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Topic: Portable possibilty for MPC (Read 14783 times) previous topic - next topic
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Portable possibilty for MPC

I replied to a post in the ogg forums about the up and coming rio pearl (changed name now)

I wanted to keep the post there as it was mostly about the player itself, but I've spoken to some of the guys who are making the player a while ago, and told them and asked them about MPC...

if you want to have a look

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....25&#entry123990

Its mainly all hinging on getting an efficient integer decoder released, and clearing up the licensing/patent issues... other than that its simple to plugin new codecs.. they've already added flac and ogg  it'd be great if this became an option, i'd definately buy it for MPC support  its just whether the legal issues of MPC can be speeded up at all... other manufacturers have said they would support mpc, iriver for example, but as yet nothing has happened... these guys are serious but they wont pay for licenses.. MPC is so small in usage it will have to be smooth and license free for support to be added by them... it may start small but with some hardware playback and the quality improvements clear it may grow...

Other than that the only other hope i have for mpc playback is fixup's new mp3 player he's working on

http://www.fixup.net/tips/xinmp3/index.htm

i have his portable headphone amp and its a great improvement over the already excellent nomad jukebox3, which i personally prefer over the ipod for actually having the legs to get my music powerful enough through my headphones (which are higher impedence than most)... anyways we'll see how he goes but he's got great ideas for using flash cards as memory for buffers for the hdd... a hybrid portable player is potential, one which can read off of hdd to the card and then power down becoming far more shock proof... MPC support he would be keen to add but he's at the whim of getting MPC decoding into the software he's using, and to be using processors with enough grunt to do it...

The great thing is his superb headphone amp will be built in and i really dont think this is to be under estimated.. i'd love to see that kind of power harnassed via wonderful mpc files... playing it next to a bog standard headphone amp playing similar bitrate mp3s and you will be able to hear the improvements from both components..

The rio effort is obviously more tangiable... but i know fixup makes great things... I'll be keeping an eye on it and wity improvements clear it may grow...

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #2 –
MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better
My sound hardware: Creative's Audigy 2 ;)
My music encodings: Nero AAC Codec 2.6.2.0 Profiles:Transparent,Extreme

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #3 –
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MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better

LOL.

Man, you will be flamed, and let me tell you, you deserve.

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #4 –
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MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better

are you rearded?

do i even need to ask that question?

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #5 –
Quote
Quote
MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better

LOL.

Man, you will be flamed, and let me tell you, you deserve.

With all due respect, this has to be wrong, since obvious trolls deserve no food whatsoever.

Regards,
Madrigal

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #6 –
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MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better


Really, you ought to read 128k Extension test.

Additionally, you now need to prove your claim or we'll feed you to JohnV's tiger when he comes back.
ruxvilti'a

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #7 –
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MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better

gentoo ~amd64 + layman | ncmpcpp/mpd | wavpack + vorbis + lame

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #8 –
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MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better

LOL, thanks for the good laugh. 

However, if you're serious, let me quote a sentence from a flame I once read on TheRegister:

"Did you follow a flowchart to be this stupid ?"
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #9 –
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MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better

LOL!!! HAHAHA

good one.....

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #10 –
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Dude, break your posts into smaller ones (both here and at the original thread)

Haven't you read about the huge posts bug?


Sorry... forgot thought this was only whilst it was in transition.... edited it now, seems to be fine after editing

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #11 –
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MPC is good for me only at quality 10, for lower bitrates OGG Vorbis much better

Wow, that must mean your ears are better than even the decoding chipsets in the Audiophile Revolution. But no, not possibly.

Well, when you say 'lower bitrates' for ogg (yes, it's ogg not OGG) vorbis, it's typically 128 kbps and below. Musepack at -quality 10 is like, 320+ kbps? What fills in the gap between vorbis and musepack then? Please don't say wma, I'll choke on my dinner everytime I read this.

Nevermind, you're here to learn up on audio codecs and clear up misconceptions. Read on, read more.

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #12 –
OK...  Getting back to the topic at hand, shall we?
(We really need the mods and admins back, this board is becoming a mess)


@jrbamford: The integer MPC decoder has already been available for some time. It's not well known because it's not official nor it's being kept up-to-date with latest MPPdec development.

Besides, it doesn't support RG and dither.

Anyway, it's still already better than nothing.

http://www14.brinkster.com/funambulist/

The developer is c.b.2000, the same guy that recently announced the first MPC portable player.

Now, all that is left is a serious patent hunt. :-/

Best regards;

Roberto.

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #13 –
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The developer is c.b.2000, the same guy that recently announced the first MPC portable player.

Didn't he mention something about providing more information in a month and then when the month came, nothing new was posted. Is he still around?

voltron

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #14 –
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(We really need the mods and admins back, this board is becoming a mess)


I know what you mean.. I saw that there had been like 9 or so replies and i expected great discussions on how exciting this all was.. with just good ogg and flac that device is still tempting for a portable music choice.. with MPC it would be complete (tho i still have my worries about quality tho with lineout i could continue using my fixup headphone amp, i believe the lineout is on board.. it may be in the dock  )

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@jrbamford: The integer MPC decoder has already been available for some time. It's not well known because it's not official nor it's being kept up-to-date with latest MPPdec development.

