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Topic: PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3 (Read 3907 times) previous topic - next topic
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PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

I just finished an informal testing of battery life playing two versions of the same song under identical conditions, one encoded with ogg -q5 and the other lame -aps under constant repeat

Both ran about 5 hours 10 minutes. So at least on pocketpc, there is no difference in running time.

This was with Pocket Player.

H

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #1 –
That is both good news and a bit odd at the same time.  I own a iRiver ihp-120 HD player and when playing back ogg vorbis files encoded at q8 my battery life is about 40% less than mp3 files.

Still I get 8-10 hours out of the player and the playback quality is far better than mp3...I guess this is the price I have to pay for better quality.

Do you think that iRiver and your Pocket Player use the same decode method?

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

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #2 –
q8?  Those are probably pretty big files.  what happens at q 5 or 6 as compared to mp3 at  alt preset standard?

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #3 –
Quote
Do you think that iRiver and your Pocket Player use the same decode method?

I would believe iRiver uses highly optimized DSP code provided by FhG for MP3 decoding, and unoptimized Tremor for Vorbis decoding.
(The FhG DSP decoders require very few resources
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/techinf/a..._dsp/index.html )

Pocket Player, OTOH, is probably using some integer unoptimized MP3 decoder.

Testing MAD would be interesting (I think it's relatively optimized), but unfortunately it's only available in command line or as Winamp plugin.

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #4 –
This somewhat makes sense. The MP3 optimizations available on standalone players might not exist on the PocketPC. I don't have any further information to speculate though.

Incidentally, lest anyone considers 5 hours to be too short, my PocketPC has a relatively puny battery - models with heftier batteries should be able to get ~7 hours of playtime. I've also tested at full volume output, and more realistic levels will also slightly increase the battery life.

H

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #5 –
I heard somewhere that MP3 decoding was done i hardware on iRiver players??? Or maybe "assisted" by hardware. Is this wrong? Would explain everything though...

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #6 –
Quote
I heard somewhere that MP3 decoding was done i hardware on iRiver players??? Or maybe "assisted" by hardware. Is this wrong? Would explain everything though...

I'm not sure what you mean, but on most portable players all decoding is done through a DSP (Cirrus Logic, Micronas, Texas Instruments...)

So, yes, decoding is done on hardware. But at your home PC decoding is also done on hardware (CPU) - but not specific hardware, like is the case with players.

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #7 –
No, I meant that the decoding could be done in an ASIC or some other "fixed" hardware implementation, i.e without any software at all. This is usually cheaper than using a DSP.

But I really don't have any good info about what the iRivers really use, it was just something I picked up somewhere.

EDIT: OK, looked into it a little bit further, and not surprisingly... I am wrong... The iRivers most probably use a DSP to decode. Sorry for being somewhat misinformative and speculative...

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #8 –
The Imp serie from IRiver is using some Cirrus Logic ARMs, so the decoder can be considered to be a software decoder (although highly optimized for the target processor)
 

PocketPC Battery life test: Vorbis vs MP3

Reply #9 –
Quote
The Imp serie from IRiver is using some Cirrus Logic ARMs, so the decoder can be considered to be a software decoder (although highly optimized for the target processor)

the iHp series are using a motorola chip...
Actually the iMP taht support OGG is only the iMP550 and his chip is a Philips one...
regards,
Tang