Visualiser On The Mp3 Player For Pandora?

[Tom`]

A portable MOD player, in general, would be fantastic.

Rockbox already has this...which reminds me, some work has been done in making Rockbox portable as an application, so it can run as basically a highly capable audio player program. That would be excellent if it could be ported. Of course, since Rockbox was designed as a firmware, the standalone port is still in early stages, but since the sources are available under GPL someone else could work on it...

 

[PoisonedV]

MIDI files are not made for listening, I REPEAT, they are not made for listening! Jesus christ, I thought that freewebs/geocities/angelfire shit was done?

 

[Tobriand]

It depends. MWeston made a comment yesterday or the day before that for the 100 hours battery life you'd be using a minimalist player that had nothing to do with Linux (Linux, in fact, sounded like it got suspended whilst using that micro-minimalist mode, in order to allow the main ram to be powered down).

Personally, I would be surprised to see visualisations in such a player, if I've understood it correctly.

However, I do see visualisations as being potentially useful - for instance, if you're using Pandora as a cheap DJ device and you have a projector to hand. Yes, of course, the results don't look quite professional... but I've seen bars and clubs (albeit in Peru and Nepal) using Winamp's visualiser for lightshows, and they looked good enough, certainly.

Importantly, though, the interaction between a non-minimalist Linux-based MP3 player that does fancy things with the screen and can use TV-out, and a minimalist 64k or less player where every byte is important might well be complex, if not impossible. So if you want the minimal MP3 player to have visualisations in it, I'd guess you wouldn't get the 100 hours, even with the lid closed and the screen turned off...

Disclaimer: I am not a coder. If the MP3 player + interface + screen drivers + video out drivers all fit into 64kb, then of course, I am wrong; as a non-coder I'm guessing it wouldn't, but as I say, I could be in error...

 

[Karel Jansens]

MIDI files are not made for listening, I REPEAT, they are not made for listening! Jesus christ, I thought that freewebs/geocities/angelfire shit was done?

Hey, your fingers weren't made for typing either. And see what that got us...

My thoughts exactly, Give us the meat without the fluff.

That's what she said!

...

Damn! that's the second time today. I'm sorry, people; what can I say? I've been watching an entire season of "the Office" and apparently Michael Scott has a way of creeping under one's skin.

I'm off to the exorcist.

 

[magicman5421]

a visualizer would be nice, certainly, but it is something to be implemented after the console is out. If people want to add it, they can, but otherwise, they don't have to.

 

[Tashi]

Okay, I have to ask: Is that really a social passtime? Sitting together in front of a TV, watching pseudo-psychedelic contrabulations, vaguely in synch with the music playing?

..while smoking some pot.. Yes!

 

[magicman5421]

^
I lol'd.
And Karel, you need to cut down on your dosage of the Office. It's corrupting your mind.

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

winamp visualizers are cool.
I love them since my 3DO!
the very-small-100-hours player doesnt need it, but a regular player with playlists and all, well, this one has got to have some visualizer options!

 

[Falcon Delta]

It's also good to throw up on a tv at parties with the same reasoning as disco lights.

If you plan on throwing up on my home electronics you're not invited to any party of mine. <_<

 

[nihilon]

I think this would be a great idea IMO. True, it doesn't have much use/impact when viewed on the unit's screen, but output to a television or monitor this would be great. Imagine using your Pandora at some event with a few playlists set up to random and the music output through a decent receiver and the video to a large display. Presto, instant party machine! And then there are the headmounted display units out there which would be cool to use this with for the total 'zone-out' solution for the zone freak.

Anyway, I LOVE the visualizations in Winamp and would love for something like this to be implemented.
For me the visualizations really add to my enjoyment of trance, rave and ambient musics.

I can understand those who don't want to compromise another subset of features (hardware or otherwise) for something they personally would never use, but why naysay something that can be so easily be turned off or made optional? The more people who find the Pandora desirable and useful the better I say. Even if it is only a small niche feature which grabs their attention.

EDIT: oops..posted this without reading the last few posts..well, at least I'm not the only one who's thinking along similiar lines...

 

[kloplop321]

trust me, the visualizations on the PSP are cool, but only for 15 mins. But the plugins out there for linux so far are CPU hogs and don't look too good.

 

[PoisonedV]

MIDI files are not made for listening, I REPEAT, they are not made for listening! Jesus christ, I thought that freewebs/geocities/angelfire shit was done?

Hey, your fingers weren't made for typing either. And see what that got us...

Don't give me that crap. MIDI was made as a universal protocol for synthesizers and various other music equipment. Not a music file.

 

[kloplop321]

yet when "translated" becomes music when under good synthesizer settings or good sound card.

 

[fusion_power]

I like the Idea of a Pandora Music player with a graphical Equalizer on Screen. We could manipulate it per Touchscreen.

 

[kloplop321]

I have not thought of that! that is a cool idea "fusion_power", I think it would also be cool if we could use some things like those like FruityLoops studio plugins for modifying the sound output.

 

[Karel Jansens]

Don't give me that crap. MIDI was made as a universal protocol for synthesizers and various other music equipment. Not a music file.

For the record, I was joking. M'kay?

And what exactly do synthesizers and other music equipment do with midi files? Cut them up into minis? It's just cutting out the middle man.

 

[kloplop321]

I have a synthesizer of my own, MIDI is just the format that it records it, as the synthesizer can replicate exactly how it sounds if it replicated the key presses and the dial alterations. You can think of it like arrays of macro instructions. However the computer sound cards just make it sound bad compared to the real synthesizer, as they have a limited amount of possible sounds, when real synthesizers can make custom sounds starting with the raw sound waves and so on. MIDI files however do not store the custom wave sounds, as back in the 90's (old now isn't it?) the technology was limited, and it was easier to save space if the card or chip had pre-synthesized sounds.

in simple terms, the synthesizers just "replicate" the actions like a macro running a script.

 

[Tom`]

I have a synthesizer of my own, MIDI is just the format that it records it, as the synthesizer can replicate exactly how it sounds if it replicated the key presses and the dial alterations. You can think of it like arrays of macro instructions. However the computer sound cards just make it sound bad compared to the real synthesizer, as they have a limited amount of possible sounds, when real synthesizers can make custom sounds starting with the raw sound waves and so on. MIDI files however do not store the custom wave sounds, as back in the 90's (old now isn't it?) the technology was limited, and it was easier to save space if the card or chip had pre-synthesized sounds.

in simple terms, the synthesizers just "replicate" the actions like a macro running a script.

Yes, and in fact it's not the sound hardware that makes MIDI sound bad, just the default Windows instrument bank (GM.DLS or whatever it was called. General MIDI.)

 

[kloplop321]

well the sound card contains the wave formulas unless software based, such as how Apple Quicktime computes the sounds, the bank contains the default locations(unless specified by the sound card divers) of where the preset formulas are in the sound card's memory chip. It is becoming more software based now though.

 

[Tom`]

well the sound card contains the wave formulas unless software based, such as how Apple Quicktime computes the sounds, the bank contains the default locations(unless specified by the sound card divers) of where the preset formulas are in the sound card's memory chip. It is becoming more software based now though.

It was probably that way in the past due to CPU limitations, but I'm pretty sure it's been all software at least in Windows for quite a while now (I want to say since Win95, but I'm not really knowledgeable about this).