MASPlayer users wanted

[Doobrey]

Hi peeps,
 I've bugfixed and optimised the MHI libraries for the MASPlayer.

Just wondering if anyone here who has one (especially the older 'Standard' model, I've only got the newer 'Pro' to test with) could download them and give them a test with AmigaAmp or any other MHI aware MP3 player and see if there's less CPU.

 I noticed a slight speedup on my 040/40, but I dunno how well they'll work on a plain 68000 or '020..UAE tests show they should be quicker too, but there's nothing like real world tests.

Beta MHI MASPlayer libs

TIA,
Doobrey

[doctorq]

Sounds interesting. I have both versions of the MAS Player, so I will give it a try. Unfortunately the standard version is at my parents house :-(

As I haven't got any CPU meters installed, can you recommend one for testing???

[Doobrey]

Scout is pretty good. Select task and you can see the CPU use of every task running. IIRC, with AmigaAmp you need to look for 'AmigaAmp Player Task'.
  My A4000 used 0.5% idling and 3-3.5% when transferring data to the MASPlayer...although the AmigaAmp GUI used 30% :-o

 The original MHI dev archive has a couple of CLI based MP3 players, that are good for testing too, as they use a lot less resources than AmigaAmp.

[Dragster]

Is there any chance dfor Delfina development?

 :-)

Cheers

[MozzerFan]

Hi,

I have a MASPlayer pro and tested the new beta-libs.
Unfortanately there's still a bug in it that was already there with the old version. When I'm playing an MP3 with
a sampling-rate lower than 44 Khz (for example a 96 kbit mp3 at 22 Khz) playback is taking place, but I can hear no sound at all. All is well with a 96 kbit at 44 Khz MP3.
It happens with plain MP3's but also when playing shoutcast
streams. I already mailed Paul Quereshi about this, but unfortunatly he no longer has an Amiga with a developer environment. He did say it probably was a timing problem. With normal Mp3's it's not much of a problem, because the mas-player can easily cope with higher bitrates and sampling rates,  but I listen to internet radio quite a lot, so I hope you can look into it.
Thanks anyway for your efforts.

Greetings,
Lloyd

[Doobrey]

MozzerFan wrote:
Unfortanately there's still a bug in it that was already there with the old version. When I'm playing an MP3 with a sampling-rate lower than 44 Khz (for example a 96 kbit mp3 at 22 Khz) playback is taking place, but I can hear no sound at all. All is well with a 96 kbit at 44 Khz MP3.

Hmm, I got a sneaky feeling it's a limitation of the hardware. I remember having the same problem on low rates myself when I first got the MASPlayer, and got in touch with Paul about it, he seemed to think the same too at the time. I'll have a look though and see if there's anything I can do about it.

Thanks for trying it though. I found out that there's no difference on an '040/40, but '020 and '000 should benefit from less CPU use. I'm just looking at trying to stop the playback stuttering when you change volume on 192kbit MP3s.

[Doobrey]

Dragster wrote:
Is there any chance dfor Delfina development?

Sorry Dragster, I don't have a Delfina :-(

[MozzerFan]

QUOTE:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hmm, I got a sneaky feeling it's a limitation of the hardware. I remember having the same problem on low rates myself when I first got the MASPlayer, and got in touch with Paul about it, he seemed to think the same too at the time. I'll have a look though and see if there's anything I can do about it.

Thanks for trying it though. I found out that there's no difference on an '040/40, but '020 and '000 should benefit from less CPU use. I'm just looking at trying to stop the playback stuttering when you change volume on 192kbit MP3s.
-----------------------------------------------------------


Actually I don't think it's a limitation of the hardware,
because masmpeg.device in combination with Amplifier plays
low rates just fine. Anyway thanks for looking into it.

I have a 060/50 myself so I can't really say something usefull on the stuttering when changing volume issue.

Thanks again for updating the software.

Greetings,
Lloyd

[Doobrey]

MozzerFan wrote:
Actually I don't think it's a limitation of the hardware,
because masmpeg.device in combination with Amplifier plays
low rates just fine.

Hmm, does that mean you can use mhimdev.library with masmpeg.device to listen to internet radio OK?

I'm not gonna admit defeat just yet :hammer:

[Doobrey]

Woohoo.. I finally got it to work with <32Khz streams (ie MPEG2/2.5).
Bad news is that changing volume when playing at these frequencies locks up the hardware  :madashell: Oh well, just another little bug to fix !

Ah well, thanks for the kick up the arse about it not being a hardware limitation..the problem was the MAS reads the state of the config pins on reset, and one of the pins was set so it would only play MPEG1. Luckily the MAS can be sent a new init sequence to override these settings.

[platon42]

You need to be talking reeeealllyy slow with the MAS Chip on I2C while decoding data, because it will, as you already noticed, crash otherwise (seems like this depends on the bitrate (AFAIR), hence the lower the bitrate, the less frequently you may send I2C data. Also, limit the number of volume change operations you're sending to a minimum will help. If you're interested in the masmpeg.device source, let me know.

[Doobrey]

Cheers for the offer Chris..your memory is as bad as mine, you already sent the sources to me last year :lol:

I'm finally getting somewhere after many compiles&tests tonight, can now change volume at low rates without hanging..
 Dunno if anyone is interested, but I found out you don't have to do slow I2C. There's a wait period between every couple of bytes, the lower the sample frequency the longer the wait period needed. {bleep}ing datasheet says max of 4ms, but I had to up it to 6ms to stop the MAS hanging.
 
With any luck,there'll be a new beta at the weekend.

[Doobrey]

I think I cracked it..
 New beta version of the mhimaspro.library here (Std version will come later if this one works OK)

Changes:
  Now plays lower bitrates. (tested with 56kbps/22Khz)
  Also stopped the playback stuttering when changing volume with 192kbps audio, but it's at the expense of making volume changes slightly laggy.
  Plus a few little bugfixes and cleanups..

Hopefully this is close to being finished, be glad to hear any feedback.

[MozzerFan]

Works great here. Like you said, volume changes are a bit slow, but I sure can live with that.
Thanks very very much for this update.

Greetings,
Lloyd

[doctorq]

@Doobrey

Sorry for digging this old thread up, but I just wanted to give my contribution as well. Here you can see the original mhimaspro.library being used, and compared to using  the new mhimaspro.library, the old one uses much more CPU power.

Thanks for the new library, but some final questions... Will you make a new library for the standard version as well (at least my A4000D will appreciate it :-))? And will you upload the new libraries to Aminet?