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Topic: TAK 1.0 - Beta testing (Read 104052 times) previous topic - next topic
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TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #75
I've just downloaded Beta 2.

I've read the readme, but just wanted to clarify:  I assume that there is no point in running my timed comparison on this version?  I.e.: we are looking for bugs only.
I'm on a horse.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #76
V1.0 Beta 2 / 7-01-11

Fixed:

- If the last 1 to 3 bytes of a (damaged) file had been cut off, the automatic repair function of the decoder crashed.
- The seek table structure contained a small error. Files created with Beta 1 can still be decoded without any problems, but later media player plugins will not be able to perform (fast) seeking on files created with Beta 1.

Improved:

- If one file was undecodable, Tak shows the hint "Try disabling 'Restore wave file meta data' (-wm0)."
- The state of the Verify-option is beeing preserved when changing presets in the GUI version.
- Now i know that i have to write "already exists" instead of "allready exists"...

Download...

...from the Upload section: TAK 1.0 Beta 2

What should be tested?

Please try it and report any bugs you encounter.

I am confident, that this version is quite bug free and stable. If i am right, we will see the final release in 1 or 2 weeks.

Again, thanks for testing!


Could one of the Mod's please remove the beta 1 post from the Upload section?





I've just downloaded Beta 2.

I've read the readme, but just wanted to clarify:  I assume that there is no point in running my timed comparison on this version?  I.e.: we are looking for bugs only.

You are right. There were only bug fixes.

  Thomas

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #77

I've just downloaded Beta 2.

I've read the readme, but just wanted to clarify:  I assume that there is no point in running my timed comparison on this version?  I.e.: we are looking for bugs only.

You are right. There were only bug fixes.

  Thomas

how far are we from a TAK DLL to use in winamp, foobar2000 to playback files?


TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #79
OK, took me a while to dig out the username pw for this site as i'm usually just a lurker...

First of all i'd like to thank you for the sterling work your doing here. I can easily see tak becoming my new lossless codec of choice upon final release.

Seconding, and the main reason for the post, I thought I should post a bug in the command line program I just found....


Starting from the point of a single tak encoded file in a directory with no other tak or wav files.
If you issue the command:

================
Takc -d *
================

you get the following output:

================
01_Tubthumping.tak                  .......... Already exists

1 files already existed.
================

Which is obviously incorrect. (Note the wildcard command works fine if there is more than 1 file)

Of itself this is but a bug that is an annoyance, however when issuing the following command:


================
Takc -d -overwrite *
================

You get the same text output as above but the tak file is deleted which is most definately not what should happen....

Hope this will be of help.

{lurker mode engaged}

io

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #80
First of all i'd like to thank you for the sterling work your doing here. I can easily see tak becoming my new lossless codec of choice upon final release.

Fine!

Starting from the point of a single tak encoded file in a directory with no other tak or wav files.
If you issue the command:

================
Takc -d *
================

you get the following output:

================
01_Tubthumping.tak                  .......... Already exists

1 files already existed.
================

Too bad...

Of itself this is but a bug that is an annoyance, however when issuing the following command:


================
Takc -d -overwrite *
================

You get the same text output as above but the tak file is deleted which is most definately not what should happen....

Fatal!

I could reproduce the bug and it is fixed now.

You are right, this bug will only show up if decoding with wildcards and if the source directory contains only one matching file. Sorry.

When writing the file decompression management functions i used some code of the compressor as template for the decompressor, but unfortunately forgot to replace a destination file extension constant '.tak' with '.wav'...

Thank you very much!

