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[whabang]

Is it possible to do hardware MP3 decoding with a SBLive?

[JJ]

I am not sure, I don't think so though. I have a sounblaster live 5.1 live in my pee cee and I have not seen it mentioned anywhere. If u like I can send u a copy of the manual in pdf format

[WarPiper]

yes it is I use a soundblaster live platinum in my PC and I have no problem making mp3's from 96 kbs to 320 kbs, cd rips are easy and sound capture is real easy with the soundblaster live cards, though I know that there are a number of new fangled pci cards for the Amiga, though I dont know if the amiga can take full advantage of the features the soundblaster has to offer.

here is also an excerpt from the creative website: The Sound Blaster Live! includes Creative PlayCenter™ with a full 320kbps encoder and 9X MP3 acceleration, making it fast and easy to create, customize and listen to quality MP3/WMA files.

most of my MP3's are cd rips and songs I created on a keyboard (electronic piano) and then burned to cdr

[bloodline]

WarPiper wrote:
yes it is I use a soundblaster live platinum in my PC and I have no problem making mp3's from 96 bit to 320 bit, cd rips are easy and sound capture is real easy with the soundblaster live cards, though I know that there are a number of new fangled pci cards for the Amiga, though I dont know if the amiga can take full advantage of the features the soundblaster has to offer.

Sure the Live! comes with Windoze software to encode MP3's but the card does not do it in hardware!!!

The Live! card is just a bunch of DACs and ADCs with a DSP for adding effects, it's not designed to encode mp3s

I prefer to use "RightClick" it has better options.

[WarPiper]

@bloodline

Sure the Live! comes with Windoze software to encode MP3's but the card does not do it in hardware!!!
The Live! card is just a bunch of DACs and ADCs with a DSP for adding effects, it's not designed to encode mp3s

even if so, who gives a crap, it can still do it!!!!!
there seems to be enough technology on the card to handle it

Sound Blaster Live 5.1 SPECIFICATIONS
Wave-Table Synthesis

E-mu Systems®, Inc. EMU10K1™ music synthesis engine
64-voice hardware polyphony with E-mu's patented 8-point interpolation technology
Uses SoundFont® Bank technology for user-definable wave-table sample sets which include 2MB and 4MB sets
Load up to 32MB of samples into host memory for professional music reproduction
Scalable PCI wave-table synthesis architecture with multi-timbre capability
48 MIDI channels with 128 GM & GS compatible instruments and 10 drum kits
Effects Engine
E-mu Systems, Inc. EMU10K1™ patented effects processor
Support for real-time digital effects like reverb, chorus, flanger, pitch shifter, or distortion across any audio source
Capable of processing, mixing and positioning audio streams using up to 131 available hardware channels
Full digital mixer maintains all sound mixing in the digital domain, eliminating noise from the signal
Customizable effects architecture allows new audio effects to be downloaded from the Web
Full bass, treble, and effects controls available for all audio sources
EAX™ and 3D Audio Technology
User-selectable settings are optimized for headphones or 2, 4, or 5.1 PC speaker and home stereo systems.
Dolby® Digital audio decoding to 5.1 speaker channels in analog or digital modes
Upgradeable 3D audio architecture allows for improvements over time
Accelerates Microsoft® DirectSound® and DirectSound® 3D
Hardware acceleration of EAX™ in games
Creative Multi Speaker Surround™ (CMSS) technology places any mono or stereo source in a 360º audio space
EAX™ preset effects: user-selectable DSP modes that stimulate acoustic environments
Hollywood-Quality, 32-Bit Digital Audio Engine
Processes bit resolutions from 4-bit to 16-bit
Processes sample rates from 5kHz to 48kHz
All sound sources are bundled with 32-bit precision for highest quality output
Analog and digital I/O modes supported
Hardware full duplex support enables simultaneous record and playback at 8 standard sample rates
Utilizes AC '97 Audio Codec
MIDI Interface/Joystick Port
Supports Sound Blaster® MIDI and MPU-401 modes
IBM® compatible 15-pin joystick port with analog support
Support for digital and DirectInput™ game devices
On-Board Connectors
Analog/Digital Out (Analog Center & Subwoofer/6-channel S-PDIF Output)
Line In
Microphone In
Line Level Out (front) / Headphone Out
Line Level Out (rear)
MIDI / Joystick port
Telephone Answering Device In
MPC-3 Analog CD Audio In
Digital CD Audio In
Expansion header for Live! Drive series or Optical Digital I/O card 2 (available separately)
Works with the Following Standards:
Windows® 95, 98, 98SE, NT4.0, 2000, Millennium Edition and XP
General MIDI
MPC-3
Plug and Play
Sound Blaster® PCI
EAX™
Microsoft® DirectSound®, DirectSound® 3D, and derivatives
PCI 2.1 compliant
AC '97 compliant
Dolby® Digital

[bloodline]

even if so, who gives a crap, it can still do it!!!!!

Sorry, my point was that any audio source will do, from the cheapest Amiga parallel port sampler to the most expensive PRO Audio card, all you need to do is find some Encoding software for the platform you are using.

I think "LAME" MP3 encoder was ported to the Amiga, though I could be very wrong.

[JJ]

yes lame was ported to the miggy, used it a bit, cant remeber where i got it form. on my 6o3e 175 it used to take real time to convert audio to 196mp3. by ral time a mean a 5min audio track would take 5mins to convert to mp3. wouldn't like to try it on 68k though

[JJ]

I was porbably on about the one for warpos in the contributions folder in OS3.9. Its command line only though.

[Piru]

Get amiga lame port from The Amiga Alternative Audio Page or Jarmo Laakkonen's Amiga projects -page.

[JJ]

bladeenc was the one i used, its not bad

[Karlos]

Well I have a live 5.1 in my PC. I use it for audio capture only. Which I have to say its pretty damng good at.

As for musical applications, The 5.1 instrument patches are OK (8MB set), effects are fine for mucking about, but my Yamaha MU100R grinds it into the dust and spits on it for serious realtime effects / tone generation quality :-D

Back on topic, I don't think the SBLive / 5.1 have hardware MP3 decode / encode but the DSP may give a degree of hardware 'assist' depending on drivers etc.
Anyway, MP3 playback is not really much of a processor killer these days. Even my 'obsolete' 350MHz K6-2 is fine, requiring about 2-5% CPU time.

[whabang]

Thanks, guys!
I'm trying to tweak as much life as possible out of my old Athlon 750.
I'm probably going to loose my job, so I won't be able to buy a new computer as I planned... :-(

[JJ]

i know how u feel , i lost me job a few months back and things are looking bad on the old job front.

why u loosing ur job, redundancy?

[whabang]

Yep...
Bang! goes the IT-bubble...

[bloodline]

whabang wrote:
Thanks, guys!
I'm trying to tweak as much life as possible out of my old Athlon 750.
I'm probably going to loose my job, so I won't be able to buy a new computer as I planned... :-(

Yeah, that sucks!!! I've had 4 jobs in the space of one year!!! there is no stability in the work place anymore.
I'm still using my Old Athlon 600 with a TNT2, I had planned to upgrade to an Athlon64, but I've not had a steady enough income to really save that much.

Fortunatelly, after a quick Email to AMD asking them to put back the launch of the A64 for a bit so I could raise the funds to buy one, they did, wasn't that nice of them :-P

Ok I made that up... :-D