Speex player for pocket pc, is there an available solution? Options

[High Fidelity]

I'd like to use speex encoded files on my win 2003 pocket PC.
Does anybody know if there is a player available ?

[jmvalin]

I'd like to use speex encoded files on my win 2003 pocket PC.
Does anybody know if there is a player available ?

The standard command-line encoder and decoder should compile fine (or with very minor tweaks).

[rjamorim]

The standard command-line encoder and decoder should compile fine (or with very minor tweaks).

There's no command line interface in PocketPC.

[alpha3on]

There is. Look at this site:
http://www.rainer-keuchel.de/software.html

Conceivably someone could tweak the speex sources in similar ways for use with the above environment.

[luser]

Has anyone managed to compile the command-line encoder and decoder to pocket pc?

//luser

This post has been edited by luser: Jul 1 2004, 11:50

[orion76]

Speex will be too slow on devices without a floating point unit. I doubt Speex would be useful on a Pocket PC in its current state.

[Atlantis]

Speex will be too slow on devices without a floating point unit. I doubt Speex would be useful on a Pocket PC in its current state.

I do believe that a pocketpc is capable of handle speex decoding, it's only matter of optimizing the routines.

[alpha3on]

Someone on the Speex mailinglist posted a pocketpc alpha speex decoder already nog so long ago. I sent him a mail but he was out of office, it will probably not take long for some pocketpc speex support!
But there is also Real9's spiro (ACELP) encoder en pocketpc decoder which although much older might be a little bit more efficient with speach then speex (CELP). The format is not open though - but still free for personal use.

[Gabriel]

Speex will be too slow on devices without a floating point unit. I doubt Speex would be useful on a Pocket PC in its current state.

http://www.xiph.org/archives/speex-dev/200405/0116.html

[High Fidelity]

Thanks for the link Gabriel.

I'm realizing now that the port is much more than adding a frontend to an already existing encoder/decoder.
But it seems some people are already working on that...
Very nice

@ jmvalin
from the buglist of the readme file of 01-PocketPCPortRelease.zip:

BUGLIST
-------

- The speex files created using speexenc can't be decoded using this wrapper. similarly files encoded using this wrapper can't be decoded on the desktop.

essentially the files compatible with the wrapper are the ones created (encoded/decoded) using it.

Does that mean that the files must be encoded in PPC environment, or is likely that there will be a new format derivated from Speex ? - or is this a bug that can be fixed in a future version?

[orion76]

Depends what you're using it for.

Sure Speex will work on PPC but it's not suitable for a real-time voice application like VoIP because the floating point calculations done during the encoding will be slower than the speaker.

It would probably take 10 seconds to encode 5 seconds of speech.

When the fixed point port is finished this should not be a problem anymore.

[moi]

There is a great new media player for Pocket PC, called Betaplayer, for both video and music. I don't think it supports Speex yet, but the developer says he plans to add that.

Take a lot at it--go to www.corecodec.com, and follow the links to Betaplayer, look at its forum, where the development is discussed. The author (Picard) is quite open to suggestions, etc.

Anyone with a Pocket PC interested in media should take a look at this program.

The latest "stable" version is 0.4. (unless a new one came out today, I haven't checked.) The author also has several newer beta versions he calls "unstable". (Don't let the name scare you. They are not unstable, just not a full new version yet. As of version 7/25 WMA and WMV support was added. As of 7/28 Matroska, and support for the WMA voice codec.

Why I mention the latter, unless you hate Microsoft too much to use any of their formats, I have found WMA 9 voice to be a great codec for spoken voice. I encoded an audio book that I have on CD with it. This audio book was on 10 CDs, about 700 minutes of audio. I first tried the lowest setting with WMA9, at 4kbps, and found it unacceptable. But when I went up to the second lowest setting, at 5kbps, I found the results quite acceptable for spoken voice. Using that I fit the ten CD audio book into about 30 MB. If you have WMA9 on your PC, the voice codec is there, although not all encoders recognize it. Windows Media Encoder does, but I used DBPoweramp (you have to download and install their WMA pack from their Codec Central).

I can play them on my PPC in WMP, but now (as of version 7/28) I can also play them with Betaplayer. I also have a couple dedicated digital audio player devices that can play WMAs, but none of them I have will play these with the voice codec, or due to the very low bit rate.

Some people on the Betaplayer forum said that their PPCs will not play WMA voice (either with WMP or the new Betaplayer), although they have WM2003, which I also have. It might be that some builds of WM2003 will play it, others will not. I have an IPAQ 2210, still using the OS that came on it, the voice WMA files work fine. Try a short excerpt on yours before encoding a whole book.

[jmvalin]

Sure Speex will work on PPC but it's not suitable for a real-time voice application like VoIP because the floating point calculations done during the encoding will be slower than the speaker.

It would probably take 10 seconds to encode 5 seconds of speech.

When the fixed point port is finished this should not be a problem anymore.

Note that right now, the fixed-point port is enough to get real-time encoding and decoding on an ARM CPU.

[moi]

Sure Speex will work on PPC but it's not suitable for a real-time voice application like VoIP because the floating point calculations done during the encoding will be slower than the speaker.

It would probably take 10 seconds to encode 5 seconds of speech.

When the fixed point port is finished this should not be a problem anymore.

Note that right now, the fixed-point port is enough to get real-time encoding and decoding on an ARM CPU.

But I don't see where the OP or anyone else was talking about VOIP. Yes, I don't think that would be at all practical with a PPC, regardless of codec. A PPC isn't likely to be connected to the Internet via broadband. More likely connected via cellphone (wire or bluetooth), GPRS, or CSD or however the cell phone connects to the Internet. Perhaps in a couple years with the advent of 3G, cell phone internet connections will be fast enough for that, but not now.

I think what was being referred to was using Speex for encoding recorded spoken voice (audiobooks, etc.) to listen to on the PPC. Of course one could use any audio codec for that purpose, but a codec that is optimized for getting very low bitrates for spoken voice will do that better. (And it is a complete waste of space to use the same kind of bitrates for spoken voice as for music.) I also recommended WMA Voice codec for that purpose, with which I got good results at 5kbps. When I tried the same recording encoded to MP3 at its lowest setting, 8kbps, it sounded terrible. RM didn't sound bad at 8kbps though (for spoken voice), and there is a RealMedia Player for the PPC, albeit not a very good one.

[jmvalin]

I think whatwas being referred to was using Speex for encoding recorded spoken voice (audiobooks, etc.) to listen to on the PPC. Of course one could use any audio codec for that purpose, but a codec that is optimized for getting very low bitrates for spoken voice will do that better. (And it is a complete waste of space to use the same kind of bitrates for spoken voice as for music.) I also recommended WMA Voice codec for that purpose, with which I got good results at 5kbps. When I tried the same  recording encoded to MP3 at its lowest setting, 8kbps, it sounded terrible. RM didn't sound bad at 8kbps though (for spoken voice), and there is a RealMedia Player for the PPC, albeit not a very good one.

Actually, I think you should try Speex at 4 kbps, especially with VBR. I think you'll like the results. There are some samples at: http://www.speex.org/samples.html

[dornyika]

I'd like to use speex encoded files on my win 2003 pocket PC.
Does anybody know if there is a player available ?

Hello, i just found out, that resco audio recorder v.3 (commercial software) is able to play speex. i tried out with the trial version and i was able the play .spx that i created using speexdrop on my pc.

hope this helped

bye