http://forums.syntrillium.com/ used to be a pretty good forum.
Don't know if it still is.
Looking for something specific?
/Hugo
Don't know if it still is.
Looking for something specific?
/Hugo
Hugo,
Just wanted to compare my thoughts with what others have done.
I saw a Yamaha CDR-HD1300 CD Recorder with built-in Hard Drive the other day, and it got me thinking again about making a wav file jukebox. Being of the firm opinion that MP3's are "the work of the devil", I couldn't possibly accept a lossy compression system, and as I don't know of a lossless audio compression system - wav it is!
There seem to me to be 2 paths possible:
1. A "quiet" PC motherboard running a cut-down operating system.
2. A small microcontroller board with a specialist routine.
Since both will require a human interface, the task becomes "non-trivial".
Now if I can find someone who has compiled a kernel, or written some PIC source code, and is willing to divulge all - either for helping another human, or for reasonable money, I'll go there.
Cheers,
Just wanted to compare my thoughts with what others have done.
I saw a Yamaha CDR-HD1300 CD Recorder with built-in Hard Drive the other day, and it got me thinking again about making a wav file jukebox. Being of the firm opinion that MP3's are "the work of the devil", I couldn't possibly accept a lossy compression system, and as I don't know of a lossless audio compression system - wav it is!
There seem to me to be 2 paths possible:
1. A "quiet" PC motherboard running a cut-down operating system.
2. A small microcontroller board with a specialist routine.
Since both will require a human interface, the task becomes "non-trivial".
Now if I can find someone who has compiled a kernel, or written some PIC source code, and is willing to divulge all - either for helping another human, or for reasonable money, I'll go there.
Cheers,
Attachments
If you really want to go DIY you might end here:
http://home.swipnet.se/tr/silence.html
with a nice Linux script.
Here is also a good (?) link to HDD recording:
http://www.bownie.com/guide/computer/bdc-RG-hdd.shtml
Didn't browse the whole site but there seems to be quite a lot of info.
http://www.google.be/search?hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=DIY+hdd+recording&meta= could maybe reveal more.
/Hugo
http://home.swipnet.se/tr/silence.html
with a nice Linux script.
Here is also a good (?) link to HDD recording:
http://www.bownie.com/guide/computer/bdc-RG-hdd.shtml
Didn't browse the whole site but there seems to be quite a lot of info.
http://www.google.be/search?hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=DIY+hdd+recording&meta= could maybe reveal more.
/Hugo
I just upgraded one of my computers with a 120 Gig hard drive in anticipation of using it as a jukebox for uncompressed and MP3 files. (some stuff I only have on MP3) Also DVD and multichannel sound for home theater. I really think that there would be a lot of interest in a straightforward discussion of ways to do these things that work now!
For example the current Audigy card claims to play DVD-Audio
Of course the disadvantages of the Soundblaster cards has been mentioned before- not true 24/96
M Audio has some multichannel 24/96 audio cards/boxes which look like they might be great for audio/ HT. If we get some good info posted, maybe we can get a forum topic right here.
For example the current Audigy card claims to play DVD-Audio
Of course the disadvantages of the Soundblaster cards has been mentioned before- not true 24/96
M Audio has some multichannel 24/96 audio cards/boxes which look like they might be great for audio/ HT. If we get some good info posted, maybe we can get a forum topic right here.
These guys have a lot of relevent (I think) software
http://www.audiotoolsdirect.com/
This is a good ripper- does Wav
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
http://www.audiotoolsdirect.com/
This is a good ripper- does Wav
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
re: lossless compression
Super Trivia Memory to the rescue:
on p. 64 of June 2003 Wired mag is a blurb about Tony Robinson who developed SHN, a lossless compression format.
try googling his name, SHN, and a lady named Diana Hamilton who maintains a SHN resource site. also, apparently there're a couple communities somewhere called 'SHNapster' and 'Further'.
thought that might be of interest...
/andrew
Super Trivia Memory to the rescue:
on p. 64 of June 2003 Wired mag is a blurb about Tony Robinson who developed SHN, a lossless compression format.
try googling his name, SHN, and a lady named Diana Hamilton who maintains a SHN resource site. also, apparently there're a couple communities somewhere called 'SHNapster' and 'Further'.
thought that might be of interest...
/andrew
dhaen said:
Amen brother. I've been saying that for a long time. But MP3's encoded with very light losses can sound pretty good, much like the very high quality compression setting on a JPEG. But like a JPEG at any setting there are losses.
