GarBageDiscussion
Discussion on the GarBageBranch of the firmware
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I think 'feature x' will be a nice thing to have. what do you think?
answer goes here -- GarBage - 16 Oct 2004How do i synchronize the neuros with my computer with the 2.26.1.3 branch?
-- AyazS - 24 November 2004 You should be able to use the open-source Java program NDBM http://neurosdbm.sourceforge.net/ - the latest release (1.48) seems to work fine, fixing the "missing album under artist" problem mentioned below. Or you can use the open-source Sorune sync manager, at http://sorune.tk/ Sorune is written in Perl, and provides more permuted databases such as genre under album and genre under artist. (There are still some issues with these extra sorts, but they work well enough.) On Linux systems, you can also use the open source Python program Positron http://www.xiph.org/positron/, which is a command-line utility to transfer files to the neuros and manipulate the neuros database. I don't know if NSM, the Digital Innovations sync manager, will work with the new stuff, but it too is now open source - however, it requires .NET and runs only on Windows. (I suppose it might run under Mono, but I haven't heard anything about anyone bothering to try.) -- PhilSalkie - 27 Nov 2004I love the work on the firmware, but what kind of nutty format is it compressed in?! I downloaded a binary copy two days ago from CVS, now I see there's a direct download but it's got this "7z" extension, which I guess must be 7zip, but the Linux 7zip decompresser refuses to recognise it as such, so I simply can't get at it any more. Can you please use a vaguely standard compression format to ensure easy access? thanks. [INVALID]
We use 7Zip here for a very simple reason. It provides much better compression.Currently there are some limitations to the size of the attachments that can be posted on this Wiki, so by using a better compression we can post files that could not be there because of their size. For me, the p7zip port located at http://p7zip.sourceforge.net/ worked flawlessly (version 0.91 built from sources on my Debian sid ). Neverthless, CVS is working also, and that'll give you access to both source and binary files (uncompressed and BZipped).
By now, use CVS if the 7zip format poses a problem. -- GarBage - 21 Oct 2004
(from 2.26.1.5 at least) Ogg skipping issuses [INHERITED]
I started seeing them with 2.26.1.5, maybe an earlier change is responsible: when I listen to Ogg files (including Q4 and Q5 encoded files), I have a skip of about 2 seconds (more or less one skip by song), at a random time. Strange thing is, if I rewind the song a little, the skip appears again, at exactly the same time... What could be causing it? Something not in its place in Nand? Move of the UI code to SRAM3 (is this one used for song decoding?) -- BernardCafarelli - 22 Oct 2004 Search for "ogg skip" or "ogg skipping" on the Neuros forums. I think this issue is not related to this branch itself.There's also a bugzilla entry for this one.
From my personal experience i have found that some encoders work better than others on the Neuros (i.e. Ogg Vorbis files encoded with beta4 encoders do not work at all, while aoTuv provides better skip protection). I did some burntests on which i tested -q10 aoTuV files without a single skip.
Your mileage may vary. -- GarBage - 22 Oct 2004 Guess I'll have to read again all those posts, but the same files worked well before... I'll check with official firmware (and nand reformat) next week. What's strange is that mp3 files are also affected and for the rest playback is flawless... Next report on monday! For beta4 ogg files, I had a bunch of them, but they used a slightly different algorithm that requires too much memory and effectively the neuros can't handle them. -- BernardCafarelli - 22 Oct 2004 Half an hour of ogg playing with myfi (to add some stress to the DSP) and firmware 2.25 => absolutely no skip, ogg playback one can be proud of. Switching back to open-source and formating NAND => same behavior as reported before... Any clues? -- BernardCafarelli - 25 Oct 2004
Menu templates reorganisation proposal
While working on adding a start up popup, I noticed that templates in _MENU/??/*.inc contain a lot of duplicated code, in fact only the first parts containing the strings differ. We could move all the common code to files in another directory, and the localised files would only contain the beginning of the file (including text definitions), plus something like ".include ../global/*samename*.inc" Or adding new menus/message box could get tedious if more languages come
-- BernardCafarelli - 25 Oct 2004
I'll consider this.
