Hardware Is there a GBA Music Player?

[Bart Lemming]

I've had a look around but I can't find anything on the site or Filetrip.

Basically, I'm looking for a media player so that I can listen to audio books on my GBA. Since I want to listen to audio books the sound quality doesn't have to be that amazing but it would be good if it had a bookmarking feature... Anyone know of such a thing?

I realise that there are loads of media players for the DS but I really like the idea of having my books on my GBA Micro.

 

[FAST6191]

Yes but none are DLDI capable so you are limited to the 16 or 32 megabytes your cart supports per rom.

Two main options as I see it as far as wave files go (there are a few more mod players)

Tepple's GSM player
http://pineight.com/gba/gsm/

Neimod's GBA music player advance
http://www.gameboy-a...nce_gba_mp3.htm
I should also note it does not come with a good header (legal worries saw several pieces of GBA homebrew avoid adding a proper header) so you will need to make one, http://www.gameboy-a...nce_toolkit.htm is pretty good here although you might want to combine it with http://www.no-intro.org/tools.htm (GBATA) for make sure the header is good. I did have something on the EZFlash forums to get this working on an EZ4.

Neither are great quality but the second is reasonable for music and well the first is GSM so pretty much designed for voice. You might able to squeeze 20 minutes per ROM but I would not surprised if it ended up more like 10 or 15. Bookmarks... not so far as I know/can see.

 

[Veho]

You didn't say what GBA flashcard you own. If you have a Supercard you could play .gbs files. There's no size/length limit. The M3 flashcards play .gbs files too, but chances are you don't have one, and they're more expensive than the Supercard.

If you're willing to go hunting for extra hardware, you could either track down a Play Yan Micro, it plays mp3s natively, no size limit.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I've got a couple of flash carts. I have 2 EZFA's, an M3 and an EZ Flash IV. The only one that I don't find problematic is the EZ Flash. The other cards give me problems with the flashing software (a whole other topic!).

I'll look into the other players mentioned. Just one more thing though; How do you convert MP3 files et al into GBS files?

BTW: I also already have a Play Yan Micro but I hate the big lump that sticks out my Micro so I'm looking for a slightly more elegant solution if possible.

 

[Veho]

How do you convert MP3 files et al into GBS files?

Download the M3 Game Manager, use it to install the music converter (step by step guide here).

 

[Bart Lemming]

Thanks very much. I'll try using the M3 again. I like the card when it works, I've just always had problems with it. Things like the Game icon disappearing off the screen when I boot it up. The only thing that seems to fix that is randomly removing and re-inserting the both the SD card and the M3 itself... Never got to the bottom of that one!

 

[Veho]

You're welcome. Good luck, I hope this solution works for you.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Hmm. Been messing around with the media converter for the M3. It doesn't seem to be working for me though. The software seems to work at converting the MP3's and says the conversion has been successful but when I try to play them back the files won't load. I've tried playback with Winamp/Chipamp (all song titles are displayed with some hex at the end and all songs are 5:05 in length), VLC (can't play 'undefined' file) and Audio Overload (player just crashes)...

I thought it may be a codec issue but I followed all the steps before installing it and had no obvious installation errors.

I'm using XP SP3 if that helps.

 

[Veho]

Have you tried playing them on the GBA? I know media players won't recognize the .gbs format, but the converter software should play the files. Try playing them on the M3, if that doesn't work I'll look for the version of the media converter I have on my other computer. It's an older version but I know for sure it works.

 

[DanTheManMS]

I too have a few different versions of the *.gbs converting software on my computer but for different reasons (the "filmplay.gba" file that the Supercard website provides actually only works for movies converted with a version of the conversion software that only exists via Archive.org nowadays). I'll upload what I've got if needed. Details at http://www.pockethea...usic_and_Movies (which I wrote years ago, heh)

GBA GSM Player should also work for your purposes if you're willing to take a few minutes to sort things out. Use something like Audacity or Wavepad to convert your audiobook into uncompressed WAV format, splitting it off at the 2-hour mark if necessary (GSM player claims it can do 150 minutes at a time but I'm sticking with 120 just to be safe). Put the uncompressed WAV files in the "wavs" folder, run "go.bat", and it will handle the conversion to GSM format and the packaging into a GBA rom on its own automatically. I personally found this much easier than Music Player Advance when dealing with multiple songs at a time, but since you're only dealing with single audiobook files, that may also be worth a look. You'll still need to convert the files though, in this case to a PCM WAV format of a supported bitrate, using Audacity or Wavepad or something similar. Just use Google on "gba music player" to find the relevant page with instructions.

