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Rockbox Plans Open Source Firmware For iRiver Gear
PlayerBlog.com writes "The crew at Rockbox, the venerable open source replacement firmware project for Archos audio players, has put together an effort to port their firmware to the popular iRiver H1xx-series
of devices. In the wake of iRiver's much-maligned (and delayed)
attempts to update their proprietary firmware, this
is excellent news."
I hope to see the same for iPods too. Do you guys know that if you buy a new hard drive for the store to install into your faulty ipod with a dead drive, there is nothing you can do to get it working again?
Some even hypothesize that Apple encoded something special into the firmware of the drives they buy as part of an anti-hacking measure.
I'd say to them "Go fsck yourselves!" to think that there are so many features that they did not implement, like a *real* EQ, and gapless playback, and even OGG format support, and yet their engineers have a lot of time to do stuff like these?
That stupid POS!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Funny nobody mentioned it and why they'll be sued because they're not doing it as a hobby but as a company...
Unless iRever people actually agree but this'd be a first one...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Hopefully these companies pick up on the hacks like TiVo did and implement them into their newer models.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
The iPod is a joke at its price range.
:)
The only competitor to the iRiver HDD players for me was the Neuros, and it was an agonizing decision, but the Neuros is just too big and needs special software to operate properly. The iRivers present as perfectly ordinary USB mass storage devices, and the database created by the Windows driver is completely optional, allowing for cross-platform compatibility without needing to fiddle with anything.
I needed Ogg Vorbis support, I needed cross-platform compatibility, I needed small and light. The iRivers aren't perfect, but they're good, solid players, and met my needs.
They've also got *really* cool remotes.
Will it keep the same features?, what if if my iRiver gets messed up with the new firmware?, then I doubt iRiver will replace it for a new one :/
I'm skeptical about the success of this. One of the reasons the rockbox software was so popular and great for the original Archos Jukeboxs' was because their original firmware was terrible.
I wouldn't say that the iRiver firmware is great, but it's not as bad as the original Jukebox. The iRiver, after all, already plays Vorbis.
I would personally like to see software that sped up the loading time on the player.
What about the M3 then? Slimmer than iPod, longer battery life, more features, remote is a tad fiddly if you like the child-like interface of the iPod, but the stick of the iRiver isn't brilliant either.
On the other hand, there isn't a hard-drive player on the market which touches the iHP-100 range (sadly including iRiver's next product the H300-series) and I've pretty much tested them all in a professional capacity as a journalist. The existing firmware is, it must be said, damn good. The way it just works with your file structure if you prefer (and I do), the way navigation works, the way settings work, switching modes, voice recording etc - it's all just right.
So iRiver really do know what they're doing when it comes to software engineering. It's actually the iRiver software that makes it stand out from the crowd. However there's a few glaring problems - the biggest, for me, is the lack of a real shuffle mode. It's easy to end up with the 100-series playing the same sequence of tracks when in random mode. That sucks. Gapless is the next most important for me with the rest of the options such as on-the-fly playlist editing and and file deletion taking up the rear of my priority list by some margin. I can live without that, to be frank. (You can still be Ann)
But let's look at what's good here. With the existing software, you can configure what sorts of play modes you like including shuffle modes. Then when you press and hold the A-B button (on the unit itself or the fantastic remote control), it will cycle through just your preferred modes and not every one of them. Brilliant.
What iRiver needs more than anything else is just a rocket up them to fix the issues and deliver what they've promised. They're a fairly typical Korean company in that 99% of the noise out there from customers doesn't reach anyone making decisions but I think that will change now a slashdot story about a vaporware opensource alternative has appeared.
That's why it's good news. Of course if someone could pressure them into dumping the proprietary software and incorporating the same USB mass storage approach as the 100-series for the otherwise-brilliant iFP-700/800 flash players, that would be the icing on the cake. Then I could switch to something smaller and lighter for the British summer.
(Meanwhile most other manufacturer's of flash-based MP3 players tell you that you don't need USB 2.0. Sigh)
.sid and .mod playback! pls :-)
While we appreciate positive attention for our work, this story is a bit early. We have just begun to look at the iRiver iHP/H1 hardware and are quite a bit away from having anything of significance to show (such as running code).
I'll try to preemptively answer some common questions:
- No, we are not violating the DMCA or any other intellectual property laws. We are only distributing software written by ourselves and we run it on our own hardware. Our software does not circumvent any access control or copy control mechanisms.
