Database Users

Battery Performance With Music

Hi all
well.. today i made something i always wanted to do..
i took my i-mate(1.66 rom).. fully charged(100%).. and began listening to music..
the battery reached 1% after about........
480 MINUTES.. really amazing.. i didnt know that my i-mate will survive for such long time... i remember when i first got it about 5 months ago it wasnt like that.. though i didnt do the same try i did today.. but im sure the battery wont live up for even half of 480.. but my device then was running i-mate 1.62 rom and the caller id ****ty prog..
conditions while i was listening:
bluetooht and infra off..
screen off..
gsm radio is on(also talked for 2 minutes)
i was listening to 64 kbps .wma files(which has the SAME quality of 128kbps .mp3)
i wonder if someone else has try this and if he/she can provide us with the results

cool
but
i was listening to 64 kbps .wma files(which has the SAME quality of 128kbps .mp3)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
imho then 64k wma is not the same quality as 128kb mp3
but it's lightyears better then 64k mp3
and it's often diff to tell but with some sings there is a high pitch at times that i dont get with 128k mp3
of cause it's imposible to depate taste

well ofcourese it's not 100% the same quality of 128 kbps mp3.. but considering that its half size i can convince myself that this is true :lol:
cause the quality loss is so tiny and as you said can be noted only on high pitched sounds... for my my nomad jukebox i would never use wma cuz i have 40GB.. and there i can go around talking about advantages of 196 over 160 :lol:
but with my little 512 sd i would consider 64 wma the highest and the greatest rate available

yeah when i rip one of my cd's i go with wma
but if it's a mp3 file on my computer i dont bother
making it into a wma
wonder if some sound formats take more cpu time / batt juice to play

well i can assure you that mp3 make battery drains faster than wma... ill do accurate tests and post..

mephistodan,
How's your testing results?

Would be intersesting to see how long battery life you could get playing .wmv files. I convert a few music videos that i rip from .ram streaming and show off the quality to suckers that only wish they could have an XDA2

Any plans/patches for FLAC and OGG support?

As far as I remember in some Magic custom ROM at least FLAC got a support.
It's be great, esplecially with FLAC which is lossless.

Well, I am missing this, too, so I am looking into building a FlacPlayer and had very little success so far. However, I am blaming it on the fact that I have plenty of "real work" to do, so I don't really have time to study the FLAC-code in detail.
I'll keep you updated if I make any progress.

I love flac, but I also love free space. With flac taking 30mb per song. Ouch is needed. but again i know its lossless but you really need decent headphones to notice.

Danie1 said:
Well, I am missing this, too, so I am looking into building a FlacPlayer and had very little success so far. However, I am blaming it on the fact that I have plenty of "real work" to do, so I don't really have time to study the FLAC-code in detail.
I'll keep you updated if I make any progress.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excuses....

OGG (audio) files already play fine (at least it does via the default HTC media player).

Why in hell would want flac on your mobile phone?
The DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) which handles the conversion to analog signal in the headphone jack is very compact and will not take advantage of flac on a mobile phone. Not to mention You would require hifi headphones, the battery would drain A LOT faster and it would take a lot of space on SD card.

Four reasons:
1. FLAC is lossless.
2. FLAC is easier to decode than MP3 (and thus uses less CPU)
3. My earpieces are hifi.
4. Why not?

Uqbar said:
Four reasons:
1. FLAC is lossless.
2. FLAC is easier to decode than MP3 (and thus uses less CPU)
3. My earpieces are hifi.
4. Why not?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2. Probably not even true . FLAC can take a surprising big amount of CPU time to decode (edit: compared to MAD mp3 decoding) and uses a bit more RAM (if the FLAC's are encoded at >= q7 or q8). And playing back MP3 / AAC might even use (a bit) of hardware acceleration. Anyway you cut it, FLAC files are bigger, so it requires more read-actions from the SD card and that takes up more battery in the end.
3. Good for your earpieces. But the quality the phone can output over the 3,5mm jack is abysmal at best. Even worse, on my Hero I prefer to use my ultra cheap bass-heavy in-ear-headphones instead of my $130 Sure's because that cheap ones kinda mask the crappy quality. There is quite a lot of hiss and static noise on the output (Signal-to-noise ratio is to-pee-yourself-laughing-so-bad).
Any quality-gain the FLAC format would have, the phone is not able to output that through the headphone jack or USBext connector, so it's useless. Use a proper iriver or iAudio mp3 player for that kind of stuff .
4. The above 2 reasons.
And please remember that Android development at the moment is all Java based (I don't know if the NativeSDK is already useable or not). That means any kind of audio decoder has to be completely CPU based and has to be written in Java. Doesn't mean it can't be done (or isn't already done), but most libraries and implementations floating around aren't in Java so they would require porting. And porting lowlevel stuff to Java is simply something a lot of developers aren't happy doing.

