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Audio Codec Support for the PhotoBridge

Soiaf (Peter McQuillan) on the Roku forums has created a number of audio codec plug-ins compatible with the Roku PhotoBridge (HD1000/HD1500). These plug-ins will allow both the built-in Listen/Sonata and my Sonica applications to play files with these encodings. The PhotoBridge natively support MP3, WAV, AAC, and AIFF encoded files.

The following codecs are available:

Notes:

WavPack
* It will not accept WavPack files from before version 4.0.
* It does not handle WavPack "correction" files

Mod/Tracker
Currently (apparently!) supports the following MOD formats: MOD, S3M, XM, IT, 669, AMF, AMS, DBM, DMF, DSM, FAR, MDL, MED, MTM, OKT, PTM, STM, ULT, UMX, MT2, PSM
* This codec will not play MOD/Tracker files (of any type) that are greater than 3 MB in size.

Apple Lossless
* Important Note: The simple install will install the 'pseudo' M4A codec. The m4a file extension is registered by default to use the AAC codec. With this pseudo codec installed, files ending with the extension .m4a should be handled (transparently) by the correct codec, either Apple Lossless or AAC as appropriate.

Installation instructions

Two possible ways of installing these codecs, the easy way (just click on an icon to install) or the techie way (using telnet etc.).

Easy Method

  1. Download the code package (see above).
  2. Unzip the contents on your computer (keep the directory structure).
  3. Create a directory (lets say codecs) on a compact flash card or network share and copy the contents of the zip file into this directory.
  4. You should be then ready to install - an icon should be on the desktop (in the share or compact flash card where you installed the files) - the installation application will be named install<CODEC>codec where <CODEC> is the name of the codec you want to install.
  5. Click on the install application.
  6. You should now be able to play files encoded with that codec.
Important Note This install script does not copy the codec into the internal memory of the PhotoBridge - the codec is stored in the directory you created on the compact flash card (or network share). If the PhotoBridge cannot see the codec (say you've removed the compact flash card that you stored the codec on) then you won't be able to play the files that need the codec.

More details are available in the readme file enclosed in the zip file.

Techie Method

  1. Edit the settings file located at: /etc/rokucascade/settings/com.roku.deschutes.sonata.extensions and add the line <ext>:String:<CODEC> to the end of the file. <ext> is the file extension and <CODEC> is the codec name.
  2. After extracting from the zip file, copy the file libCascadeAudioCodec<CODEC>.so to the directory /etc/rokucascade/codecs
    Note I would suggest that you store the codec (as well as any other third party codecs) in a shared folder or on a compact flash card and put a symbolic link in the /etc/rokucascade/codecs directory linking to that particular codec file - this will keep space free in the internal storage area.

This should now mean that both the Sonata and Sonica applications will be able to see audio files if they end in the appropriate extension, and hopefully be able to play them!

Contact: sonica@bobsplace.com