A new build is out for MP3 ME Player from homebrew developer caliarbor. Now on version 1.03, the homebrew has a lot of new improvements, not least of which is support for JPEG cover art in ID3 tags.

If you missed out on the previous releases, MP3 ME Player is - as the title suggests - an MP3 Player. Its charm comes from its nostalgic old-school DOS/ANSI backdrop.

Practically speaking though, the homebrew is also useful because of its low usage of power. The CPU clocks in at 39MHz, which would really be light on battery power. Here are the changes to the program since version 1.01, as enumerated by the dev:

Version 1.02:

• Added an asterisk in front of the current playing track in the browser pane. While the tracks is playing it will be green. If paused it will be yellow. Once the track is completed it will go to red.
• Dropped USB support. It didn't prove to be very useful and at times caused issues.
• Optimized source and made it easier to follow. There is almost zero latency when switching MP3 tracks now. This is the result of hardcoding the sampling frequency to 44100Hz and thereby not using the libmad library for a lot of overhead calculations. Also, file and ID3 tag data are parsed when the application is started.
• Corrected a lot of bugs in id3.c. Files with multiple versions of ID3 tags were being parsed incorrectly as having v1.x tags.
• Added support for ID3 JPEG cover art. Graphics.h was modified so that the LoadJpeg function would also take a "file offset" as an arguement. This allows for cover art to be easily read with jpeg_stdio_src.
• There is no longer a "covers" folder. Cover art is only displayed if present in the ID3 tag, in JPEG format, and with the dimensions height<=170 and width <=170.
• Song sorting is now possible by using the RIGHT TRIGGER. The sorting metods are: Title, Genre, Album, Artist, and Year.
• Filenames are no longer displayed in the browser pane. The song's title is now displayed instead.
• Layout was modified somewhat. Sampling frequency and bitrate are no longer displayed as the result of dropping the libmad overhead as listed above.
• Various other bugs were corrected as found.

Version 1.03:

• Slight change increases heap size, doesn't check for cover art being greater than 170x170, and instead of only showing info of playing track shows info of highlighted track in browser

Download: Mp3 ME Player v1.03
Visit: QJ.NET PSP Development Forums