[Ffmpeg-devel] [RFC] fixed point mdct transform

[Michael Niedermayer]

Hi

On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 01:10:04PM +0100, Benjamin Larsson wrote:
> I did a fixed point mdct and was hoping to use it in ffmpeg for some of
> the audio codecs. The code is located here:
> 
> http://tranquillity.campus.luth.se/~banan/fpmdct/
> 
> The problem with this implementation is that it needs lots of fractional
> bits to get good precision. In _kiss_fft_guts.h the FRACBITS define lets
> you change the amount of fractional bits to use. The minimum amount of
> bits for the random test table seams to be 12. Less then 12 gives more
> then 1 bit difference compared to the reference calculation in some
> cases (I consider that to much). The amount of fractional bits also
> cause >32bit overflow when multiplying. My aim is to only use 32 bits to
> aid embedded use, but I'm not sure how to do that. So does anyone have
> any wise comments to share in this matter ? I guess the core problem is
> how to do a fast precise fft transform with integer arithmetics without
> using more then 32bits.

ahh, you want everything at the same time, iam almost certain thats not
possible, heres what i _think_
1. on many modern CPUs with fast FPU a floating point FFT will be faster 
and more precisse then a fixed point FFT
2. if you limit yourself to C style 32bit multiplies then you will have
to accept either low precission or slow and messy code
3. many CPUs have a fast 32x32->64 bit or 32x32->high32 bit multiply
instruction

so there are really at least 4 cases we should ideally support
1. float based FFT
2. less accurate but fast C style 32bit fixedpoint FFT (x*y)>>shift
3. accurate and fast 32x32->high32 style fixedpoint FFT (x*(int64_t)y)>>32
4. 64bit FFT (x*y)>>shift style

[...]
-- 
Michael