-- GarBage - 26 Oct 2004
I think a txt reader would be a handy enhancement.
Nothing complicated like an ebook reader, just something simple, with scrolling or whatever. -- YoNo - 25 Oct 2004 Such thing is already under development. But i think some other things should be accomplished first, like free folder navigation. -- GarBage - 26 Oct 2004 If there's the ROM budget (not sure if Neuros has dlls that could be stored on disk- but that'd be great), and given the number of EReaders out there on OpenSource? land to borrow code from, it shouldn't be that difficult to put a 'real' ereader on the Neuros. Something that supported e.g. plucker format. Tunes, a book to read, and if I want to take notes, hit the record button. -- KiwiJulz - 16 Dec 2004(2.26.1.6) USB not being recognized.
Does the cvs code fix the Neuros not being recognized via USB 1.1 bug? -- MatthewGrochowalski - 09 Nov 2004 Try this NandFormat procedure, as documented on the GarBageChangelog.The actual CVS code reverts all the changes done to the detection of the USB cable which, neverthless, they were only done on the playing state. -- GarBage - 09 Nov 2004 I'm having the same problem with my USB1.1 Neuros. Formatting the NAND does not help. Will a binary of the new version be released soon? -- GeoKerby - 23 Nov 2004 The 2.26.1.7 release fixes the problem. I have an early unit (S/N BA000730H3 if that helps) which did not recognize the USB 1.1 under 2.26.1.6, but did recognize it under the official version 2.25. I could swap back and forth, formatting the NAND each time: USB recognized properly on 2.25, and was ignored on 2.26.1.6. As soon as I fixed the link to the new firmware
I loaded it, and the new non-animated USB screen came right up.
(This topic is probably one for the archive now.)
-- PhilSalkie - 11 Dec 2004
My computer would not detect my Neuros in either the "down+play" mode or the regular mode so changing the firmware was seemingly impossible. Even after an NAND format it still would not take. If anyone else is having this problem, try this: Format the NAND, do not exit the "Diag" screen after it's done but do an "up+play" shutdown, hold down+play then plug in the usb cable and the computer should detect the Neuros so you can copy the firmware over. After this the Neuros may lock up as mine did. It it does, just do the up+play again then a down+play to update the firmware.
-- AaronCasselle - 11 Dec 2004
(2.26.1.7) Car mode setting causes error
That's the fastest I've ever gotten a feature request granted! I posted a request to this page for a "car mode", plugged in my unit, and it powered up. I then unplugged it, and it turned off! I then read the changelog, and saw that you'd added "car mode".... However, trying to access the setting causes ERROR: 0x0849 on my unit. (20GB USB2.0, 64MB, S/N BA000804J3, newish silver CPU) But I wanted "car mode" anyway, so who cares if I can't turn it off...
-- PhilSalkie - 11 Dec 2004
Always perform a NandFormat procedure after updating the firmware as stated in the GarBageChangelog. Specially if the NAND structures have changed.
-- GarBage - 11 Dec 2004
Did that. Always do that. Still gives the 0x0849 when going to the menu selection. Should I do the NAND block scan as well? I've even tried
removing the CPU from the backpack, which sometimes helps with wierd behaviors. No luck yet...
Same behavior on two units - one 20MB USB2.0 w/64 MB newer silver CPU, one 20MB USB1.1 w/64MB first-generation CPU (with green box on Xi key instead of green XI).
BTW, what is an "ERROR: 0x0849"?
-- PhilSalkie - 11 Dec 2004
Same happens on my unit (30GB/USB2.0).
NandFormat didn't help.
-- BerndP1 - 12 Dec 2004
I recieve the same error report (0x0849) on a 20Gig USB1.1 w/128mg first-gen CPU.
The unit behaves as though it were not in car mode (I'm fairly sure it isnt, but my car doesn't turn off cigarette adapter power and I'm unsure if just unplugging the AC adapter is recieved the same by the unit).
-- RyanKroetch - 14 Dec 2004
Same thing here on a recently purchased Neuros II 256MB/20GB. NandFormat also did not help.
