[FEATURE REQUEST] Add playback of APE files

[Antiwh0re]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I can't play my files in ape (Monkey's audio) format.

Describe the solution you'd like
I'd like the app to properly recognize and play ape files.

Describe alternatives you've considered
None.

Additional context
As you're now using ffmpeg for playback, I assume it's not hard to make Namida play ape files as well. It's a popular lossless audio format, so lack of its support is a missing core function.

Apps
AIMP for Android.

[MSOB7YY]

can you provide a sample file?

[Antiwh0re]

What sample file? Audio in APE format?

[MSOB7YY]

@Antiwh0re yesss

[Antiwh0re]

Here's a magnet link to a single in APE format:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:9EB31D7A839F4465D44FAD6480774253ECFCF4E9&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt.t-ru.org%2Fann%3Fmagnet&dn=(Electronic%2C%20Oldschool)%20Opus%20III%20-%20It's%20a%20fine%20day%20(single)-%201997%2C%20APE%20(tracks)%2C%20lossless

[Antiwh0re]

By the way, besides not playing APE files, Namida also doesn't read their tags properly. Now the track number and name of each song is listed in the library as a separate artist.

[MSOB7YY]

alr i will investigate that

[Antiwh0re]

It happens to most files, but not all of them. Select few are shown in the library the right way like those I've linked to.

[Antiwh0re]

So have you tried implementing this feature? And have you thought of adding it to the next release?

[MSOB7YY]

not yet. its not a feature i can corely work on but im gonna see if its possible to support it by the internal player

[Antiwh0re]

By internal player you mean ffmpeg? If so, then it's already supported. The developer of another audio player wrote that playing ape files in Android natively (he uses a library exo-something it seems) is a problem because the devs of Android itself haven't programmed it to recognize ape as audio files (unlike flac there's no appropriate mime type for it or something). He also wrote that proprietary players usually bypass this Android defect by calling ffmpeg for every file, which recognizes everything. As you're using ffmpeg now, this implies that you can implement it with little effort.

[MSOB7YY]

@Antiwh0re exoplayer doesnt support ape format yet
although ffmpeg supports it, it still doesnt play it even while its on "prefer" DefaultRenderersFactory.EXTENSION_RENDERER_MODE_PREFER
not sure what to do exactly except for trying to update ffmpeg extension, but since i can't build it, and the new prebuilt versions are broken, im kind of stuck in between hagahgaha

[Antiwh0re]

Why don't you ask ffmpeg devs? If the devs of proprietary players manage to bypass this defect, the solution must be out there. For example I've used AIMP for Android some time ago and it was playing APE fine.

[MSOB7YY]

"ask ffmpeg devs" 💀💀 yah im sure its not so hard if exoplayer or ffmpeg supported that, the thing is i can't edit their code etc to support it, and i dont even know

if there are other open source android players that support it then it might give us hope

[Antiwh0re]

I'm saying that it does support it, so there must be a way of making it work without rewriting their code (I'm sure the devs of AIMP and others are not doing that). And I'm offering you to ask them (ffmpeg) how to make it work.
As for other open players, I've tried a lot of them and haven't seen one that plays APE. AIMP has closed source.

[MSOB7YY]

--enable-demuxer=ape --enable-decoder=ape this can be done while building ffmpeg extension for exoplayer, but again i still need to build my own and not use old prebuilt version
i might look into it later