Besides, it doesn't support RG and dither.

Anyway, it's still already better than nothing.


I do remember that but didn't bother trudging through the history... I may get in touch with him again and see if he'd be willing to look at the decoder to see if it would run on the machine.. if its quick to compile in maybe he could even try it on a prototype and see... I bet they're well busy though...

I will try..

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Now, all that is left is a serious patent hunt. :-/


To be honest for Rio to even touch this i think this would need to be clarified.. as i said before.. iriver claim to be looking into it but nothing.. for years now... i think any big company would want to be absolutely positive that

i) the format was legitimate, not illegal in anyway
ii) license free (in this case the PR department are not going to pay for another format with such small appeal... sadly they're budget will be blown for the support of wma for one.. darned M$)

I am sure this is a difficult task, perhaps even something that no one involved with the format is interested in doing.. the format works (brilliantly) in nearly every way we want it already.. keeping our heads down keeps this all at the same place.. safe...

I am very worried at us looking into this and finding that MPC is illegal... finding the development being stopped and us being forced to use the old archived encoders/decoders and thats it...

If SV8 is going to totally free up any reverse engineered code then I guess it may have to wait till then for it to be considered by people.. once its like FLAC, and ogg with regards to licenses the costs go way down... deep down i know the guys at rio love their work, and if it was (technically) possible they would add mpc support.. you can imagine them staying late and doing it out of hours or something...

ANother thing is we need to persuade people that there is a big enough demand for this.. HA is a great vehicle for this but perhaps some actual pertition or something where numbers can be counted would be a great idea so that in future approaches to people you can say

"MPC is this great sounding format, its going to help may your hardware sound out from the crowd at similar bitrates (well any below lossless) ... etc ... etc... ohh and look... just in 3 months by this site alone there have been 3000 people who are interested in this, 1500 of which would buy a player (hdd/cd/dvd) on the basis of MPC support alone"

It'd be great if the numbers in there could be bumped up to something that would make hardware manufacturers stand up and take notice... if we had 100,000 people interested in hardware with MPC capability that'd have a lot of clout... then again, do we have 100,000 people who even know of MPC ?!?

Could someone set up a poll or some site where this could be done... a poll on here would be good i guess.. it'd be nice if it was on some other site somewhere so that linking to it from other sites would be possible...

Anyways here's a long-ish post to test to see if that bug has been fixed

Quote
Didn't he mention something about providing more information in a month and then when the month came, nothing new was posted. Is he still around?


There was some update on there, i only just read most of that thread recently tho, dunno how old it is...

Ok i'll post about that decoder and see if there is any interest at all...

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #16 –
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just in 3 months by this site alone there have been 3000 people who are interested in this, 1500 of which would buy a player (hdd/cd/dvd) on the basis of MPC support alone"

I suggest you cut two zeroes.

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then again, do we have 100,000 people who even know of MPC ?!?


I suggest you cut at least two zeroes again. Maybe three zeroes would be more realistic.

Quote
Could someone set up a poll or some site where this could be done... a poll on here would be good i guess.. it'd be nice if it was on some other site somewhere so that linking to it from other sites would be possible...


Why don't you post a petition at Petition Online?

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #17 –
Quote
I am very worried at us looking into this and finding that MPC is illegal... finding the development being stopped and us being forced to use the old archived encoders/decoders and thats it...

This isn't going to happen.  Without even taking into consideration the fact that this has all been discussed and covered before (there have been posts from Frank and Garf on the matter), the format will never become widely used enough to where it would be profitable for some company to decide they wanted to engage in a legal battle over MPC.  Again, this is assuming that it was illegal, which it isn't.

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If SV8 is going to totally free up any reverse engineered code then I guess it may have to wait till then for it to be considered by people.. once its like FLAC, and ogg with regards to licenses the costs go way down... deep down i know the guys at rio love their work, and if it was (technically) possible they would add mpc support.. you can imagine them staying late and doing it out of hours or something...


MPC doesn't use any "reverse engineered code."  In the unlikely event that it does infringe upon something at this point, it would be through the use of a patented algorithm.  This doesn't necessarily have to do with anyone stealing or reverse engineering any code.  FWIW, reverse engineering in itself, although unrelated, is not technically illegal as far as I know.

Quote
ANother thing is we need to persuade people that there is a big enough demand for this.. HA is a great vehicle for this but perhaps some actual pertition or something where numbers can be counted would be a great idea so that in future approaches to people you can say

"MPC is this great sounding format, its going to help may your hardware sound out from the crowd at similar bitrates (well any below lossless) ... etc ... etc... ohh and look... just in 3 months by this site alone there have been 3000 people who are interested in this, 1500 of which would buy a player (hdd/cd/dvd) on the basis of MPC support alone"


This might be an interesting possibility, but I'm not sure it's really worth it.  Not once have seen a petition like this succeed in getting a company to change something this way.  These types of things simply don't work.  It would take an extremely large number of petitions to turn the heads of the people making the decisions at the company, and even if every single member at HA voted for this, I doubt it'd be enough.