Why flac support?
The answer for me is simple, I have all my CDs ripped as flac for use with my Squeezebox and iAudio S9. I don't like taking my S9 out with me when I'm going for a beer or two, which means the Hero is my choice music player in those situations. As there is no flac support on Android by default, I have had to convert my entire collection to mp3, I don't like having to have two copies of the same file, it annoys me.
Flac is supported in CyanogenMod ROM from version 3.9.3 onwards.
Florida.

dipje your 130 dollar Shures are not high end... It's spelled with an H by the way. High end would be westone labs or JH or Ultimate Ears. If this guy wants to listen to flac it's his choice. The truth of the matter is mp3 320 (the maximum you can go) cuts off EVERYTHING above 20,000. Whether you hear this or not is inconsequential because a: there is empty bandwith now and that means less dyanmics for the rest of the frequencies and b: there is a second selective bandpass filter employed by mp3 encoding that cuts all the way down to 16,000 and YOU DO hear those frequencies even on the MOST TERRIBLE OF TERRIBLE devices.
The size of the jack has very little to do with the quality of the output. 1/8" or full size 1/4" it does not matter. FLAC is BY FAR easier to decode than mp3 just like it is BY FAR easier to ENCODE than mp3. When I encode WAV to FLAC it is practically done as soon as I hit encode. Of course, you know how long mp3 takes I hope. You do rip and encode your own music right?

Anyway, I could prefer FLAC just because my battery would run longer.
The lossless and dynamics things would just add some more benefits, as well as the freedom that's in there.
By the way, FLAC can be (of course) written in Java: http://jflac.sourceforge.net/ but native code would allow my battery to run even longer.

nikonmikon said:
dipje your 130 dollar Shures are not high end... It's spelled with an H by the way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't say they were high end. Trust me, I know better . And sue me for a spelling error, that's what you get with auto-correcting on-screen-keyboards .
nikonmikon said:
If this guy wants to listen to flac it's his choice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No denying that! Sorry if it sounded like it, but I _really_ don't mean to say something like "FLAC on a Hero is stupid, so stfu" or anything like it. Ofcourse, the choice is there for everybody.
I was just noting arguments what would be against FLAC on a device like the Hero. If anybody would say "I don't care about those points" then by all means, feel free .
nikonmikon said:
The truth of the matter is mp3 320 (the maximum you can go) cuts off EVERYTHING above 20,000. Whether you hear this or not is inconsequential because a: there is empty bandwith now and that means less dyanmics for the rest of the frequencies and b: there is a second selective bandpass filter employed by mp3 encoding that cuts all the way down to 16,000 and YOU DO hear those frequencies even on the MOST TERRIBLE OF TERRIBLE devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you make a very good point, the basic lowpass filters applied with almost all MP3 encoders out there indeed destroy a lot of detail that even something like the crappy DAC in the Hero will miss.
nikonmikon said:
The size of the jack has very little to do with the quality of the output. 1/8" or full size 1/4" it does not matter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where did I say something like that??
The jack output indeed doesn't matter. But the fact is that the internal design of a small phone / device will have an impact on the shielding and interference on the audio signal. Dedicated audio devices / mp3 players are (hopefully) designed with this in mind, but on phones it can affect quality (much). On my old Diamond for example you hear ticking and a static noise appear suddenly on the line (quite high volume actually) the moment the GPS is activated. If there are more things like this that affect audio quality, I don't know. I think there are, and quite some of them are audible, specially by someone who prefers a format like FLAC. But I don't know this fore sure at all.
nikonmikon said:
FLAC is BY FAR easier to decode than mp3 just like it is BY FAR easier to ENCODE than mp3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You actually tried it? You know the reason why a lot of devices like Cowon iAudio devices only support FLAC's encoded with the quality parameter set to 7 or lower? Take any kind of software on a Windows Mobile (for example) device with a Qualcomm 72xx chipset, let it play a q8 or q9 FLAC file. Measure the complete system load while doing so. The device struggles. The I/O calls on an embedded platform like that make for a huge impact, making even normal FLAC files harder to decode than most MP3 files. Make it a q8/q9 file with 24bit and the CPU will struggle. The memory needed for decoding also increases very rapidly with q8/q9 files.
nikonmikon said:
When I encode WAV to FLAC it is practically done as soon as I hit encode. Of course, you know how long mp3 takes I hope.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It ofcourse all depends on your system configuration. But if you let LAME 3.98+ encode on with the default --vbr-new method, you now it doesn't take long _at all_. Ripping an entire CD from WAV to FLAC (or direct from CD with EAC or something similar) takes (still) less CPU than MP3 yes, but the disk activity of writing more data makes it pretty much the exact same speed as ripping to MP3. But now we're getting off topic, this was just to give you a little more insight on my thinking.
nikonmikon said:
You do rip and encode your own music right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's not start any kind of flaming, ok? (Just as a precaution). Ofcourse I do. And I don't just state things I make up in my mind, I state them because I noticed those things myself, and maybe even researched it for my work.

