Two (2) DREAM-like features... "play 2 audio files simultaneously" and...

[let-me-loose]

Number 1: Play 2 audio files at the same time with the ability to control volume and "speed" independently:

Ex: Play a classical/brainwaves and an audiobook


The suggestion below is already included on 3.4. When I suggested
that I had version 3.2 installed... thank you guys.
Number 2:

The ability to change the speed of spoken audio to 1.5X, 2.X

I hope someone will be able to make it happen anytime soon...

Thank you

Idalino.

[evilnick]

Number 2 is already in Rockbox. Check the manual.

[tomers]

Number 1: Play 2 audio files at the same time with the ability to control volume independently:
Ex: Play a classical/brainwaves and an audiobook

I think this feature is totally useless, and it is not possible to implement it without seriously messing with the code.
How do you suggest playback control works in such a configuration ?!
If you need to combine multiple audio channels, why don't you use some sort of sound editing software?

Number 2:
The ability to change the speed of spoken audio to 1.5X, 2.X

This feature is already implemented :-) I don't remember how it is called, but look for it in the manual.

[[Saint]]

Re:Playback Speed adjustment.

I believe that this can be done with the 'Timeshift' feature on the 'Pitch Screen', it's in sound settings no?


[St.]

[tomers]

I believe that this can be done with the 'Timeshift' feature on the 'Pitch Screen', it's in sound settings no?

Indeed. The Pitch Screen can be accessed by pressing the 'Show Pitch Screen' key, which is described in the WPS Key Controls section in the manual.

The links provided are for the Sansa e200 player. You can find your player's manual in the Manuals section.

[let-me-loose]

Thank you everyone  ,

I had an older version (3.2) and hadn't noticed the
new feature (TimeStretch) added on the updates's descriptions.

Thanks everyone for making me aware of that...
as you may all guess, I am in deep love with that feature already and using it constantly:)

You guys really "ROCK"...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I think this feature is totally useless, and it is not possible to implement it without seriously messing with the code.

Tomer, I respect your "thought", however, allow me to challenge your opinion a little bit...

If it was useless I would not waste my time and yours, why would I?

It could be useless for you and I respect that... but that is not true for me.

I use something like that when I am around my PC...
I use the VLC player with up to 3 instances of it running at the same time.

To accomplish the same thing away from the computer I even went to the
extent of using two players and a headphone "Y" splitter...
It wasn't practical, ha ha ha.

When away from my computer, I use my player (e260) to mainly play educational 
audios, audiobooks and courses... if you do a little research you will find out that
playing certain type of music at a certain constant beat or certain brainwave recordings
at the same time when you are attempting to learn something new is a very productive
and effective way to increase your knowledge.

Regarding the "without messing up the code" I have no idea what to say about that...
but I do intuitively think that we can find a better way to achieve that... let's think a little
bit out of the "rockBOX" here...

1. What if we could open two instances (when needed) at the same time?
2. What if we could access "sansas firmware" and have that play on the background?

P.S. This may not even make sense... but hey, I have no idea of what is possible in the code ,
I am code blinded .

How do you suggest playback control works in such a configuration ?!
If you need to combine multiple audio channels, why don't you use some sort of sound editing software?

Playback control would be simple if you had more than one instance opened
- just switch between them - wouldn't it?

It is very impractical to use editing software to accomplish that
since my audio library is constantly changing, and it is not just a few tracks at a time.



Thank you,

[tomers]

I think this feature is totally useless, and it is not possible to implement it without seriously messing with the code.

Tomer, I respect your "thought", however, allow me to challenge your opinion a little bit...

If it was useless I would not waste my time and yours, why would I?

It could be useless for you and I respect that... but that is not true for me.

Oh, sorry...  I really didn't mean it to sound like that. After re-reading what I wrote, I get to understand it isn't written as I would have wanted it to be written. I didn't meant to offend you in any way. Please accept my apology. I guess I just typed too quickly.

I still think this feature might not appeal for the majority of Rockbox users. Adding new feature to the Rockbox 'main playback engine' should be heavily discussed. There are some consideration that must be taken into account - binary size; code complication; user experience; etc. Rockbox has already many advanced features and it is already a bit complicated to users (TMHO).

What percentage of the users could really use your suggested feature? I personally believe not many.

But if you implement a plugin that does just that, it might be perfectly ok to add it, I guess

Maybe you can implement a plugin that knows how to play two or more playlists in parallel? I.e. create a text file with a pre-defined extension (that is registered to that plugin) which contains the name of the playlists, and some other meta-data, such as gain for each channel, etc. The plugin fills the playback buffer with audio from the first list, then fills it over with audio from the other playlist, on top of the existing audio. What do you think?