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Hardware

Ogg Vorbis decoder chip a reality 321

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wouldn't-it-be-nice dept.
LinuxGeek writes "The design is finished and announced for a low power Ogg Vorbis decoder. Hopefully we will see portable players very soon now."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Ogg Vorbis decoder chip a reality More

Ogg Vorbis decoder chip a reality

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  • Umm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:02PM (#6465299) Journal
    Seems to me the chip is not a reality.

    A design for it is.

    Which is merely one step past "idea".

    By now I know i dont have first post, but shout outs to whoever does.

    • Re:Umm (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You gave "shout outs" to the GNAA. I hope you're happy.
    • Designing a working model is probably 90% of the effort.

      Now it's just a matter of finding someone who wants to build them.
      • But if someone wanted to build them (any big electronics manufacturer) they would by now. I dont believe that Sony and Panasonic, hell even hong kong knockoffs like Panaphonic have been scratching their heads puzzling about how to play ogg vorbis.

        It's just not useful.

        Getting someone to make, market, and profit from it is 100% of the battle. It would have to be MUCH cheaper than existing mp3 players (under 40 bucks these days), since quality wise noones going to be able to tell the difference on a portab

    • Re:Umm (Score:5, Funny)

      by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld.gmail@com> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:53PM (#6465791) Homepage
      Seems to me the chip is not a reality. A design for it is.

      Nonsense, the design's the hard part.

      For example, check out my design of an intergalactic starship:



      ***/\_____________
      ***|............... 0 0 0 @ \___
      ***| ::: \
      ***|__________________/


      We're heading for the stars. Obviously we still have to manufacture it, but let's be honest, after looking at those schematics does anyone doubt that we'll get there soon? BTW, that @ is me looking out a porthole, wearing a spacesuit.

  • I can just picture someone asking it... (Score:3, Funny)

    by zoeblade ( 600058 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:03PM (#6465305) Homepage

    But will it support MP3?

    No, wait, that's the other way around...

  • About time, but nothing special (Score:5, Interesting)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 ) * on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:04PM (#6465317) Homepage Journal
    This isn't that amasing. Firstly this is done using a CPU and a DSP. No ogg specific hardware is mentioned.
    Secondly the chip isnt even a chip but a FPGA implementation. They can show that it works but mapping it out is another chalange if you want to keep it very power.
    Basicly what they have done was to pick up a core [opencores.org] and stick it on an FPGA then compiled ogg/vobis for that CPU's ISA.
    Place a bit of a bootloader and something to handle the I/O and its done. No magic.

  • text of the article (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    System IP to decode New digital music format Ogg Vorbis is ready for a
    market from FineArch, Inc.
    Achieved competitive 12MHz operation, targeting portable music player

    FineArch, Inc., Tokyo Japan based semiconductor LSI design company, developed the system IP to decode the next generation digital music compression format, Ogg Vorbis(http://www. vorbis.com). FineArch successfully completed the Ogg vorbis sytstem IP to run at 12 Mhz. This is about 1/6 of the clock speed required to decode Ogg Vorbis with a sing

  • portables (Score:5, Informative)

    by h4x0r-3l337 ( 219532 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:04PM (#6465329)
    Hopefully we will see portable players very soon now

    One already exists [neurosaudio.com]

    • Re:portables (Score:3, Funny)

      by gantrep ( 627089 )
      What? Off-freaking-topic? This should be at least +4! It's completely ON-TOPIC. What are the mods smoking?

      Either, they don't know what you're talking about, didn't bother to click the link, or think, omg, everyone knows about THAT. Well, in any case, let me try to help you out man: Neuros Ogg Vorbis Firmware Released [neurosaudio.com]
  • Hopefully this will be just one more step towards commercially available, open source-based devices. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these devices, personally.

    I wonder if any of the big vendors will pick them up?
    • "Hopefully this will be just one more step towards commercially available, open source-based devices. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these devices, personally.

      I wonder if any of the big vendors will pick them up?"

      Yeah because Open Source zealots are known for throwing money around all over the place!

  • How are they supported? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I admit I haven't looked over their license agreement lately, but I was under the impression that these people don't receive any royalties regardless of how and where Ogg Vorbis is deployed. If this is the case, how can they keep operating? How can they be supported?

