Slashdot Mirror
Hard Drive Hack On Archos 6000 MP3 Player
Richard Holdman writes: "A few weeks ago the Archos Jukebox 6000 was realeased and only comes in a 6GB version. For those wanting to upgrade to a larger drive you might want to check out this page. It explains how to take your Archos Jukebox 6000 apart and install a 20GB hard drive. Be warned though, it will void your warranty." Or, you could pick up a Toshiba Libretto on eBay and pop in a 20GB drive for an MP3 jukebox you can telnet from.
Yep, mine gets attention from women and technophiles (both sexes). The only problem I have is that it's getting too slow. I could *really* do with one of the newer ff1100V models to replace my aging 50CT, but I haven't been able to find one in the UK. JPD are the only people I can find to import a Japanese one, and they're quoting extortionate prices for it :-(
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Emphasis on the word "might" because you won't know until you've spent the money. Playing MP3s using Linux might give poor sound quality.
/. readers who have great sounding MP3 players that they built out of components they found in the trash or bought for $0.35 on eBay. I submit that these folks are simply *lucky*.
I've got a machine that plays MP3s fine under Windows 95, but under Linux the exact same MP3s sound scratchy and staticy. I've also got a laptop running NT that has similar but slightly different sound quality issues.
Now I know there are
The folks designing MP3 players like the Archos, Nomad, and NEO25/35 are presumably testing different components and configurations, using the good and discarding the bad, and mass producing the end result. This is something simply cannot be done systematically by one person who wants one MP3 player cost effectively. There's no way to buy low cost components and get guaranteed good quality. Even a "no questions asked" return policy will leave you out $10-$20 for every component that doesn't measure up.
I don't know about the US, but here in Germany, you'll have to pay royalties at Gema for that.
:-)
It isn't a lot of money, but still, it's money for something that a company does not really need to do, so most companies here don't play "real" albums on the phone while you are waiting.
This is the main reason why (here in Germany) most "on hold" music is royalty-free. There are special music royalty-free collections for this purpose. Usually, these are short melodies and most of them suck.
A friend of mine has composed a few more interesting royalty-free tracks for this purpose. These are often instrumental tunes or even songs made for one particular company, sometimes featuring the company's name. Still, they will also go on your nerves after a short time...
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
I used to own a Libretto 50ct. A great product.
(I want it back desperately, especially because of some of my thesis files left on the harddisk when the laptop was stolen from a hotel room... sniff.)
However, its sound quality is poor with a lot of background noise from the mainboard circuitry and the harddisk. It features a not-quite-standard 2.5 mm headphone jack that requires using a bulky adapter (I always feared that I might rip the audio jack apart if I touched that adapter while plugged in). Battery time was 60 minutes, rarely more.
I haven't compared more recent models of the Libretto, but I doubt that audio quality was the engineers' main concern.
So yes, there's a good reason to build a dedicated MP3 player with a harddisk to overcome these problems.
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Now, one of the little cheap ones like the Rio 600, that I can see, sort of. But until those big ones get down into the $200 range, I don't see much use for them save for the early adopters and people with too much money to buy toys.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
It seems that many projects, especially the hobby ones floating online, are using a specific-purpose DSP designed for mp3 decoding- the MAS3507d, the STA013, etc. I'd argue in a heartbeat that this is a mistake, and that a general purpose DSP can be significantly cheaper with still enough power to do mp3, and can be updated by software to decode other formats (limited by the power of the DSP, of ocurse). Of interest, I know that the RCA Lyra uses this approach.
I too own a $99 MP3/CD player, the CM-415, and am quite happy with it.
-bugg
But if they're having a dedicated DSP do the decoding, then the BIOS will only control things like the user interface and the addressing of the media, not the method of the decoding.
-bugg
These are the DSPs I'm talking about, and while I'm sure they have a general purpose core deep inside, there's no way to access it directly.
-bugg
I know you're gonna call me crazy, but I _swear_ I've seen the TI DSP.. TMS320VC549 as cheap as $15 in individual units. I had found the match on findchips.com, and I think it was FAI that had the match (but there isn't one now)
As for the license rights, how much is it per unit? I hadn't taken that into consideration, and didn't take the flash into consideration either; not knowing how large the program would be, I can't judge on how much would be needed.
So, you're probably right, at least for hobbyist projects. (As in, not done in massively large quantities)
-bugg
A while back I replaced the 850 MB 8.5 mm drive in my Libretto with a 3.2 GB 9.5 mm drive. You have to take the case apart and remove a couple of little clear plastic spacers, then the 9.5 mm drive fits in just fine. Nowadays you can get 20 GB drives in this size. 850 MB was kind of cramped. But I have enough room on the 3.2 GB drive for both the Win95 that came with the box and a Linux installation as well.
