XMS-888 - Mpeg4 - Firmware?

[buts]

Hi,
Does anyone know how to put several VCD on one DVD-R, if possible ?
All those VCD's start like normal DVD's with menus etc.
Say, I create few directories and put in each the whole content
of VCD with its directory tree with its own menus etc.
Is it possible to navigate in SMART NAVI to one of those directories
and start from there a particular VCD ? Just not sure how XMS-888
will handle this.

[andw]

Thanks.
I have an avi file that was a quicktime file (NASA Info file on Mars Landers), this was converted using RAD Video Tools, and has no audio on the XMS-888.
Now it has PCM audio, and I haven't tried PCM on the player before, but also, it has the audio at 22khz (mono).
Has anyone else tried PCM audio encoded files, if they worked, what frequency were they encoded at?
Several files that I have that are 22khz have no audio... (44khz seems ok)

[jokiin]

Thanks.
I have an avi file that was a quicktime file (NASA Info file on Mars Landers), this was converted using RAD Video Tools, and has no audio on the XMS-888.
Now it has PCM audio, and I haven't tried PCM on the player before, but also, it has the audio at 22khz (mono).
Has anyone else tried PCM audio encoded files, if they worked, what frequency were they encoded at?
Several files that I have that are 22khz have no audio... (44khz seems ok)
I wonder if perhaps it's the mono that is the issue, or the frequency. It might be worth trying some variety of mono files at differents rates and see what the result is

[andw]

Dual channel (stereo) PCM at 44khz doesn't work, I think it probably just doesn't support PCM.
Dual channel MP3 at 44khz (128kb/s) does work. I'll try 22khz MP3 stereo.

[andw]

Ok, these don't work (all MP3 encoded)
56kb/s 22khz stereo
44kb/s 22khz stereo
32kb/s 22khz mono
All have the equaliser bars jumping around, as though the audio is working, but no sound.
and as reported above, this does work
128kb/s 44khz stereo

[jokiin]

Ok, these don't work (all MP3 encoded)
56kb/s 22khz stereo
44kb/s 22khz stereo
32kb/s 22khz mono
All have the equaliser bars jumping around, as though the audio is working, but no sound.
and as reported above, this does work
128kb/s 44khz stereo

When you get a chance can you upload the samples that you used so I can put them with the others.

Thanks

[bwg]

Ok, these don't work (all MP3 encoded)
56kb/s 22khz stereo
44kb/s 22khz stereo
32kb/s 22khz mono
All have the equaliser bars jumping around, as though the audio is working, but no sound.
and as reported above, this does work
128kb/s 44khz stereo
I think you may have stumbled onto the source of the "no audio" issues here, andw. I have 2 low bitrate mp3 audio avi's (audio encoded ~65 kb/s from memory) which are both mono and 48KHz. So that rules out mono as the prob, and unless the threshold for work / not work is somewhere between 56 and 65 kb/s, I'd say that it points toward the frequency. It would be interesting to do some trials at different frequencies from say 44KHz down.

UPDATE: Just did a quick trial. Used a short 2 min avi segment, divX 5, mp3 audio 64 kb/s, 48KHz mono.
Re-encoded the audio at 2 different frequencies, 24KHz and 16KHz, the resulting bitrates 32kb/s and 20kb/s.
The 48KHz audio played, the other two did not.
Now just need to try an avi with high bitrate but low frequency to isolate which is the cause of the problem. Maybe it is a combination, after all, the two do go hand in hand... :rolleyes:

[jokiin]

Just a reminder that if anyone has sample files that they think may be useful in highlighting the issues I would like to get hold of them. I will be sending samples to China next week for the factory to test with so that they can correctly identify the problems in the firmware. So far a part of the problem in getting the firmware sorted has been that the factory has been unable to duplicate the faults as described, that being the case the next logical thing to do is send them some samples to work with.

