http://www.iriver.com/community/discussion...um&pre_idx=4828 (http://www.iriver.com/community/discussion_list.asp?top_title=User%20Forum&pre_idx=4828)
[/QUOTE]
We're ready to go. We've been ready to go. Not only is Ogg Vorbis playback possible on the demo board we received from iRiver, but it's also a fairly simple implementation. We're standing by, ready to begin work, but we have not yet heard back from iRiver at this time.
The longer iRiver waits on this, the longer it will take us to work this into our schedule, which means that iRiver customers (and potential customers) will have to wait even longer for the support of our format.
Simply put, this is quite disheartening. I *want* iRiver to support Ogg Vorbis, and it looks like the users/consumers do, too. Now that the message board here seems a little more sane (and it'll be more difficult to write to the board as though they were me), I'll post updates to this thread whenever applicable.
Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation
in reply for the first post
just got off from a chat with Emmett over at Xiph. That's the guy that will make us all happy with iFP supporting Ogg... if iRiver ever would reply to his emails!
he told me that one month ago iRiver stated that an agreement was near that would allow emmett and the guys to provide Ogg support. but iRiver hasn't got back to him since then. despite repeated emailing.
he also said that, once he gets the agreement with iRiver, they could provide the necessary firmware in about 30 days! come on iRiver! there are other players ahead of you soon!!
sadly, though he said that the test board they got ran Ogg fine, he couldn't tell me what model the board was referring too. so we still don't know if the iFP has the juice to ever be able to play the ogg files...
but anyway, let's all email Xiph and show them our support. Emmett's address is emmett@xiph.org Also mail iRiver at contact@iriver.com and CRAVE them to respond to emmett, who is only awaiting the agreement to make this happen!!
yours
avocade
IS IT TRUE ?
cuz some one use emmett name @ iRiver forum before
/edit
If it's true, how bout iMP series
/edit/edit
1.OGG
Iriver Engineer siad ogg will be provided inner 2004
but under the IMP-250 model will unable to provided
@ http://www.iriver.com/community/discussion..._name=&p_group= (http://www.iriver.com/community/discussion_list.asp?pre_idx=5114&top_title=User%20Forum&list_page=4&mode=Total&strque=&field=1&p_name=&p_group=)
and a nice iRiver chick
http://www.op.co.kr/ii/t4/imgb/th200304/12...97e6f29d81f.jpg (http://www.op.co.kr/ii/t4/imgb/th200304/12/14/12340047253e97e6f29d81f.jpg)
edit: IMG -> URL (sluggish site)
what is true?
there is no message in theese.. all it says in the end is that noone knows which models will be supported... nothing definate...
Well, there are at least 2 revelations, according to that engineer. Namely, no model prior to the IMP-350 will be able to support OGG vorbis (either due to limited CPU cycles or memory limitations) and that the earliest possible time we'll see OGG is not 'til mid-2004?
Bummer! By then, I will have probably upgraded my IMP-350.
A data point that may be interesting is that Monty is currently being hired to optimize the Tremor (hardware) decoder so it can run with less CPU and memory usage. I don't know what company paid for this though.
but anyway, let's all email Xiph and show them our support. Emmett's address is emmett@xiph.org Also mail iRiver at contact@iriver.com
Well, it could be that it's not much worth emailing to emmett@xiph.org anymore.
I hope Xiph gives some info which would be the correct email addy for example in this case..
Edit. I asked from Xiph's Michael Smith, and the emails formely meant to Emmett regarding for example this iRiver issue should now be send to Jack Moffitt.
http://www.xiph.org/contact/ (http://www.xiph.org/contact/)
"1.OGG
Iriver Engineer siad ogg will be provided inner 2004
but under the IMP-250 model will unable to provided "
that sounds like the IMP-250 will include it. but the IMP-150/100 won't... at least that's what i hope it says (i have an IMP-250). is the IMP-250 going to be included or excluded from ogg? cuz i want in!
That forum is beginning to humor me(well, some of it). This is a bit off topic, but I couldn't resist......
Someone tells me on that forum that their friends that listen to music on expensive hi fis, borrowed his iRiver, and found the quality on the 64k WMAs excellent, and he did too. Then he said "why spend $70 on sennheiser headphones if they make 64k WMAs/128k MP3s sound bad? Gimme $70, I'll sandpaper your CDs for you! It's ridicoulous to get good headphones". I don't even respond to that stuff, you get better headphones so they don't distort the sound so bad($20 sonys, $10 jensens, perfect examples here) that anything MP3/WMA warbles the headphones do moreso.
It's because no one wants it, and they don't care if it sounds like crap at 64k WMA, since it sounds close enough. Someone also didn't like Ogg Vorbis's bad sound quality after transcoding the 192k MP3 to an about -q2 Ogg Vorbis file.