-- MarkNipper - 15 Dec 2004
Bug fixed on CVS.Thank you all for your feedback. -- GarBage - 15 Dec 2004 I have tried the car mode with a CVS precompiled binary of just before you fixed the bug mentioned above (but that shouldn't affect the problem i found if i understood correctly):
- turned carmode ON
- removed power cable, neuros shut down
- turned on, set carmode OFF, turned off the unit
- inserted power cable, neuros began charging
- removed power cable
- neuros won't turn on!
That's right, pressing PLAY for n seconds the unit turns on and quickly off. Guess it's carmode turning off the player as soon as it gets started. I don't have a power cord handy, but i bet inserting it would allow the player to restart.
Other weird this is that pressing 1+5+PLAY opens the DIAG menu, but I can't move around, it doesn't respond to keypresses and have to shut down with UP+PLAY. -- NeroChiaro - 16 Dec 2004 NeroChiaro, Have you tried disconnecting the backpack from the head unit and reconnecting it? For some reason I have had this problem before as well and disconnecting the head unit fixed it. Also, another problem might be that you are out of power and the Neuros decided that it isn't safe to boot... Though I don't know if that would explain the DIAG Menu. I recommend again removing the head unit from the backpack and reconnecting it, might solve the problem. -- RyanKroetch - 17 Dec 2004 Unless you compile your own firmware from CVS, here's how to fix this bug (since a new CVS compile isn't posted yet). From discussion w/ GarBage on IRC, the integer variable for car mode was not initialized to 0 or 1 (on-off), thus it had random value when starting up w/ new firmware. To fix it, just set the Neuros to "Default Settings", which resets the variables. Viola! Don't forget to go though the settings and pick your preferences again though. -- MarcusBryner - 22 Dec 2004
A weird behavior introduced by a "feature" in the latest NDBM
NDBM now allows you to ignore the word "The" in an artist name. That means that "The Beatles" gets put in with "Beausoleil" rather than in with "Talking Heads". However, that winds up breaking the forward/reverse buttons moving from first letter to first letter - now, when you scan from A to B to C, you stop at "The Beatles", and again at "Bee Gees", and again at "The Bobs", and so on. Would it make sense to detect whether the artist databases are sorted this way, and modify the jump behavior to match? -- PhilSalkie - 11 Dec 2004 I have talked to Starkey about this, and he said the best bet would to go under the options menu in NDBM and change "Ignore The" to "xxxxx, The". -- Main.Yono - 11 Dec 2004 I don't think this would be the best place to talk about the excellent NDBM sync manager. -- GarBage - 11 Dec 2004 Probably right, especially since there's an easy non-firmware related work-around. -- PhilSalkie - 11 Dec 2004Randomizer has no entropy
If you set "Shuffle" mode and play a playlist, or an albun, or whatever, you get the exact same pattern each time. I'm assuming the pseudo-random number generator's seed value is not being updated after each fetch of a random number, so that the randomizer always gives the same sequence. Official version 2.25 doesn't have this problem, although there's still no entropy added to the random seed and it's not saved between power-ups, so the sequence is predictable - the first play of a playlist will give a certain order, the next play will give a different order, and so on. A better thing would be to save the seed in NAND or on disk so it's never the same, or at least to add the milliseconds since boot to the seed before using it. -- PhilSalkie - 11 Dec 2004 Here's the random shuffle behaviour i'm getting. I use SoruneSyncManager :- The first track in list/album/whatever selection is always the first track played. That will allow me to quickly switch back to non-random mode if i wanted to and keep the original order.
- All other tracks are played in random order.
- If i stop, or turn off the unit and play the same random selection, i won't get the same order, and the tracks will be played in a completely different sequence.
- Pressing NEXT or PREV will not reseed the random order, so it is coherent with what i've already heard.
