gstreamer with ogg vorbis support

[N770-Freak]

Hello,

like many other people i have the interest in playing ogg files with a
gstreamer enabled application. It would be too simple to play all music files with one music-player ;)

So i recompiled the gstreamer sources with ogg vorbis support...
...installed the new packages on my Nokia770 and normal sound still worked ( :D ) and gstreamer recognised the new libs without complaining (gst-inspect).
Then i tried to play a ogg file with the build in music player (i had to adapt the mime types), but without success!

The easiest way to test whether the new ogg libs are working or not was to use gst-lauch. And it worked!!! i could convert a wav into an ogg an play an ogg directly...

gst-launch-0.10 filesrc location="test.ogg" ! oggdemux ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! dsppcmsink

BUT... the cpu-usage was damn high so that playback wasn't really acceptable :(

It seems that the only way of getting usable ogg (gstreamer) support is to compile a new dspoggsink lib (so that the dsp hardware could do this stuff)!

Does somebody know if sources of the dsp system exist? are the used dsp libs (like dspmp3sink) opensource?


Greetings...
N770-Freak

[MikeL]

What about the existing Ogg Vorbis Player http://maemo.org/maemowiki/ApplicationCatalog2006#head-1b8af6965180db744b8cc39f93949d51d3287b10

Or what about this quote from Visa Smolander with regard to Media Streamer developments in the www.maemo.org garage section?

Check the instructions in:

http://www.maemo.org/platform/docs/multimedia/getting_started.html#plugins

I followed the steps, and now my Media streamer can play Ogg/Vorbis.
Apologies if this information is of little additional use and/or is un-related to your overall question.

[Serge]

Make sure that you use fixed point vorbis decoder implementation (tremor), also compile it with proper options (it has some arm assembly in it) and use good gcc optimization settings includion -mcpu. Unless gstreamer screws everything up and adds some unexpected overhead, it should work quite fast and provide reasonable performance.

[N770-Freak]

What about the existing Ogg Vorbis Player
I used this programm some time ago and its not that bad. BUT one player for only one audio format? I think It's better to have a all in one solution (for audio playing).

Or what about this quote from Visa Smolander with regard to Media Streamer developments in the garage section?
That's great! I didn't knew that someone wrote such a guide!!!
I followed the instructions and copied the libs to my Nokia and gst-launch works great with tremor. But although i followed all (!) instructions the build-in media player does not like my ogg files ;(
It says: "Wiedergabefehler"
But the gconf-entry seems to be right!?

Apologies if this information is of little additional use and/or is un-related to your overall question.
It answers not my main question, but it offers a good solution to my problem until nokia releases a dspogg lib.


Make sure that you use fixed point vorbis decoder implementation (tremor), also compile it with proper options (it has some arm assembly in it) and use good gcc optimization settings includion -mcpu. Unless gstreamer screws everything up and adds some unexpected overhead, it should work quite fast and provide reasonable performance.
Thanks for this hint!

Greetings...
N770-Freak

[mwiktowy]

I used this programm some time ago and its not that bad. BUT one player for only one audio format? I think It's better to have a all in one solution (for audio playing).
...
I followed the instructions and copied the libs to my Nokia and gst-launch works great with tremor. But although i followed all (!) instructions the build-in media player does not like my ogg files ;(
It says: "Wiedergabefehler"
But the gconf-entry seems to be right!?


You might want to talk to some of the devs of the maemo-recorder app on their maemo page to get some ideas as they just seemed to add some mime-type handlers for the WAV file format.

I hope that you package up your work in the end as I would love to have one player do all my audio too.

[neiljerram]

I hope that you package up your work in the end as I would love to have one player do all my audio too.

Me too. I'm happy to help with the packaging, once you've got all the binaries and gconf stuff sorted.

- Neil

[N770-Freak]

Me too. I'm happy to help with the packaging, once you've got all the binaries and gconf stuff sorted.
I think packaging is no problem! But first we need to get the player working ;(

Btw. packaging should be done properly. I made a bad experience in the past with the maemo-recorder (after deinstalling the package the whole mime stuff was damaged!)

