Decent J2ME media player?
- Thread starter MuFu
- Start date
A few questions:
Do you really expect your phone to make a good Mp3/AAC/WMA player?
Do you want it to?
What would make it a good and/or bad one?
Do you really expect your phone to make a good Mp3/AAC/WMA player?
Do you want it to?
What would make it a good and/or bad one?
RussSchultz said:
Still not speaking on behalf of Sigmatel?
Nope. It's adequate though - good enough for me to decide to save carrying one less gizmo in my pocket between lectures etc. I've modded the supplied stereo headset/mic lead and it's nice being able to use any headphones I want now, or plug it straight into the car stereo for passable in-car MP3 and hands-free telephony.
I wish it was better, hence this thread. The actual sound quality isn't bad at all (better than a couple of cheapo MP3 players I've heard; especially detail-wise) but the bundled app sucks.
Well for me audio quality would be of primary importance (the convenience of having it integrated into a phone, aside), but only in that it be of an acceptable standard - then I'll happily use it in the car or when walking/jogging. All the functionality of the best dedicated MP3 players would be great, but is a secondary consideration. The ideals are of course very similar to those desired from an in-phone camera in comparison to a dedicated device (although involve far more reasonable hardware requirements!). It's not as if the software back-end isn't largely in place already.
Been using it in bed with a pair of Senn HD600s (and yes, it does sound awful). Sacrilege!
I'm not in marketting, so I'm not speaking for sigmatel, but I personally am not sure if MP3+cellphone is match made in heaven or not.
One of the frequently stated concerns about our business is it could get gobbled up by cellphones. I guess I'm just not sure I agree and was trying to get a disinterested party's opinion.
I think tiny flash players will be around for jogging/etc.
Jukebox's around for storage.
And...things in the middle. So far the cell phone that plays MP3 solutions have sucked pretty bad. Samsung Riot (I think), Nokia 3300 (which I have--bleh!).
Plus, I'm not sure I want my cell phone tied to my mp3 player, just like I don't want my MB tied to my video card.
One of the frequently stated concerns about our business is it could get gobbled up by cellphones. I guess I'm just not sure I agree and was trying to get a disinterested party's opinion.
I think tiny flash players will be around for jogging/etc.
Jukebox's around for storage.
And...things in the middle. So far the cell phone that plays MP3 solutions have sucked pretty bad. Samsung Riot (I think), Nokia 3300 (which I have--bleh!).
Plus, I'm not sure I want my cell phone tied to my mp3 player, just like I don't want my MB tied to my video card.
RussSchultz said:
Well I'm not sure about "gobbled up". I do think that there will be statistically significant shifts in the future that represent the mass-ditching of portable mp3 players and cameras in favour of those integrated into phones, or indeed the ubiquitous "uberdevice" that seems to be perpetually on the horizon. They won't occur until there is a significant improvement over current implementations though. Camera-wise, things are quite understandable, but quite frankly I'm suprised at the current state of phone-based mp3 playback. IMHO it is an undermarketed and under-developed feature, given the potential customer base. Like you say, current implementations are very poor when you consider what might be possible with a little bit more focus. Nobody expects performance on a par with the best dedicated devices, but I'm sure midrange products can be rivalled with only minor investment. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It speaks for itself that since I got this phone a few days ago, I must have used the MP3 player for a good 3-4 hours between daily tasks already. You can't even >>/<< tracks or make playlists but it's still been really useful to have! Loads of people have commented how neat it is and I've already agreed to make up leads for a couple of guys that want to use decent earbuds/canal phones with their mobiles. Incidentally, the desire for compact, "phone+decent mp3" functionality seems to be far greater than that pertaining to "PDA+decent mp3"; at least amongst students. The increased form-factor is too much of a trade-off.
Do you not think that there might be a place for future iterations of D-Major (and suchlike) in multifunction, portable devices?
You're trying to make me cry, aren't you?MuFu said:Been using it in bed with a pair of Senn HD600s (and yes, it does sound awful). Sacrilege!
(Think I'm about to buy those HD555s, by the way. I'll post something at Head-Fi to get some other opinions first, though.)
The Baron said:You're trying to make me cry, aren't you?MuFu said:Been using it in bed with a pair of Senn HD600s (and yes, it does sound awful). Sacrilege!
Well it's so easy, I couldn't help myself...
Tip: don't fall asleep with them on your head because when you roll over during the night it fucks up the headphones and your spine.
One would hope.
The cellphone business is a tough business to break into, though. Cost is king, and there's a large development hurdle to develop a phone chipset and get certification.
