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Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

bluetooth.com

101–108 of 108 posts

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#101

Will phones/computers that have bluetooth 4 or 5 be able to transmit bluetooth LE audio? Is it just a BLE feature that can be added in software, or is it a completely new standard?

Most likely no. LE Audio requires controller support for Isochronous channels which is major part of Bluetooth 5.2. Usually firmware updates for bt chipsets are more like bug fixes than new features.

Not to mention majority of devices on the market already ship from the factory with depleted firmware update slots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_nI9ok7iQg

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#103
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that requires a Bluetooth processor that can decode Opus. Also, it's a lot less simple than that. You aren't sending the raw audio file to the Bluetooth chip, you're sending an internal audio stream which is already getting converted anyways. The path is almost always: input audio stream -> decode into raw PCM/PDM/TDM/whatever -> convert to whatever sample rate you're using internally -> move it to your outpu…

I suspect the main reason they created a new codec is to collect a few billion in royalties. The most obvious choice here was to allow MP3 as a codec choice, but the patents are all expired on MP3 so that's not a revenue source. Doing that would have avoided recoding for most music. Every Bluetooth chip I've seen has enough CPU to decode any of these codecs. The only question would be power consumption during decodin…

You arent wrong. Look at Dolby and their clever injections into every new standard despite both HDMI and Bluray already provisioning uncompressed LPCM 7.1 channel audio.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#104
post #91
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Audio needs to not sound like it's being played underwater." What kind of bluetooth have you been using? Modern codecs sound perfectly fine.

My fancy Sony headphones sound great until I need to make a call whereupon they revert to HSP which sounds awful...

[deleted]

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#105
post #102
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opus is not low complexity

opus_256k can decode in real time on ~40MHz arm9 from 1999, or 16MHz DSP core https://www.synopsys.com/dw/ipdir.php?ds=arc_audio_opus_code...

For comparison, Synopsys' LC3 codec implementation: https://www.synopsys.com/dw/ipdir.php?ds=arc_lc3_codec

It doesn't seem to be a particularly lightweight codec compared to Opus, or particularly performant.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#106
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the main reason they created a new codec is to collect a few billion in royalties. The most obvious choice here was to allow MP3 as a codec choice, but the patents are all expired on MP3 so that's not a revenue source. Doing that would have avoided recoding for most music. Every Bluetooth chip I've seen has enough CPU to decode any of these codecs. The only question would be power consumption during decodin…

Sure, most Bluetooth chips CAN decode most codecs... but it's a matter of power efficiency. If you're trying to make things as efficient as possible, you don't want something that can decode a bunch of different codecs. More specialized means it should be more efficient.

In practice, these codecs are all going to be decoded in firmware on a DSP anyway - while the hardware is optimized for efficient implementation of algorithms like this, which one doesn't matter so much. Also, LC3 seems to have roughly the same computational complexity on one as Opus based on the figures I've seen, and about the same quality too.

I have a distinct suspicion that in reality the only relevant feature LC3 has which Opus lacks is that it ensures a nice ongoing stream of licensing money for the Fraunhofer Institute and Ericsson, who designed it and worked to get it into the standard.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#107
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bicycle is a road vehicle. You shouldn’t be riding on the sidewalk.

Ah, you must be related to the person from the other day who told my TEN-YEAR OLD to get off the sidewalk because it's illegal. By the time he rode back and shakily told us what had happened, I had no choice but to inform her at the top of my lungs (since she was 600ft down the path) that, no, it's legal if you're under 16 (in our state).

I’m sorry you were held down and forced to scream at someone two blocks away in public. Hopefully somebody some day will invent a kind of faster-than-foot travel you could use to catch up to someone instead.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#108
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, you must be related to the person from the other day who told my TEN-YEAR OLD to get off the sidewalk because it's illegal. By the time he rode back and shakily told us what had happened, I had no choice but to inform her at the top of my lungs (since she was 600ft down the path) that, no, it's legal if you're under 16 (in our state).

I’m sorry you were held down and forced to scream at someone two blocks away in public. Hopefully somebody some day will invent a kind of faster-than-foot travel you could use to catch up to someone instead.

I know, right? I'm sure the inventor of such a device could make a lot of money.
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