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It'd be great if the numbers in there could be bumped up to something that would make hardware manufacturers stand up and take notice... if we had 100,000 people interested in hardware with MPC capability that'd have a lot of clout... then again, do we have 100,000 people who even know of MPC ?!?


Probably not 100,000, but at least a few thousand for sure just judging by the traffic on this site and some of the other MPC related sites.  Maybe even tens of thousands, though that might be pushing it.

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #18 –
Only 100 people knowing about MPC?
Take only around 10% of people at this forum... 100 people at least and I think many more.

Interested in a portable?
Try a poll, rjamorim. I think there will be many votes for support.
ruxvilti'a

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #19 –
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Only 100 people knowing about MPC?
Take only around 10% of people at this forum... 100 people at least and I think many more.

Not really knowing, but people actively using it as their favorite audio format.

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Try a poll, rjamorim. I think there will be many votes for support.


Problem is a poll would be limited to HA. A petition at Petition Online would be open to anyone interested.

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #20 –
I couldn't think of the site, but yeah a petition online thing would be good... Even to just canvas extra people to see how high we could get it.. agreed they dont do much, but they don't hurt.. and it would help add weight that you could say look here, thats xxxx people that would be VERY interested in buying your product for that feature alone!!

Sorry Dibrom, i do recall reading posts about the patent usage of MPC.. I didn't recall the details and was just trying to stress that being patent free would be very important before a big hardware company would commit...

It'd be great if someone who knew the MPC source could pick out all the possible patent relevant things so at least we could then have a list of things to look further into and definately clarify if said patent had expired... and again the list could be forwarded onto the hardware developers (i'm thinking really only of the rio people at the moment, although that other neuros one seems at least as good a target) so that they could be informed... I greatly respect your knowledge Dibrom but we need details, and explicit descriptions of possible infringements...

Its great to know that at its heart MPC is not infringing heavily in any areas, I'd just love to see hardware support... I guess that requires more users to attract interest...

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #21 –
is SV8 heading to be patent free or am i just imagining that... ? I was sure i'd read somewhere (well on here i guess), sometime that those parts were being rewritten... ??

What format should that pertition be... what question should it ask

"Are you interested in the audio format MPC, and would you MPC playback as a feature sway you to buy a hardware product that supported it?"

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #22 –
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Quote
Only 100 people knowing about MPC?
Take only around 10% of people at this forum... 100 people at least and I think many more.

Not really knowing, but people actively using it as their favorite audio format.

Many of them don't use it because it isn't playable by their portable.
Chicken-egg problem.
Additional showstopper is the lack of support for multichannel audio.
But even not considering these, we have a major competitor in the field and a big one it is - AAC.
Because it is regarded as a successor to MP3, it will get much more support than any other format...
ruxvilti'a

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #23 –
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Many of them don't use it because it isn't playable by their portable.

True, but most of people don't use it because:

-They trust more in AAC's future (like me)
-They are open-source advocates and prefer Vorbis (read some posts above. heh)
-They want small bitrates, and up to some time ago, noone would trust MPC for bitrates lower than 160 kbps
-They want the most widespread possible support, not only about hardware, and prefer MP3.

Quote
But even not considering these, we have a major competitor in the field and a big one it is - AAC.
Because it is regarded as a successor to MP3, it will get much more support than any other format...


Right.

Portable possibilty for MPC

Reply #24 –
Ok I have heard back from the developers regarding MPC on karma after I sent him links to the fixed point decoder..

Quote
I had a look at the cb2000 source (fairly obviously designed to plug into
the cirrus 7309/12 framework!) but was rather concerned about the varying
copyright notices, lack of licensing info, etc. 

Looks a bit dangerous to use anywhere, irrespective of the MPEG2 patent
situation (which is about to expire?)



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If it'll run on a 7309, it'll run fine on the CPU in the karma (which gives
us up to about 80MHz max for audio decoding, ARM7TDMI core but with a
write-back cache). MP3 takes about 30MHz to decode, any more than that and
battery life starts to be affected.


So there you go... comments anyone... they are very busy at the moment finalising Karma... as i said earlier these files with copyright notices need to have licensing descriptions backing them up.. or at least realiable information about the state of any relevant licenses/patents... I am not totally up on the hardware but it looks like it should be able to work on this machine... a harddisk based MPC player... its worth pushing for in my boat... we need to sort out the state of it all.. I'll look over the source later, see if anything springs to mind... as far as hardware worries are the hardware manufacturs only interested in the decoding technology or is it inherently reliant on the encoding technology and the final information structure in the saved files...