Add 32-bit Float Format Support

[choukawaii]

I still can't play 32-bit float format on Winamp. 


I have a studio quality headset and still need to downgrade 32-bit float format [.m4a format, perhaps] to FLAC format [24-bit format, 96.0 kHz]. It's not noticeable on "general human ear", but I can still notice "things".

[dro]

Hi, I've not done anything towards replacement input plug-ins with WACUP other than a re-worked line-in plug-in to provide something better than the native plug-in (as covered within the changelogs for the initial beta builds provided so far).

So playback and what can / cannot be done currently should be no different from what the v5.666 release was able to do. Never having mentioned anything about such things in the changelogs / site information, I'm hoping I've not given the false impression that such a thing was within the scope of WACUP.

As even adding it natively within Winamp itself (which I cannot do) brings with it more compatibility issues (especially if going for floating point handling) than the addition of 24-bit integer support brought in combination with the existing plug-ins that exist out there that people use (as getting a pure 24-bit integer playback chain from input to dsp to output is hard enough as it currently stands).


All of that means end-to-end 32-bit floating point playback support to my knowledge is just not possible to be added in as part of WACUP with how Winamp works (which assumes either 16-bit (by default) or 24-bit integer input formats.

The best that could be done is to just have the respective input plug-ins being used (whether directly by the input plug-in itself or indirectly by a resampler sitting in front of the input plug-in due to not having native support to do the) converting down to 24-bit fixed at most (if that option is enabled) and then hoping that the output plug-in as well as any dsp plug-ins being used (if that's the case) also support 24-bit audio data (which for almost every DSP plug-in created is not the case).


I'll move this thread into the wishlist section but realistically unless I ended up creating an end-to-end replacement of the playback core, WACUP at most is just going to see work done to re-sample the audio from input plug-ins into either of the supported formats that Winamp's playback core supports depending on how it's been configured by the user.

I do appreciate that there are audio formats that can support the higher bit count / type formats (primarily if that's how it's created from the start) but for the likes of MP3, video game music and other common formats (or just what people have got already in their libraries), there's little, if any benefit to such support when the audio data itself is only 16-bit or even lower (e.g. 8-bit as can be the case with video game music which is an area I'm personally interested by). Plus the less work that is done on the audio from input to output the better imho even if that means the output plug-in / Windows doing just a one-off resampling to the required output format whilst keeping the rest of the chain 16-bit (if that all makes sense).

-dro

[nimd4]

32-bit float

Argh, I am quite literally falling asleep at the keyboard - BUT, are we talking about this:

Code: [Select]

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=234531
AND does it have anything to do with bit depth?!

... Because, you know, Steinberg's WaveLab isn't stuck on 24-bit for no reason; OR, should I come back to this after I had rested my head on a pillow. *Sings something away, hmm*

P.S.
Ugh, yeah: got my wires like completely crossed here, however - in any case - having this capability will benefit, exactly, 0.000000000000000000000000000000001% of users; would that be a fair assessment? (but, seriously )

Edit: OIC!.. 0k, so if this search will stay active, then we can see that it had been moar than a decade+ of teh original WinAMP engineers NOT dealing with this (non ) "issue". So, then... You know. =)

Code: [Select]

http://forums.winamp.com/search.php?searchid=16030259
Because, eye can c: 9th May 2002 01:10 @



(& for sure that's not, even, close to when it first must've been brought up)

[dro]

Search results on the other forums expire and are also user-specific so only you'll be able to see results from the search until it expires (which is a piece of information I'd prefer not to have left in my head still, heh).

-dro