Anyone make any progress about the equaliser app that we are missing on the HTC?
I dont know why we are wasting time talking about lossless audio crap when we can make any badly ripped mp3 sound good by tweeking the eaqualiser.
I heard HTC were going to make it available in the new ROM, but it aint there.
Whats the verdict?

dipje said:
"buncha stuffs said"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not realize you were posting from a device with a limited keyboard.
It did seem like you were coming off as telling him to give it up but, I can see how you were bringing those points up to make sure he knew what he would be up against. It only takes one developer who is actually enthusiastic about FLAC though and those all fall away.
For the jack, I agree that the device has a relatively small footprint which makes isolating things difficult and traces undoubtedly get put next to one another that would never be true in such a case as a preamp or amplifier. Noise will certainly be introduced. I thought you said that the tiny jack would be terrible in sound quality. I was mistaken. Someone who does enjoy flac will hear these ticks and such but, they do not negate the higher frequencies gained by using FLAC over a lossy compression. It would be akin to some insane audiophile who prefers vinyl over digital on a $500,000 (or euro) stereo and simply ignores the pops and clicks that comes with vinyl. (This happens often in the audiophile world)
I am pretty sure Cowon devices support all the way to 8. I don't believe you can encode a "9" as 8 is the maximum. My girlfriend has a Cowon s9 that I bought for her so I know this to be true (about the 0-8 support). I believe the website also says this. However, it is likely that FLAC playback uses more power than mp3. I don't know to be honest. Accessing a card takes much power? I figured it wouldn't matter because it's not mechanical. The multiple IO actions happen all the time on the phone doesn't it?
Relatively speaking I was saying that FLAC encodes and decodes MUCH faster than mp3. Regardless of the system configuration unless it somehow had mp3 hardware encoding/decoding. The disk activity is not actually called by EAC if you recall EAC does not encode to anything. It merely rips wav from the disc in question.
I don't think I was flaming just considering you not knowledgeable in this area but you definitely proved me wrong
Oh also, I should state that the selective filter is adjustable with mp3 encoding but it defaults at 16khz.

Those noises appearing at low volume parts, especially when fading between tracks. Are they totally hardware related. And are they always appearing equally. Sometimes i think it's worse than others. And after i started using Meridian player. I don't have the funny skipping, that sometimes appeared at the beginning af a song, with the original player.

FLAC

I'll jump ship to Android when these bastards start shipping in HTC devices. I could have a full third of my FLAC library on my phone at any one time.
http://gizmodo.com/5565944/imagine-toshibas-128gb-nand-flash-memory-in-your-next-phone

flac= the ****.... however on a phone, there would not be a noticible difference because it would be played out of headphones or a small speaker.... when i synce music to my ipod i just auto convert flacs to 320 kbps.... on my home theatre system it saounds freakin incredible though lol

hibby50 said:
flac= the ****.... however on a phone, there would not be a noticible difference because it would be played out of headphones or a small speaker.... when i synce music to my ipod i just auto convert flacs to 320 kbps.... on my home theatre system it saounds freakin incredible though lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How many versions of your music library do you want to keep?
How crappy are your headphones?
I use Meridian which supports FLAC, but it still skips on my Hero. Kernel support doesn't have this problem, and it CAN be baked in to a custom kernel... Usage is slightly lower than OGG or M4a... I also use UE SuperFi 5 pro IEM's, and let me tell you - the difference can audible. I can hear the noise scatter caused by interacting with the touch-screen (which was *really* bad on the OC kernel ) A lot depends on the type of music, too.
That said. 128GB still is short of my collection, so... why carry it all at once? It'll be fun to have that much storage on the phone still.