    This isn't a troll, I'm legitimately interested in keeping projects like this alive..
    • It's supported by the same means that any other open source project is supported-- various contributions in time, code, and money. The best way to keep the project alive is to get involved somehow or another.
    • It works the same way all OSS does. Someone wants it and thinks it should be free. So they write it on their own free time and put it on the net. Somebody else goes "oh, good idea, let's make it do this too," and adds to it. Repeat until you have an audio format powerful enough that a company feels it's worth implementing in a chip.

      Now, the company doesn't have to pay anyone, so it's much cheaper than developing MP3 chips. They're gonna make money by fabricating them and selling them to other companies which want Vorbis decoding (It's not ogg vorbis: ogg is the container format.) Or, at least, that's what the fab/design company is gambling on.

      Then, the player manufacturer, who bought these chips, puts them in players and sells them to a public for some enormous amount of cash. I say enormous because MP3 CD players are $40 in Target now, and frankly a 10 gig hard drive isn't that many CDs (especially now that CaseLogic sells CD cases whose sides are speakers.) Okay, the 60 gig models still have some appeal, but when we get portable DVD MP3 players, it's *over.*

      I mean, shit, then I'll be able to keep my whole audio collection on six discs. (RIAA notice: I still have all the CDs they came from, with the exception of a few which have suffered pets, so back off in preemption, you self appointed gestappo. Do something useful and constructive with your dollar, instead of making yourself the butt of "look what DirecTV/SCO is becoming" jokes. Assholes. Maybe find a musician that isn't paint by number.)

      In the meantime, the parent was modded insightful? Interesting I could see (I don't think it is, but there's a sensible stance for it.) But what insight did s/he provide? Do you people pay attention when you moderate?

      I'm gonna go back in my cave and grumble at the walls for a while. f'ing rock.

      • Re:How are they supported? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @05:35PM (#6466163)
        I mean, shit, then I'll be able to keep my whole audio collection on six discs. (RIAA notice: I still have all the CDs they came from, with the exception of a few which have suffered pets, so back off in preemption, you self appointed gestappo. Do something useful and constructive with your dollar, instead of making yourself the butt of "look what DirecTV/SCO is becoming" jokes. Assholes. Maybe find a musician that isn't paint by number.)


        That was worth an instant replay. ;)

  • Who needs a chip? (Score:5, Informative)

    by bytesmythe ( 58644 ) <bytesmythe@@@gmail...com> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:06PM (#6465354)
    No need for a chip just to get Vorbis players...

    The Vorbis team is working with the makers of Neuros to update the player's firmware to decode Ogg Vorbis files. [neurosaudio.com]

    It's nearly complete [vorbis.com].

  • Wow, very low power! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation@gmai l . c om> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:06PM (#6465357) Journal
    Runs at only 12MHz (!), so this is going to be great news for portable devices which need long play times to be worthwhile.

    Now the question is will the Apple Music Store start offering OGG format files? Maybe an iPod update?
    • "Now the question is will the Apple Music Store start offering OGG format files? Maybe an iPod update?"

      Do Apple's DRM (yes, it is DRM) and Ogg Vorbis's specifications play nicely together? I do not know...

      • As iTunes is AAC (MPEG-4 audio) with DRM wrapped around it, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to wrap DRM around Ogg.

        • But why would apple bother. It won't yield a significant advantage over what they have now.

        • "The four pillars of the male heterosexual psyche: naked women, lingerie, lesbians, and James Bond."

          I thought it was:

          1) playing high-contact sports such as American Football/Rugby/football/soccer.

          2) Naked showers with other men

          3) Getting drunk, locking arms with another man and singing very loud.

          4) Going on and on about sex in a way which suggests a need to show one is straight.

          Hmmm. Think i'll stick to lying around in bed with a couple of girls watching Judy Garland films...

    • Re:Wow, very low power! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by .com b4 .storm ( 581701 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @05:27PM (#6466099)

      Now the question is will the Apple Music Store start offering OGG format files? Maybe an iPod update?

      Not to be rude, but... Why the hell would Apple do that? As far as the Music Store is concerned, it will not happen - Apple's AAC format works just fine, and it has the lite DRM that makes the RIAA happy while not pissing off customers. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And they won't.

