SvOrbis: OggVorbis Player for GP32

This page is intended to grow as the project grows.

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• Binary: SvOrbis-V0.9e.zip (Size: 153044; Date: 2004-12-24, 01:07 CET)
• Source: SvOrbis-V0.9e.tar.gz (Size: 166965; Date: 2004-12-24, 01:07 CET)

News:

2007-10-25

My domain got hijacked by a domainshark. So I moved the SvOrbis homepage to http://svolli.org/software/svorbis/. So, again, please update your links and bookmarks.

2005-05-02

I'm rearranging my webserver. Due to that the URL of the SvOrbis homepage will move from http://svolli.de/gp32/SvOrbis/ to http://svolli.de/software/svorbis/. Please update your links and bookmarks.

2004-12-24

It's been a while, but I decided to put something under the christmas tree for you:
Version 0.9e has been released. Changes include:

• A new logo and icon
• Support for 8 bit fonts
• Now compiled with gcc 3.4.3 instead of 3.4.2.
• Some small fixes
• Cleanup of sourcecode

Now SvOrbis is able to print also out characters from 0x80 to 0xff, in addition to the characters from 0x20 to 0x7f, of cause. The default charset is now ISO-Latin1 hand pixeled by me.

Since I only got one submission on my call for a new logo and icon this one will be used for now. If anyone sends me another one in, I'll set up a poll.

Special thanks to Steffen Böhme from Pixeljuice.de for providing me with a professional logo.

Right now I'm working on an online gif-to-charset converter and a small utility to convert/upload a standard playlist to SvOrbis.

2004-09-16

Version 0.9d has been released. Bug fixes include:

• Now compiled with gcc 3.4.2 instead of 3.4.1.
• packed with b2fxec 0.6a2-pre.
• Autorepeat now in three different speeds.
• Fixed umlaut problems.

2004-08-31

Version 0.9c has been released. Bug fixes include:

• Now compiled with gcc 3.4.1 instead of 3.4.0.
• also packed with the new b2fxec 0.6beta.
• config file isn't loaded if > 100k.
• playlist is written instantly if track change was automatic (end of track).
• sound driver has been rewritten, hoping the new one will solve some "mysterious" problems. It will probably need a little further tweaking, but this one has already proven some stability.

(Version 0.9b was internal only, since all fixes except for the rewritten sounddriver were minimal.)

Since a key component has been rewritten, please test this version an report your experiences, bad and good!

Sometime since release of Version 0.9a I got honored by the GP32Xtreme team with this:
  Thanks.

2004-08-05

Version 0.9a has been released. Bug fixes include:

• A bug in reading of config.ini was fixed: key.move.track.up and key.move.track.down now work.
• random play now doesn't play same track twice.
• writing of playlist slowed down a bit to keep GP32 sound bug down. It worked on my testconfig, it might work on other systems as well.

2004-07-23

Version 0.9 has been released. New features include:

• mono oggs now work correctly (well almost, look at known bugs)
• rewritten key input routine, now configurable
• a help screen display key configuration
• pause key
• error message if no oggs are found
• it's now possible to move the an ogg over the playlist border
• the playlist end marker can now be disabled
• new default color scheme
• now a logo in top left corner instead of text

This is next next step to the V1.0 release. Until then no new features will be included, only bugs will be fixed. For each bug fixed there will be a release like V0.9a, V0.9b, etc. So keep on testing and reporting bugs.

2004-07-18

Change of plans. I found a rather nasty bug in GpTremor, that occurs on my q=-1 mono test OGGs. Every ~10 seconds there's an error in decoding. This doesn't happen on X86, so it seems to be ARM related, since it's in Yogg also. So I'm switching the release schedule of GpTremor and SvOrbis. SvOrbis Version 0.9 will be released before the first official release of GpTremor. I also have still to decide between two different incarnation of GpTremor, one based upon the version that's in Yogg, the other one from the Subversion checkout 7111.