I learned how to add a 9.5 mm drive through this excellent, illustrated page by Dr. Xin Feng. The link on the adorable Libretto page doesn't work, Dr. Feng moved his stuff.
Since you have a Libretto, another must-see page on his site is this one, which describes how to make an external battery pack for your laptop using real cheap lead-acid camcorder batteries which will run your Libretto in full-power mode for about four hours. With only $50 worth of batteries, I can use my Libretto all day long in the field.
I suppose this is kinda dumb and irrelevant, but if you ever get your laptop out and use it in a public place, have you noticed how so many of the ladies strolling by just love the Libretto? Weird, but repeatedly women have stopped and told me they think it's so cute! Maybe that's why that web page is titled adorable Libretto. Something worth thinking about, for you single guys; if I were still single I'd think I might take it down to the park, find a well-shaded park bench, and hack away...
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
using it to play "on hold" music on a company's automated button-pushing phone number? Some of the music (like for United Airlines) never changes, and it gets old, fast. I think one of these with a hard drive would provide enough music to handle a lot more customers. Sure, it sounds stupid, but when you're on hold waiting for someone, do you really want to hear "Please hold . . . your call is important to us." (30 second gap) "Please hold . . . your call is important to us."
Does anyone even know 20 gigs worth of songs? That's a hell of a lot of music.
--
These aren't the droids you're looking for.
It seems that many projects, especially the hobby ones floating online, are using a specific-purpose DSP designed for mp3 decoding- the MAS3507d, the STA013, etc. I'd argue in a heartbeat that this is a mistake, and that a general purpose DSP can be significantly cheaper with still enough power to do mp3, and can be updated by software to decode other formats (limited by the power of the DSP, of ocurse).
Mine is one of those players you mention. I used the STA013 chip. There's a few compelling reasons to use the STA013 or MAS3507D. First of all, you get a really high quality decoder without having to write code, which is difficult and requires the expensive ISO standard (I paid $170 for it). Witness the poor performance of the NJB on slightly corrupt MP3 files that winamp and the STA013 can play just fine (and Creative spent a lot). The free MP3 decoder software all uses floating point. Floating point DSPs are very expensive. A second motivation is that the STA013 and MAS3507D use less power than a general purpose DSP chip. Third, these chips include the royalty paid to Thompson, which you don't get if you write the code yourself. Finally, I do not believe there is a MP3-capable programmable DSP chip that's "significantly cheaper" (at 100 qty, say) than the STA013. Perhaps you will reply to this and give a part number of a programmable DSP (don't forget the cost of external flash memory if it doesn't have built-in in-circuit upgradable flash memory).
Perhaps WMA and Ogg will be a big deal someday, but so far, the vast majority of people I've had contact with want cool user-interface features. Of course, I'm working to get there, and it's a damn good thing I designed the board to be flash upgradable!
Someday maybe MS will force WMA on everyone, perhaps right after their antitrust case is dismissed? But consider the a closed-source upgradable design is worthless if the company holding the code doesn't spend the time and money to create the upgrade. How likely is it that you'll get Vorbis decoding from a commercial closed-source implmentation??
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I've ripped every album I own and have about 35 gigs worth of mp3's right now (this includes all the live/rare/acoustic stuff i collect too). Not really difficult to fill 20...
There are several reasons why I recently decided to buy a Archos 6000 over a libretto / laptop:
1) size - the 6000 is small enough to put in your pocket! Imagine trying to use a laptop to listen to music while rushing around a busy town or city centre...
2) battery - the 6000 now ships with two pairs of rechargable batteries, one charged pair lasting over 5 hours. Can any (non-transmeta) laptop hope to last that long which so much hd access? No.
3) cost - at $350, the 6000 is still the cheaper option, and the fact that it can be used as an external USB hd as well as a good mp3 player is an added bonus.
---------
ManicHawk
ManicHawk - Just because you're manic doesn't mean the walls aren't bouncy
i figure 2 gigs/day so.... a 60 gig hd could hold a month of mp3's. holy shit. Now the only problem is finding egnoug mp3's to fill it up.
... damn 2.5" hard disks...
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
...to think of enough tracks to make up my paltry (that's paltry as in small, not poultry as in chicken) 1.7GB collection.
How on earth do you amass 6GB of tracks, let alone 20?!