cjdalessio said:
How many versions of your music library do you want to keep?
How crappy are your headphones?
I use Meridian which supports FLAC, but it still skips on my Hero. Kernel support doesn't have this problem, and it CAN be baked in to a custom kernel... Usage is slightly lower than OGG or M4a... I also use UE SuperFi 5 pro IEM's, and let me tell you - the difference can audible. I can hear the noise scatter caused by interacting with the touch-screen (which was *really* bad on the OC kernel ) A lot depends on the type of music, too.
That said. 128GB still is short of my collection, so... why carry it all at once? It'll be fun to have that much storage on the phone still.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol i have skullcandy full metal jackets and I use media monkey to manage and sync and foobar to play. media monkey converts them while syncing so i dont have to keep multiple collections. i do need better headphones though...

Keep in mind that higher bit rate music file also require more CPU processing to play them. If you are playing a lot of music, you'll find that your battery life will be much better with lower bit rate files.

By far the best sound mod!

I've tried everything to improve the horrible sound on the Galaxy s II (poweramp,equilizer,etc.)...nothing beats the combination of Cyanogen Music Player and DSP Manager...just installed both on my S2 and its FINALLY sounding like a decent music player! Download and install from here:
www.theandroidsoul.com/galaxy-s-ii-s2-gets-cynogenmod-7-music-app/
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Tell me what you guys think
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

I guess I'm ignorant, I listen to music every day with headphones and the music sounds all right. Stock 2.3.3 unrooted, using Ubermusic and google music as players.

zkyevolved said:
I guess I'm ignorant, I listen to music every day with headphones and the music sounds all right. Stock 2.3.3 unrooted, using Ubermusic and google music as players.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same here with stock player

+1 stock music player user. I'm kinda ignorant about this too. Maybe its because the SGS2 audio quality is already far better than my nexus one, therefore I'm quite satisfied with my upgrade.
Sent from my non-Apple device via XDA App

Likewise same as last two post . But with an enormousness variation in hearing and music played its only to be expected that some need adjustments .
Crap music is crap music no matter how you try to improve the sound .
Worth a look/try anyway .
jje

Combined with Poweramp equalization and an AKG K319 my stock SGS2 with 2.3.3 sounds quite good ... no need for further hassle.
PS: It might be worth mentioning, that I only play Ogg in 224 Kbit ... MP3 is junk even at 320 Kbit

I for one thank you sir for posting this. I actually despise the sound of music on this device without an EQ as when you turn up the bass the preamp maxes out and the sound distorts. DSP manager does a MUCH better job (had it on my HTC Hero with CM7) at managing that and I had no idea it could be installed as an APK. I thought it was integrated into CyanogenMod. YIPPEE!

Aymara said:
Combined with Poweramp equalization and an AKG K319 my stock SGS2 with 2.3.3 sounds quite good ... no need for further hassle.
PS: It might be worth mentioning, that I only play Ogg in 224 Kbit ... MP3 is junk even at 320 Kbit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possibly why my music is not a problem Encoded as AAC+ at 192 KBps and no need to distort my music by ramping up the bass .
Noticeable that many who complain are looking at false bass sounds .
jje

Actually to my ears it isn't just music on this phone that sounds bad. When I play Gun Bros and things explode, the explosions distort as well.
I suppose I also use the expression of sounding "bad" as a relative term. Music doesn't sound "bad" I guess but I prefer mine to have much more bass and clarity, and I just don't get that with straight up stock. I do with DSP Manager however.

IMHO, Cyanogen Music Player has much better output than stock. The sound is also much clearer. Power Amp is a very good music player and the equalizer is top notch, but it just doesn't provide the punch I like in my music, I find myself playing with pre-amp a lot, but it tends to distort the sound to a high degree. For now, DSP Manager combined with Cyanogen Music player has been the solution to my problem. Sound is clear, punchier than stock player and PowerAmp, and gives a fuller/bolder music experience. Any one try it out??

I will give it a try. I had been using poweramp on my HTC Hero, with no EQ, just tone, plus DSP Manager with EQ. Sounded perfect for me, but I will give CM player a try and see if I like it as much as you do.
I got excited when I saw DSP Manager and got too lazy to try the music player too right away.

