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and FLAC, and another seven or so codecs, if you use the RockBox firmware.

I got a 30GB Video ipod as a present (5gen), while I was looking for an irivier, because I wanted ogg vorbis support. But by the end of it, I came across the Rockbox firmware, which is an opensource replacement for the apple firmware, and provides a lot of extra features like:

Support for lots of codecs, including AAC,mp3,Ogg,ALAC,FLAC
Gapless playback
Replaygain support
Extensions in the form of plugins (including games)
Fully Theamable
Can copy songs both too it and from it, appears like a USB storage device

And others, but those are the ones I use. While Apple caters to the masses, who are not interested in things like vorbis support, for those of us that are, the option exists. As such I see little reason for apple to bother implementing it, as long as they do not try to prevent people doing it themselves.

Also Rockbox does not remove the apple firmware, so you can switch between the two, allowing you to use the Apple firmware (and iTunes) if you wish side by side with rockbox.

A little extra research reveals Rockbox. If I understand, from scanning the site, Ogg support is in there.

Use http://www.rockbox.org/. It plays ogg and flac already on nano's among others. Why wait for Apple?

you're going to have to get by without your OGG supporting iPod

No, you don't have to:

http://www.rockbox.org/

Supports: iPod 4th gen (grayscale and color), 5th gen (Video), Nano and Mini 1st/2nd gen

        * MP3 does not correctly handle gapless playback by design

        * Applying Replaygain to MP3s sets the information into APEv2, which Rockbox currently doesn't understand

Any of the players supported by Rockbox will play Vorbis formats, if you run Rockbox:

http://www.rockbox.org/

I use it on my iRiver H340, and it's pretty good.

If you just check which players are supported by the rockbox firmware, and then choose a player according to your budget, you won't be disappointed.
I own an iriver H320, which supported OGG out of the box (which was the reason I bought it). It was nice enough as it was, but now that I installed rockbox, I never want to go back to the original firmware.
But if you don't want to risk bricking your mp3 player (although the risk was almost non-existant with my H320), Cowon is also a good brand for sanely priced OGG players.

You might want to try out the open source firmware rockbox (at http://www.rockbox.org/ or some general feature-info at http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRock box ).

It is superior to apple's firmware in all but two areas: Can't handle video playback on the v5 players (yet), and obviously isn't compatible with Apple's FairPlay DRM. Also has lots and lots of functions

Not being able to play their iTunes-bought songs on this firmware sure is a bite in the ass for all the people who suggested that FairPlay really wasn't that bad. Aswell as everybody else. :/

You might want to try out the open source firmware rockbox (at http://www.rockbox.org/ or some general feature-info at http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRock box ).

It is superior to apple's firmware in all but two areas: Can't handle video playback on the v5 players (yet), and obviously isn't compatible with Apple's FairPlay DRM. Also has lots and lots of functions

Not being able to play their iTunes-bought songs on this firmware sure is a bite in the ass for all the people who suggested that FairPlay really wasn't that bad. Aswell as everybody else. :/

"still lacks gapless MP3 playback (a major buzz-kill)"

Rockbox - the same guys who do the firmware that allows for gapless playback for the iRiver, iAudio and Archos also do firmware for the iPod - so gapless playback (and lots of other features) is entirely possible on the iPod.
Now I agree that Apple should have gapless playback built in to their own firmware - but IIRC all the other big manufacturers don't have gapless built into their own firmware - instead relying upon rockbox for gapless playback...

The X5L is 30gb and the battery lasts about 27 hrs - yes I love its features and the fact that the people on the iAudio forums actually listen to the firmware requests. A lot of people don't like the file-folder based navigation system but a lot of my mp3s dont have id3 tags and I've already sorted the lot my genre>artist>album so the file-folder system actually works better for me.
FM and recording are absolutely superb.

Its around $300 this side of the atlantic so I'm surprised you only find it for 400 Euros. I think even with shipping it should work out a lot cheaper. If your familiar with the the M3 (I had one until some fucker stole it in NYC) then you might wonder about the remote - you won't need it and it makes only a marginal difference with the battery life especially with the X5L.

Also following this discussion I've been looking into putting RockBox on it - http://www.rockbox.org/ - it looks very cool.

