[Q] 2.3 changes default buffer amount for streaming audio apps? At my wit's end! - Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]

I have a samsung vibrant and use streamfurious to listen to a shoutcast stream*. While on froyo, the 16k stream buffers for about three seconds. When I run CM7 2.3 it buffers for around 90 seconds. Identical stream, identical app.
I tried other apps, like xiialive, including the pro version (even after setting the buffer amount manually) but it still buffers way way more than it did on 2.2. I tested this all on my wifi at home so I know it's not a bandwidth thing.
If I use the official scanner radio app, with the "android player" selected in settings it does the same thing. If I switch it to the 'alternate' player it does not. I don't want to use the scanner radio app though because it does not support the metadata in the stream, which I want to see.
My wife has a G2 running CM7 2.3 and streamfurious does the same thing, buffering for a very long time before it plays.
I've tried a ton of different players on the market, googled around, etc. The most I can figure out is that it seems like something in stagefright was changed that affects how much data is buffered. Despite finding people reporting similar problems on 2.3 (stock or not) for different roms and phones, I can't find any kind of solution.
So I come here. Does anyone, perhaps with knowledge of the stagefright libraries, have at least an answer for me? Is there a setting or hack I can use to stop this behavior?
I'd really appreciate any help, I'm at my wit's end.
*m.radioreference.com has a ton of feeds that all work the same way. I just launch them in the browser and choose the streamfurious player I've installed prior.

