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Topic: TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta (Read 11977 times) previous topic - next topic
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TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

The (first...) beta release of my Winamp playback plugin for files created by TAK, my new lossless audio compressor.

You are highly advised to upgrade to the bug fixed beta 2: TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta 2

New features:

- Based upon the final code of the first SDK release.
- Reads APEv2 tags located at the end of the file. The file info dialog shows the most important tag items.
- Reads new encoder version meta data structure introduced in TAK 1.0.1. The file info dialog shows encoder version, preset and evaluation level. For files created with TAK 1.0 the evaluation level is unknown.

Please look into the ReadMe for more information.

I had no opportunity to test the new APEv2 tag support on a large collection of files, under other operating systems than Win 98 or under operating systems using other languages than german. Therefore bugs in this new feature are possible...

I will remove the previous alpha release from the upload section as soon as there is enough feedback, that this beta is ok.

Please don't distribute this beta version, better wait for the stable release.

Have fun and thanks for testing!

  Thomas

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #1 –
It seems working well 

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Dr. Oviri on
It seems working well 

Great work Thomas 

Thank you so much! This lightens me enormously! Following a release i am always very excited, expecting all kinds of failures...

I am a bit surprised about the ";" at the and of the tag items. The plugin itself will only insert them between two consecutive item values. Two explainations:

1) The item values itself contain an ";".

2) The software which generated the Tag has apppended a zero char at the end of the item values. Following the APEv2 specification in the hydrogen wiki, zeros are only allowed to seperate item values, but not at the end of the last value! Then this tag has not been created right.

Thomas

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #3 –
Quote from: TBeck on
2) The software which generated the Tag has apppended a zero char at the end of the item values. Following the APEv2 specification in the hydrogen wiki, zeros are only allowed to seperate item values, but not at the end of the last value! Then this tag has not been created right.
I haven't checked, but it might be pretty common to have the strings NULL terminated. Even though it's not how the spec is written, it's a little counter-intuitive and including them is an easy mistake to make (especially since in other situations people are usually worried about not forgetting the NULL).

If there's no text after the NULL, I would just ignore it... 

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #4 –
Quote from: bryant on
Quote from: TBeck on

2) The software which generated the Tag has apppended a zero char at the end of the item values. Following the APEv2 specification in the hydrogen wiki, zeros are only allowed to seperate item values, but not at the end of the last value! Then this tag has not been created right.
I haven't checked, but it might be pretty common to have the strings NULL terminated. Even though it's not how the spec is written, it's a little counter-intuitive and including them is an easy mistake to make (especially since in other situations people are usually worried about not forgetting the NULL).

If there's no text after the NULL, I would just ignore it... 

Probably a good idea for the plugin... 

Nevertheless i will let my SDK report 2 values in this case, it will be the responsibility of the developer to deceide, what to do with the artifical second (empty) item value.

  Thomas

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #5 –
Quote from: TBeck on
Nevertheless i will let my SDK report 2 values in this case, it will be the responsibility of the developer to deceide, what to do with the artifical second (empty) item value.
Oh, you're separating multiple values for the caller. How nice! I just pass back the total length and data (NULLs and all) and let him sort it out.

Don't forget that for binary items you shouldn't do that! 

David

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #6 –
Quote from: bryant on
Quote from: TBeck on

Nevertheless i will let my SDK report 2 values in this case, it will be the responsibility of the developer to deceide, what to do with the artifical second (empty) item value.
Oh, you're separating multiple values for the caller. How nice! I just pass back the total length and data (NULLs and all) and let him sort it out.

I will do nearly anything for the users of my SDK to feel comfortable... especially because i myself am among them! 

Quote from: bryant on
Don't forget that for binary items you shouldn't do that! 

Bad behaving developers trying to use this comfort function (there is also one providing the raw data) with binary items will get what they deserve: "tak_res_ape_InvalidType". 

  Thomas

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #7 –
Hi Tbeck

Congratulations on the release!

I tried it out on my computer (Core 2 Duo, 1 gig ram running Windows XP Professional in English), and it seems to work great.

here's what i did:

1. Tagged files using foosion's decoder stub (since i'm utterly clueless about using Tag). I tagged "extra" information other than just the standard artist/album etc. (in this case it's album review, album released).


2. Open files in winamp, and compared results with foobar:

i've posted images:

Foobar shows:
[a href=\"http://imageshack.us\" target=\"_blank\"]

Thank you so much for your work.

