[Ned Scott]

Figure out what to do with this guy:


I mean the contest ended June 17 and then... I haven't heard or seen a single thing since.
The logo at the top of the forums is still the old one from Xbox days.

Zappy takes some getting used to

[liquidskin76]

Figure out what to do with this guy:


I mean the contest ended June 17 and then... I haven't heard or seen a single thing since.
The logo at the top of the forums is still the old one from Xbox days.

Zappy isn't a replacement for the logo, just a mascot to use at functions, shows, etc. Hence why we haven't seen much of him.

Right?

Cheers

[darkscout]

Zappy sucks

No opinion one way or the other. But there was a huge contest. Asking everyone with any sort of graphics skills to help contribute what they could to the XBMC ecosphere. (Since I don't think there is much over lap between coders & graphics people) it pulled a lot of people out that hadn't worked before. By my count there were ~200 submissions that people spent time on. I'm no graphics person but that's... probably at least a thousand man hours of work. I had 1500 people just come to see the gallery. (Which took me alone a few hours to assemble going through the thread).

To just disregard it seems like an insult to everyone that did spend time on it. I mean with all the calls for code submissions, could you imagine just throwing away someones work? Nah, that'd never happen with the code though.

[a5ian300zx]

HD audio is just something they had to put into Bluray specs to help it stand out on paper as being 'better' or make worth the upgrade.

Nobody can hear the difference between DTS 1500kbps and lossless, on any system.

Hi,

I have to agree and disagree, I have many surround and HD audio movies and demos and you can tell the difference with majority.

the following surround are awesome

Dolby Digital Plus (i find this better sound than DTS HD)
DTS-HD HR (high resolution) you can tell the difference from DTS-HD
PCM - uncompressed and lossless and much higher bitrate.
THX - still love it

not sure good
Dolby True HD (i prefer DTS better than this)
Dolby Digital

when encoding files you can add audio gain i.e. i re-encoded fifth element and used a flac audio track which i converted to DTS with 2db gain and sound awesome.

I would like to see HD audio as all the standalone media players can play this now.

a5ian300zx

[hafr]

I'm with you on records vs. CD's. Records sound like crap to me - I don't want crackles and pops; I want clear audio.

Don't listen to scratched records then...

[JustinAiken]

THX - still love it

THX isn't a codec, it's just a seal saying that the equipment meets minimum standards, and that the company chose to spend the money to get the logo.

Anything THX-certified is going to be good, but just because something doesn't have THX logos stamped on it doesn't mean it's not good...

[TugboatBill]

I disagree. I bought a copy of the Poseidon Adventure on DVD that was marked as THX. Audio wasn't bad, if you like tinny mono.

[JustinAiken]

Only speaking of components; I wouldn't consider the THX approval on the DVD to mean much..

[DDDamian]

Nobody can hear the difference between DTS 1500kbps and lossless, on any system.

Sorry to disagree with you on that one. That's like saying there's no difference between MP3 and high-def audio. You've obviously got a pretty poor system, bad ears, or just no good source material. The difference between, say, CD and SACD or DVD-A is staggering, let along compared to MP3. And BD-audio is better yet.

As another poster said, these formats have been around for years including DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD. Low (zero lol) budget projects like MPC, Foobar and Winamp are light-years ahead in handling these streams largely due to open-source efforts using the binary plug-in models to share the development burden, especially across platforms.

Here's some ideas I posted over at the AudioEngine branch (don't consider it cross-posting as it is very relevent here and not a help request):

IMHO the new AE is the best thing that can happen to XBMC in the near future (call me selfish - I know there's many in the PVR-next camp). For now using Foobar for anything high-def e.g. DSD, MLP, 24-bit FLAC), and I'm sure those heavy on Blu-Ray are getting by with the MPC route.
My understanding is that even binary add-ons aren't on the horizon and would reduce the self-sufficiency of XBMC. That eliminates using the Foobar plug-in method.

