[RELEASE] Hold+ v3.8 - Battery Saver Plugin

[I-am-nobody]

1 of the must have plugins for the psp.

Thanks

[LuigiPanache]

First off, I'm a big fan of this plugin. I use my PSP for music just as much as I do for games. Coupled with the extended life battery kit, this plugin gives me up to 24 hours of music. There is one thing I've always had trouble with.
Really long songs (upwards of ten minutes) and when switching between codecs can sometimes cause my PSP to hang. There is no music playing for up to two minutes while the PSP processes the music. Even on some songs I've noticed that using the remote to pause and unpause the music causes an annoying breakup of the sound. I played around a bit, and found that none of this happens when the CPU is clocked to 75 mHz. If it's anything below 60 mHz, you get these errors. With this, ATRAC3 encoded music is almost unplayable, and some AAC and MP3 files cause problems.
I know you have an option to hex edit the CPU and BUS speeds higher, but a minor upclocking would not impact the battery terribly, and would offer more compatibility.
Well, thanks for considering my idea there. Think of it as a bug report.

[buttheadrulesagain]

This is one of the best plugins, quite useful. I want to make a suggestion Torch: it would be great if your plugin let us to start the music on a turned off PSP, regardless of the position of the XMB menu, by pressing "Play" on the remote control.

[Torch]

Originally Posted by LuigiPanache

First off, I'm a big fan of this plugin. I use my PSP for music just as much as I do for games. Coupled with the extended life battery kit, this plugin gives me up to 24 hours of music. There is one thing I've always had trouble with.
Really long songs (upwards of ten minutes) and when switching between codecs can sometimes cause my PSP to hang. There is no music playing for up to two minutes while the PSP processes the music. Even on some songs I've noticed that using the remote to pause and unpause the music causes an annoying breakup of the sound. I played around a bit, and found that none of this happens when the CPU is clocked to 75 mHz. If it's anything below 60 mHz, you get these errors. With this, ATRAC3 encoded music is almost unplayable, and some AAC and MP3 files cause problems.
I know you have an option to hex edit the CPU and BUS speeds higher, but a minor upclocking would not impact the battery terribly, and would offer more compatibility.
Well, thanks for considering my idea there. Think of it as a bug report.

First of all always use ATRAC3Plus. ATRAC3 is generally WORSE than MP3. I don't even see the point of using WMA, AAC or MP3 on the PSP so I'm not going to compromise on battery life just to support inefficient codecs.

I have no problem playing even 256Kbps ATRAC3Plus songs. I've got many songs that are over 15 minutes in length and none of them skip at all.

There is a random bug while encoding with SonicStage that causes poor seeking/playback in the songs. You'll know when this has happened because when you try to fast forward or rewind, it will delay for a fraction of a second before it starts seeking through the songs. A 'good' file will INSTANTLY fast forward or rewind. Just encode these files again and they will probably come out right the second time.
-=Double Post Merge =-

Originally Posted by buttheadrulesagain

This is one of the best plugins, quite useful. I want to make a suggestion Torch: it would be great if your plugin let us to start the music on a turned off PSP, regardless of the position of the XMB menu, by pressing "Play" on the remote control.

Does the PSP turn on from a switched off state when the Play button is held on the remote? If so its probably possible.

[buttheadrulesagain]

Does the PSP turn on from a switched off state when the Play button is held on the remote?

Yes it does! Very funny, because it will turn on, but it won't play music if XMB is positioned at "GAME" or "PHOTO" (just positioned, not actually looking at memory stick contents). Thanks for your quick response.

For the Atrac3Plus thing, I have no problem using these files with the plugin. Media Go encodes them just right.

[Torch]

Originally Posted by buttheadrulesagain

Yes it does! Very funny, because it will turn on, but it won't play music if XMB is positioned at "GAME" or "PHOTO" (just positioned, not actually looking at memory stick contents). Thanks for your quick response.

Then it should be possible to send fake button presses to get to the music player.

Test another thing for me. After turning on the PSP suppose you 'just' open the music player by pressing X once on the memory stick and its simply showing the songs. If you press Play on the remote now does it start playing? What if the first thing in the music list is a folder with music inside and not a song?

[buttheadrulesagain]

Ok, I did it, and in both cases it starts playing. If it's a plain song, it plays it, and if it's a folder (not entering the folder, just the cursor on the folder) it plays the first song in the folder. It also plays if cursor is on the MUSIC section of XMB, not inside the memory stick.

Another test: if it's turned off, and XMB was on MUSIC, not inside memory stick, and I press Play, it will turn on. If you press PLAY a second time, it starts playing.

If you do all that with switch on hold and PSP turned off, it starts with the plugin activated.

[nickxab]

thanks man foe this update.
It is very nice and of curse very useful.

[LuigiPanache]

Originally Posted by Torch

First of all always use ATRAC3Plus. ATRAC3 is generally WORSE than MP3. I don't even see the point of using WMA, AAC or MP3 on the PSP so I'm not going to compromise on battery life just to support inefficient codecs.

I have no problem playing even 256Kbps ATRAC3Plus songs. I've got many songs that are over 15 minutes in length and none of them skip at all.

There is a random bug while encoding with SonicStage that causes poor seeking/playback in the songs. You'll know when this has happened because when you try to fast forward or rewind, it will delay for a fraction of a second before it starts seeking through the songs. A 'good' file will INSTANTLY fast forward or rewind. Just encode these files again and they will probably come out right the second time.

I was using ATRAC3Plus, but after using the new version of SonicStage they're fine, thank you!
However, AAC is actually the new revision of MP3 technology. An AAC file at the same Bitrate as an MP3 file always yields better sound quality. I don't use ATRAC3Plus anymore because AAC endcodes more efficiently, and because I can't get nesting of multiple folders. If that last one were available, I'd switch back.
Remember, I only get skipping if I use the PSP Remote while the system is underclocked to 60 and I pause or skip forward a track. However, I figured out the problem. It's with MP3s that have a variable bitrate that I've been having issues. I just ripped them from my CDs into 256 kb/s AAC files and they're good.
Thanks anyway!

[Torch]

Updated to v4.0
Cant seem to edit first post. check new thread.