By the way: I got several todos from my list done this weekend (look below) and also a new color scheme for default. There's also a decision been made on what will be included in SvOrbis Version 0.9.

2004-07-13

A rough roadmap has been plotted. Version 0.9 will be the last release before 1.0, which itself will be the first version declared stable. Between 0.9 and 1.0 there will be a feature freeze. So anything that didn't make it in version 0.9 won't be in 1.0. This means: send in your feature requests now!. How to request a feature? First choice is the mailing list. You can also go for this thread on gp32x.com.

2004-07-12

Version 0.8 has been released. New features include:

• support for rob's voltage detection mod - untested
• rewritten text output routine, reducing gp32 sound bug noise
• ogg directory is now a config parameter
• more verbose status line
• version text ("Loaded Config" in picture) is settable via config file - show everyone, that you've got your own version of SvOrbis ;-)

2004-07-12

A faq section has been included.

2004-07-07

A first homepage has been hacked up and Version 0.7 has been released.

Screenshots

Hello Mr. Piracyhunter, all OGGs in the Screenshot above have been encoded from my own CDs.

Known bugs:

Requests made for Version 0.9

Keys:

Parameters for the config file (gp:\GPETC\SVORBIS.INI)

The config file is optional, defaults have been compiled in. (This is the supplied SVORBIS.INI)

   # configuration file for svorbis v0.9
   # OggVorbis Player for GP32
   
   # comments start with a "#" or a ";"
   
   # file and dir options
   # where to save the playlist
   #file.playlist = gp:\ogg\playlist.bin
   # which font to use
   #file.charset = (use internal)
   # where to look for oggs
   #file.ogg.dir = gp:\ogg
   
   # colors
   # colors are RGB323. some examples:
   # 00000000 is black
   # 11100000 is bright red
   # 00011000 is bright green
   # 00000111 is bright blue
   # 00000001 is dark blue
   # 11111111 is white
   #color.background = 11111111
   #color.text = 00000010
   #color.highlight = 10010111
   #color.outline = 10010111
   #color.lines = 00000111
   
   # position of highlight bar
   #position.highlight = 8
   
   # display end of playlist?
   # 0 = no; 1 = default; 0x20-0x7f = use the ASCII char as marker
   #playlist.end.marker = 1
   
   # Ogg Info to use
   #comment.info1 = ARTIST=
   #comment.info2 = TITLE=
   
   # identify this version of SvOrbis as you own :)
   #version = Loaded Config
   
   # parameter for Rob's voltage detection mod
   # usually 3, default is no detection
   #voltage.detection = -1
   
   # set cpu clock
   #cpu.mclk = 136000000
   #cpu.divfactor = 0x3c011
   #cpu.clkmode = 3
   
   # how fast should fast forward and rewind go
   # in seconds, if > 500 in milliseconds
   #wind.step = 10000
   
   # which random mode should be used?
   # random or shuffle
   #random.mode = random
   
   # key layout
   # key values are:
   # left:   0x0001
   # down:   0x0002
   # right:  0x0004
   # up:     0x0008
   # L:      0x0010
   # B:      0x0020
   # A:      0x0040
   # R:      0x0080
   # start:  0x0100
   # select: 0x0200
   # add     0x1000 if the key should also work in locked mode
   #key.previous.track = 0x0008
   #key.next.track = 0x0002
   #key.rewind = 0x0010
   #key.fast.forward = 0x0080
   #key.separator.left = 0x0001
   #key.separator.right = 0x0004
   #key.move.track.up = 0x0208
   #key.move.track.down = 0x0202
   #key.random = 0x0140
   #key.pause = 0x0120
   #key.lock = 0x1300
   #key.help.screen = 0x1040
   #key.info.screen = 0x0020
  

The color format "binary" is an 8 bit binary number.

• 11100000 is red
• 00011000 is green
• 00000111 is blue

The format "number" is a plain decimal number, a hex number is prefixed with "0x".

