(This is a repost of a message from the Developer
forum as this topic probably deserves a wider audience.)
I am looking at changing, I hope improving, the design and
implementation of the fast-forward (FFW) and rewind (REW)
functionality in SqueezeCentre. There is considerable dissatisfaction
with the current implementation, although I suspect that it probably
meets the needs of some people just fine.
Let me start by recapping on the current functionality, as I understand
it:
- FFW mode can be entered by press-and-hold of the ">>" button on
the remote. It will remain in FFW mode once the ">>" button is
released. SC will start playing at 2X normal speed, where it will
play 1s of audio, skip 1s, play 1s, .... A further press-and-hold of
the ">>" button will increase this to 4X speed where only 1s out of
every 4s is played. One can repeat this to 8X, 16X, ..., although at
some point the server will probably run out of power to supply data
at this rate.
- REW mode can be entered by press-and-hold of the "<<" button on
the remote and is otherwise the same as FFW mode.
- If the now-playing screen was not displaying then it is bought up,
switching to progress-bar mode if necessary.
- The FFW/REW mode is exited by pressing the Pause or Play buttons.
- If FFW/REW runs past the end or beginning of the track, then it
continues with the next/previous track in the playlist.
This interface is much like that of VCR/DVD players and less like that
of CD and portable-music players. Some find this unintuitive and have
remapped the buttons so that FFW/REW is exited immediately upon
releasing the relevant button, presumably only ever getting to 2X
speed.
There is considerable doubt about whether being able to hear the 1s
chunks of audio in these modes is actually of any use.
The implementation only works for sources through which one can seek.
In practice, this is limited to local files which are not transcoded
and which are in WAV, MP3 or FLAC format.
The implementation (called trick-mode internally) is pretty inefficient
and somewhat hit-and-miss. Recent improvements have made it somewhat
more reliable and so that it mostly works with synchronized players but
did not address the core problems with the design. The implementation
also has the problem that it affects many different parts of the SC
software. It would be great to get rid of it.
PROPOSAL:
- Change the user-interface.
- Remove the audio feedback.
-User interface-
- Press-and-hold ">>" to enter FFW and release it to resume play.
Similarly for REW.
- Change the display to something like the input bar (currently used
for volume and tone control) and advance a cursor along the bar
proportional to the position in the track. On the right-hand end of
the bar should be the total-length of the track and at the left-hand
end should be the time of the current cursor position.
- I anticipate some sort of acceleration if the button is held down.
Perhaps start at about 3X and jump to 10X after 5s.
- Resume playing from the position indicated by the cursor when the
button is released.
- Stop at either end of the track, and start playing at normal speed
either from the beginning of the next track (FFW) or the current track
(REW) when the button is released.
Much of this is based upon a plugin by -kdf- of these forums.
I would be pleased to get feedback on these proposals and additional or
alternative suggestions.
Alan.
--
awy
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awy's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7480
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41235
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