I am down to two media, vinyl and CD's. As cool as the ipod is, I'm never going to MP3's. If it would play uncompressed formats, I'd download 30 CD's into it and be golden.
Sheldon
I got my 120 gig Western Digital drive for $90
I guess a standard CD is 650 Meg max, I'll bet a lot are a lot less!
Then figure a lossless compression scheme- say 400 megs a disk
120,000 megs / 400 = 300 albums
I'd say that's a pretty good start, and no lossy compression!
here's a lossless compression program:
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
I guess a standard CD is 650 Meg max, I'll bet a lot are a lot less!
Then figure a lossless compression scheme- say 400 megs a disk
120,000 megs / 400 = 300 albums
I'd say that's a pretty good start, and no lossy compression!
here's a lossless compression program:
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
"lossy" audio
CDs, at 44.1K samples per second and 16-bits are not exactly lossless either.
MP3 may well be the work of the dev... err, digital engineers, but the promise of MP3 and similar formats which are not constrained by redbook and other standards, is that they will eventually sound better than CDs, if left to evolve. Some which are not in the consumer arena yet, already do, and only need to escape the tyranny of 44.1KHz.
If you read the fine print on Andre Wiethoff's page (link above by Variac), you will see that a CD rip made on a good CDR drive can actually be better than a CD played in the average CDP.
Some personal opinions:
Very high bit rate MP3s made using EAC and LAME (or other combinations of ripper and encoder you may prefer, e.g. OGG Vorbis), are indistinguishable from the originals, but they have to be played on high-end gear, not the average sound card, or the average MP3 player with earbuds.
"Lossy" is a misnomer. The advantage of so-called lossy recording is that it can devote higher bandwidth where the artist or engineer thinks it can do the most good. Variable rate joint stereo suffers mostly from the limitations of the lousy source material the software is often presented with. Applied directly to good studio master recordings, it would blow away HDCD, and perhaps even SACD.
MP3 format suffers mostly during the playback. Most MP3 players sooner or later pipe audio through a sound card with questionable performance, or a lousy headphone output, or a poor digital output.
If any of the tweaks routinely used by members of this forum to improve CDPs and DACs were used on MP3 players such as the networked Turtle Beach Audiotron or others, MP3 would not have nearly the poor reputation it now has in audiophile circles.
The Audiotron, which is a recent personal favorite, is basically a box with one pcb with ethernet connection and Cirrus Maverick/ARM processor running Windows CE and a web server from flash, a Crystal DAC (a CS43L43 unfortunately, but still pretty good), toslink out easily upgradable to true S/PDIF), and a remote.
A disc-based portable player (ipod, Archos) only needs a decent line out or S/PDIF output to sound good.
PM
CDs, at 44.1K samples per second and 16-bits are not exactly lossless either.
MP3 may well be the work of the dev... err, digital engineers, but the promise of MP3 and similar formats which are not constrained by redbook and other standards, is that they will eventually sound better than CDs, if left to evolve. Some which are not in the consumer arena yet, already do, and only need to escape the tyranny of 44.1KHz.
If you read the fine print on Andre Wiethoff's page (link above by Variac), you will see that a CD rip made on a good CDR drive can actually be better than a CD played in the average CDP.
Some personal opinions:
Very high bit rate MP3s made using EAC and LAME (or other combinations of ripper and encoder you may prefer, e.g. OGG Vorbis), are indistinguishable from the originals, but they have to be played on high-end gear, not the average sound card, or the average MP3 player with earbuds.
"Lossy" is a misnomer. The advantage of so-called lossy recording is that it can devote higher bandwidth where the artist or engineer thinks it can do the most good. Variable rate joint stereo suffers mostly from the limitations of the lousy source material the software is often presented with. Applied directly to good studio master recordings, it would blow away HDCD, and perhaps even SACD.
MP3 format suffers mostly during the playback. Most MP3 players sooner or later pipe audio through a sound card with questionable performance, or a lousy headphone output, or a poor digital output.
If any of the tweaks routinely used by members of this forum to improve CDPs and DACs were used on MP3 players such as the networked Turtle Beach Audiotron or others, MP3 would not have nearly the poor reputation it now has in audiophile circles.
The Audiotron, which is a recent personal favorite, is basically a box with one pcb with ethernet connection and Cirrus Maverick/ARM processor running Windows CE and a web server from flash, a Crystal DAC (a CS43L43 unfortunately, but still pretty good), toslink out easily upgradable to true S/PDIF), and a remote.
