TMC Decoder

[geert]

Since a lot of Rockbox supported players have a capability to play FM music,
would it be possible to have a TMC decoder listen to a certain dedicated
channel and then display the messages on the screen, or log them in a file?
I have no idea how this would work in detail. It just a thought that someone
else might like to pick this up and pursue it. I do know that most of the technology
is captured in standards (RDS, TMC, etc) and there are some snippets of
C code on-line that implement these standards.

Just an idea...

[AlexP]

RDS is hardware dependent.  The only target or potential target with the required hardware is the gigabeat S.

[RubiCube]

It was quite some time since this was posted in the first place but I'll reply anyway as the topic is just what I was thinking about.

As AlexP responed, the RDS is hardware dependent.
I read that in the Sansa Clip Zip the tuner chip SiLabs Si4702 has been replaced by SiLabs Si4703 which is capable of RDS. I don't know how common it is to have RDS capability among Mp3-players.
Is the TMC capability also hardware dependent or is it possible to decode the TMC data by software?

I've tried to find some information about software TMC Decoding. I didn't find much but I'll post the links to the pages I've found.

http://sites.google.com/site/tekmanoid/rds
http://rdsd.berlios.de/
http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-07/Barisani_and_Bianco/Presentation/bh-usa-07-barisani_and_bianco.pdf
http://home.pi.be/~wijnherm/software.html

Maybe this feature is more cool than useful to have in the Sansa Clip Zip.
But if your stuck on the highway sitting in a bus listening to music maybe you want to know what's going on. =)

[nls]

RDS is already enabled on the clip zip and should be working

[bertrik]

RDS data is sent as 8-byte packets and one messages consists of one or more of these packets. Currently we decode only the PI (program identification, a 16-bit station id), the PS (station name) and RT (radio text) messages.

TMC messages run on top of RDS. Theoretically, we could also decode those.