Heres the link for the place I bought mine from and its still around $300/-
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A= details&kw=IAX5L30BL&is=REG&Q=&O=productlist&sku=3 96390

I think if you buy it from the COWON website they usualy throw in some free stuff like the nicer dock. When I got the M3 it came with the CW200 a small 128mb player which I use if I go biking.

As you can tell I'm pretty loyal to COWON because the damn thing is built like a tank (dropped I don't know how much) and both the M3 and the X5L have already served me really well. Also look at the Toshiba and Sansa players - they have comprable features and I've heard good perosnal reviews on the Toshiba ones. iRiver ain't bad and I'm actually kinda waiting to see what happens with the Zune. Moral of the story is there is more out there than the iPod especially if you like having more features.

Good luck!

In case you're still not aware, Rockbox enables my nano to seamlessly play ogg, flac, mp3, and several other formats. Not only that, but the playback is gapless, has beautiful cross-fading, and quite a few additional features.

Yeah, Rockbox is a fantastic project and I would just love to try it out -- if it weren't for a major problem: the code hasn't been optimised for low power consumption. From the web site: Battery life is significantly less than the Apple firmware.

I wouldn't mind the other known flaws/bugs, but a high battery life is a must for me. I'll install Rockbox as soon as that has been ironed out.

I highly recommend it. :D

.:bleaked

... is any that is supported by Rockbox

What makes iPods complicated to use on GNU/Linux desktops, is the iTunesDB file that has to be parsed and written for the iPod firmware to be happy. If it wasn't for that, you could just mount it as a regular USB drive, and copy the files over.

A friend of mine recently bought an iPod video, and had a few fights with his media player while trying to compile an iPod plugin for it, but with no luck. When he came over to my place, I suggested that he could switch firmware to Rockbox. The installation might not have been the easiest, using dd to extract the firmware from the iPod's HDD, compile a tool which was then used to patch the original firmware with a bootloader, and then copy onto it the Rockbox binaries afterwards.

However, it is now possible to just copy music into the mounted iPod using any file browser, and it'll show up in Rockbox immidiately. Rockbox also offers many new features to iPod owners. Does the Apple firmware play OGG Vorbis or FLAC files? WavPack? AC3, then? Rockbox still can't play video files, though, but the Rockbox bootloader actually sets up a dual boot environment, so that you're able to switch over for watching videos, or playback DRM'ed files, if you have to.

That don't befund me none when I have an Archos Jukebox Recorder v2. I hope GM forms a similar partnership with Rockbox. Actually, I don't really care because I won't be able to afford a new car anytime in the foreseeable future. :P

but the iPod simply requires that you use proprietary software to transfer music onto it--not uncommon for peripheral devices, and not anticompetitive

This is no longer the case. There are third party and Free applications for the iPod now. Check out rockbox for iPod replacement software. Personally, I like the software that came on my iPod and iTunes just fine, but there are lots of options out there.

Rockbox has had this exact capability for quite a while already. Since 2004-03-14 I believe. You can generate speech files for every mp3/etc. file on your device, and it'll get played back when you scroll through lists and menus. Menu items have their own pre-synthesized files, and if there's no file available, it'll spell out the letters of the song.

Rockbox has had this exact capability for quite a while already. Since 2004-03-14 I believe. You can generate speech files for every mp3/etc. file on your device, and it'll get played back when you scroll through lists and menus. Menu items have their own pre-synthesized files, and if there's no file available, it'll spell out the letters of the song.

The Rockbox open-source firmware for iPods and various other players has been supporting talking menus for ages. (Sorry, the Rockbox wiki seems to be down for the moment.)

Furthermore, it's free and does not try to lock you out of your music.

So what's up with the patent?

Rockbox has had this for ages now. It's a replacement MP3 operating system, originally for the Archos machines, but now even runs on the later generation iPods.

Can you give an example of such hardware lock-in? What devices that run Windows can prevent you from running another OS, say Linux? Yes, yes, we've all heard about the Trusted Computing Platform. You can run Linux on it, if you so choose.

Hell, you can even run Rockbox on an iPod instead of the proprietary Apple iPod OS, if you want a DRM free iPod.

Every single time someone complains about FairPlay, it's instant proof that they've never even bought anything from the iTunes Store and actually used it.

