How long can the TH55 play audio files

[GadgetGuru]

How long can the TH55 play audio files?

[Cyker]

Best case: Almost a full day non-stop (New battery, using only Clie AudioPlayer and in Hold mode)

Mine'd be more like 18-20 hours because the battery's starting to sag a bit (Too much WiFi use I guess :p)

[dmitrygr]

Screen off. underclocked to 8MHz playing 44.1 KHz 192 kbps MP3 with built-in audio player from 512 MB MSPro gives me 71 hours from 100% battery to 20% battery.

[Cyker]

Cheater! :p

(just kidding :D)


Out of curiosity, how long does it take to stop playing an MP3 at 8MHz?
At 32MHz, AP is almost unbearably slow... I dread to think how responsive it isn't at 8MHz! :eek:

[Monkeylove]

OMG...are you serious dmitrygr? That's amazing. Does that mean the built-in audio player doesn't bring the clockspeed to it's lowest setting (8mhz) by default?

[ayu61200]

Maybe not 8Mhz but 64Mhz would almost double playing time. Really nice hint and useful use of the underclocker tool...

Got to try that!

[Cyker]

OMG...are you serious dmitrygr? That's amazing. Does that mean the built-in audio player doesn't bring the clockspeed to it's lowest setting (8mhz) by default?
AudioPlayer only drops it to 32MHz.

8MHz isn't normally possible, by DG found a 'bare-metal' way of altering the clock-speed (CP and Sharky use a system call which is safer, but limited to speeds between 32MHz and 123MHz)

[dmitrygr]

AudioPlayer only drops it to 32MHz.

8MHz isn't normally possible, by DG found a 'bare-metal' way of altering the clock-speed (CP and Sharky use a system call which is safer, but limited to speeds between 32MHz and 123MHz)


safer? lol. both unsupported.

anyways at 8 mhz it takes 10 sec to react to any tap but i dont need it to. i have about 67 hours of music in there and i have it on shuffle running through it. no need to stop.

[GadgetGuru]

Cyker, your 18-20 hours is without any underclocker, is it?

I am leaning toward a (refurbished or new if I can find it) Th55 over a Lifedrive, since a 1GB card and my present 512MB one is enough capacity for me (for now). Bluetooth is useless here in Asia because telcos doesn't have unlimited plan and per kilobit charging would send me to the poor house. The arcade-poor button is not an issue since my PDa is more a business tool than a game machine - I have a PSP and Ds for that...

And with a new machine, I wouldn't use hacks and unsupported system calls... at least not until the so-called break-in period... ;)

[GadgetGuru]

dmitrygr... 6.7 or 67 hours? What capacity is the card?

Are there 4GB memory stick out now...and if there is, how astronomical is the price?

[LupeValenz]

dmitrygr... 6.7 or 67 hours? What capacity is the card?

Are there 4GB memory stick out now...and if there is, how astronomical is the price?

Hehe, I know, hard to believe but I am pretty sure its 67 hours since 6.7 hours would just mean a weak battery. TH55 could usually go 12+ hours on its own.

[Cyker]

safer? lol. both unsupported.

anyways at 8 mhz it takes 10 sec to react to any tap but i dont need it to. i have about 67 hours of music in there and i have it on shuffle running through it. no need to stop.
While both unsupported, it seems logical that the system call, which Sony must have written themselves, is safer than writing arbitary values through to the bare metal ;)
This is assuming the function call has some sanity checking in it - Your way allows you to write whatever you want in there - A lot more powerful, but also a bit more risky.
Kinda like using printf() to write a string to stdio vs using MOV's :D

(NB: This isn't meant as some slight against your code BTW, just a Vulcan-style analysis ;))

Oooh, here's a little challenge 'tho: You and CP have discovered that we can clock the CPU, how about the Memory bus? <evil grin> :D
(Or does altering the CPU also change the memory clock...?)

Cyker, your 18-20 hours is without any underclocker, is it?

I am leaning toward a (refurbished or new if I can find it) Th55 over a Lifedrive, since a 1GB card and my present 512MB one is enough capacity for me (for now). Bluetooth is useless here in Asia because telcos doesn't have unlimited plan and per kilobit charging would send me to the poor house. The arcade-poor button is not an issue since my PDa is more a business tool than a game machine - I have a PSP and Ds for that...