  Thomas

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #81
The compression of TAK is outstanding

Here is a list of full albums i encoded with all the presets of TAK and FLAC which roughly equals around 16gig s in wave files
Code: [Select]
 A - Hi-Fi Serious
 Bad Religion - Tested
 Ben Folds - Ben Folds Live
 Bic Runga - Birds
 Billy Talent - II
 Bob Mould - Bob Mould
 Breaking Benjamin - We Are Not Alone
 Cake - Comfort Eagle
 Chicago - Heart Of Chicago 1967 - 1997
 Counting Crows - August And Everything After
 Dave Dobbyn - The Islander
 Elliott Smith - XO
 Eminem - The Eminem Show
 Evanescence - Fallen
 Faith No More - Angel Dust
 Fatboy Slim - You've Come A Long Way, Baby
 Finger Eleven - Finger Eleven
 Foo Fighters - There Is Nothing Left To Lose
 Fun Lovin' Criminals - Come Find Yourself
 Gary Moore - Still Got The Blues
 Green Day - American Idiot
 Groove Armada - Lovebox
 Hoobastank - The Reason
 Husker Du - The Living End
 Iron Maiden - Rock In Rio Disc 1
 Jeff Wayne - The War Of The Worlds Disc 1
 Joe Satriani - The Extremist
 John Lennon - Imagine
 Lagwagon - Let's Talk About Feelings
 Linkin Park - Meteora
 Living Colour - Time's Up

And here are the overall results


So the Hard drive space savings is
Who are you and how did you get in here ?
I'm a locksmith, I'm a locksmith.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #82
how far are we from a TAK DLL to use in winamp, foobar2000 to playback files?

I just started the work on a WinAmp playback plugin. But it will definitely not be part of V1.0 final.

A foobar plugin will have to wait until i have translated at least some high level functions of my code from delphi to C. Or alternatively until i have built a codec library (DLL), which other developers can use to build plugins.

The compression of TAK is outstanding

Here is a list of full albums i encoded with all the presets of TAK and FLAC which roughly equals around 16gig s in wave files
...
And here are the overall results
...

Thank you! It's also a great presentation!

Off topic: Nice to see this oldie: "Jeff Wayne - The War Of The Worlds Disc 1". I really liked it (i have always been a big fan of H.G. Well's story.).

  Thomas

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #83

how far are we from a TAK DLL to use in winamp, foobar2000 to playback files?

I just started the work on a WinAmp playback plugin. But it will definitely not be part of V1.0 final.

Well, not much sleep last night... But finally i was able to play Tak files with WinAmp! And as expected, it needs very very little cpu time.

But the plugin is only a quick and dirty approach to see, how easily it can be done with Delphi.

Because i currently have to spend more time on other things, it may take 4 to 6 weeks, until the plugin will be released.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #84
So long time, I can't wait to be able to use tak for my music  Though I need a fb2k plug-in
I just like listening to music

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #85
Well, not much sleep last night... But finally i was able to play Tak files with WinAmp! And as expected, it needs very very little cpu time.

Now the plugin can seek. On my Pentium 3 / 866 Mhz i can hardly notice any delay, even with the strongest compression settings!

I am quite happy, because fast seeking was always very important for me. I expected it to be fast, but you will not really know before you tried it.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #86
Is there a chance to see TAK ever going open source?


TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #88
I just started the work on a WinAmp playback plugin. But it will definitely not be part of V1.0 final.

A foobar plugin will have to wait until i have translated at least some high level functions of my code from delphi to C. Or alternatively until i have built a codec library (DLL), which other developers can use to build plugins.
Since you seem to know Delphi better than C, I guess it would be easier for you to build a DLL first (also faster and less error-prone probably). If you use that DLL in your Winamp plugin, you can get some first-hand experience how hard (or easy) it is to use.

Anyway, if you want any help to create a foobar2000 component or a decoder DLL that can be used (also) in a foobar2000 component, just ask.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #89
Everything is working nice in this beta, great job! 

I wonder if you are considering writing a Rockbox plugin for sometime in the future, because I am sure that a lot of people would appreciate it, considering that it is the ideal portable lossless codec.

Keep it up,
audiofreak

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #90
Everything is working nice in this beta, great job! 

Thank you!
I wonder if you are considering writing a Rockbox plugin for sometime in the future, because I am sure that a lot of people would appreciate it, considering that it is the ideal portable lossless codec.

There is very much i would like to do with TAK and hardware support is very interesting. But unfortunately my time is limited. Therefore no promises...

