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Improve Your iPod with Rockbox
polar_bear` writes "The allure of the iPod is undeniable -- they're well-designed, sleek little music players that pack a lot of features into tiny packages. However, iPods fail to deliver when it comes to support for free codecs like Ogg Vorbis, and -- let's face it -- iTunes leaves a lot to be desired. If you'd like to enjoy the hardware goodness of the iPod with GPLed firmware, give Rockbox a try. Tim Lord explains how over on NewsForge.com." NewsForge is also a part of the OSTG network, and Tim Lord is "timothy", one of our own editors.
d'oh
These editors are idiots. The article isn't even linked correctly, its linked to the allure.. which is NOT intuitive. I had to mouse over all the links to find which one was the real article.
Finally, iPod fanboy gets key to the goldmine which iRiver geeks (and others) have been digging for, er, 2 yrs and more.
Anyway, better late than never.
LINK to the article.
So to start, iTunes sucked in 2003? The only article the submitter had going to be 3 yrs old this year. The other site really doesn't say anything except, I hate paying money for music. So great examples about the lack of iTunes.
Really, if you want to advertise the firmware that might void your warranty (not went EULA reading yet), for some added features, then go ahead. I honestly think OGG audio sounds HORRID. But please do not post your own little attack with the article.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
If I was going to go through the hassle and risk of an Ipod firmware upgrade, I'd greatly prefer the freedom and flexibility of something like Ipod Linux, rather than just a multi-codec jukebox platform.
Timothy "Lord"?
So he had his God-complex before he became a slashdot editor?
Just kidding Timothy. Please don't smite me.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Going travelling soon, got the camera connector to allow me to transport photos from my camera to the ipod, but on video the ipod falls very short; requiring me to get access to a computer to convert it so that I may watch it on the ipod.
This reason alone has made me wish I bought the Zen.
Rockbox seems to have lots of support for audio (though not much use when I use solely mp3) but doesn't mention video.
i notice a lack of firmware for my 3g..
it's beaten up and heat from my car has caused the case to distend.. but it still works and I plan to keep it until it gives up the ghost..
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I installed the latest iPod Linux last week, they even have an OS X installer now, makes it far easier than it was (not like it was hard then anyway) and I love it. Gives me all the functionality of the Apple side, plus more. Also once you install it, the bootup will show you the 'Apple' logo, then if you choose Linux it'll give you Tux listening to an iPod, but if you just let it boot to the Apple side, the new (old) logo is the old 'smiling mac SE'! So nice to see that again on an apple boot! I'm sure there must be an OS X hack to make this come back...ah, so nice.
fak3r.com
...at least don't use such Madison Avenue-esque language. --Julian
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
So, just so I'm straight on this - TFA seems to indicate that the only way to get files onto rockbox is drag and drop. How, exactly, is this better than auto-sync? I plug in my ipod, all my podcasts, videos automatically re-encoded by my eyetv, and any songs I've downloaded with cabos are all automatically added to the player. Yeah, it sucks that the directories aren't in human-readable formats on the ipod, but there are plenty of third party apps to pull songs off an ipod. I keep the installer for a windows and mac version stored on my ipod.
I have yet to find a player that gives me the functionality of itunes, either. I use smart playlists CONSTANTLY to generate groupings of songs I'm likely to want to hear. Again, all handled automatically and sync'ed every time I connect the ipod. Most players don't even have the library management I have come to enjoy from itunes. The closest I ever came when I was on windows was the MEXP plugin for winamp (http://www.mexp.dk/), but that's still a far cry from itunes.
I know a lot of people who don't own ipods and still use itunes to manage their music libraries. I guess if it doesn't run on your platform of choice, that means you can't use it - but it doesn't mean itunes sucks.
As a user who has been using Rockbox since its very first first release on the archos recorders, I have to implore all of the Linux fanboys to PLEASE not jump on the bash Rockbox in favor of Linux bandwagon. Rockbox has an entirely different philosophy than Rockbox Linux and offers several advantages, including:
Portability - Rockbox is written in C has long been designed to be hardware-independent and will compile for a whole range of mp3 players, including Archos, Apple, and Iriver Models.
Sleekness - Since Rockbox is a specifically mp3 player OS, it doesn't carry a lot of the bloat with it that Ipodlinux does. As a matter of fact, its near instantaneous boot times are one of the best aspects of the firmware.
Multiple Codec support - All the biggies (except the closed ones) are there or are under development.