Of course I haven't. My iRiver wouldn't be able to play it. (No, burning a CD, re-ripping that CD and reencoding the track does not count as a reasonable way to listen to music I buy.) It may be the "most liberal DRM in existence", but that's obviously not liberal enough because I would not be able to listen to the tracks. (The fact that my iRiver doesn't play AAC is irrelevant --- Rockbox (which I use) may well cope with it. I've never tried.)

My housemate appears to have lost all her music because iTunes has decided that she's copied it too many times. I suspect that, if she has exceeded the limit, it's because she's on her third under-warranty replacement iPod. \o/

Doesn't the iPod show up as a mass storage device when you plug it in?

It does.

In which case can't you load music into it in a platform-agnostic fashion?

With the stock firmware, no. The files are all there (usually with scrambled names if iTunes put them there), but there's a file (iPod_Control/iTunes/iTunesDB) that contains all of the metadata and that tells the iPod which file to play for which song. On Linux, ipodslave and gtkpod provide compatible, but limited, functionality. (gtkpod doesn't know a thing about podcasts or cover art.)

Rockbox is supposed to work on newer iPods. I've not tried it out yet, but my understanding is that you can just dump a bunch of files onto a Rockbox-equipped iPod (or other device) and it'll play them. It's also supposed to coexist with Apple's firmware (dual-boot between the two).

If you need further confirmation (petur is a Rockbox developer), see this thread in the Rockbox forums.

Neuros has chatted with the Rockbox developers too, last fall: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/NonArch os#Upcoming_Models

You'll find this helpful then: Gapless iTunes playback. It takes alittle bit longer when you rip the mixes - but it does the job :)

Also rockbox.org who do the firmware that allows the iriver to do gapless playback have now built gapless firmware for the iPod :) I've not tried it myself yet as my iPod is too old :(
*Finally* someone did it - had hoped Apple would have done something about it though...

Rockbox has a bunch of games. Unfortunately, the Ipod port isn't very polished yet.

"I hook mine up to any computer via usb, and it appears as another hard drive" iPods can operate this way also via rockbox: http://www.rockbox.org/ Not quite ready for prime-time, but getting there...

The real thing that gets me is, if it's for the iPod, why hasn't anyone else figured out how to get games on it?
 
They Have http://www.rockbox.org/

That's a troll question, but I'll answer it anyway. Asking Slashdot what the benefits of free software are, give me a break.

There are benefits to automotive free software regardless of kill switches. If the kill switch was not required by law, you would be able to tell you had one and remove it. As things are, you might have one and not know. If the switch were required by law, you could still remove it if you were willing to pay the price. Every government vehicle would be modified this way. In any case, the car's software could be improved and modified by people who love their car. It happens already but it would be nice to have the vendor's backing. Compare Windoze to Mepis, Rockbox to Iriver or Ipod and OpenZaurus to any other pocket PC to see how those improvements work in real life.

I hope not because the default iPod firmware is not great compared to the third party Rockbox. ;)

I'm seeing more of that... like the recent WSJ rejection of all Linux because the distro tried would not work iTunes (and a few "complex" M$Office docs). It's too bad people don't see the magic combination of:

• Amarok, the awesome free music player.
• The Internet Archive's 34,000 concert Music Archive
• A music publisher that does not suck
• Cheap USB music players from walmart, orcheap good ones or software that makes expensive ones rock like they are worth the money.

The whole DRM fiasco is so avoidable and life without it is so much better. If work forces you to use Windoze, it sucks to be you but you don't have to let that take over your entertainment and home life.

By the way, the GUI that Xine makes does all the cool stuff from keyboard shortcuts you want from a video player. If you want a real video editor, go for kino or cinerella. M$ will never give you any of that any more than M$ Word can be used for publishing.

You know, this is a popular myth/meme/assumption that in reality is just not true.

If you go to www.pricewatch.com and search for 4GB mp3 players, you will find that the cheapest 4 gigabyte flash-based DAP (as opposed to hard drive DAP) is the iPod nano.

I picked the iPod nano example because it's the most obvious and blatant one, but if you actually research other categories of DAPs, you will often find that the iPod is cheaper purely in hardware terms.

The iPod is cheaper for the simple reason that it has economies of scale that no other mp3 player manufacturer can match. That's why even Apple haters like me have climbed aboard the iPod bandwagon (although I use Rockbox on my iPod instead of the default Apple firmware, since Rockbox has many features that the standard Apple firmware lacks).