[N770-Freak]

short status feedback:

I've installed gstreamer with debug mode and evaluated the output.
The ogg file isn't handled like the gconf entry's default. The gconf entry
gives the rule to demux,decode ogg files with tremor and to use the dsppcmsink.
But the osso-media-server grabs the ogg file and connects it to "ivorbisfile" (it doesn't even load the dsppcmsink).

So I have tried to manipulate other gconf entries that belong to the
osso-media-server but with no success. Theoretically it should be possible
to disable/break mp3 playback (for example) with a broken x-id3 entry in
the gconf?! But every manipulation of the gconf seems to have no effect
to the osso-media-server!

Has someone more experience with the gconf (and perhaps the osso-media-server)???
Is that right that the gconf only uses the entries in /etc/gconf and /etc/osso-af-init/gconf-dir ???
What is the difference between "--install-schema-file" and "--makefile-install-rule" ???
I need some help at this point!!!


Greetings
N770-Freak

[N770-Freak]

another status update:

osso-music-player plays my ogg files ;)
Ok, more precise:
I recompiled gst-plugins-bad-cvs against the gstreamer-cvs (before i used an older cvs version of the gst-plugins-bad because of a version incompatibility with the gstreamer version, but an adaption of the configure script was all i had to do) and now the osso-music-player plays my oggs with ca. 20% cpu usage!

BUT at the moment i am not able to jump in the music stream. The player doesn't show the playtime of the ogg files... mmmh ...

Today i will do some more testing and will build a package!

Then i need someone who has some internet space where i can put
this stuff. (I don't want to upload this to rapidshare or some similar upload center)


Greetings...
N770-Freak

[neiljerram]

osso-music-player plays my ogg files ;)


Woo-hoo! Well done.


Today i will do some more testing and will build a package!

Then i need someone who has some internet space where i can put
this stuff. (I don't want to upload this to rapidshare or some similar upload center)


How about maemo garage? You have to register and create a project, but that doesn't take too long.

- Neil

[mwiktowy]

another status update:

osso-music-player plays my ogg files ;)
Ok, more precise:
I recompiled gst-plugins-bad-cvs against the gstreamer-cvs (before i used an older cvs version of the gst-plugins-bad because of a version incompatibility with the gstreamer version, but an adaption of the configure script was all i had to do) and now the osso-music-player plays my oggs with ca. 20% cpu usage!


Stupendous! I look forward to trying it out.


BUT at the moment i am not able to jump in the music stream. The player doesn't show the playtime of the ogg files... mmmh ...


I have this problem with mp3 files on my Fedora Core 4 system using Rhythmbox so it may be a deeper gstreamer issue and not something specific to your work.


Today i will do some more testing and will build a package!

Then i need someone who has some internet space where i can put
this stuff. (I don't want to upload this to rapidshare or some similar upload center)


Like neiljerram mentioned, the Maemo Garage would be the most appropriate place to host things, I would think.

[N770-Freak]

I have this problem with mp3 files on my Fedora Core 4 system using Rhythmbox so it may be a deeper gstreamer issue and not something specific to your work.
I'm not really sure whether this is related to gstreamer or to tremor!?
Which gstreamer version are you using?
Compiling gst-plugins-bad-cvs against stable 0.10.10 doesn't solve this problem!

How about maemo garage? You have to register and create a project, but that doesn't take too long.
Good idea! But i don't have the time at the moment to take care of a project-page. Sorry

Ok...
I've completed the package and put all stuff in it!
Now it should correctly install and (if you want so) deinstall ogg support.

*Note*
I have tested this only on my device for my personal use.
I can't give any support if this does not work on your device or breaks your device!
All work I have done was to follow the instructions on this page
http://maemo.org/platform/docs/multimedia/getting_started.html

Known Bugs:
- playtime of ogg files isn't recognised
- jumping (reeling) in ogg files does not work




Greetings
N770-Freak

[neiljerram]

I've completed the package and put all stuff in it!
Now it should correctly install and (if you want so) deinstall ogg support.

Well it works for me. Thank you very much indeed!

A bit more precisely...

- I'm using the basic audio player for my testing.

- Installation was straightforward.

- Immediately after installation, audio player started up but refused to play a .ogg, with some error message popup. I then rebooted.

