Optional playback engine?

[RobL]

Hi,

I see elsewhere people have asked about support for other variants of WMA, and you've commented that you'll never be able to support DRM.

I've just got a Galaxy Tab, and was really pleased to see how well its support for DRM works.

I was also pleased to see that it had been implemented in a way that meant it works in other music players (that wasn't the case on an Archos device I have which also implements WMA DRM).

However, I was disappointed to find that that doesn't extend to Poweramp.

I realise that that's a tradeoff against the fact that Poweramp supports other formats (e.g. FLAC) that the device otherwise wouldn't support, because it uses its own method for decoding the audio.

Is there any possibility of you somehow allowing it to use the OS decoders in certain scenarios? Either where it detects that it just doesn't support the format, or simply through a toggle in the settings?

I realise that this would probably be complicated - and in particular certain functionality (equalizer maybe?) might depend on doing the decoding itself, but on the other hand it might give a number of gains (for instance, if Poweramp doesn't support formats that the device's native player supports, that'll encourage people to stick with their native player)

Do you think it's totally out of the question, or something you might be able to add onto the feature request list?

Thanks

Rob

[admin]

In Androids below 2.3 there is no way to get sound stream back to application to produce processing on it (equalize/preamp it).

Basically, almost all Android music players are just UI, which send play/pause/etc commands to system media process which actually plays the songs.

While it's possible to add support for that media service to PowerAMP too, it won't apply equalizer to it and this is much harder to explain to user than inability to play appropriate wma variants.

Also, legally playing DRM WMA will require payment to MS, most of users won't accept raised price for the app (like in $20-30 range)...

[RobL]

Do you mean legally playing it using your own engine?

Presumably since, as you say, most music players are just controlling the android engine that doesn't require licencing?

If (and I realise this might be a big if) it's possible for you to identify formats that you can't play but which the OS can, I'd personally have thought that people would live with the fact that you get a lower quality of user experience (i.e. minus equalizer) when playing it back. Of course, I realise that's simplifying the implementation anyway.

[admin]

WMA is not supported by "stock" android, it's supported by the specific vendors (e.g. HTC, Samsung), various vendors can support various formats on their will.

[RobL]

no, I realise that. But obviously if you pass it off to the OS, it can work out whether it can play it or not. This is how all the other music players on the market seem to do it.