Posted by: synergy
Tivo Functionality for the Tuner - 01/09/2001 16:10
Ok.... I took a road trip to the parents for the labor day weekend, and was thinking, as I scanned with the newly installed Tuner....
We NEED Tivo functionality for the radio. And (as I'm not a programmer for EMPEG, feel free to slap my ideas across a landmine if need be), I don't think that it would be overly difficult. Consider that most of the memory being used for buffering mp3's is NOT being used when in tuner mode, how difficult would it be to buffer the radio signal when you hit pause? (I do like that it mutes now... nice touch). Radio isn't known for high fidelity, so you could apply a pretty mean compression ratio to the signal, and buffer several minutes of radio in RAM alone... No need to spin up the drives, just a nice 3-5 minute buffer so you don't miss a song or news broadcast you were listening to before ordering fast food....
OF course, the better functionality would allow you to also skip the commercials via a fast forward through the buffer...
I don't know how much the CPU is being used when in tuner mode, but on the surface, it doesn't seem like it would be a really HUGE problem (not 2.0, please... Let's just get that one out there).
Heck, if a tivo with it's underpowered arm can do it with video, surely the empeg could hit audio?
Anyone else think this would be a good idea?
We NEED Tivo functionality for the radio. And (as I'm not a programmer for EMPEG, feel free to slap my ideas across a landmine if need be), I don't think that it would be overly difficult. Consider that most of the memory being used for buffering mp3's is NOT being used when in tuner mode, how difficult would it be to buffer the radio signal when you hit pause? (I do like that it mutes now... nice touch). Radio isn't known for high fidelity, so you could apply a pretty mean compression ratio to the signal, and buffer several minutes of radio in RAM alone... No need to spin up the drives, just a nice 3-5 minute buffer so you don't miss a song or news broadcast you were listening to before ordering fast food....
OF course, the better functionality would allow you to also skip the commercials via a fast forward through the buffer...
![](/images/icons/smile.gif)
I don't know how much the CPU is being used when in tuner mode, but on the surface, it doesn't seem like it would be a really HUGE problem (not 2.0, please... Let's just get that one out there).
Heck, if a tivo with it's underpowered arm can do it with video, surely the empeg could hit audio?
Anyone else think this would be a good idea?