XBMC is truly one of the best front-ends for HTPC, and I can't wait for it to become audiophile-quality.
Again IMHO, I'd love to see, in order:
1) AE implemented for WASAPI/ASIO 24-bit output with passthrough
2) Binary plug-ins for SACD/DVD-A/BR input streams
3) Back-end (or better integrated) server/client SQL approach without the hoops
4) PVR?

By the sounds of gnif's last post here he was devastated that AE wasn't ready for Eden, and as anxious as I am to see it happen who can slag the guy for taking on a huge undertaking out of the goodness of his heart and talent of his skills and not meeting OUR timeframe?? Not I - humble and grateful user....
I know XBMC wants to stay multi-platform, but I do question who needs hi-def output on their IOS systems Maybe some divergence is a good thing.
Until then there's other ways to skin the cat and I'll try to be patient knowing that XBMC continues to develop as the number one HTPC front-end.
If resources are indeed an issue I doubt many would object to a general call for donations - hint hint........

For myself I'm damn happy that the home computer has become a more-than-worthy AV device and HTPC with a server/client arrangement is the way to go. Now that we have HDMI on cheap video cards to pass on those high-bitrate streams so our dedicated AVRs can do the processing we have the advantages of mass-storage AND customizable user-friendly front-ends in the PC/Mac/Linux worlds with XBMC.
One would think passing-through (i.e. not processing) audio would be easy lol. Instead it has been the holy grail for HTPC audio.

Perhaps given the notable desire to keep XBMC as stand-alone yet multi-platform as possible is better served by the plug-in (add-on) method used by Foobar and Winamp. That way it spreads the development burden around and devs can focus on the core while plug-in devs can work in the platform of their expertise for handling I/O streams.....

That way a Windoze bit-basher can develop the DSD or DTS-MA handlers in his realm of expertise while a Linux or IOS dev can be working on the same goals just in his/her chosen platform. Just a thought. With the pace of development in hardware technology and in stream types it might make sense.

[Death-Axe]

I think the op is missing the point of what XBMC is: and that is home theater PC software. It's not for streaming etc, it is meant to be used in the home.

I still don't fully agree with tablet support etc, but I suppose it's there for people that want it.

As for resuming a movie on the train or whatever: I think the majority of XBMC users probably wont be doing that as most are using low end devices in the home, which means they probably cannot afford such (useless imo) devices. A feature more of the mac user that sits showing off his apple logo in star bucks perhaps....

All that aside: I like where XBMC is going, the devs are getting the core right before adding fancy features etc. What's good fancy stuff if the core isn't any good eh? :-)

The thing I look forward to the most in the next release is the lower resource usage in the GUI (I think that was promised for Eden, but I could be wrong).

The binary addons sound good, would be nice to be able to add video players as plugins like that dsplayer people have been using for hi10 support, and perhaps even blu ray support (we can dream I suppose!) and premium services for people that use them.

My question is: if XBMC has binary addons like netflix etc, would big corps start with the law suits? that seems to be the answer to competition in America, which is a shame. It would seriously hurt XBMC (sort of worries me that does).

Anyway dev guys: keep up the good work. I'm using Dharma at the moment, and it does everything I want it to do (apart from hi10, but that isn't a big deal at the moment).

[natethomas]

Sorry to disagree with you on that one. That's like saying there's no difference between MP3 and high-def audio. You've obviously got a pretty poor system, bad ears, or just no good source material. The difference between, say, CD and SACD or DVD-A is staggering, let along compared to MP3. And BD-audio is better yet.

There's a huge, huge difference between low bitrate MP3 and high bitrate MP3 both factually and as determined by the human ear.

There is a measurable difference between DTS 1.5mb and DTS-HD that dogs and powerful microphones can hear. Humans cannot hear that difference. It is not physically possible. If you can hear that difference, you have one of two problems: either a powerful placebo ear, or a setup that's tuned to make the difference sound like more than it actually is, which is, at best, false marketing.