And when people say listening equiptment doesn't matter at all, you really have to see the headphones people I know use. They're $20 behind the head sonys tops, or $8 ones that are almost falling apart that come with the player. They make the sound so bad, that on almost any song, 112k MP3s are easily transparent.
Although I do expect even some progress when the iMP 550 CD player comes out. Why you ask? It's got a RISC CPU .
Although I do expect even some progress when the iMP 550 CD player comes out. Why you ask? It's got a RISC CPU .
Eh?
All (http://www.geocities.com/alfmeister13/FAQ/FAQ.html) of the iMP series have a RISC CPU in them. Up until now, it has been a Cirrus Logic (http://www-test.cirrus.com/en/press/releases/P298.html) implementation of ARM (http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/pro/detail/P139.html). ARM == Acorn RISC Machine (http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?Advanced+RISC+Machine).
argh! I own a 100 iRiver clone (RioVolt). This is disheartening. Hopefully they can optimize this further. I thought the chips inside these various models were the same from iMP 100 and up.
Edit
Adding description of imp100/sp100 cpu from (http://www.geocities.com/cryophil/alfmeist...tml#Tech%20talk (http://www.geocities.com/cryophil/alfmeister/riovoltreview.html#Tech%20talk)):
The Volt uses a EP7212 Cirrus Logic chip. It is the equivalent of a Pentium 100. This is a general purpose ARM7TDMI-cored CPU. It's pretty good at running DSP algorithms. (The "M" in TDMI means fast multiply-accumulate.) The 7212 is the same as a 7209 except it has an EDO DRAM interface which is where the buffer ram is attached. The 7209 is used in the Rio600/Rio Receiver/Nike/Nomad IIMG/Dell Receiver/Nomad Jukebox/etc. The Volt has 8k of cache (I+D) and 37.5k of SRAM. This SRAM cannot be used as cache, but does run at full core speed.
Here are all the ICs that make up the unit and what they do:
Samsung K4E151612D-TL50 [1M x 16Bit (2Mb) CMOS EDO DRAM]
Sony CXD3032R [CD-ROM controller with 1Mb embedded DRAM]
This takes care of the actual decoding of the bits on the CD, such as what type of CD it is (Audio/CD-R/MultiRead.)
Cirrus EP7212-CV-D [ARM CPU + LCD/Serial/Audio]
SST 39VF400A [4Mbit flash ROM]
CXA2571N [Sony RF Matrix Amplifier]
BA5901K [ROHM CD/CD-ROM Driver]
Standard LSI used in CD players. A driver for the motor.
EP7212: High Performance, Low-Power System-on-Chip with LCD Controller and Digital Audio Interface (DAI)
Product Features:
ARM720T processor
Dynamically programmable clock speeds of 18, 36, 49, and 74 MHz at 2.5 V
Performance matching 100-MHz Intel® Pentium-based PC
Ultra low power
Advanced audio decoder/decompression capability
LCD controller
DRAM controller
Memory control
38,400 bytes (0x9600) of on-chip SRAM for fast program execution and/or as a frame buffer
Synchronous serial interface
On-chip ROM; for manufacturing support
27-bits of general-purpose I/O
Two UARTs (16550 type)
SIR (up to 115.2 kbps) infrared encoder / decoder
DC-to-DC converter interface (PWM)
Two timer counters
208-pin LQFP or new 256-ball PBGA packages
Evaluation kit available with BOM, schematics, sample code, and design database
Support for up to two ultra-low-power CL-PS6700 PC Card controllers
Dedicated LED flasher pin from RTC
Full JTAG boundary scan and Embedded ICE® support
Commercial operating temperature range
Product Description:
The EP7212 is designed for ultra-low-power applications such as organizers / PDAs, two-way pagers, smart cellular phones or any vertical PDA device that features the added capability of digital audio decompression. The core-logic functionality of the device is built around an ARM720T processor with 8 K-bytes of four-way set-associative unified cache and a write buffer. Incorporated into the ARM720T is an enhanced memory management unit (MMU) which allows for support of sophisticated operating systems like Microsoft Windows CE.
The EP7212 also includes a 32-bit Y2K-compliant realtime clock and comparator.
Also, quoting xiphmont from here http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....t=ST&f=8&t=297& (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=297&):
...I've implemented Ogg on the ARM7TDMI 74MHz (Cirrus Maverick), so doing it is not impossible.
