Rockbox Development > Feature Ideas
Discussion: Pros & Cons of a potential WPS Tag Feature Request
AlexP:
I agree with Llorean and JdGordon.
seani:
I use the db scale and text only displays, but I find his request / suggestion perfectly consistent.
He doesn't want to use a numeric scale, he wants to use an arbitrary graphical representation of whatever kind, scaled from 0 - 100% over the maximum volume range of the player, but not limited to the current 10+ step resolution.
There are only a few situations where a symbolic display of any kind is anything other than meaningless anyway, and not many more situations where seeing the db scale is any more useful.
For the majority of users in the majority of cases (speculation) the perceived volume is a function of your player, your headphones, your source material and your ears. It's no use pretending that rendering the figure as db is anything other than a way to make a subjective decision about the volume setting for a particular occasion.
People who need genuine consistency will understand the clipping and distortion issues and are unlikely to be the target audience.
For the record, yes I did find the volume display using Cabbie on my F40 counter-intuitive when I tried it. It takes 9 or 10 presses in the volume control before I see any feedback on the screen (or less if midway between two graphics). There's plenty of resolution for it to be smoother.
But that's taking a "cold" look at it. I don't use that WPS at all, nicely designed though it is.
Llorean:
--- Quote ---He doesn't want to use a numeric scale, he wants to use an arbitrary graphical representation of whatever kind, scaled from 0 - 100% over the maximum volume range of the player, but not limited to the current 10+ step resolution.
--- End quote ---
I think you've missed something. The minimum number of steps for the resolution is 4: Mute, a single step, 0db, >0db. The maximum number is arbitrary (the WPS designer's choice). The only thing he's suggesting is adjusting the scale so that instead of the arbitrary range being from 1% to 99% of the 'safe' (non-clipping) range, it goes from 0% to 100% of the unsafe range. This is less user friendly in just about every possible way.
--- Quote ---For the majority of users in the majority of cases (speculation) the perceived volume is a function of your player, your headphones, your source material and your ears. It's no use pretending that rendering the figure as db is anything other than a way to make a subjective decision about the volume setting for a particular occasion.
--- End quote ---
db is a relative scale, so yes it's relative to the source material and the output power of your player. But there's no "pretending" going on. If two players are equally capable of handling the same load, two players set to -25db playing the same file should sound the same independent of what their total range is. Meanwhile 95% will almost never sound the same exactly because the range of players is so vastly different. But this isn't about "rendering db" in the first place - it's about the removal of the ">0db" part of the conditional (or the creation of an alternate conditional rather that treats that special case as part of the normal case).
--- Quote ---For the record, yes I did find the volume display using Cabbie on my F40 counter-intuitive when I tried it. It takes 9 or 10 presses in the volume control before I see any feedback on the screen (or less if midway between two graphics). There's plenty of resolution for it to be smoother.
--- End quote ---
That won't be resolved at all by his feature idea here. The degree of smoothness can already be increased arbitrarily fine up to one pixel per db changed. My point in asking if it was counter-intuitive was specifically in regard to "does it not provide a visual representation of the range of the player in a manner a user can understand without knowing that it actually displays db"?
soap:
--- Quote from: seani on December 04, 2009, 11:19:27 AM ---He doesn't want to use a numeric scale, he wants to use an arbitrary graphical representation of whatever kind, scaled from 0 - 100% over the maximum volume range of the player, but not limited to the current 10+ step resolution.
--- End quote ---
I believe part of the disagreement here is this:
Some players go to >100% (+6 dB) and the proposed system appears to gain nothing over the current system except to hide this. Calling +6db on my iPod "100%" (however it is represented graphically) is misleading to the end user of the WPS and confusing at best.
"The target's maximum volume" is the wrong way to look at the problem, IMHO, as anything > 0dB is not comparable to that below.
Llorean:
And from (minimum db) to (0db) is already covered by the %pv tag and can be divided up into arbitrarily sized percentage chunks already meaning the functionality being requested only adds the ability to easily hide the range above 0db, and would actually offer nothing new on players that max at 0db.
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