All files and folders must start with "gp:\"

The parameter for voltage.detections states which adc channel to use. If you modded your GP32 according to Rob's description, use "voltage.detection = 3".

Good to know (aka some views behind the scene):

• about five seconds after playing a track the playlist (which also contents status information) is written to the smc
• when the message *SMC WRITE* shows that writing is taking place, you should not turn the GP32 off until the message is gone
• on the lower right corner the total of the playlist is shown, as well as the actual playing frequency.
• if you enable the support for rob's voltage detection, it will be shown left on the status line

The mailing list

• To subscribe write an email with the subject "subscribe svorbis" to minimalist(at)svolli.dynxs.de

Format of Charset:

Short: The format is the same as in the C64/C128, only sorted in ascii.
Each char is 8 pixels wide and stored in a byte, highest bit left, as you would read them as a binary number. The first 8 bytes are the space character; the second 8 bytes are the "!" sign, and so on, till ascii character 127 (see the table for an example of an 8x8 font). That sums it up to 768 bytes per 8 lines charset. If a charset is only 512 bytes in size the area from 0x100-0x1ff is copied to 0x200-0x2ff, giving you only uppercase letters.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is OggVorbis?

From http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/: Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for mid to high quality (8kHz-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel. This places Vorbis in the same competitive class as audio representations such as MPEG-4 (AAC), and similar to, but higher performance than MPEG-1/2 audio layer 3, MPEG-4 audio (TwinVQ), WMA and PAC.

Are there any OggVorbis player for Windows?

There sure are, a lot of them. WinAMP can play OggVorbis using a plugin, foobar 2000 can play them natively, and there's even a DirectShow Filter, so that you can use the ugly Windows Media Player.

What should I use to encode OggVorbis?

I don't know what you should use, but I can tell you what I'm using. For ripping I'm using CDex. For converting I'm using foobar 2000 and oggenc.exe from vorbis-tools.

What settings should I use?

I don't know that either, but I'm using "quality q=2" or "q=1". This way I get slightly over 3 hours on one 128MB SMC (q=2) or about 3 hours 45 minutes (q=1). If you know any better setting, let me know and I'll put it here.

What is better a constant bitrate or a variable bitrate?

I'm using variable. There are some passages in the audio data that can be better compressed than others, so using constant can result in wasting space, because there's "not enough" data to fit in one block, or wasting quality because there's "too much" data to fit in one block.

But if a song has a lower kbps can I then lower the clockspeed, or only if the khz is lower?

I did a quick test with a ~43MB 44100Hz wave file on my host pc.

Time needed to decode:
-q8 (6974409 bytes) : ~8.0 seconds
-q5 (4588576 bytes) : ~7.0 seconds
-q2 (2662463 bytes) : ~5.6 seconds

so one can say: "the lower the bitrate, the lower the cpu usage during decompression."

But: cpu usage is not everything on the GP32, you also gotta watch the usage of cpu bus (the one that's responsable for transfer of data between CPU and RAM). If the bus is clocked to slow for the amount of data transfered the gp32 sound bug tends to appear (the noise you heared up to version 0.7, if you push the stick left/right).

Anyway, I don't see the big hassle about lowering the cpu clock speed. I always keep a second pair of rechargeable batteries with me. If the first pair is down, I'll switch and the second pair will keep me entertained 'til the end of the day, at least. So I rather prefer sound quality over battery lifetime. Don't forget: if you disagree with this you can lower the CPU speed to 114MHz just by setting "cpu.mclk = 114" in SVORBIS.INI.

Why SvOrbis?

Besides playing games, I wanted to use the GP32 as a walkman replacement. So I checked different MP3 and OggVorbis players, but after using them for a short time, each one I tried had disadvantages that disqualified them as a real alternative. So at some point I got fed up, said "if you want something done properly, you've got to do it yourself", and started to do my own, based on some awesome work Yoyo did with his player called Yogg. And - with the Euro beta firmware - all I wanted was a player that started playback once I turned the GP32 on.