(yes, it was realtime playback, although I'll admit is was close, as half the processor had to be left over for housekeeping chores)
i still don't understand. "under imp-250" means "anything less than imp-250" doesn't it? so... shouldn't the imp-250 get support?
i don't know the specs... but it seems like an imp-250 has a lot more in common with an imp-350 than it does with the imp-100/150
I really hope they add OGG support to the IFP series. I got an IFP 190 the other day and I think it's great. I just got into this board and have read all of the posts on the different formats. So I setup my own test and encoded the same file into MPC, OGG, MP3, and AAC. I listened to them blindly played by FOO2k through my Sennheiser EH2200 headphones. OGG was the best sounding on encoder setting 5 and came in about 1MB smaller than the AAC and MP3 and over 600K smaller than the MPC. Also, the internal OGG encoder in CDEX was MUCH faster than the other encoders - it was blazingly fast. I think I'll be using OGG more in the future.
[/QUOTE]I really hope they add OGG support to the IFP series.
Well it is mentioned earlier in this post that 2004 would be the earliest for Ogg Vorbis, but it just makes me wonder if it will be on a new device. We already have the new iFP 300, add another device on top of that and they may not introduce Ogg Vorbis firmware for the "older" iFP 100's. Who knows ? until it happens it's all speculation, I would love Ogg Vorbis support on my iFP 190 but will just have to wait and see. I'll just make sure I keep the box incase I have to sell on e-bay in order to buy a newer model.
Heyzeus and everyone else: I most likely misunderstood the engineer's wording. It is most probable that IMP-250 and up will be able to support Ogg, now that I re-read the quote.
Well, the reason that iMP-150 and such may be unable to decode Ogg is because the Cirrus Logic EP7212 chip used on it has only 37'5kb of SRAM, which may not be enough for the decoder to run, or maybe because of the max firmware size. However, I'm not sure.
iMP 250, 350 and 400 use a EP7312 chip that implements 48kb of SRAM; not much more, but it can make a difference. If Tremor is optimized enough to fit into a such a small decoder, then we'll be able to have Vorbis runnin' in our iRiver players. Next, MPC SV8
This is ridiculous, iRiver is a bunch of amateurs.
They are not being serious at all.
With proper cooperation and devotion, projects like these should take no time to execute.
iRiver is not adding Ogg Vorbis, they're apparantly just using it as a selling-carrot.
My patience is out - this "coming soon - next month - almost done" crap is not two nickles worth.
This is ridiculous, iRiver is a bunch of amateurs.
They are not being serious at all.
With proper cooperation and devotion, projects like these should take no time to execute.
iRiver is not adding Ogg Vorbis, they're apparantly just using it as a selling-carrot.
My patience is out - this "coming soon - next month - almost done" crap is not two nickles worth.
you could be right, but remember the information on this page:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/hardware.html (http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/hardware.html)
but remember the information on this page
Some interesting stuff there, my bet is once one company enables support the rest will fall over themselves to implement it too. You know how it goes !!!
This is ridiculous, iRiver is a bunch of amateurs.
They are not being serious at all.
With proper cooperation and devotion, projects like these should take no time to execute.
iRiver is not adding Ogg Vorbis, they're apparantly just using it as a selling-carrot.
My patience is out - this "coming soon - next month - almost done" crap is not two nickles worth.
you could be right, but remember the information on this page:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/hardware.html (http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/hardware.html)
Of course Xiph is not going to write "iRiver is a bunch of idiots". This will have two negative effects.
1) Other manufactures will not want to initiate work with Xiph, if they risk getting bad words.
2) Users will not want to adopt Vorbis, if it looks as no manufacturer has any plans for Vorbis support
from http://www.iriver.com/community/discussion...%20Forum&page=4 (http://www.iriver.com/community/discussion_list.asp?pre_idx=4828&top_title=User%20Forum&page=4)
It has been said that Ogg Vorbis playback is possible (sort of) on the Iomega HipZip. Unofficial firmware exists which lets the HipZip play Vorbis files made with old (prior to 20010615) encoders.
If I remember correctly, it took about 4 or 5 weeks for Monty of Xiph.Org and the people at Iomega to get the firmware up and running, and running well, consuming about half of the player's resources.
Behold..
http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20000925S0054 (http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20000925S0054)
.. it is said that HipZip uses the EP7212.
iRiver uses the EP7212 for its iMP-50,100,150 line and the EP7312 for its iMP-250,350,400 line. (N.B. The EP7312 is the EP7212's big brother, as far as I know.) That should mean that Vorbis playback on an iRiver iMP player really is worth wishing for. : )
Now, about the iFP line.
Behold..
http://www.vorbis.com/ot/20030429.html (http://www.vorbis.com/ot/20030429.html)
.. Monty is hard at work right now, to make Vorbis playback feasible on machines with little memory. I hope that means Vorbis playback on an iFP player isn't just a pipe dream.
