Rockbox Development > Feature Ideas
treat zip files as folders
solrize:
It's completely understandable that neither of us has zips on our players right now, since the players don't know how to decode the zips. If the players could decode zips, I'd be using them, and maybe you'd be too!
For example, Magnatune.com and jamendo.com both distribute their cd downloads as zips containing mp3/flac/ogg files. Archive.org also has a tremendous number of zips, see for example
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1975-06-17.aud.unknown.87560.flac16
although you can download those as separate files, getting the zip is more convenient.
I don't know why foobar is slower when you play from a zip. There's not a good reason for it to be slower that I can figure out.
Obviously the most sensible way to store these compressed audio files in a zip is with no compression (just use the 'store' format), but in reality people tend to make these zips using the default zip options, which attempt compression. In fact deflate can often compress an mp3 by a tiny amount (like 1 or 2 percent) but at worst there's a tiny expansion (no compression, plus some deflate headers get added).
The cpu requirements of uncompressing zip is a lot smaller than for decoding mp3 or ogg. Running decompression and playback simultaneously really truly isn't a problem for most of today's players (which for the most part have cpu's fast enough to run video codecs). See http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CodecPerformanceComparison for some timings that indicate the amount of cpu left over after various codecs are run (i.e. one that runs 300% real time leaves 2/3 of the cycles available).
I suspect strife98's slow Palm unzipping is due to file i/o slowness rather than because of the unzip algorithm itself.
AlexP:
Feel free to code it, but I don't think this'll make it into Rockbox even if someone does.
It adds code size and complexity for very marginal gain.
solrize:
--- Quote from: BigBambi on September 14, 2008, 04:11:58 PM ---Feel free to code it, but I don't think this'll make it into Rockbox even if someone does.
It adds code size and complexity for very marginal gain.
--- End quote ---
I think the gain would not be marginal; the more I think about it, the more I realize that almost all of my music downloads are zips, though I'm maybe non-typical in that I don't use itunes and I don't rip cd's that often. However, I agree that a plug-in sounds like the right way to go, if it can be presented in the user interface nicely. I don't know the software well enough to have a sense of that right now.
saratoga:
Adding Zip support would be extremely difficult, since the audio buffer is expected to contain raw file data. You'd either have to write a special codec for mp3 in zip, ogg in zip, etc or else try and change the file buffer functions to intercept zipped data and somehow convert it on the fly.
solrize:
Intercepting the file coming in and unzipping it on the fly sounds like the right approach. I'm surprised if there's nothing like it already. It would be needed to handle nested ogg containers and that sort of thing.
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