- We are not doing this to "expand our market share" or any other weird corporate-style reason. We are doing it because our old Archos hardware is becoming obsolete and hard to find so we need to find new hardware to run our software on. The fact that the iRiver has a large user base is a bonus though, since it means more potential contributors.
- We are not looking at the iPod or Rio Karma since they contain a chip made by Portalplayer that you have to sign away your firstborn to see the docs for. That is a silly practice we do not wish to encourage. The iRiver contains hardware with published docs.
Feel free to drop in on irc if you have any questions.
/Björn
The Rio Karma has similar hardware to the iPod but does it just fine. Supports OGG too.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
. The iRivers present as perfectly ordinary USB mass storage devices, and the database created by the Windows driver is completely optional, allowing for cross-platform compatibility without needing to fiddle with anything.
Indeed. I've had an iRiver IHP-120 since February, and I've not even opened the packet that the CD came in. Sure, that means that I'm missing out on stuff like the db creation tools - but I can't say I feel the loss. Plug the player in, drag 'n' drop files to it, unplug it. Easy. No computer support required bar USB and support for USB mass storage devices.
They've also got *really* cool remotes
That was what swung it in the end for me - the remote. I don't like carrying any more than I have to when I'm out and about, so whatever player I got was always going to be in a pocket, or on my belt, or whatever. Having a remote control with a display is really, really useful. After several tape and MD players that had cut-down remotes in terms of features, having one that can do everything the base unit can (bar displaying text files) is ultra-cool.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Obviously, some tweaks could be useful, depending on what the firmware can do with the onboard hardware. I'd love to hear some ideas on those... How to make a media device into something more than a media device, from odd screen displays to any number of other things.
But then what about possible tweaks that could be harmful? Put an autorun file on the drive, have it search the computer it is connected to for something, copy it to the device, and then have the device hide the info in some way?
"Oh, no, sir, I was just hooking it up to the computer so I could listen to MP3's over the better speakers. More relaxing work environment makes for better productivity."
So, what might be able to be done?
@Whee
Just to let you know if you want the tag db (inc. ogg files) then head over to
http://www.marevalo.net/iRipDB/
for a nifty database creator.
Matthew
There is already a plethora of free software for mobile audio and video players available.
The Neuros Audio Computer Team is just doing the same thing for it's far superior player. But this time, the releasing of the firmware code was done after the manufacturers approval. Way to go!
Too bad the released code will only compile under Texas Instruments' Code Composer Studio, a USD. 3500 closed source IDE and compiler.
A GCC target for the TI DSP the Neuros has in (C5416) is already on its way, though.
This was also mentioned by someone above, and it is completely wrong. The iRiver hardware uses a processor and firmware as opposed to a hardware decoder, unlike a lot of older MP3 players. Thats how they have retrospectively added Ogg Vorbis support to the iMP range of players. So in this case, yes you are wrong, and yes, firmware does decode the file formats.
#include "disclaimer.h"
yopu could do something silly and waste a $0.13 CDR and make it bootable into dos without your files on it.
.bin files floating around for nero to make a bootable DOS CDROM. hell strip the bootable out of a win98 or winme install CD.
but nahhh...
I do exactly that every single time.
there are plenty of DOS bootable ISO's or
why people dink for day's trying to get a bootable DOS thumbdrive in something that is too big (spend $12.00 and buy a 16 meg thumb drive.) it blows my mind.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It is possible to create a database from Linux, too, with iRipDB
Indeed, the database for the iRiver is optional.
However, you also have the option of creating it under Linux using iRipDB http://www.marevalo.net/iRipDB/, since I believe iRiver made the database spec open.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
The existing firmware is _OK_ for the H140, but navigating a large collection (5000 songs) on this puppy is a trainwreck.
:)
If you use the DB function (which reads ID3 tags), when you go to scroll through your songs by Artist, you could be scrolling for 10 minutes or longer to get from A-Z. There's no way to adjust scrolling speed. That's no way to find a song! And if you go by Song Title, "fahgetaboutit!" There's no search feature, and no way to earmark 'favorites' on the fly.
They said they would release a firmware update in May and one in June, each to address different issues. To my knowledge, they have JUST release a beta firmware (in September), that does not even address all of the issues.
The criticism is that they are spencing all their time/resources on their new products.
I for one welcome a replacement, as long as I don't lose functionality