New Codec and FM Recording for iAudio and iRiver

[Davide-NYC]

OK Bugs!  

Bugs:

• - AGC is not displayed on WRS when source = FM Radio
  AGC is fully functional just not adjustable and not displayed. In fact you can even 'select' and modify values with the joystick. It is as if the AGC line is "behind" the line that says 44.1kHz Stereo.
• - Encoding status still displayed on WRS when source = Digital (but there is no encoding during digital input)
• - On H100 (iriver) remote on WRS when source = FM Radio only the Gain Left is displayed and does not scroll. Basically this new WRS (FM Radio) needs the loving treatment from a willing dev.  
  

Feature Requests:

• - Bitrate should be displayed next to the encoding type.
  Example: 'MP3 224kb' instead of just 'MP3'
• - Be able to change FM station from WRS when source = FM Radio
  Maybe a single line under the AGC line with the current station displayed and "left/right" increments and decrement the station. Awesome!
• - From the FM Radio screen be taken to the WRS with source=FM and gain set to 0 by just pressing and holding REC. neato.

Llorean: I know this stuff goes on flyspray, I'm just inviting discussion before I post them to FS. Maybe some of them will get fixed so quick it's not worth it.  

[jhMikeS]

OK Bugs!  

Bugs:

- AGC is not displayed on WRS when source = FM Radio
AGC is fully functional just not adjustable and not displayed. In fact you can even 'select' and modify values with the joystick. It is as if the AGC line is "behind" the line that says 44.1kHz Stereo.

It may in fact be behind it...not much care has been taken there yet but this may have come up when adding AGC and not from fmradio since their use is mutually exclusive.

- Encoding status still displayed on WRS when source = Digital (but there is no encoding during digital input)

Huh? I don't quite understand this. It looks like it's writing a file but it's not? Can you post a picture? The SPDIF is very new...discuss with preglow too.

- On H100 (iriver) remote on WRS when source = FM Radio only the Gain Left is displayed and does not scroll. Basically this new WRS (FM Radio) needs the loving treatment from a willing dev.

I never even looked at the remote when getting this started so I'm sure there must be something wrong. Glad you reminded me to look at it!

Feature Requests:

- Bitrate should be displayed next to the encoding type.
Example: 'MP3 224kb' instead of just 'MP3'

Yes...it should and the display will improve for sure.

- Be able to change FM station from WRS when source = FM Radio
Maybe a single line under the AGC line with the current station displayed and "left/right" increments and decrement the station. Awesome!

Me too, but again...we're in prototype mode here. I suppose it should work like the other controls...yeah!

- From the FM Radio screen be taken to the WRS with source=FM and gain set to 0 by just pressing and holding REC. neato.

I'd better ask Mmmm about that...we didn't want to mess with keys yet. This is a way to get to WRS that I contemplated and is about the only option besides the menu at least for x5 where all the keys are assigned except long record for fmrs.

Llorean: I know this stuff goes on flyspray, I'm just inviting discussion before I post them to FS. Maybe some of them will get fixed so quick it's not worth it.  

[Mmmm]

- From the FM Radio screen be taken to the WRS with source=FM and gain set to 0 by just pressing and holding REC. neato.

I'd better ask Mmmm about that...we didn't want to mess with keys yet. This is a way to get to WRS that I contemplated and is about the only option besides the menu at least for x5 where all the keys are assigned except long record for fmrs.

I still think this would be great but it will only work on devices with a few spare keys (I cant remember if there are any long keypresses available on the X5 in the recording screen).  A menu item would be fairly pointless, because if you exit the radio you immediately have the option to record right there anyway.

[Mmmm]

Davide...bugs 1 and 3 should be fixed now, Give it a try...

[Rincewind]

- From the FM Radio screen be taken to the WRS with source=FM and gain set to 0 by just pressing and holding REC. neato.

