Tivo Functionality for the Tuner

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?

I don't think the tuner signal goes close to the processor at all (or is it the aux?). This means you cant sample/record from the tuner.

Murray 06000047
Just increasing my post count

I don't think the tuner signal goes close to the processor at all (or is it the aux?). This means you cant sample/record from the tuner.


Currently, yes, I believe that is correct, but according to a couple of posts, the hardware is there to at least SAMPLE the input for the visuals (not in 2.0), but isn't currently enabled. So I don't think that it's a question of can't... just aren't.

Besides, it's a linux box at it's heart, so worst case, you could still do some magic with the streams on an OS level.

This is functionality that I would desperately love to see. I would be willing to compromise other aspects of empeg functionality (eq, 2 instead of 4 channels out, or even visuals) to have this. Since I've gotten used to the jump back/skip forward of the PVR I get frustrated not having this _obvious_ functionality on every thing I own.

Even if there were a hardware hack required to achieve this, I'd be willing to start cutting & soldering---neh (tim shudders) even crack some code...

I've mentioned this to Hugo before and there was a price to pay for doing this...but what was it....?!? I just don't remember now.

Now it is time to search for other threads on this topic. I think it's been discussed before.
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Here is the main threads I found out there. And here was hope given.

Now what I remember about why we couldn't do this: when the system is playing back recorded information, there would be a problem in continuing to record during that playback. --though for this type of "jump back" ability it would be an acceptable sacrifice.
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Let's get some enthusiasm for this much needed functionality!

Best regards,
Tim

Edited by time on 02/09/01 07:49 AM.

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? (snip) 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...

You're talking about compressing it in real time, though, while also doing whatever else needs to be done to play the buffer from memory (for consistency, you have to be playing the compressed version through the speakers, otherwise you'll have differences in sound quality between "rewound" sound and normal sound, and switching between them will be bizarre). While it would certainly compress well, I don't know that it's doable to compress it in real time - and I'd assume that the uncompressed signal, which has to be stored somewhere if it's not being compressed in real time, isn't small.

Heck, if a tivo with it's underpowered arm can do it with video, surely the empeg could hit audio?

TiVo uses a PowerPC - the original TiVo's speed is 54MHz, and the DirecTV/TiVo combo unit's speed is faster (something like 85MHz). But TiVo also has dedicated MPEG encoding/decoding hardware, which the Empeg (by design) does not. Essentially the only things the processor on a TiVo does are deal with program guide information and maintain the user interface.

I don't think this type of thing is really feasible with the current Empeg hardware. Though of course, I'd love to be proven wrong - this type of functionality would be excellent.

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Daniel M. Zimmerman, Caltech Computer Science
Mk.2 #060000058, 36GB
Mk.1 #00101, 10GB

Here is the main threads I found out there

Ahh, the last post I made after ordering my Mark 1, then forgetting about it for 2 months. Then one day I realised I had a few hundred extra dollars, and no empeg. (Who knows what I was thinking, going not only a few days, but 2 months without even a stray thought about the empeg )

The problem is, the FM stereo comes into the box as one signal - an FM multiplex. This gets expanded into Left & Right inside the DSP.

It's not possible to sample via the DSP - it's a car audio part and not designed to feed a CPU with data. The connection to the main CPU is just an I2C slow serial connection for control.

So, the Mk2 added a sampler on the main CPUs bus. The input of the sampler can be selected from 3 places:

1 - Microphone (for VR)
2 - AUX inputs
3 - Home outputs (this is for sampling the output and doing visuals, eg for the radio)

Problem is, the only way you can record the radio is by playing it.

In theory, you could grab the multiplex and with an external loom, feed it into the aux in - you'd only get mono, unless you used an external FM demultiplexer. Someone could make an external demod box which hooked into the tuner harness and aux inputs and this would then enable the hardware for full tivo-style operation (eg, listen behind, etc).

Hugo

hopes dashed by Hugo....



Oh well... If it was a possibility, it would have been cool... as it is, I do like that Pause mutes the output....

As always, thanks for the inside scoup.

A pity still, a good use for it would have been to record traffic reports so that as soon as you get into the car you can play a lowdown on where the traffic jams are and such. Blaupunkt has a headset (or two) that do that.

cheers,
Hans


Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431