going to try bumping this for attention

Related

o2 xda Orbit II.....AAC Files

Please could someone help or explain.I purchased the orbit II last week,I am still getting used to its power and capabilities.
In the manual it says it can play AAC files.I have downloaded some onto the storage card and the touch flo player hasnt recognised them, nor has the windows media player.
It recognises and plays MP3 files.The aac files are not protected they are ones that I downloaded myself from my own cds.
Also why can I not see photos that I have just taken that are saved to my storage card,in the photo viewer on Touch flo.
Thank you in advance for any help,
Peter
pocketmusic can play aac
Thansk for that,but I was looking to find out what the situation was with the phone rather than get a programme that will do something that the manufacturers are saying the phone should do.
I have noticed that the windows media player does add the tunes to its catalogue but files them under ARTIST "UNKNOWN" (as though the tags arent working).The touch flo or HTC player however doesnt even do this.
Does anybody know of a solution to this other than spending money on a progamme to do something that the phone should do already,
many thanks
Peter15965
It's really wierd. I have the same problem and also had this problem with my previous phone which was an O2 XDA Orbit 1 (i.e. rebranded HTC Artemis).
I'm afraid that I never found a solution that didn't involve third party software. I think the problem is that, although HTC have included the decoder to play AAC and AAC+ files, neither of the built in players seem to be able to read the tags from the m4a container format so, although they can play the contents, they can't incorporate the tracks in a meaningful way into the library (I also saw Windows Media Player putting everything as unknown).
I know it's not what you were hoping to hear, and I'd love for someone to prove me wrong, but right now I think you're stuck with going the third-party route.
If you don't want to spend money then I initially used TCPMP. It doesn't have any library browser built in but I found that by intelligent choice of the directory tree structure I used to store my files (My Music/<Artist>/<Album>/<Tracks>) then I could use the file browser in TCPMP to browse my collection in a fairly convenient manner. I now use Conduits PocketPlayer because that has a fantastic library browser and reads the m4a tags perfectly; the program is pretty resource hungry but for now I'm keeping the faith in the hope that they'll address that at some point in the future (their support is good).
- Julian
Thanks Julian at least I know its a common problem(does 2 handsets constitute common).
I will look into pocketplayer as a solution for the timebeing.I was hoping I wouldnt have to put other apps on that would slow the phone down.
Thanks again
Peter15965
peter15965 said:
Thanks Julian at least I know its a common problem(does 2 handsets constitute common).
I will look into pocketplayer as a solution for the timebeing.I was hoping I wouldnt have to put other apps on that would slow the phone down.
Thanks again
Peter15965
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome.
In most cases putting other apps on shouldn't slow down the phone. The reason apps can slow down the phone (and/or drain battery) can be because they have a Today plugin which, if not well written or if it needs to keep accessing the network, can slow things down. If an app does have a Today plugin (as PocketPlayer does) then you can often disable it (as you can for PocketPlayer).
The other reason for third party apps to slow down the phone is because Windows Mobile default behaviour when you click the top-right "x" button is to minimise the app (i.e. leave it running in the background) rather than close it down completely. Again, in this case an app that does anything significant when it is running in the background can slow down the phone. Clearly a music player needs to keep running while it is playing music but, once finished, you can make sure it is out of memory completely by selecting Exit from the application's menu.
In short, if you're careful to fully close apps when you don't need them, then you shouldn't slow down your phone at all (except so far as having a music player running in the background, whether built in or third party, will always put a drain on the CPU and make other apps run more slowly while the music is playing).
- Julian
Oops. One big thing I forgot to mention. If you do look at PocketPlayer then don't download the latest version (3.51) from their web site. There is a nasty problem in that build specifically related to playing AAC files on HTC devices that I reported to them and has been fixed in an internal beta for 3.52 which, as the reporter of the bug, I have been given to test. You should email [email protected] and say that you want to use it for AAC on an HTC device and hopefully they (Carrie) will let you try out a beta build with the issue fixed.
The issue by the way is that 3.51 doesn't correctly detect end-of-stream when an AAC track has finished so (a) it doesn't auto-advance to the next track in the playlist because it thinks the current track hasn't finished yet and (b) even worse, if you forget to explicitly turn off your device after you've finished listening then PocketPlayer thinks it is still playing your last track and so the device will not put itself into standby and can drain the battery. The issue is fixed in the latest beta build and as an added bonus it also parses m4a tags natively (in 3.51 you could tag your collection by using an option in PocketPlayer to infer the tags from the filenames used in your folder structure but it now reads the real tags in the latest beta).
There is also one other more obscure problem I'm trying to help them diagnose related to AAC on HTC devices but I've been a bit busy recently so am due to give them some feedback and check status on that today or tomorrow. This may or may not be fixed at this stage, I can probably give more feedback in a couple of days so personally I would hold off until I give you an update. If you definitely want to go ahead with a beta build then I can give you a workaround that works most of the time.
- Julian
Thanks again Julian, a fantastic answer by all accounts.I will hold off until you get an answer back about the problems you mention.
Thanks again for a most comprehensive answer.How will we know when the fix is through?
Peter15965
peter15965 said:
Thanks again Julian, a fantastic answer by all accounts.I will hold off until you get an answer back about the problems you mention.
Thanks again for a most comprehensive answer.How will we know when the fix is through?
Peter15965
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I emailed them this afternoon and got the answer. They've fixed the problem and I'm about to install a new beta to check it's OK. Apparently it was a Windows Mobile bug that they've managed to work around. I'll play with this new update pretty extensively tomorrow so you should get an answer from me in about 24 hours.
- Julian
peter15965 said:
I have downloaded some onto the storage card and the touch flo player hasnt recognised them, nor has the windows media player.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found out some interesting thing: Some files are playing correctly but others refuse to work. I think that has to do with the bitrate of the files. All my m4a-files are bought from Apple Music Store. Most times my files are the unprotected ones with higher bitrate, but I have a few files which were protected (unfortunately I must have lost the copy protection somewhere, I'm really sorry for that ). The protected ones were encoded in a lower bitrate. What I found out is, that all my former protected files are played correctly. So maybe Windows Media Player can only handle files up to certain bitrate which obviously should be lower than 256kbps.
Further test: I created a playlist within windows mobile, but the Audio Manager (Touch Flo) wasn't able to read it. I managed that the playlist was recognized by the program, but it couldn't find any files.
So it is possible to play aac files (up to a certain bitrate) and to create playlists in Windows Media Player without any issues (yet). But I couldn't get it working in TouchFlo.
So, ok, I made half the way. Now it's up to you to make it fully functional.
have the same issue, I see the AAC file in the explorer and can play them from there but they are not loaded in the catalogue. anybody any other idea how to make the visible there? is buying pocket player the only solution?
thanks for the help in advance to everybody
JulianL said:
I emailed them this afternoon and got the answer. They've fixed the problem and I'm about to install a new beta to check it's OK. Apparently it was a Windows Mobile bug that they've managed to work around. I'll play with this new update pretty extensively tomorrow so you should get an answer from me in about 24 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The news isn't as positive as I'd hoped. The latest build has improved the problem (so at least they've identified it and found the right area to make changes) but it hasn't fixed it completely.
The player is still usable with AAC files but there is one glitch. After it's been playing for a while, say about 2 hours, then something seems to get corrupted in the image or via a bug in Windows Mobile itself such that thumbnails of the artwork for the album covers no longer display properly when browsing your music library. With the previous build the device would lock up at this point and require a soft reset so at least they've fixed that problem but there is still some sort of issue unresolved.
The workaround seems to be to just fully exit PocketPlayer every couple of hours and then re-launch it again so it's not too arduous and shouldn't prevent you playing with the trial version (although this partially-fixed beta isn't publicly available so you will need to contact support to see if they'll give it to you and given that it still has a known issue they might just ask you to wait a bit).
I'm obviously still working with them to try and 100% nail this issue.
- Julian