Coming out with a new lossless codec now isn't easy. The allready existing codecs have been developed over years. Very much work if you want to have comparable feature sets. And TAK's development history is different from most other codecs: First came the exhaustive evaluation of possible speed and compression efficiency optimizations and then the work on usability features.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #91
I just downloaded Beta2...and all I can say is awesome!!!!! 

Here are my first results using my old AMD 1.3ghz Thunderbird system: 


Code: [Select]
Marvin Hamlisch - The Spy Who Loved Me - 03 - Ride To Atlantis

Flac -8            45.7% Compression   41 Seconds  16.2mb
Tak Extra (p4)     42.85% Compression  23 Seconds  15.2mb



I am simply blown away!!  Thanks for the great work!!

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #92
I just started the work on a WinAmp playback plugin. But it will definitely not be part of V1.0 final.

A foobar plugin will have to wait until i have translated at least some high level functions of my code from delphi to C. Or alternatively until i have built a codec library (DLL), which other developers can use to build plugins.
Since you seem to know Delphi better than C, I guess it would be easier for you to build a DLL first (also faster and less error-prone probably). If you use that DLL in your Winamp plugin, you can get some first-hand experience how hard (or easy) it is to use.

I agree, a library is on the top of my to do list.

Anyway, if you want any help to create a foobar2000 component or a decoder DLL that can be used (also) in a foobar2000 component, just ask.

That's a great offer! Thank you.

For now i have only one question: Is the interface of the WavPack library a good example for how to do it (especially if you want to use it for foobar)? I like it and probably would build something similar.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #93
I have never worked with the WavPack library, so I cannot judge that. About four years ago when I was writing a Shorten plugin for foobar2000 with a friend, the Monkey's Audio SDK was recommend to us as a good example for a library interface. We had decided to build our own Shorten decoding library as basis for this plugin, instead of going the usual way of twisting the Shorten command line decoder into an audio player plugin. (Everyone else seemed to have done that back then; at least everyone that had released source code. It was quite ugly.) So we modelled the interface of that library after the decoder part of the Monkey's audio library, and we haven't regretted that decision since.

While the Monkey's Audio SDK is written in C++, the key points still apply:
  • Multiple decoder instances: Necessary to support - for example - ReplayGain scanning during playback. Keep in mind that different instances might be used in different threads, so avoid global variables.
  • File abstraction layer: If your library can directly open input files, that's a nice bonus for simple applications. For more advanced applications, working with a stream callback supplied by the user of the library is essential.

Hm, I thought that list would get longer. It probably would, if I added more details, but I'll refrain from that for now. As you might have noticed, my perspective is that of a foobar2000 component author, which means I only really care about the decoding interface. I hope it still provides some useful clues.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #94
Last chance to report bugs in Beta 2

I want to release Tak 1.0 final soon. Please tell me, if you have found any bugs in beta 2 not contained in the list below:

Fixed:

- Decoding with the command line version: If you specified wildcards for the file selection and the source directory contained only 1 Tak file, the decoder always threw the message 'File already exists'. Even worse: Using the owerwrite option in this situation led to deletion of the compressed source file!

- Usually the decoder ignores any data appended to the file end of the compressed file (for instance APEv2 tags). But it failed, if the file size was an integer multiple of the frame size (in samples).

Both bugs affected only the decoder, therefore no need to reencode Tak files created with beta 2.

Thomas

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #95
I didn't found any new bugs so far. The "cut last byte" error was corrected.

But you didn't corrected the minor problems in the Tak_Enco_Proto: translation of the "nein" and "ja" to english, and erase the "SSE" report.

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #96
But you didn't corrected the minor problems in the Tak_Enco_Proto: translation of the "nein" and "ja" to english, and erase the "SSE" report.

Guilty. I forgot the translations... The german words are included in one of my general purpose modules, which i did not want to touch, but instead replace with some new, more portable code. Not done yet...

I kept the SSE option, because i possibly will try some more SSE optimizations in the future.

Thank you!

  Thomas

 

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #97
Does it support pipes or will I have to use "%s %d" in fb2k?

TAK 1.0 - Beta testing

Reply #98
No pipe support as yet, but planned.  Check the "Missing features" section of the readme.
I'm on a horse.