Hi guys,

I wanted to know if there's a portable player which supports Musepack, available right now?

I know this has been discussed before, but if you know any of the latest babies out there, please do let me know.

Thanks!

no
won't happen soon also, if ever

You don't know that. It's possible and might happen sooner than you think.

Since you're so optimistic, give me an example?
My best projection is 5 years, and my worst is never. Of course it is possible, but it is not economically feasible, and no company selling portables would cut profit margins by catering to a niche market.

I'm trying to be optimistic, solely because optimism pays. What people say here, affects other people's thinking, regardless of the correspondence to reality, which changes with peoples' thinking. Get it ?

There is already existing flash based player that supports MPC audio. for details check This thread. More details are here. Though this player's specification does not mention MPC support, it does in fact support MPC playback.

The player looks something like this:

@Pike
I want what you're smoking...

You didn't give any example, like sld requested.


BTW: I'm not an optimistic. I'm a realistic.

Not much of a help. You can't find it anywhere outside China, the memory is too small (128Mb, with expansion maxed at 256Mb), and given it's not officially supported, I wonder if it's even easy (or at least possible) to upload MPC tracks to it.

Nor could I have. I haven't got into this enough.

But look at what Floydian Slip just said! There's already a portable that supports mpc .


But still, it's a portable with mpc support. This is good news !

How do you think Floydian came to know this player supports mpc if it isn't possible to load mpc tracks into it?

A tip: with realism, you change nothing. With optimism you can turn events towards your goal, even if it was not realistic in the first place . Uhm.. Besides, I'd say you're a pessimist rather than realistic, which of course is the worst of these three, when it comes to achieving something.

Question wasn't how much will it help to promote MPC. It was in reply to that gloom and doom response "MPC player won't come out in five years, or maybe never". Considering the huge Chinese consumer market, you can never tell if it catches fire in China what will be outcome of that. Ya never know .

Being optimistic, I think there's a very good chance that Britney Spears will be my love slave.

Erm. Because The developer claimed it supports (not the marketer, mind you, the developer)

Why don't you get informed before asking such questions?



With optimism you can look like a fool when you are always waiting for the best while fate keeps shoveling shit on your face.



Well, problem is that the chinese market doesn't even know this player plays MPC. The company selling it didn't bother adding it to the sales brochure. Only the OEM manufacturer knows about MPC support.

Sure, go for it! If you put your whole heart to it, I'm sure you'll succeed some day .

Fortunately the situation we have here, is not as hard as yours (and it doesn't involve enslaving someone) .


Well, I don't think even the developer can just throw stuff like that out of his head .


You don't have to wait for the best all the time - just place the optimism, where it can potentially do good. And yes, the pessimists are indeed the ones who have had hard times in their lives.


The ones interested in mpc will know .

Not really, I just don't live out of illusions.

I guess the problem was that they were not sure about MPC's legality. So, they have tried to be on safe side and not mention on the spec. But some other brand might use their chip and decide to include MPC support in their marketing brochure.

As for the legal stance on MPC codec, it is in a grey area. Nobody actually know for sure about the decoder's stance. My understanding is that the decoder support is not illegal, while encoder is (for MP2 patents). Anybody more knowledgeable migh wanna correct me if I am wrong.

c.b.2000 gave another reason:



http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=124367

You are just taking the face value of that statement. Of course it is due to uncertainity of MPC's legality. If not, why would some company spend their precious time developing a format support but not mention it? They already knew that few people are aware of this format. c.b.2000 just tactfully avoided mentioning patent issue.

But, when MP2 patents will expire, which is very soon, MPC support might catch fire soon.

So you know more than the developer?



Actually, from c.b.2000's older posts, you can detect he implemented MPC playback on his player for HIS usage. Not because his boss asked him to.

Later, he added support to the commercial player because it was done anyway.



I think it's you that is reading too much there.

IMO, his explanation makes perfect sense: almost noone in China knows about MPC, so why bother marketing it?

BTW, something you should keep in mind: his company is not marketing the player. They just developed the software and the circuitry, another company is responsible for the casing and a third one (the brand) is doing the sales to the end users.



Nobody has been able so far to detect if MP2 patents apply to MPC.

So, the MPC issue is not that it is patented - it's that nobody knows IF it is patented.

That situation is much worse because when you know what is patented, you can go and pay for licenses. If you don't know whether it is patented or not, you can't even start going after licensing. You are always under the fear that a patent holder comes out of nowhere and sues you into court for not paying license fees.

It doesn't make any sense to not even mention it. Just add a small mention of it somewhere, how much bother can that be really? I'm sure it must have something to do with legal stuff.

