From: Paul Hopewell <hopewell_at_hopewell.org.uk>
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 14:49:13 -0000

Hello,
I believe there is a bug in Rockbox relating to unreasonable interaction
between bookmarking and fast forward / fast rewind with large (100 MB) MP3
files on an iriver 320. This is using the version of Rockbox downloaded mid
December 2006.
 
Like many blind Rockbox users I use Rockbox to read a lot of audio books.
Some of these are already in MP3 format with modest track size (less than 10
MB per track) and cause no problems. Others are from www.audible.com. As
Rockbox does not support the audible formats I use the Goldwave audio editor
to convert audible format 4 to MP3 at 22050 Hz and 32 KBPS (this works if
you have audible manager version 4). It results in MP3 files of about 100 MB
each.
  
the problem is that using fast forward or fast rewind after you have
restored a previously saved bookmark takes you directly to a point near the
start of the file. The problem only happens if the saved bookmark points to
a location some way into the file. If the bookmark is near the beginning of
the file then fast forward and fast rewind work fine. If you use fast
forward to move from the start of the file to a point near the end of the
file and then use fast rewind and fast forward that also works fine. the
problem only happens if you use fast forward or fast rewind after restoring
a bookmark which identifies a point well into the file.
  
I can get round this problem by using Goldwave to search for periods of
several seconds of silence in the large MP3 file (a few seconds of silence
usually precedes each new chapter) and then asking Goldwave to split the
file into smaller files at these silences. that usually gives me 20 or so
files each typically 10 MB or less. Using fast forward / fast rewind after
restoring a bookmark works fine with these smaller files. However this
greatly complicates the process of converting an audible file to a format
which Rockbox correctly handles.
  
Are you aware of any such bug?
  
Finally do you have any plans for Rockbox to directly support the audible
formats? I think this would be a most welcome addition to the Rockbox
function.
  
Many thanks.
  
Paul Hopewell
hopewell_at_hopewell.org.uk
 
Received on 2007-01-02