And with a new machine, I wouldn't use hacks and unsupported system calls... at least not until the so-called break-in period... ;)
Yup, my 18-20 is without any underclocker :p (Actually, I'm cheating a bit here because if you leave AudioPlayer loaded while playing an MP3, it drops the CPU to 32MHz itself! If you exit and do other stuff, it switches back to it's Auto-speed mode, which usually means the CPU's back at 123Mhz ;))

I'd unreservedly recommend a TH55, but I think I have Drooling-Clie-Fanboyitis so I may be a bit biased ;)
Some games aren't too bad on the TH (Warfare! Insaniquarium!), but steer weeeell clear of anything that needs a D-Pad unless you can find a GC-10 game controller. The TH55 buttons are really *really* crap.

[MrNako]

dmitrygr... 6.7 or 67 hours? What capacity is the card?

Are there 4GB memory stick out now...and if there is, how astronomical is the price?

He means 67 hours in shuffle mode. He must be using "repeat all" also :p

[CliePet]

The TH-55 Audio playing is amazing, no doubt about it.
BTW: The VZ-90 has a bigger battery and can play longer with the same HHE technology (but is much thicker)

Underclocking increases the battery life since the main CPU isn't needed most of the time. Even without underclocking the CPU, the TH-55 is amazing.
Underclocking to 32MHz is quite managable IMHO.

For maximum play time, keep the screen backlight off, and the screen off and the device in "hold" mode unless you absolutely need it [the short period of time you turn on the display to pick another track or select an album drains the battery a lot]

----
> I am leaning toward a (refurbished or new if I can find it) Th55 over a Lifedrive...
See the other thread comparing LifeDrive to existing offerings.

If you have a 1GB or 2GB memory stick - I don't see any need for the LifeDrive for greater capacity (there are other advantages of LifeDrive, like WiFi+Bluetooth and the faster CPU). All the reviews I've seen point out the short battery life of the LifeDrive.

----
NOTE: 4GB memory sticks are not compatible with the CLIE
[2GB is the limit for FAT16, which CLIE supports]

[dmitrygr]

no 67 hours at 128 kbps is about 4 gigs - full ms

fat32 driver for clie is available in beta. if i find a link where i got it i will post it

[Cyker]

OMG!!!! :eek:

Are you serious?!
Who wrote it?!
Does it work?!?!

If it works on all PalmOS5 devices, it'll be bigger than Landscape!!
Imagine those 8GN SD/MS cards.... (And a winning lottery ticket to afford ot :p)

I toyed with the idea of making one, and combining it with the filesystem driver framework CP wrote, but my knowledge of PalmOS API & lowlevel driver code is nowhere near good enough... :(

I had hoped we might be able to copy the driver off the LD, but so far no one has tried...

[dmitrygr]

i did nto make it i founf it. it was a while back

LifeDrive sounds liek a good idea. hope it is more stable:-D

[overclocker]

how about the Memory bus? <evil grin> :D
I'd be more interested in TH overclocking to 160mhz as was promised by dmitrygr.

[CliePet]

> If it works on all PalmOS5 devices, it'll be bigger than Landscape!!
[ie. a FAT32 driver]
The audience is rather small - people with 4GB (or 8GB) memory sticks or SD cards. Perhaps more common for CF storage (but 4GB CF cards aren't cheap either)

FWIW/IMHO: Overall it may be like Landscape - many people say they want it, then when they get it they are underwhelmed... [but is useful for the few that truely need it]

[Monkeylove]

I wonder how long a VZ90 can play mp3s for underclocked to 8mhz with the screen off? :D

[Cyker]

> If it works on all PalmOS5 devices, it'll be bigger than Landscape!!
[ie. a FAT32 driver]
The audience is rather small - people with 4GB (or 8GB) memory sticks or SD cards. Perhaps more common for CF storage (but 4GB CF cards aren't cheap either)

FWIW/IMHO: Overall it may be like Landscape - many people say they want it, then when they get it they are underwhelmed... [but is useful for the few that truely need it]

Now perhaps, but I'm thinking for the future. ;)

Realistically, 4 and 8GB MS's are *far* too expensive right now, but give it a year and they'll be cheap.

I have a 1GB MS - It cost me £79. When I inquired about one roughly this time last year, it was over £300...


And when I said it'd be bigger than Landscape, I mean't it ;)
That is to say, it isn't going to be a massive money maker like expensive (ripoff :p) things like Docs to Go, but for a small company with a couple of good code hackers, it will be profitable enough.
People like SoftTick and Mobile-Stream I'm thinking...

Hell, if someone on here knows how to write file-system driver code, we could get them to do the core work and then send the result to you so you can put it in that FS driver framework of yours ;)