60 fps video using SIDE 2

[phaeron]

10 hours ago, jhusak said:

@phaeron, I re-ask: why there is a need 8KB of empty/pad bytes on the beginning of the movie? I see different start sector settings in sources. Is it the artifact form testing on the free part of CF card?

This is just to try to clear the beginning of the partition so that filesystem drivers don't blow up trying to interpret movie data as a volume header. It isn't necessary for playback.

 

10 hours ago, jhusak said:

The second question: how long in minimum you must wait for another sectors after read 17 sectors command on SIDE/II? Those 4ms mentioned in sources, shorter, or the longer the better? I have not ehough cards to test it thoroughly...

 

On AVGCart there is no need to wait and you can divide sectors even in the center of the DMA line, and it works. However, no seek (for now, which is possible in SIDE/II) and all the data must be read sequentially, there is no way to "toss" the bytes at the end by invoking new read.

Sure, but AVGCart is also emulating the ATA/CompactFlash interface on top of an SD card.

 

SIDE/II has no requirements or guarantees for this since it is simply passing through access to the CompactFlash registers, so it is entirely up to the CF card. There aren't really guarantees for CF read latency, just ratings for maximum transfer speed. So realistically, the answer here is simply "as much as possible for best compatibility".

 

[jhusak]

Thanks for clarification.

 

But I personally think there is no need to keep 8kB of emptyness in the file. Zeros overwrite bootblock and the benefit is _maybe_ a little simplier to handle for non-technical people. We may have empty unformated partition at the front of card space and we know (logic...), that we must rawwrite from 8.5 kb instead from 8kb. If the movie has no pad bytes, or pad byte area would be equal length to fullframe (8.5 kB) that would be easier to cat files together, handle them etc. But I suppose it is to late to handle this now.

 

NEW VERSION ALERT.

There is a new version with Fast Forward and Wind Back  on the github project repository (https://github.com/jhusak/side-sideII-avfplay)

Edited March 9, 2022 by jhusak

[Beeblebrox]

3 minutes ago, jhusak said:

Thanks for clarification.

 

NEW VERSION ALERT.

There is a new version with Fast Forward and Wind Back  on the github project repository (https://github.com/jhusak/side-sideII-avfplay)

@jhusak  Cool - great function - is there one planned for the Incognito too?

[jhusak]

It is done  Look into repository in bin catalog. From previous version the changes go to both binaries (one source, but two binaries :). Next is to unify them to one binary.

 

"Sure, but AVGCart is also emulating the ATA/CompactFlash interface on top of an SD card."

Have you had some doc how it works (emulation)?

Edited March 9, 2022 by jhusak

[Beeblebrox]

2 minutes ago, jhusak said:

It is done  Look into repository in bin catalog. From previous version the changes go to both binaries (one source, but two binaries :). Next is to unify them to one binary.

Wow- cool - thanks so much. I really love the facility to pause and fast forward/rewind on the SIDE3 PDM music player so this will be cool. Do you reckon a pause function is going to be included at some stage in your tweaked video players?

[jhusak]

Pause function. Good point. I forgot  But it is too late  Good night

Edited March 9, 2022 by jhusak

[_The Doctor__]

is there a player tailored to the AVG? or does sIDE1/2 cover that now, as incog has it's own player due to address need changed. Pause is good idea for certain.

Edited March 9, 2022 by _The Doctor__

[jhusak]

1 minute ago, _The Doctor__ said:

is there a player tailored to the AVG? or does sIDE1/2 cover that now, as incog has it's own player due to address need changed. Pause is good idea for certain.

For now I am not sure the AVGCart can handle FF,CUE,PAUSE.

[+Stephen]

Tried the latest in my AVG cart.  The machine is my 576NUC+, running NTSC.  The issue here exists with both the original player and the new one.  I cannot play it through my stereo system for the reason you'll see below (my dog hates it too ).  I believe this is unavoidable using the PCM playback due to carrier wave frequency right?  I can still hear past 18kHz and most of my speakers will play past 22k.

[Peri Noid]

A handy (I think) hint for Side/Side2/Incognito users:

1. You take a CF card (the one that works with your device and causes no problems with streaming).
2. Using standard DOS partition table, create 2 partitions on it:
   1. The first one of any type (I made it ext2) and you don't have to format it. It must begin at least at 16th sector of the card and actually must start at sectors numbered 16+k*17. In my case I selected 33 (16 was too low). Make it large so that it covers almost the whole card. Leave just few MB at the end. You don't have to format it nor do anything else with it.
   2. The second just after the first one, to the end of the card. Make it FAT-16 compatible and format it with FAT format.
      Here is how it looks in my case:

      Disk /dev/sdb: 971.58 MiB, 1018773504 bytes, 1989792 sectors
      Disk model: Multi-Reader  -0
      Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
      Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
      I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
      Disklabel type: dos
      Disk identifier: 0x16d58148
      