Direct Disk access (this one is a biggie) - No more f-cking around with the monstrosity that is the Itunes database. For those who prefer a filesystem approach, this is a godsend, and for those who like a tagged DB, Rockbox has just added support for a pretty nice platform-independent db of its own that can be generated on teh fly by the player!
Great Community - Of all the homebrew firmware efforts for various devices that I have had experience with, Rockbox has by far the most helpful and motivated bunch I have seen.
Bjorn, Linus (no, not THAT Linus) and the rest of the Rockbox crew represent some of the best guys in the Open Source community and deserve the thanks of anyone supporting OSS. So, please no "Linux runs on my Ipod, toaster, and 8 of my 12 marital aids!" nonsense, and let's give these guys a hand.
Those guys don't know anything. When you say something like: compression removes the subtle nuance and texture from your music, you have no right to complain about apple saying iTunes pays the artists. Especially not if you advocate stealing music as an alternative.
Not only that, but their $.11 figure is not a realistic picture of the artist's compensation. It does not consider the risk the label takes in publishing the music (which the artist does not have to take), or the cash advance paid by the label to the artist at signing. Moreover, the actual commission varies from artist to artist (and from song to song if the artist has been around long enough to get different contracts). Many labels on itunes pay their artists more commission, while offering less promotion. Of course, that model is likely to make the artist less money overall, but it does show that the $.11 figure is bullshit.
Don't ever believe anything you read on that website, it's propaganda at best, blatant lies at the worst.
The allure of the iPod is undeniable
I deny it. I've never really seen the appeal of the iPod over the tons of comparable, cheaper, multi-standard hard-drives-with-headphones out there.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I've read through the article summary, the article, and the rockbox site, and I can't find a simple answer to the following question: What is it that this firmware offer (besides its open-software-ness). It appears that it provides ogg support, but there's not a clear description of anything else.
I also enjoyed how the author was looking for very specific things in his portable music player, and then ignored them due to price. That is capitalism at its best.
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
I'll ignore the three year old list of complaints about iTunes, dealing with such hot issues as Titanium PowerBook drive speeds. But for someone like me:
* who does not have five trillion CDs I need to convert at once;
* who does not care what format they are in as long as I can listen to and search the files;
* who doesn't worry about album art (I already have the CDs to see that! Who can honestly say they listened to CDs on their stereo whilst holding the CD case a few inches from their face, other than when on drugs?);
* who doesn't particularly care about how much money "the poor artist" gets (if they can come up, either individually or as the kind of collective people whining about royalties infer they are, with a system which is as easy and as affordable as iTunes, I WILL BE ALL OVER IT)
and who in general just needs something to play music on his computer, everything I read about "this sucks" and "this is better" and "use that" is quite irrelevant.
So I cannot order my music files by Album in the iTunes main display. Boo bloody hoo. As long as it sits in the background, plays the music and allows me to effortlessly import new files and CDs, I really am not concerned with what else is out there.
Well I'll be damned.
I bought an iRiver H320 specifically because Rockbox development had advanced to the point that it could reproduce the features of the stock firmware. These days, it's gone lightyears beyond what iRiver had planned. Just a small list of improvements:
I held off on buying an MP3 player until it could work as a satisfactory replacement for my MiniDisc recorder (primarily used for recording concerts). The current RB source offers the ability to activate the backlight when your recording meters clip! Fantastic for recording in darkened event halls.
Check out current developments for the H320 series over at Mystic River.
What's with all of the iTunes dissing? I'm happy with iTunes. It's a slick app, has more features than I'll ever need, and I *love* the smart playlists feature. The only thing better would be a full regex feature, but even then I'd probably just keep using the existing smart playlists gui. I really have no complaints anymore. I thought the Windows version sucked up a little too much ram, but now that all of my machines have 512meg or 1gb, I really don't notice the memory footprint anymore.
I've used MusicMatch, MediaPlayer, SonicStage, RealOne, and Anapod. I prefer iTunes by far.
I like how the list of what's wrong with iTunes is from three years ago.
Currently Rockbox isn't complete, everything works really well, and I plan on putting it on my iPod, but we experimented with my friends iPod Video and some of the battery stuff isn't complete, so with Rockbox he only gets about 4-6 hours of battery life. So give it a few more months for them to finish it, then enjoy!
I'm posting as an AC because I'm at work and don't have my password handy.
.mp3 or .aac - you can blame Apple for that.
1. Download and install Winamp 5.21
2. Get ML_IPOD 1.31 plug-in - do not use 1.3 provided on the Winamp plug-ins page. The an improved version of this is supposedly to be included in the next release of Winamp. Native Winamp support is limited without the plug-in to enabling you play the tunes off your iPod only. ML_IPOD 1.31 allows you formatting, creation of playlists most importantly maintaining your iPod.