Prentice
from http://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisHardware (http://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisHardware)
Xiph.org is working with prototypes from iRiver to create a portable music player which can play Ogg Vorbis. Development is underway.
The usual reply you get from iriver.co.kr's Korean boards, concerning Vorbis support, is now "We can't tell you anything about progress. We're working on it, and we're negotiating stuff." In Korea they've never ever made any promises on dates or whether they will actually support Vorbis playback.
About companies falling over to support vorbis: there has been some news in the Korean press lately about Vorbis hardware support.
A Korean chip maker that supplies DSP chips for Samsung claims to have unreleased firmware for Vorbis playback.
One Korean CD mp3p manufacturer is planning to launch a CD Vorbis player in May or June, another is planning to have Vorbis support in all of their new CD players from July.
edit: In press articles, the CEO of iRiver has been quoted as "no set plans for Vorbis playback, but we're looking into it." They always deny, never disclose.
*sniff* i just want portable hardware support for mpc *sniff*
Hmmm - looks like a solid customer threat works
I composed a harsh mail for iRiver containing this:
Dear iRiver.
It has come to my attention, that Xiph foundation has been ready for months to provide the software neccesary to make your portable music player support the multiplatform audio codec "Ogg Vorbis".
However - you are not responding to their e-mails, you are not doing anything at all besides coding debile computergames for your players.
I'm giving you a warning. If you do not immediately get on track, prioritize this higher, and get your firmware updated, so my two iRiver units will play Ogg Vorbis, I will set up an anti-iriver propaganda wave on the internet, and I will spread rumours, that you will not like.
Dangerous batteryunit, stuttering playback, fragile design, bad customer support, flawed cd-lasers - only fantasy sets limits on what the iRiver brand can be recognized for. Get serious - get working, or your brand value will be going towards zero.
I you do not reply within a week with a very good excuse for this endless delay, I will launch anti-iRiver propaganda on several hundred internet forums and newsgroups.
Do not play tricks with your customers.
Yours sincerly
Niels Buus Christensen, very impatient iRiver customer.
And they took time to write this:
Dear Niels,
Thank you for your email. May be you just listen to the people in xiph which is not the complete story, actually we contact xiph.org in early janaury last year(2002), however we haven't receive any email from xiph until June when they write in the forum(not email back to us) that they claims willing to support iRiver on this issue. At that time xiph also release a fix point library(july 2002) which seems to be good to iRiver product, our engineer test the code immediately however the performance is not good enough for our player to do real-time decoding(we finished the basic codec of our player on september,2002). The code need to be fine tuned, and I can say, without the help from xiph, the progress is very slow.
I hopes that you understand that actually the Ogg Vorbis support is in the list of our future plan, however if the performance of the codec cannot be improved, it is not possible to release the support of Ogg Vorbis, actually iRiver's firmware is the most frequently updated firmware in MP3 world, of course we also want to support Ogg Vorbis as soon as possible, this is a function that is requested by many of our user, however please understand that it is much more difficult than what we expect.
If you have further enquiries, please feel free to contact us again.
Regards,
Eddie
Erm, to sidetrack a little concerning Hoth's personal blindtesting...
You have to make sure your files are encoded at the same volume, and then decoded back to wave files. Otherwise, there is a chance of introducing errors or bias in your testing: unequal volumes, different decoding techniques...
By the way, that email reply sounded reasonable, though the English didn't...
Did he just say that they had only 1 engineer testing the decoder???
I think somehow these Korean companies are waiting for one among them to test the waters first, before also jumping in with vorbis support.
Dear Niels,
Thank you for your email. May be you just listen to the people in xiph which is not the complete story, actually we contact xiph.org in early janaury last year(2002), however we haven't receive any email from xiph until June when they write in the forum
. Is it true Xiph folks ?
Any offical words from Xiph ?
Actually, it seems there are some misunderstandings..
I don't know anything about Xiph.org not replying to emails, but the emails that avocade mentioned in the first post of this thread had been sent pretty recently.
On that thread on iRiver.com's forums, you can see Emmett, then CEO of Xiph.org, saying that it's all true.
Very soon after that, I met Emmett on IRC and he said that it was indeed he who had posted his affirmation. He also mentioned that he had received a phone call from iRiver after that, and so that the post was now outdated.
edit: when I mentioned Xiph.org's wiki page for portable players, maybe I should have mentioned that iRiver had contacted Xiph.org... sorry..
Ogg support on that sexy new iriver hardrive unit. :drool: I'd rather have MPC support, but I guess I can't even begin to get my hopes of for that.
That's the bad thing. Ogg is new and by the time it gets supported, people'll push MPC, and when MPC finally gets support, KJT(made up) will be what people rant over. MPC is invisible to most of these companies and unless I came here I would've never known it existed....