A disc-based portable player (ipod, Archos) only needs a decent line out or S/PDIF output to sound good.
PM
First, some thanks:
Exactaudio copyhttp://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ does indeed look good. In fact there could even be some advantage in using it to rip and play "on the fly"
And some comment:
Lossless thanks:
I'm going to follow up Andrew and variac's links to lossless systems, out of curiocity. But I don't think I need them, and just a bit dubious of what they might sound like.
On a practical note:
Whatever recording system is used, wav/ mp3/ monkey, for most solutions, the hardware will be the same. So, I think that is an area where people of differing views will find common ground for collaboration.
Hardware:
For a PC based solution, these new ITX motherboards look good.
http://mini-itx.com There are versions without fans.
I noticed there is a link to one that interfaces directly to an LCD display.
Cheers,
Exactaudio copyhttp://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ does indeed look good. In fact there could even be some advantage in using it to rip and play "on the fly"
And some comment:
No digitisation format is lossless. But wer're not talking about digitisation here; merely keeping what we've got.
But why bother? Digital storage is cheap and plentiful. As far as disks go. there's blu-ray just about to roll out at 24-27G per side. Harddrives are following.
For all but the highest data rates, it's the pre-filtering before encoding that will determine whether the decoder "falls over". Of course that doesn't preclude there being some lousy decoders.
Lossless thanks:
I'm going to follow up Andrew and variac's links to lossless systems, out of curiocity. But I don't think I need them, and just a bit dubious of what they might sound like.
On a practical note:
Whatever recording system is used, wav/ mp3/ monkey, for most solutions, the hardware will be the same. So, I think that is an area where people of differing views will find common ground for collaboration.
Hardware:
For a PC based solution, these new ITX motherboards look good.
http://mini-itx.com There are versions without fans.
I noticed there is a link to one that interfaces directly to an LCD display.
Cheers,
Attachments
Here are the M Audio products:
http://www.midiman.net/products/consumer/index.php
As you can see, one version in a separate box-maybe less comp hash?
Also look at their pro gear soundcards
http://www.midiman.net/products/consumer/index.php
As you can see, one version in a separate box-maybe less comp hash?
Also look at their pro gear soundcards
Getting an output...
Yes, an external box may be quieter, though the better ones are not cheap.
I had been hopeful that I could get an SPDIF or optical output straight from a motherboard, to fed an external DAC.
The thing that concerns me is that many of the sound processors up-sample to 48KHz for their digital outputs. For me that is unacceptable.
Cheers,
Variac said:
Yes, an external box may be quieter, though the better ones are not cheap.
I had been hopeful that I could get an SPDIF or optical output straight from a motherboard, to fed an external DAC.
The thing that concerns me is that many of the sound processors up-sample to 48KHz for their digital outputs. For me that is unacceptable.
Cheers,
My new Asus A7V8x Motherboard has SPDIF outputs (& sound, but I can choose not to use their DAC,onboard. About $120)
Is this what you were talking about? It really is as if if has a built in soundcard, maybe not as direct as you are talking about.
The reason I mention M Audio is that they have a good reputation for sound, but are now issuing consumer HT type cards and separate boxes. ALSO, My understanding is that their recording/playback is all true 24/96 -not upsampled.
The prices on this consumer gear is really good-the 7.1 channel internal card sells for $99 here in San Francisco. The separate boxes are only a little more.(Athough I'm not sure the boxes are quite available yet..)
Is this what you were talking about? It really is as if if has a built in soundcard, maybe not as direct as you are talking about.
The reason I mention M Audio is that they have a good reputation for sound, but are now issuing consumer HT type cards and separate boxes. ALSO, My understanding is that their recording/playback is all true 24/96 -not upsampled.
The prices on this consumer gear is really good-the 7.1 channel internal card sells for $99 here in San Francisco. The separate boxes are only a little more.(Athough I'm not sure the boxes are quite available yet..)
Complicated stuff
I am lucky that by virtue of employment, I have access to a commerical Digital Media Asset Management system. Great software with good hardware. So I do have a digital jukebox.
In end, its only as good as your beginning. The heavy lifting is done in the ripping and encoding. You will only be able to get out what you put into it. I rip to MPEG layer II, 256. It does save me great space on the disks but not the great savings in mp3.
While I know that the present world uses the mp3, but I almost wish that we would stop pushing this untill MPEG4 becomes more common place. It is stunning to me the results that can be obtained with the new codecs. It is an order of magnitude better.
