Re: TAPIR Player, an Audio Player for Studying Languages
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 3:14 pm
>> The image above says "star current card". Does it mean that it works together with Anki and would be able to rate cards as well?
Actually, I've never really used Anki. I can check it out, and let you know.
>> Í thin this is really interesting. I think if it were a fairly low price of be very interested. The only thing that makes me nervous is how difficult it would be to format materials. "100 lines of python code" is not reassuring
Yes, I realise that 95-99% of users just want to download ready-made materials and start studying. I am planning to set up a page for this, and also allow users to upload their own materials, if copyright isn't an issue.
>> OP, would you consider making this open source? Can I assume you will be providing a documented API?
The 'API' for the player is extremely simple, in fact it's probably better to call it a convention for naming files.
At it simplest, it's just a folder of audio files, with incrementing file names. Like this:
0001FR_A.mp3
0002FR_A.mp3
0003FR_A.mp3
The translation files, if provided, would look like this:
0001EN_A.mp3
0002EN_A.mp3
0003EN_A.mp3
'EN_' is the name of the 'track'. You could also include an alternative audio versions of the French, perhaps read slower, or with explanations:
0001FR_B.mp3
0002FR_B.mp3
0003FR_B.mp3
You can add a sub-folder under the second item (ie, it's a heading) by making the folder 0002KIDS, and there you can store more items. I wanted to make it as easy as possible to create your own materials. The list of stared cards can just be a textfile, with an index number of a stared card on each line. I can upload some sample materials, probably it would make more sense that way.
The scripts and tools for creating materials will absolutely be open source. The player uses about 10k lines of code that I got under an NDA from the chip manufacturer. Quite a bit more is provided as compiled libraries that I don't have the source for. I don't think it really makes sense to make the firmware open source. The smartphone app can be.
>> I think a lot of people will be challenged by the many button design.
Perhaps. Not everything is obvious when you first pick it up, but it's fairly logical when you play with it for a while. Having more buttons means each button has more-or-less a single function/meaning, you don't need menus (a plane's cockpit has lots of dedicated buttons, and I guess it makes it faster to operate).
>> Can you disable the lights of the buttons ? (not very useful to me except to see if the device is off or on).
Yes, I didn't program that yet, but no problem.
>> Does it have auto-power off after x minutes of pause/no use ?
Yes, I didn't program that yet, but no problem.
>> What is the power of the battery and how many hours do you think you can use the device before recharging ?
Currently about 10 hours playback. Later I program it to reduce the speed of the CPU from 96 MHz to 48 MHz most of the time, that should take the battery out to about 15 hours. This chip turned out to be a bit heavier on battery than I hoped, but it's not too bad.
>> What audio formats does it accept ? MP3 only or something else like .ogg is possible ?
MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV I think OGG too. Personally I am interested to add OPUS support, it has good quality at extremely low bitrates. But, this isn't the priority just now.
I hope I answered most of your questions. I'll be online a few once-a-day for the next few days, I'm taking a little holiday. Thanks for the support.
Actually, I've never really used Anki. I can check it out, and let you know.
>> Í thin this is really interesting. I think if it were a fairly low price of be very interested. The only thing that makes me nervous is how difficult it would be to format materials. "100 lines of python code" is not reassuring
Yes, I realise that 95-99% of users just want to download ready-made materials and start studying. I am planning to set up a page for this, and also allow users to upload their own materials, if copyright isn't an issue.
>> OP, would you consider making this open source? Can I assume you will be providing a documented API?
The 'API' for the player is extremely simple, in fact it's probably better to call it a convention for naming files.
At it simplest, it's just a folder of audio files, with incrementing file names. Like this:
0001FR_A.mp3
0002FR_A.mp3
0003FR_A.mp3
The translation files, if provided, would look like this:
0001EN_A.mp3
0002EN_A.mp3
0003EN_A.mp3
'EN_' is the name of the 'track'. You could also include an alternative audio versions of the French, perhaps read slower, or with explanations:
0001FR_B.mp3
0002FR_B.mp3
0003FR_B.mp3
You can add a sub-folder under the second item (ie, it's a heading) by making the folder 0002KIDS, and there you can store more items. I wanted to make it as easy as possible to create your own materials. The list of stared cards can just be a textfile, with an index number of a stared card on each line. I can upload some sample materials, probably it would make more sense that way.
The scripts and tools for creating materials will absolutely be open source. The player uses about 10k lines of code that I got under an NDA from the chip manufacturer. Quite a bit more is provided as compiled libraries that I don't have the source for. I don't think it really makes sense to make the firmware open source. The smartphone app can be.
>> I think a lot of people will be challenged by the many button design.
Perhaps. Not everything is obvious when you first pick it up, but it's fairly logical when you play with it for a while. Having more buttons means each button has more-or-less a single function/meaning, you don't need menus (a plane's cockpit has lots of dedicated buttons, and I guess it makes it faster to operate).
>> Can you disable the lights of the buttons ? (not very useful to me except to see if the device is off or on).
Yes, I didn't program that yet, but no problem.
>> Does it have auto-power off after x minutes of pause/no use ?
Yes, I didn't program that yet, but no problem.
>> What is the power of the battery and how many hours do you think you can use the device before recharging ?
Currently about 10 hours playback. Later I program it to reduce the speed of the CPU from 96 MHz to 48 MHz most of the time, that should take the battery out to about 15 hours. This chip turned out to be a bit heavier on battery than I hoped, but it's not too bad.
>> What audio formats does it accept ? MP3 only or something else like .ogg is possible ?
MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV I think OGG too. Personally I am interested to add OPUS support, it has good quality at extremely low bitrates. But, this isn't the priority just now.
I hope I answered most of your questions. I'll be online a few once-a-day for the next few days, I'm taking a little holiday. Thanks for the support.