First newspost coming FROM the Pyra!

[FaeMinx]

Handling the Pyra will be similar to handling the Pandora, and that's something everyone understood.

*cough*
hakmanplayer
*cough*

...

 

[jp10558]

Will it be possible to do a pre-order along with a pre-pre-order and ICP2 voucher? I'm just thinking sort of like a payment plan Or would I end up with 2 Pyras then?

 

[Agricola]

2.Let's say I install foobar2000 and play some music. Can I close the pandora down and have it keep playing in my pocket so it goes to my bluetooth headphones but the idle state saves battery?

foobar2000 only works on x86 Windows, even if the power saving options get implemented, it will not work (or only via emulation which doesn't make a lot of sense for a music program). foobar2000 Mobile could be made to work on the Pyra, but I personally have no idea how good it is and it would still need some porting or an Android compatibility layer, both are not safe to happen. There are however replacement programs like DeadBeef or Audacious for Linux which also work on ARM, these should already be available on Debian with apt-get.
[doublepost=1459341975,1459341567][/doublepost]

Will it be possible to do a pre-order along with a pre-pre-order and ICP2 voucher? I'm just thinking sort of like a payment plan Or would I end up with 2 Pyras then?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think us pre-pre-orderers can use the voucher we got by that (your number should be saved at your Dragonbox account) for the normal pre-order, so we don't have to pay anything more at that time and pick our Pyra version, and then pay down the rest when the devices are ready for shipping - you could probably use the ICP2 voucher then.
But I'm sure ED will tell us his exact plans when the normal pre-orders start.

 

[EvilDragon]

Can we expect a complete list of emulation capabilities? I'm not asking about time, just if it will happen

No one can do this. Well, you can be sure it can do the same as the Pandora but even more

Currently, that stuff is present in about every android smartphone. Since android is linux-based, maybe it would help looking there
Or is it hardware\software limited?

Unfortunately, the OMAP5 wasn't used in many other devices, and power management has to be done for every SoC, so we can't grab much from there.

It will take quite a bit of work, but I hope we'll find some kernel hackers here in the community as well

 

[Willhelm]

@ED Have you tried to run the Pyra with a Pandora battery?

I imagine that one could apply some rubber spacer (or sd-cards ) to keep the smaller Pandora battery in place.

 

[Swordfish II]

I am so glad I came across the Pandora and Pyra last year. I am already impatient for the Pyra to come out, and I haven't waited anywhere close to the amount of time most on here have.

 

[TrashyMG]

I am so glad I came across the Pandora and Pyra last year. I am already impatient for the Pyra to come out, and I haven't waited anywhere close to the amount of time most on here have.

Should have seen the wait times on the Pandora release... this is nothing.

 

[erico]

Waiting with transparency and fair acting is actually delightful (Pyra case).

 

[Swordfish II]

Yep, if I had been involved in the Craig fiasco I probably would have bailed.

 

[ible]

Ah yes, it's been Two Years for me, but it only feels like Two Months™

 

[levi]

Should have seen the wait times on the Pandora release... this is nothing.

If it hadn't been for Gruso's news site, I don't think I'd have converted my Craig preorder into an ED order. Hopefully Eki's blog can keep us all updated while we wait, if the forum becomes too much for any of us, combined with ED's twitter feed I guess.

 

[CrazyCapra]

foobar2000 only works on x86 Windows, even if the power saving options get implemented, it will not work (or only via emulation which doesn't make a lot of sense for a music program). foobar2000 Mobile could be made to work on the Pyra, but I personally have no idea how good it is and it would still need some porting or an Android compatibility layer, both are not safe to happen. There are however replacement programs like DeadBeef or Audacious for Linux which also work on ARM, these should already be available on Debian with apt-get.

....I've been using foobar for 2 years and I thought it was linux based this whole time. Shows just how much I know...
also :O Running Foobar in Linux
Granted, this is for an old version of foobar, but lots of stuff is missing, and you basically have to emulate it, which is probably battery kamikaze and tons of windows stuff arent supported. I guess I'll just have to hope this Deadbeef has an awesome FLAC decoder. And good interface.

No one can do this. Well, you can be sure it can do the same as the Pandora but even more

No way to have a list of consoles like on the pandora site? you know, by hardware capability? PSP? DS? 3DS? Dreamcast? Saturn? No? Awwwwww.... *bows down head in shame*
At least I can get my ass kicked by you in Turrica-- oh wait.

Anyway, my shekels are being minted as we speak. Would be awesome if I could have the time to learn a language, I'd help with porting things like a mother. . . board.

 

[erico]

Yep, I use foobar since forever, it rocks. Like you, I also thought it had a linux support. Shame.

 

[bzar]

(Sorry for the short derail, but I'm curious. If this continues more than a couple of posts it should be moved to a separate thread.)

I guess I'll just have to hope this Deadbeef has an awesome FLAC decoder.

What makes Foobar2000's FLAC decoder exceptional?

Yep, I use foobar since forever, it rocks. Like you, I also thought it had a linux support. Shame.

What properties make Foobar2000 great?

 

[CrazyCapra]

(Sorry for the short derail, but I'm curious. If this continues more than a couple of posts it should be moved to a separate thread.)


What makes Foobar2000's FLAC decoder exceptional?


What properties make Foobar2000 great?

We can do this in PM if you feel inclined, but

What makes Foobar2000's FLAC decoder exceptional?

A. (The real one) It sounds better in my ears than when playing with other media players with the FLAC codec installed. VLC, Winamp, Especially WMP, where it's noticable to anyone, imho.
B. It's continuously updated with better algorithms. Or so they claim.

What properties make Foobar2000 great?

