Log from #neuros IRC channel

I came on because I got a mail from the neuros bugzilla about a bug I had voted for, and it turns out I've been missing out on quite a lot of excitement in the community

[17:41]

free always rocks

[17:41]

<Yono>

which had you voted for?

[17:41]

There is alot going on for sure

[17:41]

<Yono>

yesterday we had Starkey who agreed to develop FLAC

[17:41]

well done Starkey

[17:42]

I've never used FLAC - but I was just reading the discussion on the forums - looks cool

[17:42]

<Yono>

and if I can get someone named JoeBorn on here, he's the CTO of Neuros

[17:42]

I'd voted for the txt reader - and it depended on the file browser

[17:43]

does joe come on here then? he must be a very "hands on" guy

[17:43]

<Yono>

once the sources for 2.28 come out, I'm sure someone could dev it *cough*DeepB*cough*

[17:43]

<Yono>

yes, very much so

[17:43]

<Yono>

he's very interested in open source himself

[17:43]

well, evidently

[17:43]

I'm glad I bought a neuros - it was worth all the grief of customs

[17:44]

<Yono>

AmericanTechpush: what did I tell you? more and developers on this channel don't live in the US

[17:45]

I'm not a developer - just someone who wanted an ogg player

[17:45]

<Yono>

oh, ok

[17:45]

<Yono>

by the way, where do you live?

[17:45]

uk

[17:46]

<erwan>

Yono: I'll tell you when he'll join :)

[17:46]

Somebody earlier mentioned that there is talk of a formal organization for the Neuros open source development. I would be happy to donate the web space and band with to such a project

[17:46]

it was a royal PITA getting a neuros here, as the neuros reseller people didn't like the look of my foreign credit card ;)

[17:47]

I never doubted that statement youo

[17:47]

yono

[17:47]

Where you buy from Tin

[17:47]

uh

[17:47]

I honestly can't remember any more

[17:48]

it was some link from the neuros website as I recall

[17:48]

provangte?

[17:48]

sounds familiar

[17:48]

<Yono>

ugh, those guys don't work well from the rants on the forums

[17:48]

they were a bit weird to deal with - they wanted a photocopy of my driving licence and stuff

[17:49]

I didn't quite understand it, as surely if my credit card was duff they would be insured against it - but never mind

[17:49]

they also couldn't contact my bank - possibly because it is 5 hours ahead

[17:49]

Well if you wanted to pay via credit card they where until recently where the only resellers that accepetd credit cards for International orders

[17:50]

Well as reseller I can tell you thats not true, merchants have zero protection

[17:50]

ah, that would be it then

[17:51]

anyway, I got the neuros - they let the payment go through mainly because I kept phoning from england to try to sort it out

[17:51]

apparently

[17:52]

Which player do you have N2 or N1

[17:52]

i came on to ask a question, and I got completely sidetracked - is anybody using the beta 2.28 firmware?

[17:52]

n2

[17:52]

<Yono>

I have been for a while now

[17:52]

I am at the momment

[17:53]

I had 2.24 when it was beta and it actually almost completely broke the player - took me a while and some emails to neuros tech support to fix it

[17:53]

so I wanted to check ;)

[17:54]

<Yono>

oh, I'm in the alpha group so I'm kinda insured against that kinda stuff

[17:54]

<Yono>

and I could always just ask DeepB about the three or so hidden bootloaders

[17:54]

I can't send mine back if I break it - as it would cost another ?50 to dhl it back and forth across the atlantic ocean

I have a few players

one has beta

other Garbage brach

<Yono>

same

[17:56]

getting the recorder this week

[17:56]

i've just been browsing on the forums to catch up over the last few months, and saw this promised neuros 3. I might buy one of them, if I can justify the monye to myself ;)

[17:56]

i wonder if it will still broadcast to FM. if it doesn't, they could actually be sold in the UK

[17:57]

Well the N3 is still a ways off

[17:57]

The pockect player is not as far off, dont confuse the two

[17:57]

The N3 will

[17:57]

ah, is there a difference?

[17:57]

That is confimend

[17:58]

yes

[17:59]

<Yono>

the pocketplayer is like a neuros mini

[18:00]

<Yono>

an N3 for the consumer market

[18:00]

i wonder what the capacity of the pp will be?

