getting much lower battery life when using them.

I am often pausing and rewinding, and this may affect it, especially if I the player is having to get more of the file off the HD.

I am prepared to cut these tracks up, and will probably do so for some of them anyway as it will make what I am doing easier.

So, is there a more efficient file size I can use?

h

[LambdaCalculus]

This may not be directly related, but I have several episodes of the Church of the SubGenius "Hour of Slack" on my iPod. The episodes I have are encoded as 80kbps VBR Ogg Vorbis files. Each episode lasts about 57-62 minutes, and I can listen to about 8 full episodes on one full charge, before my iPod is fully drained part way through a ninth episode.

If it's purely speech you're listening to, you can either try re-encoding in a lower bitrate (96kbps works well for speech only), or do what you suggested and split the files up. To me, though, one long file seems to last longer than splitting files, since the hard drive would have to spin up more often to load each individual file.

You could try looking into the Speex codec for the language tracks.

[pixelma]

To me, though, one long file seems to last longer than splitting files, since the hard drive would have to spin up more often to load each individual file.

As far as I know, Rockbox simply fills all available buffer - no matter if it's 1 file (or even a part of it) or 10. Currently there only is an upper limit in the number of files (don't know exactly) after which it can cause problems. If you mean that the disk spins a bit longer to "collect" all the files, I think that's negligible too because your one file could also be spread all over your disk due to fragmentation.

[LambdaCalculus]

Very good insight, pixelma. Fragmentation could be part of the problem. Speaking of which, my iPod's due for defragmentation; better get started...

Kudos to pixelma!

[mnhnhyouh]

Much quicker than defragging is to delete the contents, then copy all the music back on.

h

[Llorean]

You'll always want a low bitrate in a fast enough format. Honestly, if it's audio, spx might be a good option. Breaking it into smaller files really won't do any good though, unless you keep just the one file in the buffer at a time, so it's not loading all the others (no playlists or "next track" option available).

But it's the seeking backward that may be doing it. Is the disk needing to spin up when you do so?