Now this will probably be in the FAQ won't it so if Dibrom just wants to tell me to "Be patient!" then feel free

Otherwise, what kind of tools are you looking for? And is there anything that people might desire at present that I could turn my hand at ?(ive just started looking for work so my skills are a bit rusty, so im looking for a bit of a challenge)

Cheers for the info,
-Nic

Well there are many items on the list (which I don't have handy at the moment) but a few of them include:

-Generic audio encoding/decoding/processing frontend

-Complete audio file manipulation system including tagging, album/song management, renaming, organizing, playlist creation, processing, etc.

-Some sort of audio player, maybe with ability to read plugins from other players (we'll have to see about this)

-Various listening test tools

-Whatever else I forgot or other cool stuff that makes sense to add to the project

Basically all of this is going to attempted to be tied together with all of the different types of features people would want in the best programs from each categories, but all in one organized spot (kind of like this forum almost ). The entire thing will be programmed in Java and will utilize an XML based system for configuration (similar maybe to something like XUL in Mozilla) to provide a truly configurable and cross-platform system.

Of course, a lot of this is a ways off, but the abx listening tool is nearing a public beta (probably more like alpha ) quite rapidly, so that's a start.

There isn't going to be much activity related to all of this stuff for a good while yet though, just letting everyone know that now. Quite a bit of this is still in the idea/planning/experimental stage.

Nic, if you are interested in helping, and you can program in Java pretty well, you could always private message me and we could discuss the issue further.

Java for everything? Obviously Java allows easy cross platform situations - but for interfacing with other apps some things could prove difficult.....However I like the idea.

I know Java ok.....So ill be in touch.....(My XML can leave something to be desired at times :-) So im a bit rusty at that but know the foundation stuff & can do it ok (dictionaries and XSL transforms hey? all fun stuff :paranoid:

Cheers,
-Nic

Any plans to include AC3 handling into your tools for DVD rippers ? Would be nice to have a audio tool doing everything, AC3 decoding ( implementation of Azid or HeadAC3 ? ) , 2 pass normalization in 24 Bit mode, smapling rate conversion, finally encoding ....

It's kind of hard to use that HeadAC3he program with the author closing the source code. Besides, would you want to use code from someone who is so afraid to show it to the public? Bet it's all stolen from other programs.

I like this idea... im sure we will include it in the list of desired features to be implemented however it is pending whether or not it actually "can" be tapped into in the immediate future. Im hoping everyone will keep in mind these issues will come up from time to time despite the fact certain features maybe very desireable by the community as a whole (a good example is the rio volt + mpc) (or am i the only one that brought that up?). Rest assured as our resources permit and as source permits we will make a positive effort to cater our suite to the demands of the community:)

Avenger promised to show sources once program is in final. And i wasnt necessarily talking about HeadAC3 but maybe Azid, in fact HeadAC3 uses azid.dll for AC3 decoding itself .....

Fist of, I *never* stated that I will go open-source. Second, I hate stupid people who don't know anything and accuse others.

Calm down folks !!

Sorry Avenger if i got this wrong, i thought you had said this once when this guy in the Doom9 forums attacked you quite hard. My sincere apologies.

YouriP,

Avenger can do with his program whatever he wants without being flamed for that. There is no "law" or whatever forcing hi to be opensource.

Concerning AC3 support :

azid.dll is really all we need. Avenger uses it in his program as well ( and never made a secret about it BTW ).

Hey, Chris the rough tone was not against you, but to another person who pisses on me meaninglessly. Some people just don't have logics and can't be argued with.

About azid.dll: As I am a man of honour, I never made it a secret and tried always to obey the author's wish, so I explicitly included that info in the about dialog.

My intention was never to "piss on you meaninglessly". I simply stated that which is fact - your program cannot be used in other tools because the source is not publicly available. True, I shouldn't have assumed you stole code from other programs for your own, but that's the impression one gets if you write a freeware program (at least, I assume you are not going to be charging money for it) while leaving the source closed up. Of course, you have every right to keep your code to yourself, and I will respect that. The reason I hoped you would open up the source was actually so that other people could benefit from your program and include it's functionality in their own programs (like the tools proposed here). However, when I asked if you had plans to do so, you first more or less avoided the topic until I finally just asked you straight forward, when you started going ballistic on me and finally let the truth come out - that you are not going to release the source code no matter what. I simply found it odd you couldn't give either reasons nor justification for not opening up the source.

However, aside from all this, I find it less acceptable that you have to "chase" me all the way to a different forum to attack me once more for disagreeing with you. Note that, unlike you, I never started namecalling or accusing people of ignorance. Furthermore, I like this forum a great deal, and I would not want any part of it being maleficently degraded by reoccuring flamewars. Therefore, I hope we can put this issue to rest now and we all can continue with productive, intelligent discussion once more.

Very well, at least you see that accusing me without having anything is wrong. I don't c your logics just, because it's freeware it should be open source, or it points into the direction that I stole anything.

about "ballistic". Don't forget that you were the first one who attacked me, so I just fired back feeling insulted.

And furthermore, I just went too detailed in the first place, as I thought a "no" would be enough as I have other things to do than explaining the whys. In fact I gave you many reasons why I don't want to go open-source. Furthermore I don't have to give justification, it's my choice and finish. I really hate to repeat myself, especially if people don't get it/ accept it.

Last but not least, I haven't said either that I will not going to release the source "no matter what". Please read closer. I said "no" but not "never".

Why don't you ask lightning uk, why he doesn't want to release his source? Some or some more of his reasons are the same as mine.

People can use my proggie in their tools as well, as I implemented a more or less automatic mode. So you can use it like toolame.exe or lame.exe, etc. Only thing is that I don't put in a full CLI, but different INI files support (in next release, have done it already, right now making multi-channel WAV support).