stream buffering customization

i want to customize the stream buffer and need some guidance
specifically, radio streaming apps that i've used seem to not have a very large buffer size, and if the network speed drops (as it usually does while moving in a car) once the buffered data is played through, the sound stops, until enough of a buffer is filled, and the network speed is better again. Then it starts playing again, that is, unless the player background service has been stopped.
i think that this could be greatly minimized if the stream buffer size was ALOT bigger. i'm willing to wait a bit at the beginning of my streaming experience for the sound to start playing. if it means that i wont get any stoppages in play, im willing to wait at least a minute or so if i have to. i dont care.
so, the question is, where is this value of buffer size being set? in the music player? in each individual app? in the kernel? wtf? where is it? libmediaplayerservice.so?
i have searched the forums, and have not found this answer
found these: http://developer.android.com/reference/java/io/BufferedInputStream.html
http://developer.android.com/reference/java/io/InputStream.html
http://d.android.com/reference/java/io/PipedInputStream.html
and cant make heads nor tails out of them.
i'm a "cut and paster" and im not bad at it
but unless i know where to cut and paste, im lost (usually)
hey, an app or setting that allows one to choose the buffer size (if it is a global setting) would be awesome, maybe something for spare parts if thats possible

[Q] .wma support in gingerbread/2.3.3

I've been having trouble playing wma files on any music player except for PowerAmp (a $5 app that's nice, but I don't really get all that excited about equalizers). I didn't notice the problem until flashing CM7 (2.3.3 gingerbread) on my D1. I've done some searching, at it seems that support for some proprietary formats like wma and aac won't be available any more.
This is based on just one reply here or there in a random thread that was put out there and not really addressed. People get error messages from most players including the stock music player. I've tried a bunch of players that have worked for me in the past, but no luck on my gingerbread rom
Should i be converting formats, or is this something you think we'll likely see fixed in the future? Is there anyway I can fix it?
Did you tried Winamp..?
Tried winamp as well as the usuals (mixing, tunewiki, stock, cubed, mort,etc.). Idk what PowerAmp is doing differently, but it's the only one that will play them now. I Finally just converted some stuff to mp3s.
I'm still curious to know if it's really gb or not.
edit:
Well, I flashed about four different roms yesterday, and all of them give me the same result regardless of os version. no wma support. I'm also having some issues with bluetooth connections which no one else seems to be having, so maybe there's something hardware related going on. At any rate it doesn't seem to be a gingerbread issue like I originally thought. oops.

Subsonic streaming buggy

So I found Subsonic, totally pleased with the fact that it copies the actual file to your device before playing it. Unfortunately it had a bug with my device/setup (EB 2.3.5 with Faux) where upon playback start, the player thinks the total track length is the currently downloaded amount. Thus it skips to the next track 10 seconds after starting play even though it has downloaded a minutes worth when it gets there.
I am trying to figure out whether it is the ROM, kernel, or this phone.
In the meantime, has anyone determined this, or tried this program on the G2x?

[Q] Podcasts and streaming audio cutting out

I am using a stock rooted US Moto G, and I have had podcasts (through both Pocket Casts and DoubleTwist) and MLB At Bat audio streaming stopping randomly.
Has anybody else had this issue? Any solutions?
rpogorek said:
I am using a stock rooted US Moto G, and I have had podcasts (through both Pocket Casts and DoubleTwist) and MLB At Bat audio streaming stopping randomly.
Has anybody else had this issue? Any solutions?
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Click to collapse
I have the exact same problem. Podcasts stop playing suddenly.
This usually happens when using chrome, particularly when scrolling.
A few observations:
- The app doesn't crash - launching it again and pressing play starts the podcast at the exact same spot meaning the app safely shutdown.
- Closing all apps and tabs to free up memory usually helps but is no guarantee it won't stop again within a few minutes.
- Happens with several podcast apps I tried - all of which use about 60mb of RAM when playing
- Happens with downloaded and streamed podcasts. But stopping is more likely with streaming versions (I guess the stream is buffered to RAM meaning it's more likely to be killed)
- Every time the podcast stops I have been using a web browser (I've tried Chrome, Chrome beta, Firefox, Opera and UC browser)
My theory is that android is killing the process to free up some RAM but I'm not sure what can be done to prevent this.
A few things I have looked into are 'nice' and 'minfree'. I tried increasing the priority of my podcast app with nice but that didn't seem to help at all.
Changing the minfree settings did seem to have some affect, but it was still getting killed off eventually.
I don't know much about android to look into it any further ( this is my first android device), perhaps someone with more experience can advise.
I guess this is just one of the limitations of the MotoG and 1gb of RAM
same here had it with the beyondpod ,sound cloud apps
Sent from my XT1032 using xda app-developers app
I think I figured out a solution to this problem, you need to be rooted though.
Install the 'app settings' xposed module, select your music/podcast app then enable the 'resident' option.
This makes sure the app remains in memory and stops android from killing the process.
Seems to be working for me for the past day now

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