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Topic: Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis (Read 20724 times) previous topic - next topic
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Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

When using high "q" settings in portable music players the battery life is awful.  In this case I'm using an iRiver ihp-120 HD player which iRiver claims will give you 16 hours of playback.  This playback time is based on mp3 files encoded at 128 kbps using CBR.

In reality I'm seeing somewhere between 6-8 hours of life when playing back ogg files encoded >160 kbps.  Why is this the case?  No one at the iRiver forum can provide real answers.

My thoughts are that high "q" files ( q setting 6 or greater) are larger than 128 kbps mp3 files which cause the hard drive in the player to spool up more often.

There is another school of though that says it takes more CPU power to decode ogg files as opposed to mp3 files.

The third possiblity is that CBR 128k mp3's  earier to decode opposed to Ogg which is VBR.

I can't be the CPU drawing the battery down?  It has to be the HD spooling.

Thoughts?
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. Jerry Garcia-Grateful Dead

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #1 –
When bitrate is increasing, the cpu power needed to decode the stream is higher, and so the player is using more battery. This is also valid for mp3.

The second point is that Vorbis needs more processing power to decode than mp3, at least in the implementations used by iRiver.

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #2 –
How many hours of battery life are you seeing with --aps MP3's?

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #3 –
Using LAME codec with mp3's encoded at 160-190kbps I get more life out of the battery.  Somewhere in the 8-10 hour range.  These are VBR files.

I truely hate to go back to mp3 codec since in my mind the ogg files sound much better (at all bitrates).  I'd really hate to go back to CBR too.

Does the fact ogg is VBR add to the reduction is battery life or is it the nature of the beast?

Would one get similar results with AAC or MPC when compared to Ogg Vorbis in portable applications.  In other words do the newer codecs all require more CPU power to decode and thus consume more battery life?

It is safe to assume based on your reply that file size has nothing to do with current draw.  Thus firing up the HD to put these larger files in to the buffer does not cause battery life reduction

Thanks for the reply.
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. Jerry Garcia-Grateful Dead

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #4 –
In a french forum, a french user called Tang performed some battery life tests. He was surprised to see the iHP during more than 17 hours on mp3 CBR 128, and approx. the same battery life for VBR mp3 at ~115 kbps (just a bit less).
But with vorbis encodings (-b 4), battery life was no longer as 12 hours. Testing conditions were the same. Still acceptable, but huge difference: near 50% additionnal battery life for mp3 compared to Vorbis! Maybe new firmwares will improve power consumption of Vorbis playback.
Wavpack Hybrid -c4hx6

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #5 –
I bought this point up a while back; that people screaming out for Vorbis support for portables will end up finding reduced battery life 

Anyway, 6-8 hours?  Thats surely enough for a day, and you can charge it up whilst you're asleep

I dont know about AAC, but MPC isn't at all CPU intensive on decode - less so than MP3, and much less than Vorbis.  I also guess that MP2 and AC3 would be less power hungry.

I go with Guruboolez; seems likely to me that things will improve with firmware updates

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #6 –
AFAIK, AAC is also less resource-intensive than Ogg (I don't know about the relation between AAC & MP3, however).

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #7 –
Quote
AFAIK, AAC is also less resource-intensive than Ogg (I don't know about the relation between AAC & MP3, however).

Elements of answers (but on computer only):

http://s33d.dyndns.org/foospeed/
Wavpack Hybrid -c4hx6

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #8 –
Quote
AFAIK, AAC is also less resource-intensive than Ogg (I don't know about the relation between AAC & MP3, however).

I don't know what is the minimum MIPS required for real time decoding of Vorbis and AAC. But AAC had a head start here because several vendors (FhG, Dolby, etc.) offer highly optimized libraries for several DSP platforms, while Tremor optimizing is still at it's beginning (AFAIK).

One of the real disadvantages of Vorbis is the memory abusage:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=ST&f=9&t=6975&

And, AFAIK, not much can be done about that.

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #9 –
Quote
I don't know what is the minimum MIPS required for real time decoding of Vorbis and AAC. But AAC had a head start here because several vendors (FhG, Dolby, etc.) offer highly optimized libraries for several DSP platforms, while Tremor optimizing is still at it's beginning (AFAIK).

The FhG and Dolby AAC decoders (used in new Winamp for example) are about the same speed as Vorbis. It's just that FAAD2..... 

Of course an AAC decoder specifically optimised for a platform is faster than an AAC (or Vorbis) decoder that is basically compiled ANSI C code.

Menno

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #10 –
Quote
The FhG and Dolby AAC decoders (used in new Winamp for example) are about the same speed as Vorbis. It's just that FAAD2.....

Yes, I was talking about DSP decoders, not PC decoders.

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #11 –
Quote
Anyway, 6-8 hours?  Thats surely enough for a day, and you can charge it up whilst you're asleep

6-8 hours? Pshah! If your player uses standard batteries, get a quick-charger and some quick-charge NiMH batteries, and it'll take less time to recharge your batteries than it takes you to eat your lunch.

Batter life in portable players using Ogg Vorbis

Reply #12 –
please don't talk if you have no knowledge about iRiver players. iHP-1xx has build in polymer Li-ion rechargeable.