What's that? Rec with Rockbox on my ArcV1Rec and ...silence after 3 or 4 hours

[kermet75]

Hello everyone...

I've flashed my Archos Jukebox Recorder V1 with the Rockbox
Firmware V2.5 and everything looks fine but if I record from an analog Source
(Settings: Qlty:7 Src:anal Frq:44,1) after 3 or 4 h there is only Silence during
Playback. I've played the File on XP Home SP1 with Winamp V2.90
Windows Media Player 8 is still playing the File after 3 or 4h but it's skipping some seconds of the Music on and on (it's sounds like you press the Fast forward key on a CD-Player...) - what's wrong? is there any new Version without that bug?

i've compared the Bitrates of both Rec Files (the one from the original Firmware with
the one from Rockbox) - the original Firmware Rec Files only switches between 160 and 192 kBit/s - in the Rockbox rec File Winamp shows Bitrates from 168-171 kBit/s

- Is there any Kind of Rombox that runs COMPLETE from ROM WITHOUT having ANY Rockbox Files or Directories on Harddisk

 - first, i have now restored the good old Firmware on my V1 (V1.28 from Archos) awaiting a BugFixed Version of RomBox...

i know... bad English but I'm from Germany... :-)

[Llorean]

In the future if you have questions on two separate topics, please split them into separate posts.

I'll answer the Rombox question: No, I believe there isn't.

[pixelma]

ok. and I'll try to answer the recording question...

The problem you are experiencing is a well known bug in the MAS (chip that de- and encodes mp3) - meaning that it is a hardware failure that also exists in the original Archos firmware. It is pure luck it didn't happen in your test. Lots of investigating has been done so far and it shows that (1) the higher quality you chose (Q7 in your tests is the highest) the more likely is the occurance of the problem (2) Q5 is recommended and leads to relatively stable recordings with sufficient sound quality.

A way to fix this completely in software has been worked out though it hasn't been coded yet - but a partial fix is already in the current source code and thus this problem will occur more seldom. The developer who has done a lot of work regarding this said he isn't sure that the fix is already part of the rockbox 2.5 release. You should consider installing a daily build either way because the release version is really old (end of 2005 if I remember correctly). Knowing that it is announced as stable version, I can assure you that the recent daily builds are at least as stable at this one and many bugs have been wiped out since then and lots of new features have been added.

By the way... the issue of the "switching" bitrates you found with the original firmware's recordings shows that it is even doing worse than rockbox. Most likely the so called Xing header that contains information for variable bitrates mp3s is broken or not present - so Winamp doesn't know it is vbr and only displays the current mp3-frame's bitrate. While the Xing header is present your music player will show the average bitrate over the time the file plays.

[kermet75]

Hey! Thanks for your Answering ...

I've experienced that the original Firmware (on my V1: V1.28) is recording
reliable if the recording time is not above 9h or so ...

So I record above 5 Times from a Tuner and it's okay ... but the Times on the mp3-Files are wrong ... if Winamp says 720min. (12h) i can only jump to Minute 541 for instance - but i Correct the Bug with MP3DirectCut V2.04 (loading File - marking all - Save to a new File) an then it's okay. now i can hear the full 720 min.

the other Problem is that the Original Firmware isn't able to handle the FAT32 Limits
(if the File is reaching 1GB - yeahhh what now ... :-) -> is the Rom or Rockbox
auto Splitting during Record if reaching the One Gig Marking?)

does anyone know the latest Firmware Revision from Archos? on their Website
there is a file with Version 1.27d but if my has a Version 1.28 its feeble-minded to flash it ... :-)

Thanks in advance -

[mborus]

I've experienced that the original Firmware (on my V1: V1.28) is recording
reliable if the recording time is not above 9h or so ...

I've had the same problem. I've done many 72 hour recordings on the
V1 at quality 5 and while most played, there sometime were problems.

There's a tool written by BlueChip to fix these errors later.
This tool works great for me.

You can read about it in the rockbox mailing archive
http://www.rockbox.org/mail/archive/rockbox-archive-2006-01/0305.shtml