On the otherhand, bad codecs can burn you. HD Radio has withdrawn its digital radio spec here in the US in part because of the sound quality and inflexability of PAC, the codec from the late Lucent that HD radio uses (Sirus uses a form of this codec, XM a form of AAC). It does not play well with others - transcoding is a real problem for it.
So this rambling message is to point out that there are some great stuff out there - beyond mp3. It might mean that you cannot pirate music from the web or swap with your buddy, but it will sound good.
I am lucky that by virtue of employment, I have access to a commerical Digital Media Asset Management system. Great software with good hardware. So I do have a digital jukebox.
In end, its only as good as your beginning. The heavy lifting is done in the ripping and encoding. You will only be able to get out what you put into it. I rip to MPEG layer II, 256. It does save me great space on the disks but not the great savings in mp3.
While I know that the present world uses the mp3, but I almost wish that we would stop pushing this untill MPEG4 becomes more common place. It is stunning to me the results that can be obtained with the new codecs. It is an order of magnitude better.
On the otherhand, bad codecs can burn you. HD Radio has withdrawn its digital radio spec here in the US in part because of the sound quality and inflexability of PAC, the codec from the late Lucent that HD radio uses (Sirus uses a form of this codec, XM a form of AAC). It does not play well with others - transcoding is a real problem for it.
So this rambling message is to point out that there are some great stuff out there - beyond mp3. It might mean that you cannot pirate music from the web or swap with your buddy, but it will sound good.
Sawzall,
Thankyou for your "ramblings", which I do find interesting.
Lossy compression techniques are truely the future, I fear. Fortunately, I have no need for them. My aim it to provide storage for less than 1000CD's, which is small in todays uncompressed storage terms.
Enjoy your codecs
Cheers,
Thankyou for your "ramblings", which I do find interesting.
Lossy compression techniques are truely the future, I fear. Fortunately, I have no need for them. My aim it to provide storage for less than 1000CD's, which is small in todays uncompressed storage terms.
Enjoy your codecs
Cheers,
That mini ITX is really cool . Certainly would be quiet, and I guess it has the required horsepower even for DVDs.
My brother lives on a boat and I sent him the info: 12v, low noise low power consumption, can be sealed in an ammo box to keep the salt air out! perfect for him perfect for us.
When M Audio gets their theater box out I will report. In the mean time, they already have lots of external boxes in the pro gear section. ( as do some other companies) They have a pro one for under $200 here:
http://www.midiman.net/products/m-audio/audiophileusb.php
Here is what I'm dreaming of- uses firewire (miniITX has firewire):
http://www.midiman.net/products/m-audio/fw410.php
I imagine you are right about my board's spdif. It appears to function just like an added in sound card, and as you mention, most of these are resampled. Maybe you could check and tell me though.
Sawzall, very useful stuff. Thank you.
My brother lives on a boat and I sent him the info: 12v, low noise low power consumption, can be sealed in an ammo box to keep the salt air out! perfect for him perfect for us.
When M Audio gets their theater box out I will report. In the mean time, they already have lots of external boxes in the pro gear section. ( as do some other companies) They have a pro one for under $200 here:
http://www.midiman.net/products/m-audio/audiophileusb.php
Here is what I'm dreaming of- uses firewire (miniITX has firewire):
http://www.midiman.net/products/m-audio/fw410.php
I imagine you are right about my board's spdif. It appears to function just like an added in sound card, and as you mention, most of these are resampled. Maybe you could check and tell me though.
Sawzall, very useful stuff. Thank you.
Hi!
First of all, lossless encoding is available as a codec, so that any player capable of using DirectShow on Win32 can play it back...
Since I already have a "nearly quiet" no monitor media box, DIY, I will share some information...
When I started it, at the beginning of 2002, some codecs were only available for Win32, so I used Win2000 instead of Linux...
I use a P3 1000 Mhz, with a big cooler and a 8cm Fan attached to it, running at about 1200 rpm, which is nearly unhearable, and enough for this CPU.
A nvidia GeForce MX 400 board with reduced GPU and memory tact, in order to get it running cooler (you don't need much processing power on the GPU for watching movies)
512 MB Ram ;-)
20 G HD (what I had lying around), and an LG DVD drive, speed controlled by the program "CDBremse"
I use an IR receiver with the Lirc driver (http://winlirc.sourceforge.net/), and since I don't want to turn my TV on if I simply want to listen to audio, I have a 20 * 4 LCD display (www.crystalfontz.com) attached to a serial port.