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #8 –
Quote from: kanak on
here's what i did:

1. Tagged files using foosion's decoder stub (since i'm utterly clueless about using Tag). I tagged "extra" information other than just the standard artist/album etc. (in this case it's album review, album released).

2. Open files in winamp, and compared results with foobar:

i've posted images:
...

Thank you! Seems to work well.

Is Winamp now also showing "Artist - Title" from the tag in the title field while playing? (The previous version showed the file name)

Quote from: kanak on
Some comments:
1. The technical details is very welcome, specially the encoder version and compression level used. That should come in very handy. One question though, why does it say "Extra + Unknown"? The files were encoded without t he maximum evaluation switch, so shouldn't it just say "Extra"?

From the new features list:

"Reads new encoder version meta data structure introduced in TAK 1.0.1. The file info dialog shows encoder version, preset and evaluation level. For files created with TAK 1.0 the evaluation level is unknown."

And an explaination from "TAK 1.0.1 Development":

"I added a new meta data structure to the format, which contains the encoder version, the preset and the evaluation level. No, i haven't forgotten it in TAK 1.0, but it would have been quite useless with all the encoder options available. The main purpose of this info is the possibility to define conditions for transcoding purposes, for instance: Transcode any file to preset HIGH / Evaluation MAX if it has been compressed with weaker settings. Such rules would have been far too complicated if you had to deal with all the encoder options of TAK 1.0. But since TAK 1.0.1 will remove these options and instead add a new evaluation level EXTRA, it's now practicable."

Quote from: kanak on
Would it be possible to display the other tags as well (like album_review in my case)?

Yes, but there are so many other tags possible and the info dialog already looks a bit ugly and isn't prepared to show much more information. Possibly i could add one or two frequently used tag items, but which?

Quote from: kanak on
3. Playback: Didn't notice any problems. Seeking was fast, CPU usage was minimal: it stayed at 0% and sometimes spiked to 2% 

Very good news!

Well, here are also an TAK 1.0.1 and an TAK SDK 1.0.1 waiting for a release, if the plugin works well...

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #9 –
Quote from: TBeck on
Is Winamp now also showing "Artist - Title" from the tag in the title field while playing? (The previous version showed the file name)
Certainly is here, in both the playlist and player display (Winamp 5.112 & 5.33).
I'm on a horse.

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #10 –
Possible Problems with winamp 5.33. 

A lot of my tak files are giving problems under winamp, but not in the 1by1player which uses the same plugin.

The problem is two fold:
1. An added track shows tags properly i.e. appears in playlist as Artist- Title, but once double clicked, it shows the file name in the playlist instead of tags. The file doesn't play (i.e. no sound).
BUT. if i now click the "play" button in the winamp thing (instead of double clicking the playlist entry), one of two things happens (it seems at random):
a. Sometimes, the entry again shows tags instead of file name and starts playing normally
b. other times, it still shows up as file name, and "plays" back,  but no sound, even the spectrum analyzer doesn't show anything.

2. For some tracks, winamp simply crashes. Again, these files are played back normally in 1by1 AND mediamonkey (using the same winamp plugin).

I posted screenshots of the problems and saved them in a zip file (i didn't want to display 5-6 large pngs here to clutter the thread). Here is the link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/zb1yk6


*Also, in my computer, winamp sometimes doesn't show the artist-title while playing, simply shows the file name (the screenshot is also in the zip file)

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #11 –
Quote from: kanak on
Possible Problems with winamp 5.33. 

A lot of my tak files are giving problems under winamp, but not in the 1by1player which uses the same plugin.

...

I posted screenshots of the problems and saved them in a zip file (i didn't want to display 5-6 large pngs here to clutter the thread). Here is the link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/zb1yk6

...
*Also, in my computer, winamp sometimes doesn't show the artist-title while playing, simply shows the file name (the screenshot is also in the zip file)

Too bad. I will immediately look at the screenshots. Thank you.

One quick idea: Could the trouble depend on the combined length of Title and Artist?

I haven't found any Winamp SDK documentation which states how long this text is allowed to be. Possibly the text returned by my plugin is too long for WinAmp.
 
  Thomas

Ok, your screenshots show a quite short artist and title text, hence this can't be the reason.

But i've got another idea i will try. Possibly we will see a beta 2 soon...

Sorry for the inconvenience!