(2.26.1.7) Recordings not added to DB
Recordings I have made since putting this firmware on my device are not added to the Recordings menu. I've also tried a rebuild with the 3 latest versions of NDBM and no recordings are added to the Recordings menu... It is now empty. I tried a NAND format and it didn't help. I just downgraded to 2.26-os.16 and now I can see the recording I made this morning in the Recordings menu. Anyone else seeing this? -- PaulMEdwards - 15 Dec 2004 Recording (since 2.26.1.6) is broken until further notice. -- GarBage - 15 Dec 2004 I don't have any trouble with 2.26.1.6. Is that a typo? -- PaulMEdwards - 15 Dec 2004 Any progress on the Recording glitch? I've backed off to 2.26.1.6 can record OK, but that level doesn't let my USB 1.1 unit sync to the PC. It would really be cool to record using the large Level Meters and be able to sync using the same OS level. -- GeoKerby - 26 Jan 2005 Note that recording still works, it just puts the database entry into the wrong part of the database, so your recording shows up nameless at the top of the "songs" list. I've made several recordings just fine with .1.7, and they show up in the WOID_RECORD directory just like you'd expect. So, to retrieve them, just mount the Neuros and copy the files off. Much better than swapping firmware around... -- PhilSalkie - 31 Jan 2005(2.26.1.7) Charging Problems for older units (Broken charge indication revisited)
My (older, USB1.1) backpack power connection is dodgy and doesn't always make an electrical connection, even though the 'presence switch' in the adapter fools the device into thinking it's charging. Although I appreciate the patch that never displays the charging animation for the older units, I wonder if it'd be possible to have the dsp wake up every now and then in when in the charging state and actually check the voltage level, which I assume rises as the battery is charged. If it's possible, it'd be great to have a 'status check' key that would display a screen that basically said state of cable connection, current charge voltage/percentage, rate of change for last few samples (+ve or -ve) and if the unit really thinks the battery is charging. Thinking about this, it'd be great if the charging display when the device is on also took this into account, with the charge indicator perhaps having a line through it if the device doesn't think the battery is really being charged. Obviously this isn't going to be perfect, as track changes etc could momentarily make the battery look as if it's being discharged, but overall, I think it'd be useful. -- KiwiJulz - 16 Dec 2004Wishlist (very low priority): Graphical visualiser
Yes, I like flashing lights ;-). I'd love a frequency bar graph display, or circular display of frequency... something that moves to the tunes. It would need an option so that you can select that this feature is only active when charging. -- KiwiJulz - 16 Dec 2004Wishlist: Somthing to Show USB Status..... read on:
I was wondering if there could be any way that you can code somthing in to sort of monitor the transfer rate of the USB 2.0 or even the USB 1.1 file transfers, and as I was told by GarBage who though of showing the current file in the transfer, or what-not.. Here is even an improvement on that, show the in AND out speeds.. Also, above like the guy up there mentioned, like a VU Meter, or one for a few select frequencies.. Kinda like a 5 - 10Band EQ Visualization... Also, would like to know if there is any way to fix the BASS in the EQ for the unit while playing higher than 128Kbit files (MP3) and getting distortion, or if that's a hardware limitation.. Guess I'll poke around with that one. Also, one more thing, is there any way to FADE the lights out rather than just them shutting off? or a SMOOTH scrolling of the song titles, etc? May use too much processing power, but just curious about that.. Thanks! -- BrianMartin - 18 Dec 2004Random album features?
Would it be possible to do a random albums feature? Select random album, play whole album, selct another,etc.Wishlist: Invert "Colors"
I've a friend who is visually imparied and only sees things well if they are white on black as opposed to the black on white/yellow the Neuros has. How difficult would it be to have a setting to invert the "color" scheme from black on white to a white on black? -- DavidCMitchell - 21 Dec 2004Side effect of new Car Mode -- Semi-Random Turning Off
Since someone else mentioned this also on IRC: if car mode is left on and the Neuros is not plugged in, it will suddenly turn off in the middle of the song (seemingly randomly). I thought initially it had something to do w/ the Auto-Off feature, and disabling Auto-Off seems to help. What is more likely happening (after discussion w/ GarBage), is when the Neuros is in car mode, it powers down when it senses a voltage drop. When it isn't plugged in, the voltage can easily drop during HD access, loud sections of music, etc. Maybe the firmware should sense if the power plug is in before powering down, or a timer to make sure the voltage drop isn't just transient... The cure for this bug is to turn off car mode when you're not using it. Also if you turn the unit off while it's in car mode, unplugging it from AC adapter will turn it back on! -- MarcusBryner - 22 Dec 2004, edit 28 Dec 2004 I thing that "Automatic gain" will be a nice thing to have. what do you think?
