[Rhythmbox-devel] Re: Support for flash based mp3 players

[Stefan Monnier <monnier iro umontreal ca>]

>> - Less important, but I'd like to be able to transcode down to 64 or
>> 96kbit.  Half the time I'm using my mp3 player I'm on trains or
>> buses, where there's so much background noise I don't mind trading
>> sound quality for playing time.
> Hadn't even thought of that! it's a good idea, but i don't know how i'd
> present it in the interface...

The way I see it, RB would have several "repositories", and the MP3 player
would appear as another repository (you could also have an iTunes server as
another repository, ...).

I see it as an extension/generalization of the current iPod support.

You could copy songs between repositories and each repository would have
a spec describing the formats it can use (MP3, AAC, Vorbis, ...), including
the max bitrate and copying would do the transcoding as necessary.  It would
also include a spec describing the constraints to obey for filenames
(e.g. it could just be a format string that could be set to
"%artist/%album/%track-%title.%format" or something else depending on
whether folders are supported).

I'm not sure what to do about playlists, but I don't care much since
I rarely use those ;-)

I have two use-cases in mind:
- the above mentioned case of an MP3 player (my MP3 player can't play my AAC
  files, and I also found that 64kb/s Vorbis is good enough for my flash MP3
  player, and compared to the 192kb/s I use for my main database, it gives
  me a lot more room).
- the case where I have a big/slow/cheap/external disk, not always
  connected, where I keep a "backup" of my CDs in FLAC format, and I also
  use a local repository on my laptop's smaller disk where I can't
  afford FLAC.

Also it might be good to have some way to auto-sync repositories
(e.g. I rip a CD to FLAC format on my laptop at a friend's place and when
I get back home, I'd like the FLAC files copied to my main backup disk and
then my laptop's copy recoded in Vorbis).

Maybe the auto-sync could come with a form of filter describing which songs
should be sync'd (no need to sync my children-songs onto my laptop, for
example).


        Stefan