It supports the usuals (WAV,MP3,M4A) etc, there are plugins for everything else on the planet for the more advanced user. (FLAC, APE, Shorten, WavPack (all with respective .cue like lists) , Android Recordings, Custom MIDI decoder which can connect to stuff like Timidity, Bassmidi & successors, anything configurable like that, and there you can mess with soundfonts, corrections, anything like that. In case you want to listen to the DOOM sountrack with a Roland Sound Canvas SC-55 soundfont which makes it sound as close as possible to the real SC-55, the synth the doom music was COMPOSED on. The rest were reinterpretations of each synth (more complicated as in OPL vs. FM but i'll shut up)

Also high bitrate playback support (via plugins) of every raw console sound file ever. Ripped music straight from the Super Nintendo? Shove it in.

Basic everyday conversion of audio formats, can "rip" a big wav file with a cue sheet into tagged FLACs (normal to do in most (i hate this word) " " audiophile " " communities, I converted the Renraku Arcology theme from Shadowrun for the Sega Genesis into MP3 to serve as my ringtone (I dig this tune!), also WAV\FLAC to MP3 capability is really handy, though I do that with Audacity.

It's easily skinnable and skins are customisable on what to display and what not to (Kbps, format, time remaining elasped, in what the fudge order you want the buttons to be on the screen (provided you know a little code OR can read an online tutorial, though most simple stuff don't require code.) Customizable central music folder so you can autoview your stuff like in the smartphone, but not required (I don't use it.)

Spoiler: PICTURE OF MY SETUP

The skin that I use. Pre-made skin I got off the net, messed with some configs.
Pretty neat, tons of info, easy interface.

Uhhh.... Free?
I had one more, but I have to dash.
Hope I did a job articulate enough to defend my player in the endless debate (which I usually don't partake in.)

 

[erico]

Exactly, mod, it, neo geo, whatever, it does it all. It is also small and accepts my files as it is structured on disk (I praise my file structure above anything else), no bullshit of auto remapping stuff unless you want.
I have a 24bit 128hz playback card and it takes it wonderfully. There is so much more, anything you may want soundwise is probably available.
Nothing beats it on my books.

edit: not off topic, but a tool this great would just be awesome on pyra on release.

 

[PowerGod]

Exactly, mod, it, neo geo, whatever, it does it all. It is also small and accepts my files as it is structured on disk (I praise my file structure above anything else), no bullshit of auto remapping stuff unless you want.
I have a 24bit 128hz playback card and it takes it wonderfully. There is so much more, anything you may want soundwise is probably available.
Nothing beats it on my books.

edit: not off topic, but a tool this great would just be awesome on pyra on release.

I'm not at all an audiophile, but the function that made me find that program very useful was the ability to play directly things inside compressed archives (if I remember well, at least zip, rar and 7zip)

 

[bzar]

Thanks for the feature list. Especially the support for non-generic sound formats (like in deadbeef) seems nice.

A. (The real one) It sounds better in my ears than when playing with other media players with the FLAC codec installed. VLC, Winamp, Especially WMP, where it's noticable to anyone, imho.

That's odd, as a lossless compression it should decompress into exactly the same bytes that were put in no matter which decoder you used. Maybe there's some extra post-processing in Foobar or unnecessary post-processing in WMP?

Anyway, back to Pyra.

Eagerly awaiting final pricing of the 4G model and the aforementioned two-pack offer.

 

[Agricola]

I don't want to derail this awesome newspost completely, but there's one more thing I'd like to add to the foobar discussion:

also :O Running Foobar in Linux
Granted, this is for an old version of foobar, but lots of stuff is missing, and you basically have to emulate it, which is probably battery kamikaze and tons of windows stuff arent supported. I guess I'll just have to hope this Deadbeef has an awesome FLAC decoder. And good interface.

The major problem with running foobar2000 on Pandora/Pyra is not Linux, you can get around that on any desktop or notebook with Wine or a virtual machine, but the CPU architecture. Pandora and Pyra have a ARM CPU, just like smartphones and most onboard computers in modern cars, while foobar2000 expects x86, the architecture of desktops, compatible notebooks and most servers. You can get around that only with emulation, which uses up a lot of power and inserts bugs, and the fastest emulation for ARM -> x86 is Exagear Desktop which can only emulate a x86 Linux system, so you have to put Wine on top of that. If you look at the bugs people get in foobar just by using Wine and you imagine emulation on top of that, it's probably not going to be very usable. For normal games, a few bugs more or less doesn't matter too much, but a program that stands out because of its precision just should not be emulated if you've got alternatives that, while not as good, do not rely on emulation. I haven't tried DeadBeef or Audacious myself, but there are good videos about it, some of them even showing it running on Pandora.

But yes, it's ridiculous that foobar isn't available on multiple OSes and CPU architectures, in my opinion they're shooting themselves in the foot for not even trying.

@topic: The final pricing will make make wallet cry, but I'm ready for it. And I'd also like to know the exact sizes and speeds of the eMMC and the exact differences between the 4G and normal version (if there are any other than the PLS8 chips), so I'm excited for that to be finalised and announced.

 

[TrashyMG]

Hmm from foobar2000's FAQ directly:

Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?
No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect (at least with real music), as actual differences in produced sound data are below their noise floor (1 or 2 last bits in 16bit samples). foobar2000 has sound processing features such as software resampling or 24bit output on new high-end soundcards, but most of the other mainstream players are capable of doing the same by now.

https://www.foobar2000.org/FAQ

Which I'm pretty sure Audacious and Deadbeef can handle just fine.

So far the Pandora itself is my best Audio player, but that is just because the amplifier can drive my high end Sennhieser headphones with out a headphone preamplifier. Hopefully the Pyra will have similar sound capabilities.