[18:00]

5gb

[18:00]

thats confirmed

[18:01]

cool - I think I'm on my own - but my music collection is only about 4Gb max

[18:03]

The cool ting about the pocket player.. to me anyway is that its drag and drop so there is no sync software needed

[18:03]

brb

[18:03]

Does it have id3 tag support though?

[18:04]

drag and drop syncing would be great

[18:04]

a lot of flash/drag & drops I've messed w/ only go off the filename

[18:05]

I must be like the only one that doesnt mind using a sync software to rebuild the DB

[18:05]

"using sync software"*

[18:06]

<Yono>

smrtJustin, I'll go check

[18:07]

<Yono>

hmm, I'm not sure, sorry

[18:10]

I will try to remember that,, and see if I can find out..

[18:16]

yono you never said if liked the look of the recorder

[18:16]

<Yono>

oh, its much better than the original pic in the pdf

[18:17]

agreed

[18:18]

Justin where you the one that wanted to write the linux help?

[18:23]

Ho erwan

[18:23]

<erwan_ho>

lo AmericanTechpush

[18:33]

<Yono>

erwan, your friend still coming?

[18:33]

<erwan_ho>

yes

[18:34]

<Yono>

ok

[18:34]

<erwan_ho>

seems to be in late :b

[18:34]

* erwan_ho is transcoding a DVD (concert) in variable bitrate ogg... it rocks !

[18:39]

Yono what are your thoughts about a formal organization about the Neuros open source project

[18:39]

What DVD

[18:40]

<Yono>

AmericanTechpush: I'm not sure yet

[18:41]

<erwan_ho>

Yono: he's coming :)

[18:41]

<Yono>

great

[18:41]

<erwan_ho>

AmericanTechpush: Sanseverino, a french songer

[18:41]

<erwan_ho>

singer

[18:41]

cool

[18:45]

<erwan_ho>

brb

[18:48]

<erwan_ho>

re

[18:48]

wb

[18:49]

<Yono>

I hate to have to go, but I'll be back in less than 20 mins

[18:50]

<erwan_ho>

nplanel_: \o/

[18:50]

<nplanel_>

erwan_ho: |o/

[18:50]

<Yono>

hmm its that ur friend?

[18:50]

hi np

[18:50]

<erwan_ho>

Yono: yes

[18:51]

<erwan_ho>

let me introduce, nplanel_ :)

[18:51]

<Yono>

ok, I'll message joe quick, hopefully he'll get on here

[18:51]

<erwan_ho>

he's the guy I've talk too

[18:51]

<Yono>

what should I tell him exactly?

[18:52]

<erwan_ho>

Yono: that one guy woul like to help in the gcc port and have some hardware to work on

[18:53]

<Yono>

ok, done

[18:53]

<Yono>

now I must go

[18:53]

<Yono>

tt u soon

[18:53]

<erwan_ho>

thks Yono

[19:03]

I hope you guys can port to GCC

[19:03]

<erwan_ho>

AmericanTechpush: so am I :)

[19:03]

<erwan_ho>

I trust nplanel_

[19:06]

so how about just running linux on the neuros :)

[19:07]

<erwan_ho>

solomon: :)

[19:08]

<Yono-BBS>

sorry guys

[19:08]

anything ipod can do we can do better, right?

[19:08]

<Yono-BBS>

(12:54:46) Joe X Born: I can talk in a few hours i'm at a bday party

[19:08]

<erwan_ho>

Yono-BBS: arf

[19:08]

don't worry, Yono can cover for him :)

[19:08]

<Yono-BBS>

lol, yeah right

[19:08]

I can go ahead and speak for him

[19:08]

we will give you a few..

[19:08]

hundred..

[19:09]

BILLION DOLLARS

[19:09]

<erwan_ho>

nplanel_: could you wait a little bit ?

[19:09]

plus stock options

[19:09]

<Yono-BBS>

Americantechpush: don't ever hire solomon ;)

[19:10]

hehe

[19:10]

<nplanel_>

erwan_ho: no problem

[19:10]

<erwan_ho>

cool

[19:11]

<Yono-BBS>

Joe is the man with the plan

[19:11]

<Yono-BBS>

mess with the man, and you mess with the plan

[19:11]

mess with the plan, and you mess with the man

[19:11]

<Yono-BBS>

exactly

[19:12]

take the man out for a burger and fries, and you take the plan out for a burger and fries

[19:12]

:)

[19:13]

i've been awake a bit too long

[19:14]

has there been any progress on who will do MPC?

