Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
Does Rockbox support '.cue' files for mp3's?
Llorean:
I mean there's a lot of technical reasons why .cue handling won't work well on Rockbox (mostly due to the fact that you have to load all of the file up to and including the track you want, and that our entire buffering and playlisting system would probably needed to be rewritten to implement this). This isn't so much as a "we don't want to" as it is a "It can't be done in a reasonable way without likely having costs greater than the gains, especially when a simple once-off preparation of your files completely negates the need for it.
Kimmohoo:
I think Matroska would be a nice solution for this problem.
For an experiment, i muxed few of my cue+mp3 albums (Sandra Collins - Tranceport 3 and Teddy Douglas - Soulful House Experience 2) tuo MKA with Mkvtoolnix (http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix). Now i'm listening these albums on foobar2000 with matroskaplugin (http://dl.matroska.org/downloads/foobar2000) and it works wonderfully; Trackchanges are gapless, tagging is fast and flexible, replaygain works and seeking is almost instant! Matroska works much faster and nicer than cue-files.
With Mkvtoolnix its pretty easy, just add mp3-file to "input files", then go to Global and choose cue-file as a Chapter file. Then choose "Start muxing". You can mux multiple mp3+cue-files by adding them to job queues. Not too much of a problem. Of course if you have many mp3+cue-files it could be simplier and faster.. maybe somebody could write simple mp3+cue-to-mka tool for this purpose?
Of course, implementing multi-track matroska file support for rockbox might be problematic.. but it's nice solution for pc. ;D
jaybeee:
I have a lot of DJ mixes that have been recorded via radio etc (let alone some CD rips that have been created as one long file with a cue sheet [my own CD collection is individual flac files]), and so CUE sheet support in Rockbox, even at it's most basic, would be really great for me.
--- Quote from: LinusN on February 27, 2006, 02:22:05 PM ---Basically, multi-track files, like CUE files, are a pain in the b*tt for Rockbox. Mostly because Rockbox is designed from the ground up for one track per file. Multi-track files will cause quite a lot of grief:
1) A lot less accurate seeking for VBR files, since the TOC is so coarse
2) Random track play is difficult to implement
3) The tag database will be more complex
I'm sure there are more issues than those...
--- End quote ---
For me, (2) & (3) aren't a problem. It really wouldn't bother me at all to not have a cue sheet included in the random track play functionality nor indeed to have cue sheets added to the tag db. The seeking issue is more of a requirement for VBR files though.
So at it's basic, I'd love to see cue sheets supported by Rockbox that simply play back the one file accurately. No need for any more complex use of cue sheets a la (2) & (3) imo.
I know there's a feature freeze, and I know that Rockbox isn't gonna 'like' cue sheets, but imo I think this would add the icing on the cake so to speak.
The Slim Devices people have managed to support CUE sheets in there software: I wonder if that would be a worthwhile starting place (it's open source code I believe): no point trying to reinvent the wheel (but I know Rockbox is Rockbox and not the Slimserver). Just a thought ;D
Llorean:
Nobody's yet offered any actual _advantage_ to cue sheets over properly split files.
jaybeee:
--- Quote from: Llorean on June 05, 2006, 12:54:42 PM ---Nobody's yet offered any actual _advantage_ to cue sheets over properly split files.
--- End quote ---
If I have 20gb of mp3 files that have a cue sheet say, then I do not need to split them as Rockbox will just play them (if and when it can) as if they were split (like the Slimdevices software does on my Squeezbox). If I do have to split them, then I'll have one 'original' copy of the mp3 on my PC HDD, and then one copy of the split files on my DAP. Fine until I want to clear my DAP and remove those files... but then I'll have to split again next time I want them on. Or I need keep two copies. Or I guess I could keep just the one losslessly split 'copy' <--- but then that is just a workaround for a feature that seemingly a few people want.
TBH it's just convience for people that have files that have cue sheets
I don't have it as bad as some people though, cos I don't rip all my CDs to image / one large file. But as I say, I have a lot of live music, that to split is just a hassle.
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