Increase volume

I was wondering if there is any way to increase the volume on the 7.7. I am using Voodoo Louder already, even though it helps in increasing volume @+9.0 dB while using headphones I would like to increase it more. I have a few digital movies that I converted over to wmv and selected 5.1 sound but they seem to be low both on headphones and especially the tab speakers. Are there any settings I can change or apps I can use?
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium

adinis78 said:
I was wondering if there is any way to increase the volume on the 7.7. I am using Voodoo Louder already, even though it helps in increasing volume @+9.0 dB while using headphones I would like to increase it more. I have a few digital movies that I converted over to wmv and selected 5.1 sound but they seem to be low both on headphones and especially the tab speakers. Are there any settings I can change or apps I can use?
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you convert the movies yourself you could convert them with higher dB.

boelze said:
If you convert the movies yourself you could convert them with higher dB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will look at freemake and see if I have that option, thanks
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium

You can try Volume + :https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.TEST.android.lvh&feature=search_result
or
Volume Boost: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiboweb.android.desiresoundunlock&feature=search_result
I am currently using Voume +. Pretty effective with headphones on. You can boost the volume by about 30%. I wouldn't recommend boosting the volume when headphones are not used cos it might damage the device's speakers.

Volume+ seems to help a bit, better than beffore. Thanks
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium

adinis78 said:
I converted over to wmv and selected 5.1 sound
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just noticed that you did select 5.1 sound. If you convert videos for use with stereo headset NEVER select 5.1 sound as it reduces volume ALOT. Select a good stereo setting without any effects or enhancers. That will give you much better sound
Assuming you have a good quality source to work with. If your source has bad sound quality or low volume already, there is not much you can do about it without ruining the sound's quality.

boelze said:
Just noticed that you did select 5.1 sound. If you convert videos for use with stereo headset NEVER select 5.1 sound as it reduces volume ALOT. Select a good stereo setting without any effects or enhancers. That will give you much better sound
Assuming you have a good quality source to work with. If your source has bad sound quality or low volume already, there is not much you can do about it without ruining the sound's quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All my sources where from ripped digital copies that came with purchased BD that I own. Thank you for the tip. Any way to reconvert the videos and select the another sound setting or is it too late?
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium

I use Equalizer, the BEST app to increase volume...

Ok i just wanted to explain what i have done to convert the movies and hopefully someone can help me figure out why i am having volume issues,
As we all know when you buy a BD most of the time it comes with a digital copy of the movie, in order to access the digital copy you need to use the code that comes with it. You get two options on what format you what the movies in, WMV or iTunes, so i chose WMV so i can view them on my tab. After selecting WMV the movies started to download, i guess they are stored somewhere on the movie studios website. Now i did this for 6 out of the 9 movies i have on my tab and when playing them back they are really low. (JUST TO BE CLEAR THESE WHERE NOT CONVERTED USING ANY SOFTWARE, THEY WHERE DOWNLOADED IN WMV AFTER ENTERING THE ACCESS CODE)
I converted 3 other movies from standard DVD's using freemake software. I selected to convert these to WMV and i was able to choose what audio formart to chose, so i decided to choose 5.1, but when playing them back i have the same issue, i have low volume.
Decided to use freemake to determine what audio formart the 6 digital copies are in and they are all in stereo.
I have since installed Volume+ to help with the issue.
In conclusion, 6 are in stereo and 3 on 5.1 but they are all low in volume when playing them back. So i am wondering if anyone knows why all of them have this issue? Any suggestions for future converts? Is this an issue with the tab?
P.S. I have noticed there is no issue when playing videos from youtube.

Anyone?
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium

i use apps to boost the sound but frankly they destroy the voice quality... i prefer my fiio e11 portable little amp to do the volume boost... and that thing can give you sufficient volume on even 350ohm headphones... as it is pretty cheap i recommend buying that rather than destroying the sound quality of the already sub par audio chip...

hammer of thor said:
i use apps to boost the sound but frankly they destroy the voice quality... i prefer my fiio e11 portable little amp to do the volume boost... and that thing can give you sufficient volume on even 350ohm headphones... as it is pretty cheap i recommend buying that rather than destroying the sound quality of the already sub par audio chip...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@ $59 its quite alright, don't need another piece of electronics to carry around. Thanks for the suggestion.
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium