Rockbox 3.8 is out - what's in it for me?

[idivorceyou]

from rockbox.org:
What's new?

Some new things since version 3.7.1:

Core

Added support for embedded album art (currently limited to mp3/id3v2 and jpeg)
Upgraded Coldfire compiler giving an overall speedup on Coldfire based targets (iaudio m3/m5/x5, iriver h100/h300, mpio hd200/hd300).
LCD speedup for the iPod nano 1G and iPod Photo/Color port (FS#11843)
Major LCD speedup for the iPod nano 2G port (FS#11807)
Automatic resume of incompletely played tracks (FS#11748)
Playback supports all samples rates on iPod nano 2G.
Implement LCD sleep and core voltage scaling for iPod nano 2G to improve battery runtime.
New 20 pixels high font '20-Artwiz-Snap' (FS#9633)
Make iPod fm remote work on iPod nano 1G by enabling line-in monitoring, also enabled on iPod nano 2G, Color and 4G (FS#11559).
Two new translations, Croatian (FS#11884) and Latvian (FS#11967) have been added, as well as updates to many other languages. Rockbox 3.8 is released fully translated to 16 languages and with 10 additional languages more than 95% completed.
Plugins

Pong plugin now supports single-player mode, with the CPU controlling the opponent (FS#5855)
New MikMod based module player plugin.
All image viewers have been merged into a Universal Image Viewer.
MPEG video playlist (FS#8607)
Codecs

Optimize ATRAC3 substantially for ARMv5E? and ARMv6 targets.
Optimize Ogg Vorbis.
Optimize Wavpack on Coldfire.
Optimize AAC+ on ARM targets.
Optimize MP3 on all ARM9 and later targets.
Small optimizations to many codecs (AAC, MP3, WMA, APE, MPC, etc) on ARMv6 targets.
Support decoding flac files with 192k sample rate.
Fix a number of issues decoding AAC-HE files
Fix crashes decoding APE files.
Fix several issues decoding AAC and ALAC files due to bugs in the MP4 parser.
Fix encoding mono and low sample rate files with the MP3 encoder

[CrowdAds]

[BadCam]

For me the most important feature is the:

Automatic resume of incompletely played tracks (FS#11748)

So, I presume that it now should work just like the way the Sansa Clip Official Firmware does (my MP3 player of choice), where if you say, like me, listen to Podcasts and tend to skip ahead and then come back to tracks, the tracks you come back to will resume from where you last were listening, not at the beginning.

But, for the life of me, I can't get it to work. I've tried every combination of settings I can think of and I've been through the FS# quoted above, the database is activated, but I'm still stumped.

Can anyone tell me which settings I need to "activate", and which to turn off,so that this auto resume feature works?

[TuFur]

Originally Posted by BadCam

For me the most important feature is the:

Automatic resume of incompletely played tracks (FS#11748)

So, I presume that it now should work just like the way the Sansa Clip Official Firmware does (my MP3 player of choice), where if you say, like me, listen to Podcasts and tend to skip ahead and then come back to tracks, the tracks you come back to will resume from where you last were listening, not at the beginning.

But, for the life of me, I can't get it to work. I've tried every combination of settings I can think of and I've been through the FS# quoted above, the database is activated, but I'm still stumped.

Can anyone tell me which settings I need to "activate", and which to turn off,so that this auto resume feature works?

I can offer an alternative method. In the settings menu item for bookmarking (settings>general settings>bookmarking,) bookmark on stop to yes - recent only, update on stop to no or yes, load last bookmark to yes and set maintain a list of recent bookmarks to unique only(set this to yes if you want multiple bookmarks in each file.) Then create your bookmarks by doing a long press of the Home button in 3.6 or a long press of the Pause/play button in 3.7. A brief message will say bookmark created and the file will go into pause. The file will also be removed from the operating memory if you wish to play a memory hogging GBC game in rockboy.

This method creates a single list at the root of the opening rockbox page called 'Recent Bookmarks' that one can go to in order to find the file and spot you wish to rehear. The list is fully editable using the context menu(long press on the select-button.) Or the list maybe edited using the built-in txt editor while being careful to keep the file's structure intact. The listing for each bookmark has the time into the file and track number as well as the file name. It sure beats going to each file to find the one you wanted to resume. These settings don't create a bookmark file one step above the directory where the bookmarked file sits like the default settings do.

