CarMa 2011 (public beta) [updated 14-04-2011] *old thread*

And still is! :)

We've been phasing out the Winamp application as CarMa's audio-engine.
We implemented the BASS audiolibrary as replacement. One word: awesome!
It was totally worth the effort and time.

It took a while to implement, but currently we have support for
stereo(2.0) through 7.1 configurations, per-channel low-/highpass filters and
per-channel volume settings. We also upped the sampling frequency to
48kHz if the system supports it, otherwise it will use the default 44.1kHz.

Our focus now is designing the new skin, fixing a few bugs and
implement a plugin to use Destinator as navigation-engine.


As usual, this version can be downloaded, as of now, from our website.
The older build is still available, since this is a test release.
(we didn't want to wait any longer releasing this build)

jsn, great to hear this is progressing well :D

The BASS audio system sounds interesting, especially with multi channel support :D.

One point... You say you've upped the sampling rate to 48khz. This may be all well with high end sources but for an average flac and mp3 this will cause sample rate conversion! I think it'd be better to leave ti at 44.1khz by default, even on a 48khz capable system, avoiding any resampling?

Any word on an 800x600 skin? :D

edit: is the bassflac component integrated by default?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PsyBlade

jsn, great to hear this is progressing well :D

The BASS audio system sounds interesting, especially with multi channel support :D.

One point... You say you've upped the sampling rate to 48khz. This may be all well with high end sources but for an average flac and mp3 this will cause sample rate conversion! I think it'd be better to leave ti at 44.1khz by default, even on a 48khz capable system, avoiding any resampling?

Any word on an 800x600 skin? :D

edit: is the bassflac component integrated by default?

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Hi PsyBlade!

Yeah, the multi-channel support is awesome.
But now we need multichannel audio-sources (AC3, DTS, anything at least 5.1 :P).
It currently mirrors the front to the rear channels. The center does some work, but
I think the filters should be tuned some more. The LFE channel can be configured
as full-range or with low-pass or high-pass filters. Ofcourse, the cut-off is configurable too.

About the upsampling.. I haven't done any bit-level comparisons yet, so I can't tell
anything positive or negative about it, although the audio is very clear on our test-rig.
BUT.. CarMa runs standard in 44.1kHz and can be configured to use the 48kHz-mode if wanted.

In the meantime, we also modified the volume-control to use a logarithmic scale.
But this is also linear by default, and can be configured from within the settings app.
It should make changing volumes a lot more ear-friendly.

And last but not least, the BASS plugins/extensions. It doesn't load it yet, but if there
is any need, I'm more than happy to add them. I guess it's just telling BASS to load
an extra library. I'll check it tonight, I'm interested in FLAC playback too :P

Our next skin will be designed for 800x600. Why? Because the original resolution is
too low to be useful for a Garmin Nav screen (the current supported navigation app)
and 848-screens should run great in 800-mode too. The skin will still be designed with
a widescreen aspect ratio, because 800x600 is square by nature.

So, I hope this answered most of your questions..
Although not too much activity on this forum, there is a lot of activity in the background!

Sounds great! Just downloading it now, even though its the wrong res I'll do some testing for you.

Any eta on the 800x600 skin? If it'll be a while, I might start working on one :)

Edit: Looks like there are some multichannel audio files on the bass homepage, I'll try these :).

Plugins - I think flac will be in demand by quite a few people, I take it you have the tags plugin already? To display id3 etc.

More edit: basscd for cd playback and maybe basswma!, quick read and it looks like they are fairly easy to integrate :)

Yeah, I know.. I just didn't add the code for them yet.
But I will add all these plugins/formats, it'll be a few lines
of code to support it anyway, I guess.

The 800x600 skin is still work in progress.. I can't really predict when it's done
since other issues and parts need our attention too. We're trying to get it
usable as soon as possible. The current skin is more like a test-bed for controls,
it's getting a bit messy now.

I can try to get a basic part of the new skin functional by next week, but take notice
it'll be work-in-progress for another couple of weeks (due to other CarMa priorities).

Go CarMa Go!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SjLucky

Go CarMa Go!

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Thanks :)

It's a great reward to see people supporting this project!

This frontend looks promising indeed!

I'll give it a whirl one the 800x600 skin comes out. Does this frontend allow playing internet radio? I'm guessing this would probably be in the form of a plugin for BASS.

Hi jbradshw,

Yeah, Internet Radio is on our list.
But unfortunately, not yet implemented.

More and more people are getting mobile internet connections these days.
So we feel we have to prepare CarMa for a 24/7 internet connected environment.
(as we already did with the Weather plugin)

We'll get back on this matter soon!

Just a heads up...it looks like you forgot to include your BASS license with the release