[FIXED] Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Support questions for Neutron Player only.
dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:04 am

Hi Mike! Very good news :) Let's wait for more comments to put [FIXED] prefix to this thread.

Progweed
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by Progweed » Thu Sep 20, 2012 2:40 pm

The new version is a definite improvement (no more stuttering when nothing else is running), yet I still get stuttering on my 16 GB Playbook when doing something as simple as starting an app or opening a webpage. The latter usually causes playback to pause for several seconds! Damn, I really am at a loss now. What could be wrong?

I also noticed I can't play AAC files anymore.

Progweed
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by Progweed » Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:49 pm

Another observation: Copying data from the Playbook to my PC does not cause Neutron to stutter. But copying to it does.

dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:58 pm

Progweed wrote:The latter usually causes playback to pause for several seconds!
That's ... well, there are possibilities to improve further, like to try higher thread priority in audio thread but I can't explain why it stalls for several seconds on your device. On my device I could cause sluttering by copying files to/from device and that was a real-life test, so I could check whether I am moving in correct way. Nevertheless I will think more on this subject, what could be improved further. Currently Neutron has around 2 seconds of preloaded/decoded data from music file, may be it worth expanding this buffer queue to 3-4 seconds then...
Progweed wrote:I also noticed I can't play AAC files anymore.
AAC decoder suffered from new model of asynchronous decoding. Will fix it asap! [update: already fixed].
rushfan wrote:Perhaps some CPU optimizations were performed?
Not really but probably decoding/rendering threads do not intersect at all now but before the did (it was a main reason of sluttering) and it resulted in many CPU context switches. Now CPU is used better and thus it is calmer :)
rushfan wrote:some kind of technical analysis of the sound quality from the PlayBook's headphone jack
There is tear-down of PlayBook hardware:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/BlackBer ... own/5265/1

There we can see that audio DAC is - Wolfson WM8994E. It is good piece of hardware and I do not think that it may cause some problems regarding frequency response. This audio DAC is used by Samsung too, in some models of Galaxy Tab family and Galaxy S (GT-I9000). Wolfson audio DACs are also used in iOS devices.

Wolfson WM8994:
http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/audio_hubs/WM8994/

dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Fri Sep 21, 2012 7:10 am

I also have not found any tests regarding PlayBook audio performance. Although these tests can be done using this software: RMAA (http://audio.rightmark.org/download.shtml).

Progweed
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by Progweed » Fri Sep 21, 2012 8:12 am

Stuttering is gone! :twisted:

Yesterday evening I got so fed up with the situation that I decided to take more drastic measures and security wipe my device. Reinstalled Neutron, guess what - it's running perfectly now! No stuttering whatsoever.

*sigh*

Still, this sucks as I have absolutely no idea what fucked up my Playbook so badly. Did any of the fellow Playbookers experience something like that before?

dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Fri Sep 21, 2012 11:29 am

Progweed wrote:Stuttering is gone! :twisted:
Congratulations! :) Although I already revised code of Neutron audio core and improved it a little bit more. Now engine will be getting decoded data in smaller blocks but their count will amount 2.5 seconds of decoded data. It will help to load CPU with small tasks instead of several big and may help to balance CPU load with other tasks from other apps. Because my 10 Alpha Device is not sluttering at all I am testing implementation on single-core 1 Ghz Android device :lol: and it is very stable.

> Still, this sucks as I have absolutely no idea what fucked up my Playbook so badly.

Have you installed the software you usually kept? May be it worth installing one by one and check with Neutron for sluttering issue. It could also be the case when one of installed apps tried to configure something in the system that became permanent (I do not know if it is possible though as I am new to PlayBook OS), like could be modified I/O buffer size or something.

Progweed
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by Progweed » Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:56 am

Have you installed the software you usually kept? May be it worth installing one by one and check with Neutron for sluttering issue.
That's exactly what I did, installing apps one by one with Neutron running in the background. So far the problem hasn't reappeared and the whole system feels noticeably more fluid than before. So something must have been very wrong.
It could also be the case when one of installed apps tried to configure something in the system that became permanent (I do not know if it is possible though as I am new to PlayBook OS), like could be modified I/O buffer size or something.
AFAIK something like this should never happen with QNX sandboxing every app. :?

dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:17 am

Progweed wrote:AFAIK something like this should never happen with QNX sandboxing every app. :?
I agree and really surprised that something screwed the performance of your device. Sandboxing isolates app from accessing file space of other apps while they all are able to access /shared, may be tweaking system through low-level system API is/was possible that resulted in performance drop.

Progweed
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by Progweed » Mon Sep 24, 2012 9:00 am

I use DDPB to sideload Android apps in developer mode and I suspect that this could somehow affect the system on a lower level. But this is only a shot in the dark.

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