I'm repairing such a problem on a friend's Archos Jukebox Recorder V2. The problem was broken solder connections between the headphone jack and a small daughterboard which is directly attached to the jack. You can see it in the bottom right hand corner of this image. (That's the FM recorder. The V2 recorder is like an FM recorder without the FM circuitry.) Several wires connect to the board. I guess it is a fix that was added pretty late during the design process.

You already can get gapless play back in the iPod with RockBox's firmware, which would imply its not the fault of the PortalPlayer chip.

So true. If the lexus of the space can't afford your product (and apple is the lexus of the mp3 space in terms of amount of money to burn) I'd say it's not going to be too popular with anyone else.

Search for portalplayer here: http://www.rockbox.org/irc/rockbox-20040811.txt

Granted, this isn't PR speak, but people wondering why in the world someone would use the product. Of course, as an investor, this is probably the first thing you are tracking, how good is their product relative to their competitiors. I'm just excited Apple has moved off them. Likely means we'll be seeing some good battery times.

I installed rockbox in my 1gb nano yesterday and I am amazed with the cool features it has: _ You can dual boot Rockbox and apple firmware, so you can use those two anytime you want. _ It has full PC Doom, which runs and looks great (better than the gba version) and plays decent _ It has 3d screensavers that will leave you breathless, like plasma and fire. _ It has EQ and extra sound options. Music really sounds better with it. _ The defaul theme is ugly but the nano skins are beautiful! check them: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsIpod Nano I'm currently using iPod Vision Nano _ You can use it as an standard USB flash drive WITHOUT installing drivers in Windows XP. _ Tons of extra games, like tetris, a real arkanoid, pacman, puzzle-bubble and more. Even gameboy emulator _ Installation took me 5 minutes and it's bulletproof. there is no way you can brick your Ipod AFAIK. _ Cooming soon you will be able to watch videos on nano!

Depends on what's most important to you. Try this to start => http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRock box

Some iPod 5G community themes: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsIpod 5g

Rockbox on the iPod is a work in progress. If you want to install rockbox, you must understand that at this point it's pretty much beta or pre-beta firmware.

Rockbox as a firmware has been running in released and stable versions on many other players for quite some time now. So even before the proper drivers were written to support the iPod hardware, rockbox has been functioning as a powerful firmware replacement for many people. When all the bugs are worked out and a stable version is released for the iPod, expect it to put the iTunes firmware to shame. (It currently does, but there are bugs to contend with)

If you want to see screen shots, take a look at the http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsGall eryWPS Gallery (pics of people's "While Playing Screens") Due to the computer geek friendly nature of rockbox, anything is possible.

For good reason - it doesn't support video.

You sound like you are very sure, but you are wrong. Rockbox has supported video on my Archos for several years now. It's an impressive feat, considering the extremely limited CPU available. I don't doubt that as soon as the major plumbing work for Rockbox on the beta iRiver and iPod platforms is finished, video will be implemented.

" I've read through the article summary, the article, and the rockbox site..."

You did? I saw the answer to all your questions on their site. You have look past the main page. Like What is Rockbox and why should I use it. And go from there.

*cough*

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/Feature Comparison
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRock box

*cough*

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/Feature Comparison
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRock box

Rockbox doesn't take away anything, really. You still have the option to use the original firmware to use for Video playback. On top of that, you get all the features that Rockbox offers.

It works exactly like dual-booting your PC.

Rockbox is a working solution for playing Vorbis, MusePack, FLAC, WavPack, etc on the Nano, provided you're happy using daily builds.

That being said, the dynamic playlist generation in iTunes is by far one of the coolest features I've seen in software for an mp3 player. I can flag all my "most played songs" or flag all of my highest rated songs for a playlist. Want to rate your music? Create a dynamic playlist of unrated music. These playlists get updated everytime you sync your ipod to iTunes as well.

While this was a cool feature, I still intalled Rockbox http://www.rockbox.org/ on my ipod so I could use it as a portable hard drive and just copy my music to a folder.

i use Rockbox :)

Last time I touched an ipod you couldn't play music on it that wasn't synced via iTunes. I guess now you can use an ipod like a hard drive and just throw your music on it so it can play! When did that change?

When Rockbox was finally ported to ipod.