And now for the not-so easy part... how to get it all together running smoothly with no mouse, just a IR control.
All people who do not want to delve too deeply into programming, I suggest you try out Girder, a program with which to control all other Windows progs by IR.
But I myself used Perl to write the "firmware" for my player. It ineracts with my hardware, displaying menus on the LCD, looking for media to play (both on HD and the CD / DVD inserted into the drive), and starts the player tasks. For audio I always use Winamp 2.9x, with the MAD plugin for mp3, and for movies of all sorts (including DVDs) I use ZoomPlayer (www.inmatrix.com), which in itself uses all codecs available on your computer, for example I use the PowerDVD video codec and the WinDVD audio codec combined for DVD playback.
And of course I use a CreativeLabs SB card, in my case a SB Live. I will never use anything else, as even those nice Midiman (MAudio) cards do not offer the feature of loading DSP programs (modules) into the DSP memory, but with all Emu10kx based sound cards (SB Live, Audigy, Audigy2) you can use the free, non-commercial kxProject drivers, which let you control even the tiniest bit on your DSP, that includes routing, dynamic effects and so on...
So I have a DSP with equalising, totally configurable outputs with crossovers etc., the bass output is dynamically compressed / expanded in order to somewhat adapt those sound sources with "overdone" bass (like HipHop very often has) to those where you take a look if your bass amplifier really is turned on...
I always wanted to release my software to the public (there already is a slot on sourceforge for it...), but since it is in heavy development again, and not really stable right now, and I do not have the never to do a lot of setup code for non-programmers, I don't know when or if I will release it... I also am thinking about re-coding it for Linux, since Xine and MPlayer are really nice to use...
But if someone needs help or some tips, he can always contact me...
Bye,
Arndt
First of all, lossless encoding is available as a codec, so that any player capable of using DirectShow on Win32 can play it back...
Since I already have a "nearly quiet" no monitor media box, DIY, I will share some information...
When I started it, at the beginning of 2002, some codecs were only available for Win32, so I used Win2000 instead of Linux...
I use a P3 1000 Mhz, with a big cooler and a 8cm Fan attached to it, running at about 1200 rpm, which is nearly unhearable, and enough for this CPU.
A nvidia GeForce MX 400 board with reduced GPU and memory tact, in order to get it running cooler (you don't need much processing power on the GPU for watching movies)
512 MB Ram ;-)
20 G HD (what I had lying around), and an LG DVD drive, speed controlled by the program "CDBremse"
I use an IR receiver with the Lirc driver (http://winlirc.sourceforge.net/), and since I don't want to turn my TV on if I simply want to listen to audio, I have a 20 * 4 LCD display (www.crystalfontz.com) attached to a serial port.
And now for the not-so easy part... how to get it all together running smoothly with no mouse, just a IR control.
All people who do not want to delve too deeply into programming, I suggest you try out Girder, a program with which to control all other Windows progs by IR.
But I myself used Perl to write the "firmware" for my player. It ineracts with my hardware, displaying menus on the LCD, looking for media to play (both on HD and the CD / DVD inserted into the drive), and starts the player tasks. For audio I always use Winamp 2.9x, with the MAD plugin for mp3, and for movies of all sorts (including DVDs) I use ZoomPlayer (www.inmatrix.com), which in itself uses all codecs available on your computer, for example I use the PowerDVD video codec and the WinDVD audio codec combined for DVD playback.
And of course I use a CreativeLabs SB card, in my case a SB Live. I will never use anything else, as even those nice Midiman (MAudio) cards do not offer the feature of loading DSP programs (modules) into the DSP memory, but with all Emu10kx based sound cards (SB Live, Audigy, Audigy2) you can use the free, non-commercial kxProject drivers, which let you control even the tiniest bit on your DSP, that includes routing, dynamic effects and so on...
So I have a DSP with equalising, totally configurable outputs with crossovers etc., the bass output is dynamically compressed / expanded in order to somewhat adapt those sound sources with "overdone" bass (like HipHop very often has) to those where you take a look if your bass amplifier really is turned on...
I always wanted to release my software to the public (there already is a slot on sourceforge for it...), but since it is in heavy development again, and not really stable right now, and I do not have the never to do a lot of setup code for non-programmers, I don't know when or if I will release it... I also am thinking about re-coding it for Linux, since Xine and MPlayer are really nice to use...
But if someone needs help or some tips, he can always contact me...
Bye,
Arndt
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