EDIT: Nevermind, no Googling necessary, FAST's post at the top of this thread contains a link to the page I was talking about.

EDIT 2: No bookmarks on these, I'm afraid. Sorry. GSM Player does have the option to skip a minute at a time I think, so if you remember the timestamp you can get back to it easily enough after a reboot.

 

[jimmyemunoz]

There's a seller on Ebay who sells the device "GBA MP3 Player." He charges $1.99, plus shipping. Here is the link
Note: This will not work with the GBA SP

 

[DanTheManMS]

That looks suspiciously like a knockoff copy of the ... wow, I can't remember the name now. Y-AMP, Y-AN, started with a Y at least. It's like the SCDS:TWO and the official US release of the GBA music player in that it has on-board hardware that helps it decode audio files in realtime. The GBA with its 16 Mhz just isn't enough to decode mp3 files in realtime, which is why we do this dance with converting to uncompressed wave files and reconverting to either GSM or heavily-compressed PCM files.

Side note: with double the processing power, hackers did finally manage to decode mp3 files on the 33 MHz portion of the ARM7 on the DS. That's how tuna-viDS works.

 

[Veho]

That looks suspiciously like a knockoff copy of the ... wow, I can't remember the name now. Y-AMP, Y-AN, started with a Y at least.

Play Yan Micro? Only this one uses Smart Media cards. Haven't seen one in ages. I think the size limit for those was 128 MB.

 

[DigitalDeviant]

odd my M3 perfect minisd can play mp3's directly of the memory card while playing of off a GBA or DS.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Have you tried playing them on the GBA? I know media players won't recognize the .gbs format, but the converter software should play the files. Try playing them on the M3, if that doesn't work I'll look for the version of the media converter I have on my other computer. It's an older version but I know for sure it works.

Hiya, sorry for the delayed response. I have now tried them on the M3 itself but the files aren't recognised.

I tried playing the files back through Winamp with the Chipamp plugin that's supposed to support .gbs files but no go... It can play back miniGSF files fine though.

If you could find and upload your older version of the software that would be massively appreciated. If you do I'll upload all the previously mentioned software in this thread to Filetrip for posterity if nothing else.

 

[Bart Lemming]

^
Can I ask, how do you do that? I know there is an extra menu option when using the M3 on the DS (Extend, I think) but I don't know how to do that on the GBA.

 

[Veho]

Here you go (it's the installer, I hope I didn't forget some other crucial element )

Should work. I'll try it out later today just to make sure (don't have my GBA here at the moment).

 

[Bart Lemming]

Thank you.

I'll play around with it and see how it goes.

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

I have an SD full of GBS files I use for music. The converter should work 100%. If you want to test on your computer, drag the GBS files into the converter and they'll play on it.
On your M3 slot 2, you should have a music icon in the menu when you boot up. You choose that and all GBS files will be displayed.

The only complaint I have about this format is that it's a tad bit lower fidelity than MP3s, and yet they're bigger in file size.
Other than that, I've been using my micro as an Ipod, and it's really great.

Hope this info helps for anyone wondering about this or for the OP.

 

[BORTZ]

Huh, i found this with a google search lol
http://pineight.com/gba/gsm/

And this from the DS peripherals wiki page.

Nintendo MP3 Player

Nintendo of Europe released the Nintendo MP3 Player in December 2006. It is very similar to the Japanese Play-Yan Micro, however the MP3 Player cannot play video files. Music is played from an SD Card inserted into the MP3 Player Cartridge (which fits into the GBA Slot), and a special Headphone port is included in the cartridge to enable playback during sleep mode, and in a higher quality than the DS speakers. It has two menu themes, a Stickman theme and a classic Super Mario Bros theme.

The Nintendo MP3 player is compatible with any device that can play GBA games, however it is not recommended for the Game Boy Advance or GBA SP due to short battery life.