- After reboot, I tried starting audio player (from the menu). It did not appear.

- I then tried starting audio player again (exactly the same way). This time it appeared, and now plays .ogg files as advertised.

Neil

[disq]

works great here too (older firmware - 1.2006.26-8) thanks

[neiljerram]

After reboot, I tried starting audio player (from the menu). It did not appear.

- I then tried starting audio player again (exactly the same way). This time it appeared, and now plays .ogg files as advertised.

Another datapoint: I tested rebooting again and then trying to start audio player, to see whether the audio-player-doesn't-start problem would happen consistently the first time after each reboot. The problem did not recur, so I guess it must be a one-off post-install problem.

- Neil

[mwiktowy]

It works well. No skipping when running the browser and file manager. Excellent! Thanks!

Still missing:
1. a way to open oggs from the player ... it annoyingly hides files with ogg extentions
2. it is not reading the IDv3 tags
3. ... and like you mentioned, there is no random jumping around within songs ... it treats the ogg file like it would a network stream

One can get around 1. by making a m3u playlist manually by running 'find directory_containing_your_oggs > oggs.m3u' in a terminal.

Hopefully you can put this up on garage so that others can add to your work if you don't have the time to.

[disq]

it doesn't do (1) for me. did you reboot?

[mwiktowy]

it doesn't do (1) for me. did you reboot?

I didn't bother trying anything before I rebooted.

I was able to open oggs in the media player via double tapping them in the file manager. I also tried manually making a playlist as indicated and that worked like a charm too.

[neiljerram]

1. a way to open oggs from the player ... it annoyingly hides files with ogg extentions


This already works for me too (i.e. .oggs are not hidden). I suggest reading through the package's postinst script by hand and looking at the affected files to see if it successfully made the changes intended. It may be that you have something else in these files on your system that prevented a regexp from working ... or something.

- Neil

[N770-Freak]

- After reboot, I tried starting audio player (from the menu). It did not appear.

- I then tried starting audio player again (exactly the same way). This time it appeared, and now plays .ogg files as advertised.
Ok, I forgot to mention that! Until now i'm not really sure how to solve this. The postinst script restarts the osso-media-server, but it seems that this is not enough! (it's curious. sometimes i needed no restart after installing this stuff. mmmhh...)
Does someone know what services else have to be reloaded?


Still missing:
1. a way to open oggs from the player ... it annoyingly hides files with ogg extentions
2. it is not reading the IDv3 tags
3. ... and like you mentioned, there is no random jumping around within songs ... it treats the ogg file like it would a network stream
ad 1: how did you install this package? from console or with the packagemanager (red/blue pill?)? any error messages?
(please install the package in xterm and post the install messages!)

ad 2: ok, i will try to work on that! the build in id3lib is not compatible with ogg! so enableing this feature in gconf doesn't make sense (playblack will fail!).

ad 3: i didn't expect any thing else :D


Hopefully you can put this up on garage so that others can add to your work if you don't have the time to.
I just have the hope (!) that nokia will release a dspsink for ogg-vorbis playing. So i don't want to spend too much work on this. I made no diffs and can't offer any adapted sources for working on this. So posting this debs on garage doesn't help you :(
Like i posted: all i have done is to follow the "getting started" docs!
If someone wants to compile this in scratchbox or wants to debug this thing you'll only have to follow these instructions! Perhaps if you have some problems while compiling i will try to help you.


Greetings...
N770-Freak

[mwiktowy]

ad 1: how did you install this package? from console or with the packagemanager (red/blue pill?)? any error messages?
(please install the package in xterm and post the install messages!)


It was installed using the normal application manager and it indicated that it installed successfully. Perhaps some error got hidden. Do I just install from the command line with "dpkg -i packagefile.deb" ?


ad 2: ok, i will try to work on that! the build in id3lib is not compatible with ogg! so enableing this feature in gconf doesn't make sense (playblack will fail!).


Thanks ... it is not that critical for my needs as I rip my audio to have all the info in the filenames anyways but I just wanted to make a complete wishlist :]

It is strange that Nokia would specifically remove the ogg reading ability from the id3lib if they are claiming to stay as close to upstream as possible.