      Then there is the fact that Apple primarily targets the 'average' computer user, which is not you and me. Joe iPod Owner does not know or care about OGG, and he has no reason to. His 2GB collection of MP3s and his fledgling assortment of iTunes AAC files serve his needs. Since he does not care, there's little reason for Apple to.

    • The current implementation (12 MHz) is limited to 64 kbps. For more, a higher frequency is needed.

      http://www.xiph.org/archives/vorbis/200307/0242. ht ml

      cya

  • will it make survive? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:08PM (#6465369)
    The cost of chips depends mainly on the number of them you produce, so won't the mp3 players be much cheaper? I personally use ogg, but mp3 is still much much more popular. I know people (ordinary computer users) who haven't even heard of ogg! (don't wory, I 'fixed' it ;))

  • Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 ) * on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:08PM (#6465384) Homepage Journal
    In not sure if it will hold for much longer so heres a mirror [wolffelaar.nl].

  • FPGA Version? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tunabomber ( 259585 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:09PM (#6465386) Homepage
    Does anyone know whether there are music players equipped with Field Programmable Gate Arrays to allow new codecs to be programmed in as technology advances? That would really be nice if they made a lightweight player with a generic FPGA in it so you could burn whatever codecs you want into it without needing a microprocessor and an EEPROM chip.
    • FPGAs are overkill. Just use a standard small processor and some good tight ASM in an EEPROM. (Yes, I know that's what you just said you wouldn't have to do. When you go check the price, speed, and work effort differences involved, you'll realize why FPGAs are generally relegated to testing chip designs.)
      • Not really. IBM's PPC PDA design, for example, has an FPGA for misc. functions like modems.

        • Re:FPGA Version? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by stonecypher ( 118140 ) <stonecypher@gmai ... minus physicist> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:40PM (#6465705) Homepage Journal
          Not really. IBM's PPC PDA design, for example, has an FPGA for misc. functions like modems.

          Yah, they also used to do that with their PCMCIA modems. Wave something or another, too lazy to check. That's a little different: IBM was producing those for a vareity of devices, all being sold at IBM scale, all fairly tiny devices. The part of the modem that's actually an FPGA is relatively small: it's just the encoder, the decoder, the modulator and the demodulator. The rest is still IC. That way, they can pick up new V standards without relying on software running on a general purpose CPU from flash.

          On the other hand, this guy is talking about taking on whole new audio codecs. Modems don't change a bunch: they're tied to an analog carrier with certain characteristics that aren't expected to change. (That's why Big Blue stopped this tactic for a while - when we switched to 56k, we were really just taking a direct line to the multiplexer at the telco digitally, instead of having a d->a converter in the way like traditional; this implied a lot of new characteristics, and the old whateverwave modems couldn't be upgraded to match.)

          A new audio codec could be tremendously larger and/or more complex than an older one. Granted, this is also a problem for GP CPUs; they're finite speed, and what's good enough for something like MP3 can't handle something like VQF; I expect this isn't a fluke. Later codecs will need more horsepower too. But the kind of near-identical situations you get with modems are seriously smaller problems than switching audio decompressors at the scale that these hashing monstrosities work.
      • For Digital stuff, yes. Analog systems are a completely different story.

        FPGAs can do things easily that would be very hard to do in software when you're in the analog domain. (Offtopic, i know, but interesting none the less.)
    • FPGAs are really neat, but waaay to expensive for a consumer product. (High-end FPGAs run $1k+, the cheapest moderately compex ones* are still $50-150). Audio is still relatively simple in processing and data thoroughput requirements - an FPGA would be overkill. For expandability, it would be best to get a cheap massively-overpowerful DSP [analog.com] and do it all in custom software. For power, an ASIC would be most efficient (also cheapest, but the least flexible)

      ----
      *Yes, with a lead-in like that, I must have pulled
    • No, they don't. FPGAs are extremely expensive and are utterly unnecessary in a music player. They are basically prototyping a chip in an FPGA. What you are looking for is a player with a DSP/processor and upgradeable firmware. Those do exist (check out the iRiver SlimX -- it uses a Cirrus EP7212 system-on-a-chip). Good luck rewriting the firmware though (nevertheless, it's easier than making a CPU on an FPGA).

  • Is it needed? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Valiss ( 463641 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:09PM (#6465388) Homepage
    I have read bits and pieces on /. and other site about Ogg, but I really don't see the appeal. For example, mp3's are so prevalent and portable recorders for them already exist, why would I change to a new format? Is Ogg clearer or cheaper or have smaller file sizes? Do p2p for Ogg exist? I'm interested to know what the appeal of this technology is.

    If someone like myself was going to convert my mp3's (if that is even possible) not only would it take a good amount of time, I'd no longer be able to share files with my peers as not a soul I know owns a single Ogg file.

    Enlighten this open mind!

    • Noone asks you to switch at once to ogg vorbis completely and abandon mp3. This is why ogg only players would not be helpful - we need compatible players.

    • Re:Is it needed? (Score:3, Informative)

      by n0nsensical ( 633430 )
      Is Ogg clearer or cheaper or have smaller file sizes?

      All of the above. You get better sound at lower bitrates royalty-free.

      Do p2p for Ogg exist?

      Not sure about Kazaa, etc., but I do see .oggs occasionally on SoulSeek [slsk.org].

      If someone like myself was going to convert my mp3's (if that is even possible) not only would it take a good amount of time, I'd no longer be able to share files with my peers as not a soul I know owns a single Ogg file.

      You wouldn't want to bother converting them because the resul
    • Unlike People who are just going to use their PCs to play pirated audio files anyway, if you're going to actual sell hardware to all those pirates you're probably going to want to actual pay the license fees for the mp3 codec. Free vorbis means cheaper hardware. Maybe not that much cheaper, but every peny counts. And if you have a chip does that OGG and MP3 you might as well use it, since it won't cost anything more and it'll be an extra bullet point on the box.

      And if you're going to rip CDs you actual

    • Re:Is it needed? (Score:5, Informative)

      by stonecypher ( 118140 ) <stonecypher@gmai ... minus physicist> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:25PM (#6465571) Homepage Journal
      Is Ogg clearer or cheaper or have smaller file sizes?

      Yes to all three. The sound quality is better than VQF, MP3, AAC, or WMF for the size. It's an opensource codec, so it has no patent encumberments. The files tend to be smaller because people encode (usually) at the minimum size to catch a CD quality track. Moreover, you can thumb your nose at Frauenhoffer.

      Do p2p for Ogg exist?

      Peer to peer exists for arbitrary files; therefore, for any such question, yes. Hell, you can also share them over the web, on CDs, or with smoke signals.

      However, in answer to what I expect the real question is, no, they're quite a bit more difficult to find than MP3s. MP3 is very entrenched, it's the one people that aren't activists know about, and it's the one that nobody wants to spend the time crosscoding from (both because it's time consuming/boring and because the crosscoding leaves you with a file with the errors of *both* formats, and it's a noticable downgrade; people should start from the CD again, but nobody wants to do that.)

      To be honest, I believe this chip's strongest market is in players that can handle MP3, Ogg with vorbis, speex, etc, WMF, and so on. The question isn't whether you start over. It's whether you move on with legacy support.

      And that's pretty much how we've always done it, right? I don't make MP3s anymore.

      I'd no longer be able to share files with my peers

      Wrong. It doesn't matter if they have one already. It matters if their player can use them. Almost all players can (Winamp, and ... well, who really uses anything else? :D )
      • Seems that Ogg is just different. Not really much better and not any worse. The real issue with mp3, ogg, et al. is that it'll still be illegal to poses the files if you do not, in fact, own the original.

        Is Ogg attempting to circumvent this?

        Considering the lack of files (mp3's are EVERYWHERE) and the lack of motivation on my part, I really doubt I'll switch anytime soon to Ogg. Even so, how is Ogg fairing with legal issues of copy write etc? How is mp3 limited that Ogg is not?

        • Seems that Ogg is just different. Not really much better and not any worse.

          Then you might want to re-read the previous reply. Specifically, it is free from royalty fees and encodes to a smaller file size for a given level of quality compared to mp3. That can translate to better quality sound if you find the current, typical mp3 file size acceptable, since you can encode at a higher level of quality and keep that file size. The main negative, which you correctly identified, is the general lack of file

      • Winamp (Score:2, Interesting)

        by GregoryD ( 646395 )
        Winamp, and ... well, who really uses anything else? :D

        I used to like Winamp before AOL took it over.

        I've had more problems with Winamp 3.0 that it has totally destroyed my whole view on the winamp product.

        I found a program called "foobar2000" [hydrogenaudio.org] and I like it as much as I did the old winamp. It lacks all those teenie bopper popular skins, but underneath a very ugly, so simple yet confusing interface, it just sounds better then Winamp.

    • Variable bit rate encoding is nice. You can chop an Ogg Vorbis into pieces, and stick the pieces back together using scripts. Bit rate peeling is promised soon (oooh). You can't convert MP3 to Ogg Vorbis without nasty side effects, but this holds for transcodes between other formats so isn't unique to Ogg Vorbis. Sorry about P2P but maybe you should start uploading Ogg Vorbis if you want to download Ogg Vorbis :-) This may sound picky, but you should say Ogg Vorbis, take a look on xiph.org for why.

      Anyone

    • game companies like Ogg (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Most games nowadays have large amounts of compressed music and voice tracks. The mp3 licensing has become a "requirement" for game companies who want to stay competitive. Some have used Ogg instead though. It's free, has a good libraries for developers to use, and gets better quality than mp3s.

      The guys over at Epic are probably the biggest name in the industry to jump on the Ogg bandwagon.
      • Mod parent up. AC, you should get an account, why be shy?

    • Re:Is it needed? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by groomed ( 202061 )
      Ogg is supposed to be better than MP3 in two respects: firstly, it is unencumbered by patents. Secondly, Ogg appears to deliver better quality at low bitrates.

      As to whether Ogg is necessary, well...

      I'm ambivalent. On the one hand I don't want to slag off the guy who put so much work into Ogg. On the other hand, I don't support the idea behind Ogg at all. Ogg was created to protect us against the evil of software patents, but in doing so, it legitimizes that same evil. I would rather not acknowledge it at

      • Re:Is it needed? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by William Tanksley ( 1752 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @05:08PM (#6465907)
        I'm ambivalent. On the one hand I don't want to slag off the guy who put so much work into Ogg. On the other hand, I don't support the idea behind Ogg at all. Ogg was created to protect us against the evil of software patents, but in doing so, it legitimizes that same evil. I would rather not acknowledge it at all: I'd rather see it die through a massive failure of enforcement (after all, in retrospect, what was all the brouhaha over the GIF patent good for?).

        You're a little wrong here -- Ogg wasn't created to fight software patents; it was created to provide an unencumbered multimedia format. If you want to use that sort of thing, Ogg is your choice. It turns out that Ogg Vorbis is also very good, so it's a good choice even if you're fully willing to use encumbered formats.

        But your purpose is different; Ogg isn't for you. You want to do civil disobedience to protest a bad law. I'm all for you doing that, even though I can't join you (I'm not capable of infringing on this patent even if I wanted to), but you need one friendly warning: the result that all civil disobedience users need to expect and prepare for is punishment according to the terms of the law. I'm not saying you're *not* expecting that, but it's certainly not what you're advocating when you say that nobody should worry about MP3 licensing terms. No, only those who are willing and prepared to pay the price should set out to battle.

        But other than that -- go for it. I'll keep using and developing free alternatives where I can, since I don't want to take something that's not offered freely.

        -Billy

      • Re:Is it needed? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by edhall ( 10025 )

        You're forgetting something. OGG shows the world that free software can do as well or better than proprietary. OGG's existance and prevelance has everything to do with discrediting the model you despise. You're just pissing in the wind by using MP3; if you use, demand, and support OGG, you're sending a stronger message IMHO.

        -Ed
      • MP3 works. I don't have to worry about my player supporting MP3. I don't have to worry about other people being able to play my MP3s. And I don't worry about MP3 licensing terms either. To be honest, I don't anybody should.

        Here's why you should care about MP3 licensing: the licensing terms make it impossible to legally ship a free MP3 encoder. That's why Audacity [sf.net] can't ship with an MP3 encoder built-in, but forces you to download it separately from out of the U.S.

  • Links to more information... (Score:5, Informative)

    by n0nsensical ( 633430 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:11PM (#6465417)
    Here are the "more information" PDFs so you don't have to fill out the form...
    Press release on 2003/7/15 (English) Ogg Vorbis Player System [finearch.com]
    Press release on 2003/7/15 (Korean)Ogg Vorbis Player System [finearch.com]
    Ogg Vorbis player system product summary [finearch.com]

  • Electrocution Warning (Score:3, Funny)

    by mofochickamo ( 658514 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:12PM (#6465432) Homepage Journal
    Do not take this Ogg Vorbis player outside in bad weather, as rain can damage the player and also poses an electrocution hazard.

  • Tell news (Score:2, Informative)

    by Juvenile ( 300317 )
    What's so special about that? These guys have done something similar before as a university project: http://oggonachip.sourceforge.net/

    And probably others have done this as well.
  • Hm, isn't ogg very fp (floating point, not first post) dependant? If so, this is just another one of those examples of floating point gaining dominance over integer ops. This may not be important to anyone else, but I fear for the day when all integer ops a performed as floats. I mean, for embedded/small system uses, wouldn't it be easier to use a format that is integer heavy? Then again, there are lots of ogg files out there, and I guess *something* has to play them... :)

    • Re:Floating point? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      Some time back there was an article about an integer based ogg playback core for hardware designs or some such silliness.

      I dunno. There's no money in ogo vorboses - it's not percievably better than mp3 to the end user, and it will cost more due to smaller production runs and a niche market.

      The average joe doesnt care that the company that made his walkman got the IP for free.

      Hell, even the above average joe doesnt care.

      Anyways.

      Shmogg wogg

    • Re:Floating point? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      From xiph.org:

      "Tremor" integer-only codec now under BSD license
      The "Tremor" decoder library, an integer-only, fully Ogg Vorbis compliant software decoder library is now available under a totally free BSD-like free software license.

      They have the integer decoder. It's FREE. BUT, it takes a hefty CPU to do it.

      If someone wants to use the xiph FP decoder, it's there for them, too.

      I don't think you have to worry about interger ops being done as floats, unless there is a specific performance advantage that c

    • Re:Floating point? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by leviramsey ( 248057 )

      For a while, the only freely available codec for Vorbis was floating point. However, there's been an integer decoder for a while (Tremor, IIRC), and it's now BSD-licensed.

    • Er. This seems to be based around the expectation that there's a desire to maintain integer use because it's faster. This is a dedicated chipset; it doesn't matter whether integer or floating point is faster, as they're going to clock it to whatever it needs to do the decoding.

      In the meantime, it's the reconstruction that was floating point heavy, not the decoding, and the reason it was floating point was for sound quality. The Tremor library is a pure integer decoder and reconstructor. It's recently u
      • No, it's because many low power CPU's for embedded work don't have an FPU and are impossible to use as the basis for a Ogg Player (Not that there's even a market for one)

  • Oh wow! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:17PM (#6465486) Homepage Journal
    "Hardware IP" includes "MultiCore Architecture"; CPU and DSP, Memory card interface, External memory interface, LCD controller, and Key input function. Only external memory and audio D/A converter is needed to build a complete portable player system.

    It sounds like it would be super-easy to build a homebrew portable audio player now! I wonder what memory interface the chip uses? Could you simply wire something like a memory stick or MMC, battries, a couple buttons and be good to go?

    I find that extreemly cool.
  • I would think that these days (depending on application) it would be a better idea to use a slightly more generic processor of some kind and firmware.

    Media codecs are developing all the time and hardware boxes can't keep up. Although this does generate more business as people will buy new media players once formats change.

    • Reprogrammable? It is. (Score:4, Informative)

      by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:26PM (#6465582)
      Did you actually read the article?

      "Software IP" includes DSP firmware do decode Ogg vorbis and the CPU firmware for overall system control.

      Basically, it's designed how it should be designed: seperate CPU and DSP cores, and both are independently programmable. It would be incredibly stupid to design a "pure" hardware solution (decoder in silico) since everyone admits that Vorbis is going to evolve and change, especially right now, during its "adolescent" period.

      Don't worry, they've done the right thing :-)

  • Excellent! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DaedalusLogic ( 449896 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:23PM (#6465547)
    Now this free codec will inspire me to re-rip all my audio to this new format and promptly go out and buy $1200 worth of computer equipment to do a home audio server up right!

    Who says OSS fans are cheapskates? We just believe that all our money should be spent on durable goods. Which raises a couple of questions...

    1. Is the reason that OSS fans don't like to pay for software because they think some people over-value their intellectual property?

    2. Will the creation of an Ogg Vorbis decoder really creat the economies of scale that would allow hardware makers to make the jump.
    In other words, will the money that they save in buying an Ogg Decoder for their player be worth the few cents per MP3 decoder royalty when coupled with the marketshare lead that MP3 now enjoys?

    I'd like to see Ogg do it personally, but can it penetrate a mass market? I'd like to take Ogg out for a Jog.

  • Why would you want this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mike McTernan ( 260224 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:24PM (#6465563)
    I don't see why you would want specific hardware for this. Adding another chip to a product will make it larger, use more power and cost more.

    The article says that they have "Hardwared IP and Software IP which [is] needed to build a portable music player" but realistically most portable music players will surely contain a general purpose CPU or DSP, meaning that they need only a good reference implementation which can be ported to common platforms (e.g. ARM) with little optimisation.
    • Actually they havent any specific hardware and it is just a cpu and a dsp. But specific hardware is very good for your size and power consumption. You consume less power because instead of for example working out a sin function with software you have a piece of hardware to do it. You save on power because youre not wasting it on fetching instructions and running your circuit extra fast and on maybe a little on area as you have just made your memory requirements little smaller.

      Currently with ultra low featu
  • What I'd like to see:

    1) An available, no-futzing, no-fooling portable ogg player

    2) that uses AA batteries (rechargables are now well worth it, and standard battery sizes are so much more convenient than a billion sculpted-to-fit li-ions)

    3) that reads from CD / CD-R / CD-RW

    4) and hopefully from DVD / DVD recordable formats as well

    5) and even more hopefully, a slot for CF would be nice, or some amount (even 64 megs) of built-in flash

    6) that costs less than buying a middlin' color PDA ;) [Except for the

  • Low clock rate != Low power (Score:3, Informative)

    by pslam ( 97660 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:42PM (#6465716) Homepage Journal
    It's generally true that low clock speed gives you low power, but when you're throwing a custom core at a problem, that's not necessarily true. The amount of power is basically proportional to the number of gates you have to switch. If you're running at 1/4 the clock speed, but you're switching 4 times as many gates, you'll probably end up with the same power requirement. Put simply: imagine running 4 processors in parallel at 1/4 the clock speed - assuming perfect parallelism, I'd say it'd still take at least as much power. If you run into limits such as having to turn up the voltage at higher clocks, that's another matter, but at these clock speeds it's not a major factor.

    The trick is they have is a single issue RISC core (1 instruction per clock) running in parallel with a 4 issue VLIW DSP core (4 instructions per clock). Assuming it's all running at peak rate (which it hopefully will be for the majority of time) that's about 60 MIPS of processing going on there for a 64kbit Vorbis stream. Compare that to an ARM7TDMI (which a lot of players are based on), which requires (ball park) 30-50MHz for the same stream. The figure they state of 74MHz is nonsense - that's the general class of processor you require, not the actual MHz. You'll find higher bit rates requiring most of that 74MHz, though.

    If they can come up with a real piece of hardware or a simulation that says it takes less than 100-200mW in an actual system, then I'll be impressed. That's about how much your average MP3 player takes. (Power = Battery mAh * Battery Voltage / Time in hours, work out how much yours takes). Just having a low clock speed is as incomplete a power consumption picture as Intel's use of high clock speeds alone is to performance.

  • But why...? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mcgroarty ( 633843 ) <brian.mcgroarty@nOSpAm.gmail.com> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:48PM (#6465761) Homepage
    Why doesn't this hardware support MP3 as well?

    An Ogg-only player dropped onto the market today would be a complete no-op, and nobody's going to want to make a player that takes an extra chip for something only a fraction of a percent of the users are asking for right now.

