Jonas Sicking wrote: > Note that "hardware limitations" isn't as simple as "can play". For > example a portable player device uses 90% CPU to play things certainly > work, but possibly for an unacceptable short time before battery runs > out.
That's correct. Thankfully all mentioned codecs are well below 90% CPU-time consumption and despite Rockbox having no fine-tuned power-management it gives about 8-10 hours of playback for all formats on e.g. the iPod Nano (http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodRuntime), while according to Wikipedia this device is supposed to have a battery lifetime with the original firmware of about 14 hours for audio playback. It appears entirely possible that with proper power management and optimized decoders for a specific hardware platform the gap may close, but that's something to be determined by the engineering department. Maik