[DDDamian]

There is a measurable difference between DTS 1.5mb and DTS-HD that dogs and powerful microphones can hear. Humans cannot hear that difference. It is not physically possible. If you can hear that difference, you have one of two problems: either a powerful placebo ear, or a setup that's tuned to make the difference sound like more than it actually is, which is, at best, false marketing.

The key to me is in the 24-bit encoding to a larger degree than sample rate. The ear can hear the difference clearly. Read the early hydrogenaudio forum debates about why 16bit/44.1khz is all the human ear can decipher. Then pop in a CD followed by an SACD or DVD-A of the same album. Night and day, and not solely due to the mastering.

Bit-depths of 20-24bits show a remarkable improvement in sound-stage and timbre (especially). The last few bits of the 24-bit signal get buried in physics (thermal) and the noise floor, but the 16th to 22nd bits add enormous audible information.

As to dogs etc, the human can clearly feel frequencies below 20hz and its harmonics, and they same holds true for frequencies above 20khz - often expressed as "airiness" which enhance the soundstage and instrument seperation. Don't forget these frequencies exist in live performances and their loss is part of the "why doesn't it convince me it's live music" phenomenon.

Basically the AE developments by gnif (not to mention the work of audio equipment engineers, producers, software developers, etc) are for a reason: better sound.

I can play the same 24-bit flac in XBMC and Foobar or Winamp with 24-bit support and the difference is far too great to brush aside as placebo. XBMC is stuck with the hardware limitations of the original old XBox - something which most real media players have moved well beyond. For a good reason.

I'd much rather hear good music or a good soundtrack with my movie than have higher video resolution like 1080p - the effect on enjoyment is IMO much greater. Remember drive-ins with the tinny-sounding box stuck on the window and the 150ft-wide screen lol?

I guess my point is that it would be a vast improvement to XBMC to be able to output the sound quality of other open-source or non-commercial players. Otherwise it's nice eye-candy stuck on the limitations of a Commodore 64. When that came out it sounded great lol. There's a whole lot of us (and our dogs) quite enjoying the placebo.....

Allow binary add-ons, implement AE, and move forward 12yrs from the XBox. Then anyone with a half-decent stereo can move past their laptop speakers or cell-phone DAC and enjoy their media.

By the work done by gnif it's not that far off...

[darkscout]

Some maths.

Not sure how audio is encoded or the frequency range that gets encoded. But lets be generous and say it has a Radix of 2 and is unsigned.

That means that it can encode 0 - 32767.5 Hz.

The resolution on this is 0.5 Hz. I challenge anyone to be able to pick out a 0.5 Hz shift in a frequency tone.

[JustinAiken]

DDDamian was talking about bitdepth, you're talking about frequency ranges.

It's like if he said that 256 colors look better than 8 colors, and you were arguing about whether 640*480 looks different than 1024*768...

[DDDamian]

Good comparison. And I was perhaps emphasizing bit-depth as the most important factor as it's the main improvement AE offers for sound. Currently XBMC outputs everything as 16 bit and AE is 24-bit-capable. Keep in mind that every bit doubles the accuracy of the instantaenous signal point. So even a change from 16-bit to 17-bit is huge. Because of various physical limitations (the human physiological response being the weakest point, not just the ear) there are diminishing returns, but they extend well past the 17 or even 18bit representations.

Frequency is also a large factor. People tend to fall back on the Nyquist theory which states that you can accurately reproduce a frequency using a sample rate of double the desired frequency. But that applies only to an infinite and unvarying wave. If the loudness wars keep up we may be buying exactly that, lol, but it doesn't describe music. In laymans terms you will get better attack or crispness on fast-rising signals such as the "tick" of a drum played off-skin or the "crack" of a pistol shot.

Again, perfectly distinguishable and noticeable in SACD/DVDA/BR-level bitrates compared to CD or lower bitrates.

For the HTPC user it will be HDMI that opens a whole new world of audio for you, and there's enough low-cost video cards or the I3/I5/I7 mobo's out there to exploit this. Just not with XBMC until AE is ready.