    I want this, and I want it badly... but I don't think the device manufacturers will care.

  • If OV ever gets popular... (Score:4, Informative)

    by PylonHead ( 61401 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:52PM (#6465782) Homepage Journal
    Then we'll find out whether they infringe on any patents. Remember this article:

    clicky , clicky News.com from 2000 [com.com]

    The Ogg developers staunchly defend the notion that they have created everything from scratch, or at least have built their system without using any of the Fraunhofer-owned technology. But their rivals say they aren't so sure.

    "We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson intellectual property," Linde said. "We think it is likely they are infringing."

    Whether this is true, analysts say Thomson and the German company are likely to file patent lawsuits the moment Vorbis appears to be a viable market candidate. By creating a perception of uncertainty around Vorbis' future, MP3's parents could prevent conservative digital music companies from adopting it.

    "If you're going to go into a marketplace where people play hardball, that's what hardball looks like," Scheirer warned.
    • Why is it even a question whether they have violated IP rights? Isn't Vorbis an open standard? Can't they verify whether their IP has been violated by looking at the code?

  • Tungsten T/C & Zire 71 can play Ogg for free (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sjonke ( 457707 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:53PM (#6465787) Journal
    Palm's OS 5 PDAs can play Ogg Vorbis with the addition of either Aeroplayer [aerodromesoftware.com] or the other one (Pocket Tunes). Aeroplayer is notable for, among other things, being free (as in beer) for use with Ogg Vorbis (registration is only required for MP3 playback.) These PDA's all have an SD/MMC slot and accept standard MMC and SD cards which is better than most standalone players out there which have proprietary memory modules or no expansion possible. Note, however, that the Tungsten C only has a monophonic headphone jack. The Tungsten T and Zire 71 do stereo out of the box. I can vouch for the TT, which has excellent sound quality with Aeroplayer.

    Having said that, since I don't like listening on headphones (gives me a headache), I find that there is little value in a portable music player that does not have enough space to contain your entire music library. In that situation (use only hooked up to car and/or home stereos) the constant need to swap songs out renders even an overpriced 512 MB SD card pretty pointless - the same can be achieved more conveniently with a handful of (much flatter than a Tungsten|T) CD-RW Audio CDs or less than one MP3 CD-RW with an appropriate CD player (which are cheap as dirt these days). Moreover, the loss of a CD-RW disc is inconsequential while the lose of a Tungsten T or even just an SD card would be quite distressing.

    Better still, and what I do, plug your PowerBook into your car stereo's AUX input and control iTunes or what have you with Salling Clicker and a T68i or equivalent bluetooth phone. Talk about geek cool.... Further I'm considering acquiring an old G3 or G4 tower to mount in the trunk of my car - I envision automatic music syncing via an 802.11b connection with my home iMac jukebox when I get in range. Surely someone has done this already?

  • Great, you don't need a license from the guys who invented the format, but you'd need to license the decoder from these guys... How is that different? Besides, a system will need a micro of some sort anyway and it could do the decoding.

  • I don't mean to sound like a troll, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @05:05PM (#6465881) Homepage
    ...why would Joe User consider buying an Ogg portable player? I just pulled up my Netjuke and it says that I have 189 mp3-encoded albums in there, encoded that way because I have a portable mp3 player. I sure don't want to go through the bother of re-encoding my music. Why would any user want to go through the bother of a) re-encoding all of their CDs in Ogg format when they won't notice the difference with their crappy Walkman headphones, or b) re-pirating all of those songs that they like in Ogg format (as if they would find them)?

    I just don't see a compelling reason for the portable music crowd to want to do this, and I don't think that there are enough ./ fanatics to make it financially viable for a company to produce.

    • Well, you've got to look at it the other way round. The only reason I have gigabytes of mp3 files instead of oggs is because my car stereo / home DVD player / portable only support mp3s. I think ogg is a much better format, and I'd love to use it for everything, but with the rising popularity of mp3-playing hardware, it faces a big fence to climb over.

      Certainly, an ogg-only player isn't fantastic news, but any step towards players that will decode mp3 AND ogg AND whatever else you want to throw their way

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