Sansa Clip and M4A files

[tenfoot]

Hi,

I'm using a Sansa Clip (v1) and Fuze (v2) to play m4a files with rockbox 3.8.  They play OK on the fuze, but don't on the clip - I get "Codec failed" and it skips on to the next track.

Does the clip support M4A files or is there some hardware limitation (RAM, CPU) that prevents it from doing so?  Is there any way I can debug this?

The M4A files are downloaded from the BBC iPlayer as aac in flash, then converted to M4A using ffmpeg and MP4Box.

[Chronon]

Maybe you just got a bad download.  Try reinstalling and see if the problem persists.

[Buschel]

Some m4a files need a large amount of memory for playback. The clip only has 2 MB or RAM (fuze has 8 MB). Therefor the amount of memory that can be used by a codec is smaller on the clip as well.

You might check out the bug report in flyspray: http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/8923

[tenfoot]

I think it's more likely to be the files I'm using - I've tried both the official 3.8 release download and a custom build and see the same results.

The files are about 30 minutes long, so depending on how they're mux'd I guess they could be using a lot of ram.

I'll go back to transcoding them to MP3 for the clip.

[saratoga]

The files are about 30 minutes long, so depending on how they're mux'd I guess they could be using a lot of ram.

IIRC the average iTunes encoded file fails if its over 15 or 20 minutes long on the Clip because theres so little memory.

[Buschel]

tenfoot, if you are able to compile rockbox by yourself I would be interested in a test of FS#8923. I am working on a less memory intense solution for m4a playback.