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #12 –
Quote from: kanak on
Possible Problems with winamp 5.33. 

A lot of my tak files are giving problems under winamp, but not in the 1by1player which uses the same plugin.

Ok, looks as if i have found the error. It was a multithreading issue. I have already fixed it but want to perform some tests before releasing a beta 2 (in maybe 2 or 3 hours).

Again sorry for the inconvenience!

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #13 –
Is there somebody else experiencing the same trouble as Kanak?

If so then i would like to send him the fixed version for testing before releasing it.

Unfortunately i can not reproduce the bug reported by kanak on my system, probably it is too slow or the error only shows up on multicore systems.

  Thomas

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #14 –
Another possible "problem" (i don't know how winamp works so this could really be winamp's fault).

When i drag and drop a file to the playlist editor, the tags show up correctly, but when i add folders to the media library, it shows up really weirdly (although pressing Alt + 3 shows that the tags are indeed correct).

Screenshot:





Edit: It looks like winamp media library is "guessing" instead of just reading tags. This is weird because it doesn't seem to guess on any of my WV or FLAC files. weird.

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #15 –
I'm now on 5.33.  I'm testing with only one album, Air's Pocket Symphony.

I can't trip the plugin up at all: if I stop it, pause it, play from player, double-click the list, ... it does what's expected every time.

Not comprehensive testing by any means, but that's what I have.
I'm on a horse.

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #16 –
Quote from: Synthetic Soul on
I'm now on 5.33.  I'm testing with only one album, Air's Pocket Symphony.

I can't trip the plugin up at all: if I stop it, pause it, play from player, double-click the list, ... it does what's expected every time.

Not comprehensive testing by any means, but that's what I have.


The version tbeck sent me seems to have resolved that problem. Could you try adding the tak files to media library and post your results?

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #17 –
Quote from: kanak on
Another possible "problem" (i don't know how winamp works so this could really be winamp's fault).

When i drag and drop a file to the playlist editor, the tags show up correctly, but when i add folders to the media library, it shows up really weirdly (although pressing Alt + 3 shows that the tags are indeed correct).
...
Edit: It looks like winamp media library is "guessing" instead of just reading tags. This is weird because it doesn't seem to guess on any of my WV or FLAC files. weird.

Well, there is more than one function defined in the Winamp plugin interface to request informations about a file. Currently i have not implemented  the function which is beeing used by the media library. I will add it, when the plugin has proven to work reliable. I wanted to avoid, that possibly wrong information (if the tags are not beeing read correctly) would make it's way into the media library.

Quote from: Synthetic Soul on
I'm now on 5.33.  I'm testing with only one album, Air's Pocket Symphony.

I can't trip the plugin up at all: if I stop it, pause it, play from player, double-click the list, ... it does what's expected every time.

Not comprehensive testing by any means, but that's what I have.

Thank you! Probably it really needs a multicore system to reproduce the error.

Since Kanak has reported success with my new version, i will soon upload it.

  Thomas

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #18 –
The fixed beta 2 is out. The link can be found in the first post of this thread.

Fortunately the bug only affected the winamp plugin code, not the TAK library code.

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #19 –
Quote from: TBeck on
I am a bit surprised about the ";" at the and of the tag items. The plugin itself will only insert them between two consecutive item values. Two explainations:

1) The item values itself contain an ";".

2) The software which generated the Tag has apppended a zero char at the end of the item values. Following the APEv2 specification in the hydrogen wiki, zeros are only allowed to seperate item values, but not at the end of the last value! Then this tag has not been created right.

Thomas


I have checked...It was my mistake 

Now I have solved the problem... also in WavPack and other files that support APE Tag 

 

TAK Winamp Plugin 1.0.1 Beta

Reply #20 –
Quote from: Dr. Oviri on
Quote from: TBeck on

I am a bit surprised about the ";" at the and of the tag items. The plugin itself will only insert them between two consecutive item values. Two explainations:

1) The item values itself contain an ";".

2) The software which generated the Tag has apppended a zero char at the end of the item values. Following the APEv2 specification in the hydrogen wiki, zeros are only allowed to seperate item values, but not at the end of the last value! Then this tag has not been created right.

Thomas


I have checked...It was my mistake 

Now I have solved the problem... also in WavPack and other files that support APE Tag 
...

 

Great! 

And it lightens me a bit to see, that i am not the only one making mistakes...