3. Sorry, but right now you still have to pay for Winamp PRO version to be able to rip OGG, WMA, etc., to
And get the ClearOne skin. And get the Winamp CD Case RC3 from Aqua-soft or NeoWin.
My Point? ANYTHING is better that the bloated CPU stealing piece of SHIT that iTunes has become...
Mike H. - Columbus, Ohio
I would suggest a Tiny 20GB Archos Gmini. It's about 50% less expensive than iPod, especially older models (XS200). I use it in the gym when running, it's great. Dropped it on the floor a couple of times, it survived.
Alternatively, you can buy iPod, Steve Jobs could use another $750,000,000 paycheck.
I woudl be crippling my iPod by using rockbox. It would take away video from my 5th gen. Listening to OGGS ain't with that!
Gorkman
before i bought my Ipod, i had a 20 Gig archos jukebox. I found out about Rockbox and flashed it. I enjoyed it, at the time the Ipod was well out of my price range, and the Firmware flash was as close to the ipod as possible. It listed your Songs by artist, which was my preferred way to list them, in folders, much like itunes. You could play the whole list, or just a particular artist. You could change the Screen, invert it, flip it, negative it, and the EQ was probably about 10 times better than the one on the archos. Best part was, the firmware was seriously just a folder the loaded before the archos...deflashing it was as simple as deleting the rockbox folder.
This thing just got SOUND on the iPod in January, and you're saying it's an improvement over the iTunes firmware? And why don't you have any screenshots?
Based on what - a three year old diatribe about three-versions-ago iTunes on the second-slowest TiBook ever made?
Downhillbattle? So they don't like paying for music. So don't use iTMS, rip your CDs - these folks seeem to think iTunes forces you to buy thru Apple.
You want to pimp apps here, great - but citing old and irrelevant arguments?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Heres a video of a later rockbox release running Doom II on a 5G iPod.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra6rqKSqBSk
That seems a pretty good incentive to try Rockbox.
Part of the allure of the later iPod models is the purty OS X looking UI they sport.
From the screenies I have seen of Rockbox its a white text on a black background menu system.
Food for thought.
What I do is I make 4 playlists. Each one has two rules: 1. My Rating is (2,3,4,5) Stars. 2. Last Played is not in the last (20,16,12,8) weeks.
Then my 'General Listening' playlist selects songs from any of those four smart playlists. Therefore, I can hear the same 5-star song more often than a 2-star song. Simple!
Just thought I'd pass that along. I like iTunes just fine; at first I was very addicted to Windows Media Player but after having used iTunes for a few months now I like it just fine and don't see a real need to switch.
Really now, why switch? What is the pressing need?
Anonymous Cowards are at -6...
It always bothers me when someone makes big claims about something, but doesn't present any evidence to back it up. I don't know much about how good 128bit AAC is compared to the original CD, but simply claiming that it loses subtle nuances doesn't do anything to prove that. It's VERY easy to fool yourself, and so-called "audiophiles" have been proven to have fooled themselves time and time again. As an example shortly after CDs came out there was a claim that putting a green marker around an audio CD makes it sound better. Anyone that knows anything about digital technology knows this claim is simply ridiculous. It's about as valid as saying that sprinkling magic blessed sand around your television will improve its reception. Another embarresment is the "monster cable" myth. It's easy to fool yourself, especially when the differences are "subtle and nuanced". That's not to say that it isn't possible that 128bit AAC isn't nearly indistinguishable from CDs. I can definitely hear artifacts in some 128 bit MP3 files (not all). But I guess I'll believe double blind listening tests before I'll believe unsubstantiated claims.
The other thing I've heard multiple times is that artists receive a much better deal on iTunes than they do with record companies. Haven't many artists switched to iTunes for this very reason? I don't see any hard evidence posted of music deals from different artists, so this just sounds like a rant by some blogger.
So, does anyone that believes either of these claims willing to dig up some evidence for it? Neither claim is so ridiculous that it's outside the realm of reality, but without evidence each claim is simply a meaningless statement.
AccountKiller
The link that the summary included about leaving a lot to be desired dates back to October 2003. Many of the issues have since been taken care of in the 2-1/2 years of software revisions and updates. The first few issues that the article states are really hardware problems related to the Titanium powerbook, which is even older.
The second link the submitter uses (desired) links to a long rant about how the iTunes Music Store gyps artists out of their due and is a poor choice for end users because you pay too much for lossily-compressed music.
