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doc/EFR-rationale: update future roadmap
author Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>
date Wed, 17 Apr 2024 22:45:27 +0000
parents 3a0ee08a3b9d
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1 Problem in need of solving
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2 ==========================
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3
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4 At the time of the undertaking of Themyscira libgsmefr project (late 2022),
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5 there did not exist any readily available library solution for GSM EFR codec.
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6 The community of FOSS offers classic libgsm from 1990s for FR1 codec (it's an
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7 implementation of GSM 06.10, on top of which we had to implement our own Rx DTX
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8 handler) and opencore-amrnb for AMR (based on Android OpenCORE framework) - but
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9 nothing for EFR. This situation creates a problem for anyone seeking to deploy
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10 their own GSM network with a voice interface to PSTN or other networks: such
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11 voice interface generally requires implementing a transcoder, and doing the
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12 latter in turn requires a library that implements the codec to be supported.
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13 In the present situation, anyone who wishes to implement a speech transcoder
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14 for GSM networks can easily support FR1 and AMR codecs, but not EFR.
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15
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16 EFR is more than just 12k2 mode of AMR!
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17 =======================================
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18
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19 There is a common misconception in the GSM hacker community that EFR is nothing
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20 but the highest 12k2 mode of AMR, and that any library that implements AMR,
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21 such as opencore-amrnb, is thus sufficient to support EFR as well. However,
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22 the reality is more complex:
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23
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24 * If an AMR encoder operates with DTX disabled, such that the output contains
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25 only speech frames and no SID, and the mode is forced to 12k2, then indeed a
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26 simple reshuffling of bits will produce speech frames that can be fed to an
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27 EFR decoder on the other end. Note that the two encoders (EFR and AMR 12k2)
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28 will produce *different* encoded speech parameters from the same input, and
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29 the decoded speech output on the other end will also be different, but the
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30 two versions are expected to be equally good for human ears.
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31
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32 * In the other direction, if an EFR input stream contains only good speech
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33 frames (no SID and no lost, FACCH-stolen or DTX-suppressed frames), one can
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34 likewise do a simple bit reordering and feed these frames to an AMR decoder.
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35 The output of this AMR decoder will once again be different from a proper
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36 (bit-exact) EFR decoder for the same speech parameter inputs, but as long as
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37 the EFR input stream is all good speech frames, the output will be good enough
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38 for human ears.
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39
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40 * The real problem occurs when the EFR input stream contains SID frames and BFI
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41 frame gaps, as will always happen in reality if this stream is an uplink from
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42 a GSM call. AMR SID mechanism is different from that of EFR, and an AMR
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43 decoder will NOT recognize EFR SID frames. A quick experiment confirms that
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44 when a real GSM EFR uplink RTP capture is converted to AMR by non-SID-aware
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45 bit reshuffling and then fed to amrnb-dec from opencore-amrnb, unpleasant
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46 sounds appear in the output whenever GSM uplink goes into SID.
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47
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48 EFR reference code from ETSI
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49 ============================
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50
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51 A published-source bit-exact implementation of GSM EFR encoder and decoder,
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52 complete with all beyond-speech functions of DTX, VAD, comfort noise generation,
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53 error concealment etc does exist in the form of reference code from ETSI.
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54 However, this code has never been turned into a usable codec library by anyone
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55 prior to us (at least not by anyone who freely published their work), and doing
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56 such librification (producing an EFR analogue to what Android OpenCORE people
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57 did with AMR) is no easy feat! The original EFR code from ETSI exhibits two
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58 problems which need to be remedied in the librification project:
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59
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60 1) The original code maintains all codec state in global variables (lots of
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61 them) that are scattered throughout. 3GPP reference code for AMR (naturally
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62 later than EFR in chronological order) is better in this regard (in the AMR
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63 version they gathered their global vars into structs and pass pointers to
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64 these structs, although still many separately-malloc'ed structs instead of
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65 single unified encoder state and decoder state), but we need the EFR version
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66 for correct handling of all beyond-speech aspects, and this version is all
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67 global vars.
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68
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69 2) These reference codes from ETSI/3GPP (both EFR and AMR versions, it seems)
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70 were intended to serve as simulations, not as production code, and the code
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71 is very inefficient.
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72
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73 Themyscira libgsmefr
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74 ====================
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75
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76 Libgsmefr presented in this code repository is our current solution for EFR.
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77 It is a library styled after classic libgsm for FR1, but its guts consist of a
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78 librified derivative of ETSI EFR code. The problem of global vars has been
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79 solved in this library version - they've been gathered into one unified struct
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80 for encoder state and another unified struct for decoder state - but the problem
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81 of poor performance (significantly worse than opencore-amrnb) still remains for
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82 now.
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83
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84 Future roadmap
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85 ==============
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86
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87 When this article was originally written in late 2022, my thoughts were that we
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88 would go in the direction of a single library supporting both AMR and EFR,
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89 sharing most code in common and handling the differences between EFR and MR122
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90 similarly to how most proprietary implementations have done it, following the
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91 "alternative" of GSM 06.54 chapter 10. However, that plan has been revised;
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92 our current approach (as of 2024-04) is that we are developing a separate
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93 library for AMR (libtwamr, librifying 3GPP AMR code in the same way how we
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94 librified ETSI EFR in libgsmefr), while libgsmefr remains as it is, a pristine
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95 implementation of GSM-EFR in its *original* bit-exact form.
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96
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97 Please refer to AMR-EFR-philosophy article for more information.