That might confuse people. Some might wonder what C has to do with 3. Their support lines would be flooded by people asking about MPC and how to use it. Etc.

In the grand scheme of things the same could be said about the rest of the world ...

Still no sense. If it's mentioned in supported music formats, what confusion could there be? There are already more formats in use than just mp3, like ogg for example. Besides, how do you even know that this company has any support lines? I got the impression that it's a relatively small enterprise.

No I don't. Neither do you. This is just from common sense.



Actually, from his previous message I get the sense that he already had something like that vision in his mind - "get support in some commercial player, one day". Probably initially he didn't had that idea though.



Probably you are comprehensing too less .



It's everywhere in the world, not only in China. Few people know about MPC. But I guess it is more than just "almost no one" in China that knows about it. Don't forget that developers are just technical people usually having very little gasp about market share.

The good thing is that they are chips manufacturer who manufacture electronics on OEM basis. So, another company might decide to use it and market it highlighting it's MPC support.



That's what I said in my previous posts... it is in grey area.



As far as I know, Frank Klemm suspects that MPC "might" infringe some of the MP2 coding patents. But if the decoder does not have patent/licencing issue, does it really matter if they make a player with MPC playback support? On top of that when the MP2 patent will expire, it will make even more lucrative for H/W manufacturer to support "The world's best lossy audio format".

Erm.. Ogg is quite more famous than MPC.



I think you are confusing his company (OEM developers) to the company that is actually selling the players to the end users. Such company must offer some kind of support.



At least I'm not trying to invent what he really meant.



Where did you came with the idea that patents don't apply to the decoding routines???



Zealotry. Great.

Zealotry? Huh!

I am far from being an MPC zealot. Less that 5% of my audio collections are in MPC format (mostly for live performance and gapless support). Rest are in MP3 format due to wide hardware support.

But mockery aside, can you prove my claim otherwise? Can you show me another lossy audio codec that surpasses overall technical superiority of MPC format?

Be it in: 1) psycho-acoustic model 2) inherent support for gapless playback 3) support for excellent tagging format 4) transperancy level at high bitrate (actually as low as 128 kbps, maybe even less). 5) excellent support with matured and well tuned encoder etc.

Show me another lossy audio format that surpasses MPC format in all of these fields. I'll take your word any day.

Edit: some spellings.

That's implementation-dependant, not inherent to the format



Vorbis.



MP4, vorbis.



Define high.

If it's around 192 kbps: Ogg, AAC and Lame (most of the times).

And no, it's not transparent at 128kbps. Check the test.



I would consider MPC support very far from excellent comparing to MP3 and WMA. Even VQF had more portable support than MPC.

And if you mean developer's support to the end user: heh



At high bitrates: right.

At the whole bitrate range, at multichannel: no.

Right! But is there any other format that implemented better psy model?


128kbps or higher. Which is a sweetspot that most H/W manufacturers seem to brag about.


No, it isn't at 192 kbps. It is where encoder meets transparency level. Heck, MPC surpasses any other format for it's better sound quality at any comparable bitrate from 128kbps or above.

Again, none of these (Ogg, AAC, LAME) better than MPC even at this bitrate. MPC will, most likely, outperform all of these at this bitrate.


Sorry, I mean't to say better quality than others. Obviously no format is transparent at 128kbps level.



I didn't mean H/W support. I said excellent, matured and well tuned "encoder" support.



Heh, no single lossy format is better at whole bitrange.

Anyways, while you have shown that some format may come close to technical excellency of MPC, none in general surpasses it. Not to mention that they suck at other aspects of the features.

So, my claim still stands, based on overall performance and technical superiority - it is still "The world's best lossy audio format".

Edit: spellings, some more comments.

Even still. People should know what "audio/music format" means. Or if they don't they won't bother with it, and even if, they can and will use google instead.


That's not important.


Yeah, most of the time. Mpc's better.

But anyway, this wasn't about mpc vs. other formats - I'm sure there's enough topics about that already. The question was about if there is a portable player for mpc, and the answer is clear enough: yes there is. It may only be in China and it may lack some memory, but I'd see it as a start. And again, the more people see it that way, the good way, the bigger the chances of things turning out well, so heads up .

I think that even is is correct, it won't be that way for much longer.

There is a lot going on in AAC/MP4 and pretty much nothing on MPC.

I think that, by this time next year, this claim is going to be innacurate.

And that also means: no MPC support, ever.

Somebody here said: "maybe in 5 years".

Five years? In five years we will be using lossless (if ripping music is still possible in five years )

Good lord. I can't believe people insist in reading my test results the wrong way.

First: There was a TIE at the first place. The security margin is there for a reason, in case you didn't notice.