Something like thisIf peak == 0 then Gain = Gain - 1
restart peak
EDIT: I mean AG for RECORDING, not for NeuroCast
answer goes here
-- KwevejCZ - 16 Oct 2004
This would basically broadcast nothing instead of silence, correct? So if there's silence in a track, or between tracks, the listener would get static instead. That would bother me.
However, it might be nice to have the transmitter turn off while a track is paused. Right now, the only way to stop and restart broadcasting mid-song is "Select > NeuroCast Mode > Off", then "Back > Settings > NeuroCast > Mode > Auto Detect" (or On). You don't need to do it often, but it'd be great if a single button-press could pause both playback and broadcasting.
-- ElembisPoe - 10 Jan 2005
Recording gain control with some settings other than +20dB and 0dB would be helpful. I tried to make a recording in a club the other day, and would have liked to have had a -20dB setting - the song intros were fine, but the actual songs were clipped. Of course, some kind of overall fast AGC (drop record level fast if signal peaks above maximum, slowly raise it if level is below some minimum level for a second or so) would help, but having a wider gain range with more settings might be good enough.
As to the transmitter issues, I'm finding I'd like the transmitter to stay on longer in pause - what's the thought behind your wanting the transmitter to turn off,
Elembis? Is that to be able to find a clearer station?
-- PhilSalkie - 01 Feb 2005
Setting a preset button to NCast On/Off
I think it would be great if you could turn NCast on and off with a simple preset button. This would save quite a bit of messing through menus to turn it off and on, and when scrolling through songs it would be nice to turn it off for a few seconds because of the sluggish interface. Also, it could be integrated into recording to transmit while recording (something I KNOW the Neuros is capable of), which would be a cool feature. -- SamuelReed - 03 Jan 2005 I don't think the Neuros' processor couldn't handle both broadcast and record at the same time. It has been discussed though. -- MarcusBryner - 05 Jan 2005 I'm absolutely sure it can. Take the latest GarBage firmware, set it to NCast and broadcast a song for a tiny bit. Now click the HiSi button, which will take you to recording. NCast takes 30 seconds or so to turn off (I don't know why) and while it's still on, anything you say into the mic or have going through the line-in will play through the stereo you have tuned to your NCast frequency. So it definitely works. -- SamuelReed - 05 Jan 2005 It'd also be a neat gimmick to be able to just broadcast the mic- or line-in over NCast without even recording. "Wireless Mic Mode" ? Another idea, that could very likely be impossible, is recieving on an FM freq while transmitting on it at the same time (Walkie-Talkie Mode?) - but even if it were possible, the short range would mean it wouldn't get used much at all. -- ZackCerza - 11 Jan 2005Keeping track of everything that's played
Can someone add functionality to append to a .csv in some subdir on the Neuros every "artist","album","title" that is played (quoting double quote characters somehow, of course ). I am going to add an audioscrobbler interface to Sorune so I can keep track of what I've been playing on the Neuros, but I first need the Neuros to keep track of it. If the gcc backend for the TI processor were working, I'd do it myself; but this is simple enough that someone with access to the .NET development tools and with everything all set up can probably get it done in a few minutes. Thanks.
-- KyleRose - 23 Jan 2005
I just wanted to add this topic this very moment! Ok, good to see, that there's demand. If you don't know about audioscrobbler and their sister site last.fm, check them out! It's astoundingly pleasing to listen to and who knows, it might be the first glimpse into the future of radio ... And it would be great if the Neuros would be the first hardware player to support this new idea!
-- MaFeu - 24 Jan 2005
I'm a big fan of AS and Last.fm. I hope i can make this soon.
-- GarBage - 21 Feb 2005
I actually just added a patch that does this in a way that's specific to XMMS.
-- KyleRose - 21 Feb 2005