A run-time reconfigurable plug-in for the Winamp MP3 player

The paper describes a plug-in for the Winamp MP3 player that uses a configurable computer to provide digital special effects for audio streams. The plug-in makes use of run-time reconfiguration, modification of FPGA configuration bitstreams at run time, and context switching. The plug-in effects processor provides filters for a graphic equalizer and an echo effect. These filters are context-switched during the runtime of an application to reduce the amount of hardware required. Further, the effects embodied in the filters are changed on-the-fly by modifying the configuration bitstreams at runtime using the JBits API. These techniques are described and results on the performance of the application are presented.