[19:14]

<Yono>

they put up a post on their forums

[19:15]

<Yono>

you could go to #mpc on irc.musepack.net and ask

[19:17]

nah, i might end up needing to speak for someone which i am not suited to do :)

[19:18]

maybe in a few days when i've followed things for a bit, if somebody else hasn't picked up the ball :)

[19:18]

They will find somebody Im sure

[19:18]

Its a big break for them

[19:19]

A big step in being more widely accepted

[19:19]

<Yono>

definitely

[19:20]

<Yono>

and if it catches on, neuros will make a lot of licensing money

[19:22]

will this work be done MPL?

[19:22]

that's the way the firmware ended up.. right? i can't remember :)

[19:23]

Not to mention the sales to die hard musepak users

[19:24]

<Yono>

*The world's only portable musepack player*

[19:26]

and the gapless playback and replaygain bugs will receive a huge influx of votes from new die hard musepack users :)

[19:26]

I personally would rather see flac than musepack

[19:26]

i am not sure myself...

[19:26]

but I guess theres already a flac player, but not a musepack one

[19:26]

if i can play flac for my entire 8.5 hour shift at work, then i want it

[19:27]

i am planning on getting an 80G backpack in a couple of weeks, at which point I will use it as an external hd so that i have enough room and subsequently rip all of my collection into flac

[19:27]

Agreed there Justin

[19:27]

then i will probably encode it all into q5 oggs, and whenever mpc support comes in i'll rip it into --insane mpc i guess

[19:28]

seperate projects tho

[19:28]

then i can choose MPC or FLAC based on how long i need the battery to last for me

[19:28]

Starkey as agreed to do the FLAC

[19:28]

recently? or how long ago?

[19:28]

i am really hoping that a better battery can be acquired for these backpacks even after they become old hat

[19:28]

SmrtJustin: like last night i guess

[19:29]

SmrtJustin: he has to finish his move this week and maybe next

[19:29]

oh, then something might actually happen

[19:29]

SmrtJustin: yeah, he said he is going to commit to it

[19:29]

SmrtJustin: i think he decided to do it before finding out he could get paid, in fact :)

[19:29]

thats great

[19:29]

lol

[19:29]

has anyone got a credible estimate of how long the neuros will last doing FLAC playback?

[19:30]

<Yono>

not yet

[19:30]

is it harder to decode a flac or a mp3?

[19:30]

<Yono>

flac

[19:30]

hmm

[19:30]

is mp3 hardware decoded on the neuros?

[19:31]

if they are both software, i would presume that flac would actually be easier

[19:31]

based on the info i have seen on flac. but i could be wrong. and if they use hardware mp3 decoding then there is no contest

[19:32]

and in any case, if flac takes half as much cpu, it will still take far more battery power to process 10x the amount of data

[19:32]

that is my big concern

[19:32]

true

[19:32]

if playback is 10 hours now... and then you start processing 10x the data...

[19:32]

on the other hand, caching _really_ sucks right now

[19:33]

yes it does

[19:33]

I hope that get improves

[19:33]

maybe if they actually set it up so that all of the unit's cache was used, when the unit has 128M or 256M

[19:33]

and so that when playing flac it always tries to cache as far as possible

[19:33]

even the 64mb could use better caching

[19:33]

then _perhaps_ one could use it for a significant amount of time, if one kept the play queue filled

[19:33]

of course the play queue could use some fixing too ;)

[19:34]

it seems when i press Play on Songs, it doesnt cache them

[19:34]

still.. my sneaking suspicion is that i will have to use mpc at work

[19:34]

SmrtJustin: yeah, it is basically a bastard

[19:34]

SmrtJustin: i wish i was a coder :)

[19:35]

we need to take all the programers' chargers away from them

[19:35]

lol

[19:35]

then they will have itches to scratch to make the unit less power hungry :)

[19:35]

your talking a lot of work

[19:35]

i am always getting on this, it is so ridiculous to me

[19:36]

why must the neuros write to the hd whenever it shuts down and read from it whenever it starts

[19:36]

when you don't use the hd backpack it doesn't have to do that

[19:36]

I think its suspends to the HD

[19:36]

doesn't need to though

[19:36]

not imho

[19:37]

that way it knows what song to pick up on when it reboots

[19:37]

it could suspend to the flash

[19:37]

nand, whatever

[19:37]

possibly

[19:37]

something that doesn't require that it have enough battery power left over for a spin-up

