MPD should support mpg123 for mp3 decoding

[jerkejacobs@…]

Dear all,

The libmad library which is currently the default output for mp3 files has very low quality output and some streams play very sound crackling. I switch to console mpg123 player but it would be nice that the mpd port default uses mpg123 as output decoder.

See: ​http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Dependencies

Have a nice day!

Kind regards, Jerry

[rmstonecipher@…]

Jerry,
We have mp3 support by default via mad.
Does mpg123 use less CPU/memory?
Does mpg123 sound better?
Just checking release dates, it looks like mad is several years old and mpg123 is actively-maintained.
If you can explain why we should switch (besides the above-mentioned release dates) I will see what I can do.

Cheers,
Ryan Stonecipher

[jerkejacobs@…]

-- Quoting from mpg123 website: A test (GNU/Linux OS) with 0.60-beta2 showed 3% to 4% CPU usage on decoding high quality VBR MP3 with a pentiumII laptop with 366MHz, while a pentium 100MHz can easily handle two mpg123 instances in realtime (plus the mixing daemon that works on decoded data).

Also, we have reports from such devices as nintendo DS or Sony PSP, or various embedded systems...

And it tests according to the ISO MPEG reference set.

I mainly want to switch because of streams that made crackling playing sound with libmad and switched from mpd player to mpg123 player because of the libmad output decoder.

Kind regards, Jerry

[railsdontscale@…]

Hi, I'm new to the internals of macports, I just wanted to report that skipping in times (forward, backward, and %) is broke on MP3's when I use ncmpcpp and mpd. The issue started arising about the time this was made.

​https://trac.macports.org/changeset/94472

I have no problem with using mpg123 if it has better support, but having skipping tracktime would be nice to fix.

If I do sudo port activate mpd @0.16.7_1 and sudo port activate mpd @0.16.8_0

then killall mpd and restart with mpd --no-daemon &, the skipping issue is fixed.

For now I'll use this older version until mpg123 fixes for me. Excited about incorporating this new library if it works though, thanks for your hard work up there ! :D

[rmstonecipher@…]

R-D-S, Jerry,
It looks like each library has pros and cons.
I reverted the default mp3 decoder to libmad and created a +mpg123 variant in r94828.
Hopefully this compromise will allow both of you to use mpd as you want.

R-D-S,
At some point in the future after both mpg123 and ncmpcpp have been updated, may I email you to see if you can still reproduce the error you described?
I would like to switch the default mp3 decoder to mpg123 eventually since it is actively-maintained.

Cheers,
Ryan Stonecipher

[rmstonecipher@…]

R-D-S, Jerry,
As of r99335 there are now mutually-exclusive variants for +mad and +mpg123.
You can select your preferred mp3 decoder using these variants.
+mad is the default selection.

R-D-S,
You can use port load mpd and port unload mpd rather than killall mpd and mpd --no-daemon &.

Cheers,
Ryan Stonecipher

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

rmstonecipher has retired. See #51138.

[kurthindenburg (Kurt Hindenburg)]

closing this for now as per comments