[BadCam]

Originally Posted by TuFur

I can offer an alternative method. In the settings menu item for bookmarking (settings>general settings>bookmarking,) bookmark on stop to yes - recent only, update on stop to no or yes, load last bookmark to yes and set maintain a list of recent bookmarks to unique only(set this to yes if you want multiple bookmarks in each file.) Then create your bookmarks by doing a long press of the Home button in 3.6 or a long press of the Pause/play button in 3.7. A brief message will say bookmark created and the file will go into pause. The file will also be removed from the operating memory if you wish to play a memory hogging GBC game in rockboy.

This method creates a single list at the root of the rockbox file page called 'Recent Bookmarks' that one can go to in order to find the file and spot you wish to rehear. The listing for each bookmark list has the time into the file and track number as well as the file name. It sure beats going to each file to find the one you wanted to resume. These settings don't create a bookmark file one step above the directory where the bookmarked file sits like the default settings do.

Thanks I haven't tried this yet, but I'll give it a go now. Maybe I'll get used to this.

I'd still prefer to get the new method working as I expect all I'll need to do, is select the file I WAS listening to and it'll just resume from where I left off. No additional key-presses, or trudging through menus required.

So, if anyone can point out the correct settings, I'd love to know.

[TuFur]

Looks like 3.8 may not be ready for primetime.....Some posters in this thread on the Rockbox forums have experienced a disk error on the internal memory after installing 3.8. I've got my popcorn in the microwave waiting for the outcome.

[WalkGood]

You can see all the reported bugs in flyspray, also since no one else posted a link to the release notes, you can read them here.

[Marvin the Martian]

The auto-resume feature isn't necessary for my use....but I ran my Fuze for 7 hours straight at work the other night with 3.8 and it ran flawlessly....no disk errors here.

[eboyer93]

I'm reverting back to 3.7.1. Because of this: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...304#post541304

[TuFur]

I went ahead and installed 3.8 after reading the posts. The problem is with the database function. I don't use it, but I can see where others might. The new rockboy is neat. Has 50 save spaces to use. I left my original .rockbox(renamed to 3.7.rockbox) folder in place just in case. All the created game files, both rockboy and the built in plugin game scores and saves, and 'recent bookmarks' file work just fine without a hitch in the new .rockbox folder.

[TuFur]

Badcam: the 'Automatic Resume' settings menu item is the next line below the 'Bookmarking' menu item. It requires initializing the database and will prompt you to do so. It works just like the OF. Except unlike the OF, if one is playing a file and you hit the right/left scroll button to go to the next/previous track and that track has a resume point in it, it will start at that point. I didn't turn on 'resume after automatic track change.' What does that do? It sounds like it resumes at a resume point in the next file if a resume point is set there. That would be neat for podcast users. Automatic Resume isn't in the manual yet.

Now that I've played for a day with 3.8, I find it ready for primetime. I'm happy with the new file resume and the new rockboy menu items. Rockboy now has volume control and game reset menu items. While playing a game and listening to audio, one doesn't have to leave Rockboy to change the volume anymore. A small note here, one cannot play most of the larger gameboy color games(256k and larger) and listen to music. There just isn't enough assigned memory at 8 mb in the fuze and you get a low memory error with Rockboy closing.

I checked for any file corruption and haven't seen or experienced any. I did allow the database to fully initialize before I shut down the fuze. In the past I could tell when the database was initialized by the cpu busy icon that would show up. I didn't see it this time. I checked the database updating being finished by trying to open it.

[mamamia88]

i'm sticking with custom build until usb is supported in v2. i can't stand refreshing database everytime i add a podcast

[FuM]

Hey

I bought a FuzeV1 and put on Rockbox 3.8 immediately.

When I copied music files to it, windows lost connection to the device a few times.

Did this happen to anyone else?

Greetings

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by FuM

Hey

I bought a FuzeV1 and put on Rockbox 3.8 immediately.

When I copied music files to it, windows lost connection to the device a few times.

Did this happen to anyone else?

Greetings

Yes, it happened to me the other day. I ended up letting it sit for a couple of days, and then I installed the "current build" (which was 29539 at the time) and after that it seems to be OK....I was able to load it fully afterwards.

I didn't expect it to have happened to anyone else, I just thought it was a quirk of an old player.....lol.

[FuM]

Thanks for the response. My thoughts where the same as yours.