I just have the hope (!) that nokia will release a dspsink for ogg-vorbis playing. So i don't want to spend too much work on this. I made no diffs and can't offer any adapted sources for working on this. So posting this debs on garage doesn't help you :(
Like i posted: all i have done is to follow the "getting started" docs!
If someone wants to compile this in scratchbox or wants to debug this thing you'll only have to follow these instructions! Perhaps if you have some problems while compiling i will try to help you.


Fair enough. Nokia's silence on why they didn't include ogg in the first place and if they plan to include it in the future is a strange. I hope they do include something DSP-assisted but in the meanwhile this version isn't all that CPU-hungry. Thanks for packaging this up in an easily digestible format.

[N770-Freak]

Do I just install from the command line with "dpkg -i packagefile.deb" ?
Yes! (as root)

It is strange that Nokia would specifically remove the ogg reading ability from the id3lib if they are claiming to stay as close to upstream as possible.
My first thought was that id3lib could be responsible for ogg-tags, but i erred.
(i have no deeper knowledge of this gstreamer stuff. So my strategy is 'try and false'.)
The tags of mp3's are made available through id3lib!
The tags of ogg's (vorbis) are made available through vorbisdec!

But decoding an ogg with tremor doesn't make the tags available.
So imho there are two possibilites:
1. the tremor lib prevents the availability of tags
2. the gsttremor lib prevents the availability of tags

At this point i can do nothing.
Perhaps someone knows if a gstlib exists that can demux taglists of ogg-vorbis files (like the id3lib does for mp3)?


Greetings...
N770-Freak

[tjb]

I've got everything working except opening an ogg from within the audio player. Is this supposed to work? From this thread, it's unclear. Canola also doesn't see my ogg files. Thanks...

[N770-Freak]

I've got everything working except opening an ogg from within the audio player. Is this supposed to work? From this thread, it's unclear. Canola also doesn't see my ogg files. Thanks...
It should work with the audio player!
did you get any errors while installing this package? did you reboot your
device after installing?

That canola could not find the files is another problem!
But theoretically canola could play ogg's. (only problem i see is the cpu
usage of canola. perhaps canola itself uses too much cpu that playback would be unusable!)

Greetings...
N770-Freak

[jussik]

I've got everything working except opening an ogg from within the audio player.

Same here.

gst-inspect-0.10 tremor seems to show everything is fine (output here (http://koti.welho.com/jkukkone/gst-inspect-0.10)).
File manager says the files are of type "audio/x-vorbis", and double-clicking opens the Audio player
Audio player shows the file in the open dialog, but says "playback error" when I try to play the file.


I did not use CVS/SVN versions, but these:
- libvorbisidec (tremor) version 1.0.2+svn12153 packaged for Debian by Daniel Gillmore (but not included in Debian yet) (linklink (http://www.debian-administration.org/users/dkg/weblog/10))
- gst-plugins-bad0.10 version 0.10.3-3 from Debian
With small debian/rules and dependency changes they packaged and installed fine.

What can I do to debug this? I am not a gstreamer expert but gst-inspect does seem to indicate that the tremor plugin is working... I'm out of ideas.

EDIT: hmm... after "playback error" osso-media-server starts using all available cpu cycles.

[tjb]

I first tried installing through the App Manager and when that didn't work, I uninstalled it and installed by hand as root from a terminal. No errors but I went through all the steps from

http://www.maemo.org/platform/docs/multimedia/getting_started.html#plugins

to make sure. (I didn't recreate the files but I made sure they looked the same and then ran the commands by hand.) Multiple reboots later and still the audio player doesn't see ogg files in the file chooser.

[neiljerram]

Audio player shows the file in the open dialog, but says "playback error" when I try to play the file.

I think installing Canola has broken something. Before I installed Canola, I was able to play .oggs in Audio Player. Now I get the same behaviour that you have just described.

- Neil

[N770-Freak]

I think installing Canola has broken something. Before I installed Canola, I was able to play .oggs in Audio Player. Now I get the same behaviour that you have just described.
i can confirm this!
after installing canola ogg makes problems.
when i boot to my testing partition (no canola installed) all works well
(also playing files opened from within the player itself).

mmmh... so we have to look at all the stuff that canola installs.