Well, I have not "chased" you, but ask yourself whether its polite to talk behind one's back, which is what you basically did. I just did a search on my tool in this forum and was surprised that a thread about it already opened. So I took a look into it and was negatively surprised that you started the same thing as in Doom)'s forum.

I am a peaceful person indead, as I like harmony. But on the other hand, I have a strong dislike on injustice and then I defend myself.

Its a shame really if talented people waste their precious time by arguing against each other.

I just would like to be capable of coding programs myself but i fear i am too old for that and the time of BASIC is gone with C 64 ....

Avenger,

i am glad to hear your program may be used in other applications ! Wasnt aware of that, good thing to hear.

Did you have the chance to look at floating point WAVs already ? I am convinced Ligh would be glad to help here and if i understand him correctly a 24 Bit floating point WAV is as good as a 32 Bit integer regarding quantization errors while normalizing ?

Did i get this wrong ?

Well, reading my last post again, it seem I didn't waste too much time on grammar.

Never mind.
I am not an expert of floats vs. integs. To put in 32bit float is easy and I wanted to do that. But with 24 bit I am not too sure. Have shift around the bits, if I am not mistaken. I remeber that bluspun gave me some assembler routines for this, but I still don't have much of a clue. Nevermind. Right now I am trying to get lame.dll working. (Yes, you read correctly.)

Already got v.014pre?

Youri you be nice!! :-) (and I will send that source to you, I promise.....infact im off to do it now!)

(BTW Lightning UK's position on open source (for those who dont know) is that he has spent so many hours pouring over & working out information he doesn't feel anyone should be able to take credit for all his hard work (just by adapting his source). I think this is very understandable)

Cheers,
-Nic

ps
I never care if people make things open source (I obviously prefer it however). But I always think a good community spirit and offering help if people enquire is always more important....So please dont fight

Nic, you said it all .

BTW, I almost feel like in Doom9's forum, many familiar faces...

And I just love these smilies

YouriP vs. DarkAvenger:

:flamewar: or :battle:

So much for productive postings... Hehehe...

Cheers,

Mijo.

Ookami, lol , is this a demonstration of the world famous Asian Art of deescalation .....

please excuse me if I'm wrong but written on Java... does that mean one will have to buy 1GHz Athlon & 256MB just to listen some music?

I dont think the main idea is to make Java audio players. At least I hope not, that would be a real pain in the **** :-)

Coding in Java would make tools platform independant (and not that demanding on your system :-) Im not keen on Java (in fact I have to do some tomorrow for work...which im not looking forward to - Its slow and the Swing libraries make the applications look very basic - The only thing I like about it is the stuff I write in Windows in Java I can then use on Linux machines....

Cheers,
-Nic

Maybe, but if this happens it is not going to be the main focus at least to start with. On the other hand, it may not be that big of a deal.. there are already mp3 decoders in java and vorbis decoders in java, and I believe they run pretty quickly really. Something like MPC shouldn't be a big deal either since it is even easier to decode than both of those.



Java actually can be quite fast if coded correctly and you use a good JVM. IBM's stuff is particularly fast, infact in some cases it has been shown to be as fast and even slightly faster than native code. Of course though , you will never get an FFT in Java to run as fast as you would in C, but then, that isn't really the point either.

Also, for that matter, all of the hydrogen tools will be skinable and won't look anything like the default swing stuff. Infact, they look pretty cool really. Much niftier than default windows applications at least.

Wow, I'm impressed, Dibrom!!!

Maybe I'm just too stupid or too tired, but have I understood correctly that all this really is going to be a standalone program (not something like win32LAME that relies on other software and just preconfigures it)?

Different subject (this would actually belong in a different thread, sorry): This name "Hydrogen Audio Tools" sounds so cool, why don't you name you presets "hydrogen-preset" or something like that (as you want to get rid of your initials in the names anyway)?

CU

Dominic

Ok. Hydrogen is actually going to be released in separate stages. The whole idea behind it is to have a centralized suite of utilities in modular form.. The program 'Hydrogen' itself is not going to be released for a while since it is still in an infant stage, however we are close to releasing some of the first modules for it which have the capability to run as standalone applications (The first will be a blind listening test utility). 'Hydrogen' will actually be nothing more than a very simple but sophisticated module manager which will allow flexible intercommunication between the different modules (most likely via XML).

In regards to external software... we will probably be implementing some third party modules (codecs, libraries) but we can guarantee that most of these will be cross-platform. I am personally very wary of any software that is proprietarily tied to any particular OS (win32 in particular). Also we will be making a good effort to minimalize the prerequisite for third party software with our releases while also allowing for the use of most popular software. For example, our front-end encoder will most likely come with some popular (as in quality-oriented) codecs, although it will allow for the use of other popular (as in the deaf mass public) codecs as well.



Yes.. all hydrogen modules nearing release support the latest skinl2f library (1.1) and by default use the Aqua gtk/kde theme, and include a commandline option to specify other compatible theme packs (GTK / KDE skins). I am hoping to experiment a bit with SkinRegion which will allow for non-quadrilateral shaped windows (like kjofol) as well.



For those worried about performance, don't be. Despite the old myths and half-truths floating around about java, performance is one of our key priorities as I'm sure this very website testifies to. I plan on posting some information on how to optimize your JVM setup so that you do not need the system prescribed above.

PS - I was never fond of the swing look myself so on a side note, there is a method to having java progs autodetect the appropriate look and feel mode depending on the OS that is hosting it.

And in case any of you had it in your mind, we have no intention of creating an encoder with java. Don't let this be confused with a front-end implementation of an existing native-coded codec.

This all sounds just too good for words. I hope you'll keep us all up-to-date with screenshots, I'm really looking forward to this cool interface