[19:37]

I dont think thats as big of a problem as music caching

[19:38]

doesn't the non-hd functionality support resuming as well

[19:38]

not sure

[19:38]

well, the main thing with it is that long after i have run out of power needed to spin it up, i could keep using the unit as a radio, or theoretically keep playing songs that had been cached

[19:38]

but it won't start, because the first thing it tries to do when it starts is spin-up, and fails

[19:39]

not to mention, if it runs too low, it doesn't successfully save presets to the hd, so bookmarks are lost

[19:39]

I've never used the Presets

[19:39]

that is such an inconvenience that I have actually given up on listening to audio books on the neuros

[19:39]

you must not use audiobooks :)

[19:40]

no, I havent

[19:40]

so you just have the presets save where you are?

[19:40]

yeah, they will save your position in a file

[19:40]

except when they break

[19:41]

which is so frequently that it becomes more trouble than it's worth

[19:41]

not to mention that it is a huge pain to seek through a long file

[19:41]

yeah

[19:41]

someday when there aren't a million higher priority bugs, i will file a bug that suggests allowing the user to seek to a position in a file that is specified in the same manner that the system clock is set

[19:42]

that would be cool

[19:43]

not to mention an automagical "history" that saves your last position in a file to a ui-accessed bookmark, when you switch to a different song, etc.

[19:43]

because right now losing your place is far too easy to do and far too difficult to recover from

[19:43]

i'm ranting

[19:43]

i should sleep

[19:43]

<DeepB>

sorry to pop up, but are audiobooks any good at all? do they only exist in US? i haven't seen one for sale... ever

[19:44]

hehe

[19:44]

DeepB: they can be great, if you like them... audible.com ... audiobookforfree.com

[19:44]

There seems to be fair amount of support for the audible format

[19:44]

<Yono>

deepB: you might be hearing more about them if the audible format is supported

[19:45]

<DeepB>

actually, i have eyes, and they work quite well, i'd rather read

[19:45]

DeepB: that second link has free books in 8kbit mp3's with bad tags... which are not very well read. but good audio books are read very well by voice actors, sometimes with music etc. to give a good mood

[19:45]

DeepB: audiobooks are good for situations where you have to dedicate your eyes elsewhere. i do data entry 8 hours per night

[19:45]

s/audiobookforfree.com/audiobooksforfree.com/

[19:46]

<DeepB>

oh, i see

[19:46]

<DeepB>

in those situations i'd rather listen to music ;)

[19:47]

DeepB: yeah i do a lot of that too :)

[19:47]

DeepB: which is why i wish the unit was more battery efficient so i could listen to flac's or --insane mpc's for 8 hours straight :)

[19:48]

<DeepB>

swappable, user replaceable batteries... i bugzilled that a long time ago

[19:50]

that would be nice too but it doesn't sound like that will end up in the n3... :(

[19:50]

<DeepB>

hd spinning sucks a lot of power, FLAC files are quite big

[19:50]

and it would be nicer for the unit to last twice as long on a single charge than for me to be able to carry around another battery in my pocket :)

[19:50]

yeah, but if flac were in right now the neuros would probably do twice as much hd spinning as it needs to

[19:51]

4x as much as it needs to, if you have a 256M unit

[19:51]

spinning up, i should say

[19:52]

it would go a long way for just 2 or 3 changes to be made

[19:52]

<DeepB>

?

[19:52]

(1) all 128M or 256M are used, if available

[19:52]

(2) the unit always caches as far as it can when the play queue is in use

[19:53]

(3) users can add albums, etc. to the queue

[19:54]

it would also not be bad if it quit spinning up the hd when it shuts down or starts. I don't really get why it must do so, since it doesn't have to spin up the hd when it's in flash mode

[19:54]

<DeepB>

flash mode?

[19:55]

when the battery pack is attached instead of the hd backpack. e.g. no hd is available anyway

[19:55]

also, I would imagine that the current cache mechanism caches as many _songs_ as it can -- when it even does that

[19:56]

but it would be preferable to cache _as far_ as it can, meaning cache partial songs

[19:56]

that would also make a big difference for FLAC since files are large

[19:56]

can you actually hear the difference between HQ oggs and flac on a neuros?

[19:56]

case in point, if I have an album with 10 songs, 300MB total, 30M per song, the current system would cache one song at a time, if that

[19:57]