Why make a player who read only ogg files?
Why not a mp3/wav/mod/ogg player?

Because an ~96kBit OggVorbis sounds better than an 128kBit mp3 and I want to how the player as small as possible. This way I'm getting 3 hours of music (44100Hz, stereo) on one smc. The other cause is that the OggVorbis decoder Tremor runs better that libmad as far as I can tell from my experiments. And converting from mp3 to ogg is easy: take five minutes to install foobar2000 and oggenc.exe from vorbistools. After a onetime configuration on the "recode" option, I'll take just a click on the right mouse button and selecting "conversion" from the menu (I suggest using the "quality q=2" option), and voila, you've got an ogg file that fits the gp32 better than the mp3 ever could.

In the picture on your site I saw they were in a folder called ogg, but in what folder is that?

Just rename the folder mp3 to ogg, or create a folder called ogg in the root directory. You can also use the option "file.ogg.dir", to set the directory the files come from.

The layout sucks, can't you do better?

No, I don't want to. The player is intended to be a walkman replacement, so I tried to put as many info on screen as possible. The most time I'm using it, I'm not looking at it anyway. If you also want spiffy effects grab yourself the GpTremor library (ask for a prerelease, official release should be soon) and code something yourself. With the GP32 sound bug, it's not as easy as it looks ;).

will there be unifont support? (kor)
i wanna see titles on my own language.

Nope, ASCII only (Characters from 32 to 127). Hey, I'm German, and I can't see my umlauts either. On the other hand... you've got the source, you can do it. And I'm taking contributions. I'm also willing to help to extend the design for something like UTF-8.

You might also call this my revenge: I'd like to see more english on www.gamepark.co.kr... I don't get this either ;)

I'd really like it if it could be made to shut the screen down to conserve the battery (i have no idea how much it would save, but it would be a nice option)

I thought of that when I started this project, but the official docs state that turning off the LCD for a longer time will result in damaging it. I also doubt that it will increase the battery lifetime by far.

Maybe have a screensaver then? Because a screen that is stuck on the same colours for too long also tends to get damaged...

I haven't seen that on an LCD, only on CRTs and a TFT once. Implementation wouldn't be hard, though. From what I know is that direct sunlight is much more harmful to the LCD as showing the same colors. If anyone can show me a photo of a burnt-in LCD I'll hack it in as soon as possible, if not it moves to the todo-later list.

and background image support will be cool.

Ain't gonna happen. A background image just slows down the redraw of the screen (and also causing a reappearance of the GP32 sound bug), and degrades the readablity of the text. This player is for listening to music and other stuff, not for watching pretty pictures. I use it as a walkman replacement, so most time it's in some pocket, unregarded. Sorry, but I'm too old for nicknacks, I want functionality. You can download the source and hack it to your own needs anyway, or build your own player with the GpTremor library that will be released soon.

At what mhz. does it run?

Right now it's 136MHz. The main problem is to find a CPU setting that gets as close to 44100 Hz for audio. I also found a 114MHz mode, but that one does suffer a bit more from the GP32 sound bug. If you know a better CPU setting than I do, you can provide is via the config file.

(Hint: the 114MHz mode can be set by putting "cpu.mclk = 114" in the svorbis.ini, or you can set all three parameter needed for the GpClockSpeedChange() call by setting cpu.mclk, cpu.divfactorand cpu.clkmode in the config file. On how to get these parameters you should search the forum. The defaults are: "cpu.mclk = 136000000", "cpu.divfactor = 0x3c011" and "cpu.clkmode = 3". Setting wrong CPU parameter can cause everything from a system crash to strange output.)

I've got a question not covered here!

Best thing in this case is to subscribe the mailing list and post your question there. I'll be reading and answering it, promise!

This software is free software and distributed under the license terms of the GPL. Enjoy, SvOlli