Greetings...
N770-Freak

[jussik]

mmmh... so we have to look at all the stuff that canola installs.

Interesting. This wasn't my problem, though: I get the same error message after a clean flash...

EDIT: and just for completeness: This works (the playback is a little choppy, but at least it plays):
gst-launch-0.10 filesrc location=matkalaulu.ogg !tremor ! dsppcmsink

[N770-Freak]

Interesting. This wasn't my problem, though: I get the same error message after a clean flash...

EDIT: and just for completeness: This works (the playback is a little choppy, but at least it plays):
gst-launch filesrc location=matkalaulu.ogg !tremor ! dsppcmsink
Are you trying to use the already packaged version or a self compiled version???
If you want to compile it yourself you should look at the developer mailinglist (Nov 2006). There you can find also the information for debugging this gstreamer stuff! You should use the latest cvs of gst-plugins-bad otherwise it won't work (look at the hole thread, it was mentioned before)!
You mentioned that playback is choppy. How about your cpu usage?

Greetings...
N770-Freak

[jussik]

Are you trying to use the already packaged version or a self compiled version???
gstreamer-tools? I used the version in the repositories.

If you want to compile it yourself you should look at the developer mailinglist (Nov 2006). There you can find also the information for debugging this gstreamer stuff! You should use the latest cvs of gst-plugins-bad otherwise it won't work (look at the hole thread, it was mentioned before)!

I've read the thread, and frankly it didn't give me much information... Using the latest gst-plugins-bad would mean compiling the whole gstreamer, wouldn't it?
Requested 'gstreamer-0.10 >= 0.10.9.1' but version of GStreamer is 0.10.5
Did you compile the whole gstreamer?
You mentioned that playback is choppy. How about your cpu usage?
About 22%, and after some tests I wouldn't call it actually choppy: there are only problems when e.g. changing the active window -- I'm not at all familiar with linux sound architecture but it looks like a buffer is just a little too small.

Thanks for the help, by the way,
- Jussi

[N770-Freak]

gstreamer-tools? I used the version in the repositories.
i meant the ogg (tremor, gst-plugins-bad) stuff!


I've read the thread, and frankly it didn't give me much information... Using the latest gst-plugins-bad would mean compiling the whole gstreamer, wouldn't it?

Did you compile the whole gstreamer?

Yes, i compiled gstreamer-0.10.10!
And if you don't use a new cvs of gst-plugins-bad it won't work (i tried it! believe me). gst-launch worked for me too with an old gst-plugins-bad version, but osso-media-server didn't.

Compile gstreamer 0.10.10 (stable) for your developer platform.
Download cvs of gst-plugins-bad and edit the configure.ac to check for a lower gstreamer version than 0.10.10.1 (this version still doesn't exists, so it will fail).
If you want to debug this stuff you'll also have to compile the gstreamer stuff with debuging enabled!


About 22%, and after some tests I wouldn't call it actually choppy: there are only problems when e.g. changing the active window -- I'm not at all familiar with linux sound architecture but it looks like a buffer is just a little too small.

22% are ok! i think this will also depend on audio quality-level.

Greetings...
N770-Freak

[jussik]

Yes, i compiled gstreamer-0.10.10!
And if you don't use a new cvs of gst-plugins-bad it won't work (i tried it! believe me). gst-launch worked for me too with an old gst-plugins-bad version, but osso-media-server didn't.

Thanks. I managed to miss this (and figured that the howto would have mentioned if I needed to do something like that). Let's see how it goes.

EDIT:
You are correct! Everything works now: Audio player plays my oggs (no skips or anything). The working configuration:
- libvorbisidec (tremor) version 1.0.2+svn12153 packaged for Debian by Daniel Gillmore (but not included in Debian yet) (link (http://www.debian-administration.org/users/dkg/weblog/10))
- gstreamer0.10 version 0.10.10-2 from debian
- gst-plugins-bad0.10 from gstreamer CVS (2006-12-03)

Some fiddling was needed but in the end it seems to work like charm.

