Posted By
Luca
on 2015-09-22
18:47:46
 |  Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
Today SIzPlay reaches the closest shape to its final release with this V0.99beta update, and it means that siz is quite ready for the last step.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2015-09-23
18:47:46
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
It's looking good so far. Could the green color ($55 code) be a little darker? I find that the contrast is not high enough for that color plus white.
Any other plans for the project? 
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Posted By
siz
on 2015-09-24
02:55:47
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
There will be a visual update of the player for sure so I'll check the colors later. Right now I just wanted to use a completely different color. This stage is mostly a functional "preview" (although it's quite usable already).
Currently working features:
- PSID support only (RSID would require full C64 emulation with CIAs, BASIC, memory mapping, etc. so I don't plan to include support for that)
- with NAE cards C64 clock and direct $d400 address mapping is used (to support tunes that write SID registers more than once within a single frame)
- on legacy SID cards register values are copied from $d400 RAM area to the detected SID card
- works with correct timings for NTSC and PAL (either timer or VBlank based) tunes on both NTSC and PAL machines
- supports directories and disk images on SD2IEC
- relocates itself to allow loading SIDs anywhere in the memory from $0fe8 to $fcff
Planned features:
- Visual update 
- TED frequency converter playback (I have to check this but probably won't work for timer based tunes with too fast refresh rate - there is not enough CPU time to convert the frequencies in that case)
- HVTC support (in fact I've converted the music from Exorcist to PSID and it works with the published version already - except muting TED sound after playback).
- Support for large directories (HVSC has directories with 800+ entries) with search feature
- implement feature requests
The latest feature I added was the player relocation. I wanted to do this for a long time now but (as for everyone) there is very little time for my hobby.
But I have other projects to do and I wanted to finish this before focusing on them.
For example I want to finish conversion of Defender of the Crown this year and I would really like to create a demo for next year's Árok. (Perhaps in cooperation with Chronos and Csio). It was really bad to see only one plus/4 entry this year. 
In the meantime most probably I will release my IRq loader which already supports a lot of drive types (1540, 1541, 1551, 1570, 1571, 1581, SD2IEC) even when more than one is turned on. It's not that fast but the main goal was to be most compatible.
Of course I'll publish the sources as well.
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Posted By
Ati
on 2015-09-24
14:46:49
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2015-09-25
01:45:46
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
great stuff, siz! Have I mentioned that tedplay secretly supports embedding TED tunes in PSID format? The .TED extension used to be meant for that format but then we set the expectations a bit higher.
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Posted By
siz
on 2015-09-25
02:36:48
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
@Gaia: yes, you have mentioned. That's where I got the idea from.
Edit: by the way is there any tool to create .SID or .C8M files? For .SID I've created a quick (PC) tool that appends the SID header in front of any file with metadata set from command line (and lost the source as soon as it was finished but will rewrite it in a few hours). But I haven't found anything for that. And especially nothing for C8M. It's a bit offtopic here but are there any plans to convert HVTC to any (or both) of these formats?
Edit2: another comment to Gaia: it seems to me that YaPE does not respect the SID model I set in the options and always emulates 8580. My player detects the SID model based on the method described on this page at "SID Type Auto-Detect" and it works on both the real computer (I have a 6581 and a 8580 based BSz SID Card) and in VICE but in YAPE it always detects 8580.
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2015-09-25
14:43:53
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
Yeah, it's kinda deliberate, so not really a bug, rather a limitation. The detection algorithm uses combined waveforms. In my SID core - since most if not all original SID cards were using a 8580 - I simply emulate the combined waveforms of the 8580 all the time and not that of the 6581 (which is kind of silence anayway) since it makes the code much simpler. The 6581 only differs in the filter cutoff frequencies and the DC levels.
There is no C8M tool other than a Perl script by TLC that I can share maybe but don't expect miracles Preparing .SID files is no joyride either. There is no universal solution, so no tool. Writing a generic music detection algorithm is not an easy task I think.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2015-09-28
13:10:33
 | Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
Almost perfect! Congratulations!
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Posted By
siz
on 2015-09-28
14:06:34
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
Thanks! Why just "almost"?
Seriously. I'm waiting for suggestions for improvements.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2015-09-28
15:44:18
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
A very simple UI improvement possibility for the people has limited memory (like me)
when the player goes on, the running player foremost green UI covers the player command instructions.
(I just realized it as I could not return from the DOTC music, and due to some reason the ESC did not work on my PC, could be the keyboard?).
I was not sure, if it was REALLY the ESC was written? So I reseted and reloaded the PRG to be sure.
a) If you could move down those player instructions a little, it would be readible all the time, even if the player works.
OR
b) May integrate the intructions into the (green) player window. (four more lines including the frame, so may need a slight relocation due to out of center position)
(BTW, GBC and Hotrod told by the player to be not PSID files. :-? and the Zenji tend to hang up th player on Plus4Emu and YAPE)
I like the current green...
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Posted By
siz
on 2015-10-08
03:26:39
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
Today I've released version 1.0 of the player. It still lacks some functions I intended to include but I thought it worth the effort to release it anyway.
Changes since 0.99beta:
- support for 256+ directory entries (actually up to 1856 entries). This was mandatory as HVSC has directories with 800+ files
- faster directory listing (direct screen write instead of KERNAL routines)
- page up/page down function with shift+up/down
- support for TED musics in PSID container
- dedicated error message for not supported RSID files
- minor bugfixes
- some visual update (I wanted a bigger one but still: I'm happier with this one)
I've added the music from Exorcist in PSID format as a sample music and removed Zenji.SID which writes to memory areas outside the player (overwrites my player). Unfortunately this can happen with any other tune too.
Frequency converter and C8M support could be included in a future release but don't hold your breath for those. The freq converter is easier it can happen but C8M seems hard to be implemented and the lack of C8M musics lowers my motivation too.
You can grab the updated player from my home page until it gets uploaded here.
Edit: I've published the sources too.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2015-10-08
15:35:29
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
thanks For the update! Now i could give the highest score.
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Posted By
siz
on 2015-10-15
05:56:45
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
Just an update: support for C8M format is in good progress. Some "minor" features are yet to be implemented but...
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2015-10-15
08:36:47
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
Does this mean it plays files from the HVTC?
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Posted By
siz
on 2015-10-15
15:21:06
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
Unfortunately no. It means that HVTC files converted to either PSID or our own CBM8M format could be played.
But the conversion is mandatory. For example currently HVTC does not contain metadata such as author/title/etc. Now we have two files for every entry: 1 original music data and 1 with player included and compressed by Exomizer. We can't use either of them in a player because the original data file does not have the information about playback and the one with the included player is a standalone program which cannot be called from a different player.
But I'll create a tool for converting musics to CBM8M format (I've already created one for PSID) and will start converting all of HVTC.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2015-10-15
21:10:07
| Re: Today SIzPlay reaches the closest...
I think Luca has been working with Gaia and TLC on the format specification of the non-player files. So... those should be assumed "work-in-progress". Maybe get in touch with Luca first and see what's going on there (instead of possibly duplicating the effort, or developing something that might become obsolete).
Otherwise it's lookin' good
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