Second: If you want to nitpick, then AAC won. Because AAC is at 129kbps (the 1kbps more is MP4 overhead) and MPC is at 146kbps.



It would be wrong neverthless.



Lame is excellent and well tuned considering MP3's limitations. So that argument holds no ground.



According to what has already been tested, MPEG4 AAC.



OK, so let me start pointing out MPC's flaws:
-Bad at low bitrates
-No multichannel
-Seeking is imperfect
-Not streamable
-Can't be cut/edited
-Lack of support (no playback in Mac, out-of-the-box support only in Foobar, no hardware support aside some never-seen player in China)
-No specs available
-No support for high sampling rates.

And so on.

God damn, you are brilliant!



Have you actually played with it to check if it really plays MPC? Faultlessly?

All we have so far is what the developer told us. Not even the player sellers mention MPC playback.

You insist on saying it makes no sense that the marketer didn't mention MPC support because noone in china cares about MPC - it's just because of patents.

So OK, let's twist the game: I agree it makes no sense. Then maybe playback support isn't really there?

After all - heh - what makes even less sense is a chinese company caring about western patents.



That's why I said I'd rather be realist than live out of illusions.

Yes, I know.


No I haven't, but I believe him . Anyway, some Chinese HA-user could well test it.


Yeah, but why they don't is one disputable point we've been debating about. I wouldn't take that as a serious argument at this point.


Why would the developer say it's there if it isn't? That makes even less sense. I don't think he wants to be known as a liar.


They may well play it safe. It's a small world these days after all.


What illusions? And who's living out of them here? I don't quite see what you mean, but I'm sure you'll say anything to dishearten anyone believing in mpc.

This did turn out to be an interesting thread

Hmm well...China, please export it soon to US so that I can lay my hands on it Nevertheless portable players are one area where brand name does matter. So in the perfect world there would be more options than one good ol' company in some remote area of China making the 'world's only portable MPC player'.

rjamorim, you say that AAC won over MPC...whats the support for AAC in portable players available today? It makes sense to switch to a 'present' format (AAC) in which there are developments going on rather than sticking to an equally good but dormant format (MPC). Well now I have to get into knowing AAC encoders, decoders, encode/decode times etc...Well now I have lots to do

BTW some links on portable AAC players, if any would help!

Thanks.

Just read this: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....howtopic=16066&

Any more?

Roberto, as I said in my previous post, while every format is more or less good or equal at certain feature none of them overall surpasses MPC. Especially in most important aspects like better psy-model, transparency level at comparable bitrate, gapless playback support, better tag support etc.

But anyways, we are rathar getting very off topic here. Question was whether there is any portable player that playback MPC. The answer is, yes.

It turned out a mess actually :B



iPod
Nokia Cell Phones
n-Gage
Philips Expanium
Also, rumour has it that some iRiver players are going to support AAC.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/u...special_9.shtml

BTW some links on portable AAC players, if any would help!

http://www.n-gage.com/
http://www.apple.com/ipod/
http://www.expanium.philips.com/

And after they worked so hard at supporting Ogg Vorbis?

I don't know how much stock I'd put in that rumor, since that was dated February and didn't mention the Vorbis support that we're seeing now. I suspect the internal rumor was that a codec better than mp3 was going to be supported (that wasn't also WMA).

Well, they don't need to work had to support AAC, there are decently optimized libraries readily available.



Well, that is still to be seen.

As mentioned already, that iRiver link is rather outdated and inaccurate since it dates back to February 2003. The fact is that none of the iRiver players mentioned there support AAC, with the exception of the iDP-100 which was discontinued after the failure of DataPlay. Even if the media for the iDP-100 was still readily available, you wouldn't be too happy about having to convert your audio files into any of the proprietary CKMP3 / CKWMA / CKAAC formats required by the player. iRiver has made no official announcements regarding support for newer formats, and quite frankly, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.

I've had my disagreements with rjamorim in the past, but let's face it, having one relatively unknown MPC player in China is little reason to be optimistic for future hardware support. Has anyone on these forums, other than the developer, actually tried this player out first-hand?

Who hasn't?

Heh. Let me get back to you on that one.

Oh, you can pretty much bet on iRiver having AAC/MP4 support.

This is the format that every hardware unit will support in the next couple of years.

I think with the advent and success of something like iTunes it is fairly clear which format will follow MP3 as the leading one.

I haven't

Let's start then!

The newer Expaniums don't support AAC right? With newer I mean those devices which actually fit in a pocket like the HD based player or 431. Or are there some inofficial firmware for them which can play AAC?

I, too, would like what Pike84 is smoking.

Is there such a thing? Or does the People's Republic official proxy server block HA? It would be great if someone could actually purchase this item and report back.

And would you pay for it?

Hell no.