[neiljerram]

The working configuration:
- libvorbisidec (tremor) version 1.0.2+svn12153 packaged for Debian by Daniel Gillmore (but not included in Debian yet) (link (http://www.debian-administration.org/users/dkg/weblog/10))
- gstreamer0.10 version 0.10.10-2 from debian
- gst-plugins-bad0.10 from gstreamer CVS (2006-12-03)


That's good news, but now I'm confused. How is what you have done different from what N770-Freak has packaged, and is there a consensus of which of these two is better?

Thanks - Neil

[N770-Freak]

That's good news, but now I'm confused. How is what you have done different from what N770-Freak has packaged, and is there a consensus of which of these two is better?

Thanks - Neil
I think it is almost the same what i did! (not more not less)
Perhaps jussik wants to comment this.

[jussik]

Different routes, same result. With my method you end up with three pretty standard packages (the diffs to the mentioned packages are just a few lines) and one small self-made configuration package -- if I find the time to do some cleaning up, I could release them on garage (or somewhere) and maintaining should not be difficult...

By the way, extra thanks for your package N770-Freak: Getting some of the stuff in the maintainer scripts correct would have taken me ages without a "reference implementation".

[mwiktowy]

ad 1: how did you install this package? from console or with the packagemanager (red/blue pill?)? any error messages?
(please install the package in xterm and post the install messages!)


OK ... I got a chance to investigate this issue ... here is what I get when I try to install using dkg -i on the xterm:

Selecting previously deselected package gst-ogg-vorbis.
(Reading database ... 13521 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking gst-ogg-vorbis (from .../mmc1/gst-ogg-vorbis_0.1.deb) ...
Setting up gst-ogg-vorbis (0.1) ...
gconftool-2: I've been haxored to use xml::/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults as the config source.
Attached schema `/schemas/apps/osso/osso_media_server/audio/application_ogg' to key `/apps/osso/osso_media_server/audio/application_ogg'
Installed schema `/schemas/apps/osso/osso_media_server/audio/application_ogg' for locale `C'
***
* Updating MIME database in /usr/share/mime...
* Warning: Unknown media type in type 'sketch/png'
Wrote 488 strings at 20 - 285c
Wrote aliases at 285c - 2a08
Wrote parents at 2a08 - 33ac
Wrote literal globs at 33ac - 3408
Wrote suffix globs at 3408 - 6ce0
Wrote full globs at 6ce0 - 6d04
Wrote magic at 6d04 - ce48
Wrote namespace list at ce48 - ce58
***
Stopping media-server
Starting media-server


The curious bit is the "* Warning: Unknown media type in type 'sketch/png'"
That seems to happen in the 'update-mime-database /usr/share/mime' step of the postinst script.

The ";audio/x-vorbis" seems to be appended to /usr/share/applications/hildon/osso-music-player.desktop correctly.

It still won't show oggs in the Open track dialog though after many reboots and some reinstallation attempts.

Not sure what is going on unless that warning is causing some hidden grief ... It doesn't look like it should though.

[N770-Freak]

The curious bit is the "* Warning: Unknown media type in type 'sketch/png'"
That seems to happen in the 'update-mime-database /usr/share/mime' step of the postinst script.

This warning is "normal". I got it every time i updated mime-database!
The whole output of your installation seems to be ok.

As it were mentioned some posts before: it seems that this problem could be related to other installed applications. after i installed canola my ogg playback doesn't work at all (i get an "Wiedergabefehler"/Playback error) . I had and have no time at the moment to look at this! Sorry. (Have you checked your gconf entries?)

Perhaps jussik can help you.

Greetings...
N770-Freak

[neiljerram]

I think installing Canola has broken something. Before I installed Canola, I was able to play .oggs in Audio Player. Now I get the same behaviour that you have just described.

To update this: I still have Canola installed, but now Audio Player is working again with .oggs. I don't know what has caused this improvement - perhaps there's only a problem if one actually runs Canola since the last reboot? I'll experiment more if I get time.

- Neil

[dino]

N770-Freak,
Thanks!

I have another successful install.
I downloaded the package here (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=186)
As root, used the command dpkg -i gst-ogg-vorbis_0.1.deb.
NOTE:The first time I rebooted it did not work. I had the charger plugged in and the boot seemed too fast for an actual reboot.
The second time I rebooted with the charger unplugged.

