Speex dev - Sep 2006 - Speex 1.2beta1: Better, smaller, faster and more

Speex 1.2beta1 announcement:

This new release brings many significant improvements. The quality has
been improved, both at the encoder level and the decoder level. These
include enhancer improvements (now on by default), input/output
high-pass filters, as well as fixing minor regressions in previous 1.1.x
releases. A strange and rare instability problem with pure sinusoids has
also been fixed. On top of that, memory use has been greatly reduced,
especially for fixed-point and narrowband. The fixed-point narrowband
encoder+decoder memory use has been cut by more than half, making it
possible to fit both in less than 6 kB of RAM. In general, CPU
requirement had gone down, especially for the fixed-point port. The
Blackfin port has been speeded up significantly, thanks to David Rowe.
There are also a few fixes for the TI C5X DSPs, as well as better
support for C++ compilers and crappy MS compilers. Oh, and before anyone
starts worrying, the format (bit-stream) itself has not changed, so
Speex is still compatible with version 1.0 and will continue to be in
the future.

Non-codec improvements include a extension (easier to use) to the echo
canceller API and a Speex-independent version of the jitter buffer. The
echo canceller should also be more robust to saturation in the capture
path. Last, but not least, the documentation has been updated.

Enjoy,

	Jean-Marc

Hi,

I have been testing 1.2beta1 fixed point and non fixed point as well as 1.0.5 
compiled agains uclibc and run on 150Mhz pentium MMX chip.

1.2 non fixed is fastest 60 seconds encoded in 32 seconds at quality 4
1.0.5 is second with the same file encoding in 39 seconds at quality 4
1.2 fixed is slowest with 60 seconds encoded in 58 seconds at quality 4

Is this as expected? Or am I doing something wrong? Can uclibc influence 
speed?

We want to use speex and are considering a few ARM cpu's and the sis550 cpu 
(forerunner currently). Now I have to try and verify that it will encode from 
the soundcard on this device in realtime and transmit the data 
(multicasting). I was hoping that the non fixedpoint performance would be 
better, can it be my fault or is this expected behaviour/performance?

Is there a timeframe for the 1.2.0 stable release? Ballpark?

Thanks,
Kobus Wolvaardt
Kreon Technology


On Monday 04 September 2006 16:09, Jean-Marc Valin
wrote:
> Speex 1.2beta1 announcement:
>
> This new release brings many significant improvements. The quality has
> been improved, both at the encoder level and the decoder level. These
> include enhancer improvements (now on by default), input/output
> high-pass filters, as well as fixing minor regressions in previous 1.1.x
> releases. A strange and rare instability problem with pure sinusoids has
> also been fixed. On top of that, memory use has been greatly reduced,
> especially for fixed-point and narrowband. The fixed-point narrowband
> encoder+decoder memory use has been cut by more than half, making it
> possible to fit both in less than 6 kB of RAM. In general, CPU
> requirement had gone down, especially for the fixed-point port. The
> Blackfin port has been speeded up significantly, thanks to David Rowe.
> There are also a few fixes for the TI C5X DSPs, as well as better
> support for C++ compilers and crappy MS compilers. Oh, and before anyone
> starts worrying, the format (bit-stream) itself has not changed, so
> Speex is still compatible with version 1.0 and will continue to be in
> the future.
>
> Non-codec improvements include a extension (easier to use) to the echo
> canceller API and a Speex-independent version of the jitter buffer. The
> echo canceller should also be more robust to saturation in the capture
> path. Last, but not least, the documentation has been updated.
>
> Enjoy,
>
> 	Jean-Marc
> _______________________________________________
> Speex-dev mailing list
> Speex-dev@xiph.org
> http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/speex-dev
-- 
This message was scanned for viruses by MailScanner and Sophos.

> I have been testing 1.2beta1 fixed point and non fixed point as well as
1.0.5
> compiled agains uclibc and run on 150Mhz pentium MMX chip.
> 
> 1.2 non fixed is fastest 60 seconds encoded in 32 seconds at quality 4
> 1.0.5 is second with the same file encoding in 39 seconds at quality 4
> 1.2 fixed is slowest with 60 seconds encoded in 58 seconds at quality 4
> 
> Is this as expected? Or am I doing something wrong? Can uclibc influence 
> speed?
The main thing it means is that the int performance of your CPU/compiler
 isn't very good. I'm a *bit* surprised by how much difference there is,
so maybe it's a compiler issue as well. Of course, lowering the
complexity could help in all cases.
> We want to use speex and are considering a few ARM cpu's and the sis550
cpu
> (forerunner currently). Now I have to try and verify that it will encode
from
> the soundcard on this device in realtime and transmit the data 
> (multicasting). I was hoping that the non fixedpoint performance would be 
> better, can it be my fault or is this expected behaviour/performance?
On an ARM chip, the fixed-point will definitely be faster because
there's no FPU.
> Is there a timeframe for the 1.2.0 stable release? Ballpark?
No. But if it makes you feel better, you can always try
% mv speex-1.2beta1.tar.gz speex-1.2.tar.gz
:-)

	Jean-Marc
> Thanks,
> Kobus Wolvaardt
> Kreon Technology
> 
> 
> On Monday 04 September 2006 16:09, Jean-Marc Valin wrote:
>> Speex 1.2beta1 announcement:
>>
>> This new release brings many significant improvements. The quality has
>> been improved, both at the encoder level and the decoder level. These
>> include enhancer improvements (now on by default), input/output
>> high-pass filters, as well as fixing minor regressions in previous
1.1.x
>> releases. A strange and rare instability problem with pure sinusoids
has
>> also been fixed. On top of that, memory use has been greatly reduced,
>> especially for fixed-point and narrowband. The fixed-point narrowband
>> encoder+decoder memory use has been cut by more than half, making it
>> possible to fit both in less than 6 kB of RAM. In general, CPU
>> requirement had gone down, especially for the fixed-point port. The
>> Blackfin port has been speeded up significantly, thanks to David Rowe.
>> There are also a few fixes for the TI C5X DSPs, as well as better
>> support for C++ compilers and crappy MS compilers. Oh, and before
anyone
>> starts worrying, the format (bit-stream) itself has not changed, so
>> Speex is still compatible with version 1.0 and will continue to be in
>> the future.
>>
>> Non-codec improvements include a extension (easier to use) to the echo
>> canceller API and a Speex-independent version of the jitter buffer. The
>> echo canceller should also be more robust to saturation in the capture
>> path. Last, but not least, the documentation has been updated.
>>
>> Enjoy,
>>
>> 	Jean-Marc
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speex-dev mailing list
>> Speex-dev@xiph.org
>> http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/speex-dev
>