Beyond that, my mouth must stay shut, though I'd always take suggestions as to what features such a device might have.
You'll have to buy a new phone. The media codecs are not written in Java, they are written in native code. J2ME has no raw access to the memory card/filesystem of the device nor any codec hardware. The whole raison d'etre of the J2ME MMAPI API is that Java manipulation of media can be accelerated by native libraries and hardware on the device, and the phone firmware providers provide an implementation of MMAPI.
Now, there are pure Java J2ME players, but they are low quality and slow (they must stream the movie to memory from a socket, then decode) They also can't take advantage of the hardware or CPU extensions.
My advice is to get a better phone. If you have GSM/UMTS/WCDMA, I'd go for the Motorola E1000. Motorola has one of the best J2ME implementations, and was one of the founders of the J2ME spec. Their phones support MIDP2.0 and most other J2ME extension APIs very well. The E1000 is made to be a multimedia phone, and supports WCDMA, so you'll get 300-400kB/s download rate on Cingular/AT&T networks.
If you're not in US and don't want to import a phone, go for a model with beefier Java and media support. I'm not trying to demean the 6260, the phone's hardware is probably good, but Nokia's firmware is notoriously bad.
Now, there are pure Java J2ME players, but they are low quality and slow (they must stream the movie to memory from a socket, then decode) They also can't take advantage of the hardware or CPU extensions.
My advice is to get a better phone. If you have GSM/UMTS/WCDMA, I'd go for the Motorola E1000. Motorola has one of the best J2ME implementations, and was one of the founders of the J2ME spec. Their phones support MIDP2.0 and most other J2ME extension APIs very well. The E1000 is made to be a multimedia phone, and supports WCDMA, so you'll get 300-400kB/s download rate on Cingular/AT&T networks.
If you're not in US and don't want to import a phone, go for a model with beefier Java and media support. I'm not trying to demean the 6260, the phone's hardware is probably good, but Nokia's firmware is notoriously bad.
Cheers. Since this thread started I've been reading up on it a bit more and have picked up on that, rather obvious stumbling block. There seem to be have been quite a few non-starter attempts at producing such an app using pure J2ME and a few MMAPI-based projects in early stages of development (e.g. here).
The phone does support MMAPI and MIDP2.0 but, as you indicate, the firmware implementation leaves a lot to be desired:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...og/java/?postid=47+nokia+6230+mmapi&hl=en
Argh!
Getting a new phone is absolutely out of the question; this was free on contract and I'm otherwise very satisfied with my choice. I just ordered a 1GB MMC - it'll do me for now.
The phone does support MMAPI and MIDP2.0 but, as you indicate, the firmware implementation leaves a lot to be desired:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...og/java/?postid=47+nokia+6230+mmapi&hl=en
Argh!
Getting a new phone is absolutely out of the question; this was free on contract and I'm otherwise very satisfied with my choice. I just ordered a 1GB MMC - it'll do me for now.
I can't imagine how badly a java based mp3 decoder would fare.
Maybe on a PC will multigigahertz, but not on the ARM processor at <300mhz that most phones have.
Maybe on a PC will multigigahertz, but not on the ARM processor at <300mhz that most phones have.
RussSchultz said:
Java MP3 decoding works very well. Java is not slow on computational tasks like this and can run very close to C++ performance. IBM even has a Java H.264 encoder/decoder that runs well.
The problem with J2ME is that all phones I know of to date are based on CLDC, not CDC profile. This means, the VM is extremely constrained memory wise, floating point may not even be supported, so the VM is cut down compared to the desktop. Heap space is often limited to <128k of usable memory, and the VM can't waste that memory compiling Java into native code.
The exception to the rule is the Monty VM from Sun, which has a CLDC HotSpot compiler in it. I saw this demonstrated at JavaOne 2002, and they had a 3D software rasterizer written in Java running an asteroids game at nice framerates on a PocketPC < 200Mhz ARM. It used very little memory, because it only compiles a small fraction of the program, and the compiled native code is garbage collected when it is not needed.
A decoder probably would be possible on a phone with MIDP 2.0/CLDC 1.1 profile with the Sun Monty VM.
Your other option is to find a media player written in C/C++ for Symbian OS for your 6260.
DemoCoder said:
quite a lot of good facts that I would have like to have said but don't want because they get too close to things that are under NDA I have for my work.
but there are phones with _a lot more_ heap for MIDP java programs on the market.
.. and 6230 and 6260 are completely different devices, 6230 = series 40 ,
6260 = symbian/series60
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