And now I can play ogg files from the built-in Music Player.
I use Jinzora as a web app on my PC to server up the playlist.

[tjb]

Can you open ogg files from the audio player?

[username49]

OK i got several questions here because iam confused about this ogg file thing that i keep on reading about here. what is a ogg file? where can you find a ogg file? and what does a ogg vorbis player do? does it hold mp3 Files?

[Milhouse]

From the vorbis.com FAQ (http://www.vorbis.com/faq/#what)


What is Ogg Vorbis?
Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented.

What do all the names mean?
Ogg - Ogg is the name of Xiph.org's container format for audio, video, and metadata.
Vorbis - Vorbis is the name of a specific audio compression scheme that's designed to be contained in Ogg. Note that other formats are capable of being embedded in Ogg such as FLAC and Speex.


In essence, Ogg Vorbis is a direct competitor to the MP3 format. The latter is heavily patented (http://www.mp3-tech.org/patents.html) by the Fraunhofer Institute requiring users to pay a licence fee to encode MP3 tracks, while Ogg Vorbis is patent-free and (subjectively) at least as good as MP3 in terms of audio quality. And of course, it's entirely free.

Ogg Vorbis support in commercial hardware players is growing slowly, leading to increased interest among users who want to encode their tracks in this format. Lack of Ogg Vorbis support on the 770 is annoying as the 770 is touted as an open-source device yet it lacks support for one of the few open-source audio formats! This lack of support means users will be forced to encode tracks in multiple formats - once for an Ogg Vorbis supporting player (eg. Slimdevices Squeezebox) and again in the proprietary mp3 format for the 770.

Or alternatively, users will just ignore the open source audio format and stick with the proprietary audio format because certain manufacturers pushing the open source mantra don't quite "get it".

[dino]

Can you open ogg files from the audio player?
Strangly, no. The web browser can launch the audio player with an ogg playlist and it works. The file manager shows ogg files with a music icon and can launch them in the audio player. In the audio player, if you select Track->Open the ogg files are not listed and therefore can not be selected.

[dino]

OK i got several questions here because iam confused about this ogg file thing that i keep on reading about here. what is a ogg file? where can you find a ogg file? and what does a ogg vorbis player do? does it hold mp3 Files?

Here is a good site for information on ogg:
Vorbis.com (http://www.vorbis.com/)

Here is a list of many sites that stream ogg in live broadcasts
Icecast.org (http://dir.xiph.org/index.php)
Note: Be sure to click the text "next" at the bottom right of the page. Only 10 sites are shown at a time.

Many Linux distributions did not ship with the ability to play MP3 files. It was a simple thing for the end user to add. There was some legal issues with distributions like Redhat to have it built in.

[quingu]

any news on this topic?

[fresta]

Strangly, no. The web browser can launch the audio player with an ogg playlist and it works. The file manager shows ogg files with a music icon and can launch them in the audio player. In the audio player, if you select Track->Open the ogg files are not listed and therefore can not be selected.

Opening ogg files in the audio player with the "mogg" package installed used to work for me on the 770 with an earlier os image (2.0, "mistral"). But after updating to os image 2.2 "gregale" I have to take the file manager route. :(

I tried oggplayer with both os images and it skips a lot. So I prefer the audio player + mogg solution. Sound is more important that convenience for me, though I'd like to have both of course.

[ArnimS]

If anyone hears of news regarding an ogg dsp sink, please post here.

A few games (esp Exult and Ur-Quan Masters) use ogg media. I'd like to use dsp to speed up the performance, but i have to transcode to mp3 and host the files. Maybe we could join together and i .. argh.

Maybe if someone could just post docs and links to source for the dsp / dsp-mp3 decoder, someone could take a shot at doing an ogg decoder based on the tremor libs?

[tvogel]

Opening ogg files in the audio player with the "mogg" package installed used to work for me on the 770 with an earlier os image (2.0, "mistral"). But after updating to os image 2.2 "gregale" I have to take the file manager route. :(

Hi, is this still the case for you? I just tried again to be sure and with mogg-0.2 I get oggs listed inside the audio player with the latest 770 OS.

Tilman

[fresta]

I thought 2.2 gregale was the latest 770 os. Or do you mean the hacked 2007 os?