I'd better ask Mmmm about that...we didn't want to mess with keys yet. This is a way to get to WRS that I contemplated and is about the only option besides the menu at least for x5 where all the keys are assigned except long record for fmrs.

I still think this would be great but it will only work on devices with a few spare keys (I cant remember if there are any long keypresses available on the X5 in the recording screen).  A menu item would be fairly pointless, because if you exit the radio you immediately have the option to record right there anyway.

I tried to add this to my record button patch some time ago, but it was more difficult than I thought. Also, I was afraid to break something if I exit the fm screen in a wrong way so I didn't actually test anything.

If someone has a solution, I am happy to incorporate it in my patch (which then goes in the REP)

[Davide-NYC]

Mmmm I can confirm that bugs 1 and 3 are history. Thanks.

- Encoding status still displayed on WRS when source = Digital (but there is no encoding during digital input)

What I mean by this is that while in the WRS with source = digital there is still displayed a big "MP3" at the last line (I believe line 5)

As far as I understand the "encoding type/quality" line should not be displayed at all in the WRS while source = digital.


[EDIT] According to MikeS:

The SPDIF just puts samples into the buffer like every other source and the encoder picks em up

This means the the line displaying encoding options and quality is totally valid and my objection to its existence should be disregarded.  

[jhMikeS]

As far as I understand the "encoding type/quality" line should not be displayed at all in the WRS while source = digital.

Why not? Digital in can use sample rates and compression now...well...sample rates when the encoders are updated.

[jhMikeS]

Mono should work now on SWCODEC. Nothing should have changed for any Archos devices.

[Parsifal]

This is a great addition! Thanks for all the work!

But, if I may be so shameless, the two now most wanted features are mono recording and output sample frequency settings  

And a question, if I record to MP3 instead of WV/Wav, would the HD on my IHP120 spin up to save the recorded data less frequently? I ask this not so much for battery length time but because when you record with the built-in mic, the whine from the HD is pretty annoying in the recordings

Edit: lame has the -a switch to downmix from stereo to mono, maybe that would be a quick way to add it, at least for the mp3 settings?

[Toni]

With MP3 recording you can expect disk access every 54min at 64kBit,MP3,Mono. Unfortunately mono cannot be selected right now from the recording settings menu.
The disk writing time itself is longer than before, because the cpu has to compress the audio data while file writing (and may be unboosted).

[jhMikeS]

Toni. I can set mono just fine and record it. What's up?

Davide-NYC: I'm gonna do a quick update to get that FM Radio input option on the sim.

[Toni]

MikeS: It's the

#ifndef UDA1380
recchannels
#endif

thingy, which makes Mono/Stereo selection impossible on iriver.

[jhMikeS]

Toni: Never paid attention to that! The mixing to mono is done in the codecs so I don't see a good reason to disable it...anymore at least.

BTW that mp3 encoder says it's shine but it doesn't look much like shine code. I need some details about it:

-Where'd you pick it up?
-How much of the code is your own and what?
-What exactly is it capable of?
-If I use other settings (Joint Stereo fe) and any of those tables that don't appear to be used with the current config are they gonna end up trying to be used?

[jhMikeS]

Toni: And what's the encoder delay? 576?

[Toni]

MikeS:
I got the shine code from the link in the rockbox encoder page.
To get reasonable performance on iriver I had to rewrite the code completely.
For performance reasons I merged the mdct algorithm from a later lame encoder.
Finally I optimized the code to get the best quality from integer calculation
restrictions.
So basically the internal technique is shine, but optimized for iriver.
The encoder quality is very close to the shine quality, which equals lame quality
setting zero.
This encoder does not use any of the lame advanced mp3 encoding features.
I once tried to implement joint stereo, but gave up. There is also no psymodel
included.
For my purpose (radio recording on iriver) this encoder is quite satisfying
because of the relatively poor radio quality.
Because the current source is based on shine, which is based on lame, there are
still a lot of unused options from the original code.
And yes, the delay should still be 576 samples.