If you have something that you think will help with this please contact me either via PM or email as to what needs to be done. Any contributions are appreciated

[FredW]

Thanks.
I have an avi file that was a quicktime file (NASA Info file on Mars Landers), this was converted using RAD Video Tools, and has no audio on the XMS-888.
Now it has PCM audio, and I haven't tried PCM on the player before, but also, it has the audio at 22khz (mono).
Has anyone else tried PCM audio encoded files, if they worked, what frequency were they encoded at?
Several files that I have that are 22khz have no audio... (44khz seems ok)
Hi Andw
Congrats to you jok11n and the many other contributors to this thread. I have followed from the beginning and have found it most informative. I have tried playing a recording sampled at 24 bit 96 khz and have had no luck in playing same through the standard speaker outlet also tried it at 48 khz. Thought it might work after looking at the lpcm setup in the menu. The thing that really surpised me was that a cd sample I.E. 16 bit 44.1 when copied to a dvd actually played.

[V205]

Hiyaz all,

Picked up my brand new clearly fresh / unopened XMS-888 today.

After plugging it at home.. the tray doesn't oppen and doesn't show any indication of movement.. (ie. doesn't even try to open etc... like it's electrically dead but the display is ok).

And I had a look at the manual... some pages are printed upside down.

How cool(un!) is that??

Geeez...

Back to strathie tomorrow... :(

[jokiin]

Hiyaz all,

Picked up my brand new clearly fresh / unopened XMS-888 today.

After plugging it at home.. the tray doesn't oppen and doesn't show any indication of movement.. (ie. doesn't even try to open etc... like it's electrically dead but the display is ok).

And I had a look at the manual... some pages are printed upside down.

How cool(un!) is that??

Geeez...

Back to strathie tomorrow... :(

Sounds as though it must be a dead one, could be any number of reasons. Take it back in you won't have any trouble having it swapped, to put your mind at rest get them to power your new one up in the store and make sure it's all good. The current stock is still the original firmware version, so you may want to look at updating that once you get it home.

[V205]

J: which serial number upwards would have newer firmware?

This one i've got is. 03111263

Sounds as though it must be a dead one, could be any number of reasons. Take it back in you won't have any trouble having it swapped, to put your mind at rest get them to power your new one up in the store and make sure it's all good. The current stock is still the original firmware version, so you may want to look at updating that once you get it home.

[jokiin]

J: which serial number upwards would have newer firmware?

This one i've got is. 03111263

They all have the same firmware, later shipments will have the new firmware before shipping once it is finalised

[andw]

I think you may have stumbled onto the source of the "no audio" issues here,....
I am certainly leaning more towards low frequency as being a problem.
The very first file I actually had a problem with was an mp3 at 128kb/s 22khz mono. (interesting though, the xms-888 identified it (with the 'osd' button) as 224kb/s mono 22khz).
When played it acted as though it was playing, but with no sound (i.e. the timer ticks over, if you bring up the graphic display, the bars jump around just as if it was playing...).
At first I thought it was because it was mono, but as I've tried different things, I have begun to realise that it is more likely the frequency.
This is also the case with .avi's at lower frequencies (as others have reported). Although you get video, there is no audio, but if you bring up the graphic display, the bars jump around as though audio is playing.
When I tried .avi's encoded with PCM (both at 22khz and 44khz), there was no audio, but also no bars bouncing around on the graphic display. (which leaves me thinking that it just does not even try to play PCM audio).
I have no ogg encoded audio, but I seem to remember others reporting no movement on the graphic display for these either (correct me if I'm wrong).

Please can everyone who has sample files send them to jok11n ASAP, as the faster he can get a wide variety of files up to the manufacturer, the faster we will get a fix.

Also, I still want zoom fixed for widescreen TV, and I really would like subtitle support. (plus all the other bugs fixed as listed on the website).

[V205]

When I had a play with the shop model, i found the 2x zoom alone is not enough. It definitely needs a multi step zoom such as toshiba's 4 step zoom and the bigest being 2x.



Please can everyone who has sample files send them to jok11n ASAP, as the faster he can get a wide variety of files up to the manufacturer, the faster we will get a fix.

Also, I still want zoom fixed for widescreen TV, and I really would like subtitle support. (plus all the other bugs fixed as listed on the website).

