Iriver 1xx FM tuner low playback volume

[HorstIriver]

The playback volume of the FM tuner is too low, much lower than with the iriver firmware. A bug was filed July 17, but it got low priority, and it hasn't even assigned so far. My personal opinion is that the main purpose of a player is to produce sound, so sound related problems should not being tagged 'low priority'. I wrote a new bug report, containing a detailled description, but I got an e-mail that one of the Rockbox project managers denied to deal with that problem. I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed by that reaction. Rockbox already has so many features, optical gimmicks, etc. I use the tuner very frequently, so to me this is a major drawback. What else can I do to persuade the Rockbox crew that this problem should be fixed?
PS. I couldn't find a better forum to post this topic, so sorry in case this is not the appropriate forum.

Horst

[bluebrother]

A bug was filed July 17, but it got low priority, and it hasn't even assigned so far.

Please browse the tracker a bit. You'll soon find out that only a few tasks are actually assigned to someone. A task sits as long as someone picks it up but this doesn't necessarily correlate with its priority or an assigned dev.

My personal opinion is that the main purpose of a player is to produce sound, so sound related problems should not being tagged 'low priority'.

The problem is to decide which "bug" has to give what priority. In that case this isn't a big problem as (a) Rockbox main purpose is to play audio, and that means audio files like mp3 and ogg, not playing radio and (b) it actually works. So the bug you filed is simply a quirk that's a bit annoying but at least it works.
There are a couple of outstanding audio file playback issues, and as most users want their players to playback audio files and not radio they are pretty much more important. Speaking for myself, I even don't want my player to have a tuner. As I can't buy the player without I simply don't use it.

I wrote a new bug report, containing a detailled description, but I got an e-mail that one of the Rockbox project managers denied to deal with that problem.

This isn't correct.
In detail: I closed you bug report as it actually was a duplicate. You should have gotten a notification mail about that from Flyspray. As you posted a nice description of the problem I added a note to the other task yours was a duplicate of in case someone wants to read another (i.e. your) description. Now the submitter of that original task requested your task to be reopened. As there is a task open (and actually the task of the guy who requested yours to get reopened) his request is completely ununderstandable to me. That request got denied (which should be clearly from the notification mail about that). (You can find this out by looking at the history of your task)

I use the tuner very frequently, so to me this is a major drawback. What else can I do to persuade the Rockbox crew that this problem should be fixed?

Nothing.
The thing is that rockbox developers work in their spare time and don't get paid, thus they work on bugs the way they like and according to their meaning of what is important and what isn't. Also, IMO this isn't a real bug simply because it doesn't affect the functionality. If you want to have this fixed quickly go ahead and work on it yourself. There are always a couple of friendly devs on IRC you can ask for help.

Don't forget: this is open source. Take it or leave it. If you don't like the current state start working on it yourself. Or use some (most probably) paid alternative.

[HorstIriver]

Bluebrother, I didn't want to sound disrespectful or critizise any of the Rockbox developers. I did search for a duplicate before I wrote my bug report, but the Flyspray search engine couldn't find any. In fact, it doesn't even find 'FM', and searching for 'radio' did not reveal the earlier bug report you were talking about. Someone who had worked on the FM receiver part has added stations that can be named and saved, that is a great feature, so my impression was that supporting the FM receiver had some importance. When I go on a business trip or travel, I usually want to listen to both, my personal mp3 collection, and news from the local radio stations. I agree with you, Rockbox is developped without getting paid for, it is a hobby. But if the general rule for using Rockbox is: 'Take it as it is, or drop it', why do we have forums in which we can discuss about it? It is not only your reply to my quesion. The delayed-response-of-the-stop-button-thread is not very encouraging... sometimes it reacts immediately, without any delay, sometimes it ignores short presses at all. So it is either a bug, or, if the delay has technical reasons, it doesn't work reliably. Raising the volume of the radio is, most probably, writing a different value into one of the registers. Much easier than implementing a system of 32 named and saved stations. OK, maybe the person who implemented that feature will find some minutes to fix it  8-)    

[Febs]

But if the general rule for using Rockbox is: 'Take it as it is, or drop it', why do we have forums in which we can discuss about it?

You left out the most important part of Bluebrother's post:  "If you don't like the current state, start working on it yourself."

Raising the volume of the radio is, most probably, writing a different value into one of the registers. Much easier than implementing a system of 32 named and saved stations.

And you are absolutely welcome to submit a patch to fix it, particularly if it is as easy as you believe it to be.

[Llorean]

I can rather easily understand how "The volume is lower on FM" got a low priority, since a simple solution is to turn up the volume.

My experience here is that the volume level is fine on FM. I haven't compared it to the iRiver Firmware's volume on FM, but is it possible that your station is quiet?

[HorstIriver]

I can't turn up the volume any further because at 0dB, it sounds like -12dB in mp3-mode, at best. At FM, the volume does not depend on the reception strength, and it happens at all stations (about 20) that I get. Comparing it to the Iriver firmware, the iriver firmware is much louder. - 3 minutes later - I have just done a test. Because my hard drive is currently empty, the boot time is very short, and I could compare the sound volumes of both firmwares at the same station, while the same song was played. The Iriver firmware has a volume range from 0 to 40. If I set it to about 23, I get the volume of Rockbox at max. setting, 0dB. Another effect: Rockbox seems to find less stations. I am convinced that the FM receiver chip is configured differently in both firmwares. Is it possible to check the register contents of the chip while under Iriver control, and transfer the configuration to Rockbox? Does anybody have something like a Risk Watch to spy what the Iriver firmware does?

The reason why I mention all that radio stuff: I really want to use Rockbox as the only firmware, not only because of the station memory, I like all features very much, I am enthusiastic! I am far from critizising anybody of the Rockbox crew, they did an outstanding job, especially if you consider that they had no support from the manufacturer of the hardware. I know what I am talking about because I have been  computer hardware developer and simulation specialist for 25 years (IBM). If I had the time, I'd make myself familiar with the Rockbox project immediately, try to improve the FM part myself, and try to contribute to the project. Currently I can't, there are too many other things... therefore, at the moment, I can only ask for help.

[JimmyRock]

I have the same issue, and I also mentioned it (among many others with the FM Tuner) in this post:

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=6203.0

For the tuner volume, I'd request either:

1) Separate volume controls for FM and file playback,
2) An "FM Volume Adjust" option to change the FM volume relative to the main volume setting,
3) Or boosting the FM volume to correct levels in the firmware

Haven't gotten around to making a Feature Request yet (not too motivated to do so since it seems that not very many are considered).

[bluebrother]

Haven't gotten around to making a Feature Request yet (not too motivated to do so since it seems that not very many are considered).

There is already a request in the tracker. Also, this issue was already discussed on IRC. IIRC the consens was to go with 2), but better look it up in the logs ;-)

[RaeNye]

I don't have a iriver so I might be talking nonsense here, but at first the X5 FM radio suffered from a similar problem, solved by setting the TLV320 line-in gain to 0dB (FM is muxed into the line-in input).

Maybe the respective change to the UDA1380 (or any other ADC/DAC chip the H1xx has) could solve your problem.

Maybe you can test it without coding by changing line in gain on recording screen.

[JimmyRock]

I don't have a iriver so I might be talking nonsense here, but at first the X5 FM radio suffered from a similar problem, solved by setting the TLV320 line-in gain to 0dB (FM is muxed into the line-in input).

Maybe the respective change to the UDA1380 (or any other ADC/DAC chip the H1xx has) could solve your problem.

Maybe you can test it without coding by changing line in gain on recording screen.

I never use the recording options, but as far as I can tell, the gain is already set to 0.