      Device     Boot   Start     End Sectors   Size Id Type
      /dev/sdb1            33 1969999 1969967 961.9M 83 Linux
      /dev/sdb2       1970000 1989791   19792   9.7M  6 FAT16

       

3. Copy MOVPLAY.XEX (or Incognito version, when needed, or both) to the second partition. It should be easily available under any operating system - it works in Linux which I use.
4. Then you have to copy the movies to be watched, one after another (as one stream), to the first partition (raw data). You have to strip 8KB from the beginning of each of them. In order to do it easily, I wrote a simple shell script that goes like this:

   #!/bin/sh
   
   if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
           for f in *; do
                   dd if="$f" bs=1k skip=8
           done
           sync
   fi
   

   It's very simple - all it does is that it takes the files given as its parameters and copies them one after another to STDOUT, stripping the first 8KB from each. Then you can use it like this:

   $ ./save.sh clip1.avf clip2.avf clip3.avf > /dev/sdb1

   assuming, that /dev/sdb1 is the first partition on your CF card. I bet it should be pretty easy to write a frontend for this step for any OS - I'm not a GUI guy, CLI tools are more than perfect

5. Then you take the card, put it in your Side/Side2/Incognito and boot your machine with the reader set in Loader mode. The loader should show you the FAT partition with player on it. When selected and loaded, it should play the movies from the card one after another, without any problems nor jitters.

6. Whenever you want to update the player - you cust load a new file on the FAT partition. When you want to change the clips stream, you repeat step 4. I know, it's not that handy as with AVG where you can select individual files - but on the other hand, all the films are played one after another.

Works for me. The only problem may be the card itself - the one I have works with Side2 but not with Side1.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Peri Noid

[jhusak]

8 hours ago, Stephen said:

Tried the latest in my AVG cart.  The machine is my 576NUC+, running NTSC.  The issue here exists with both the original player and the new one.  I cannot play it through my stereo system for the reason you'll see below (my dog hates it too ).  I believe this is unavoidable using the PCM playback due to carrier wave frequency right?  I can still hear past 18kHz and most of my speakers will play past 22k.

Right. But things change when covox used (which is not supported yet). The PWM carrier is 15700, so if you can still hear it, you are lucky  Sophisticated stereo systems do have supersonic filters, with steep cut-out, this helps me a lot.

 

About cards - I have least problems with SanDisk cards. In fact no problems at all.

Edited March 10, 2022 by jhusak

[jhusak]

Pause is not so trivial if you want to do it well (ie not read the same part of card all the time). @tmp wrote: "too many readings from the cart may lead to make it locked (read only)". I do not know CF cards act this way (all/some/none)?.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by jhusak

[jhusak]

NEW VERSION ALERT!

 

In this version added:

- pause (but it reads again and again the same 17 sectors, so beware! it _may_ corrupt cards! Do not leave on pause! (will be changed in the future to more safe version)

- Volume Up/Down!

 

As usual, on github: https://github.com/jhusak/side-sideII-avfplay

[Beeblebrox]

@jhusak  Great - tested the Incognito version this morning. Fantastic to be able to use these extra controls (especially volume and FF/RW). Nicely done. 

 

Edited March 12, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[jhusak]

It's been a longer time, but I am a little overburned

 

But here it is - A NEW VERSION, close to FINAL.

 

The Pause function is SAFE now. The drawback is that there is a short blackout when changing pause state.

 

And - THERE IS NO "BEEP" at the beginning of the playing movie!

 

That is a thing that something may be broken, so please raise any problems.

As usual, on github: https://github.com/jhusak/side-sideII-avfplay

Edited March 23, 2022 by jhusak

[jhusak]

Update:

Bumped date in binaries to 24.03.2022

[Peri Noid]

Works fine. Thanks!

[Peri Noid]

I couldn't resist

 

[jhusak]

55 minutes ago, Peri Noid said:

I couldn't resist

 

Ale swiszcze, na pewno dobry player? But it whistles, sure that the player is good?

Edited April 4, 2022 by jhusak

[Peri Noid]

1 minute ago, jhusak said:

Ale piszczy, na pewno dobry player?

It's the original one for AVG. Yours are for Side2/Incognito, if I'm right.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Peri Noid

[jhusak]

21 minutes ago, Peri Noid said:

It's the original one for AVG. Yours are for Side2/Incognito, if I'm right.

I am afraid you're not...

Post #309, download player and repeat recording Monkey Island Trailer please 

Edited April 4, 2022 by jhusak

[Peri Noid]

Later, in the evening :-)

[jhusak]

On 4/5/2022 at 10:13 AM, Peri Noid said:

Later, in the evening ?

The second evening passes by...

[Peri Noid]

46 minutes ago, jhusak said:

The second evening passes by...

My grabber went mad. I doesn't want to cooperate. I have to leave it as is for now.

[a8isa1]

Is there a version of AVFPLAY with the new features?