[davidf]

As far as the audio issue is concerned you have to remember that the bitrate has to be treated as mono to understand the actual bitrate. ie. 64k stereo is the same as 128k mono. People tend to forget that the audio stream is sequential and that the amount of data per sec is what is important not the frequency/samplerate etc. I still beleive that the issue of audio not playing or audio out of sync is a far deeper problem than the specification of the audio displaying the problem.

So when audio is not working correctly you have these things to consider, video bitrate, frames/sec, audio bitrate, audio sample frequency, audio frame type(cbr/vbr) and overall datastream bitrate(audio/video together).

Yes most issues seem to be low bitrate issues but has anyone ever noticed that low bitrate audio also seems to be 'loud'. Maybe its a normalisation issue maybe its not an audio issue at all.

I think that there is always going to be a problem with mpeg4 files that drift away from 'acceptable' conformity. Honestly I don't give a rats about pathetically low bitrate audio and would prefer anything under 128k-stereo to be ignored and development efforts put into things like display management(OSD, zoom, seek etc)greater playability and functionality relating to the video itself far outways concern over radio quality sound.

The XMS-888 is a home theatre unit not a radio so please let its firmware move in that direction and not stifled by constant bickering over how much enjoyment people get out of listening to sound samples that wouldn't do a telephone handset justice.

[jokiin]

As far as the audio issue is concerned you have to remember that the bitrate has to be treated as mono to understand the actual bitrate. ie. 64k stereo is the same as 128k mono. People tend to forget that the audio stream is sequential and that the amount of data per sec is what is important not the frequency/samplerate etc. I still beleive that the issue of audio not playing or audio out of sync is a far deeper problem than the specification of the audio displaying the problem.

So when audio is not working correctly you have these things to consider, video bitrate, frames/sec, audio bitrate, audio sample frequency, audio frame type(cbr/vbr) and overall datastream bitrate(audio/video together).

Yes most issues seem to be low bitrate issues but has anyone ever noticed that low bitrate audio also seems to be 'loud'. Maybe its a normalisation issue maybe its not an audio issue at all.

I think that there is always going to be a problem with mpeg4 files that drift away from 'acceptable' conformity. Honestly I don't give a rats about pathetically low bitrate audio and would prefer anything under 128k-stereo to be ignored and development efforts put into things like display management(OSD, zoom, seek etc)greater playability and functionality relating to the video itself far outways concern over radio quality sound.

The XMS-888 is a home theatre unit not a radio so please let its firmware move in that direction and not stifled by constant bickering over how much enjoyment people get out of listening to sound samples that wouldn't do a telephone handset justice.

Agreed, I would prefer quality over quantity every time. It was pointed out that a lot of these low bitrate audio files are rips of tv shows, I don't why they are like this, but apparently it's common. The point is if it's possible for the player to accomodate these lower quality files without having to give anything up to do it, then why not. You know how it is, you don't ask, you don't get. The main thing is get me the samples and all pass them on to see if they can be accomodated.

(seperate issue)
So far a lot of people have given feedback as to what causes problems but so far andw is the only one to provide samples (along with detailed info to go with it) There are plenty of ways to get samples to me, email, ftp, provide a link and I'll download it myself, but at least get it to me so I can pass it on. This is to benefit everyone that owns one of these players, not me. When I started on this project I didn't even have any avi's, I had to go and download some to try it out, obviously this means I don't have a huge collection and not a lot of variety of audio, video format combinations, however some of you have a wide variety of formats and if you have something that you know the player has trouble with a sample will go a long way to getting it resolved. Even if you can edit out a small sample would be enough. I want to get this next firmware done as soon as possible.

Thanks

[SDI1000]

Official firmware updates for the XMS888 can be obtained at ftp://ftp.jokiin.com - it fixes the inability to turn off the timer when playing DIVX movies.

[[w00t]]

when will the 1.2 firmware be out anyone know

[V205]

Just got my XMS-888 replaced with a serial number that's 1 lower than my faulty one. This one is ok out of the box. Gonna flash it now and give it a whirl.

Cheers all.