And yet, the submission is about Rockbox, which is a replacement for the firmware inside of an iPod (and some other music players). The open-source firmware allows you to change the look and feel of the user interface and supports some other music codecs. This allows the iPod, its users, and independent artists to be freed from the tyranny of iTunes and iTMS [some sarcasm added].
The relevant link to Tim Lord's article at Newsforge is missing from the summary entirely, although its existence is alluded to.
Do I dare to use the term non sequitur here? Changing the firmware on your iPod will only change how you interact with music you already have now. It won't change how iTMS or iTunes work. I would argue that it doesn't do much to help out independent artists, either. If you want to support artists directly, you aren't going to be buying label-backed music from iTMS anyway. How many independent artists release their materials solely using Ogg Vorbis? I'll note that, until this past year, iTMS didn't even break even.
Don't get me wrong - Rockbox is really cool. I think having a customizable interface for the iPod is a neat thing to tinker with. I would agree that the iPod should support more formats than it currently does. But trying to introduce people to Rockbox by using old links and feeding on barely-related resentment for the iTMS model, while forgetting the relevant link at NewsForge, is a strange way to go about it.
Ah, Slashdot... always making it seem like the rest of the world outside of Slashdot actually cares about OGG. Seriously... can we stop bringing it up every time the iPod is mentioned? Most people don't care. I know what OGG is, and understand it, and I STILL don't care. If a great deal of iPod owners cared, Apple would have given the iPod support for it by now, trust me.
Some people on here like it - we all understand that. Just, you know... ease up a bit.
my experience with iTunes and buying videos
d =15104209
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182689&ci
I have had a iriver IHP 120 running Rockbox for ages. The only reason I switched is because of "Super Crippled" frimware on a super duper hardware. What Rockbox actually provides is a way to change evrything on the player. From scrolling speed to WPS(What is Playing Screen) to playlists to an actual equalizer to better battery life to changing what time the backlight stays on to better everything. I dont even boot the original firmware anymore. So to conclude, if you find the need to tweak,adjust everything in the player to your preference then please switch over, otherwise you are just fine.
Not everyone wants what you want. Film at 11.
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.
Da Blog
Sargent: SITE DOWN! I need a mirror in here ASAP
Medic: Working on it sir!
Sargent: Damnit man! the servers on fire! why the hell did we put him on here!
Medic: Its slashdot sir. Its hell for small time servers that aren't expecting this.
Private: Sir NYUD cache is comming through they have a back up and are wanting us to re route traffic there.
Sargent: you heard the man. Get over there now.
NYUD saved Rockbox
Good work men!
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
I have yet to find a player that gives me the functionality of itunes, either
That's just because you haven't tried Media Center. I enjoy its more expressive SmartLists, and use it to sync between the Archos, iRiver, and iPod players. MC is what iTunes wants to be when it grows up.
Da Blog
iTunes does have a browser function (let's you scroll your database in a tree view). Personally I haven't noticed any other of your problems with the application. I used iPod Linux for a while, but I really liked my smart playlists and turned back to iTunes.
I'm using rating system such that, 1 star is for deletion, 2 stars is for the songs I don't wan't to go to my ipod and 5 starts for absolute wan't to listen to songs. I'm doing these with the 5 playlists and 6th playlist to bring them together. I've a lot of music running on my iTunes and they won't fit to my nano anymore, with these playlists I can have new music running on my iPod with just updating the song lists.
When I see some support for these smart playlists on other firmwares, I might think trying them again.
iTunes is simply the best music software there is. Period.
Your ignorance is understandable only if you've never tried Media Center.
Da Blog
Apple's hardware isn't all that exceptional. It tends to cost more and have fewer features than competing brands... the idea of spending extra for a Mac or an iPod and then replacing the native software with open source code that runs just as well (or better!) on more powerful, less expensive, and often better designed hardware from other vendors just blows my mind.
I will acknowledge that there is some advantage to the iPod... not because the hardware is so good, but because the hardware has remained consistent enough for an accessories market to thrive.
But, still, if it wasn't for Apple's software I would have neither an iPod nor a Mac.
Why can I not view my music in a tree view? I *hate* having to scroll through 1000's of songs to find what I'm looking for. So, I want to be able to view the tree by artist, genre, year, and that should just about do it.
See that eyeball looking thing in the upper right hand corner that says "Browse"? Click on it.
-30-
I was researching how to get my ipod to work under linux, and know I know why rockbox.org won't load. Oh well, I guess I should get back to work.
SNAKE OR DIE!
Because it works? If that article from 2003 is still correct, lots of ITunes does not work. Blame DRM, I suppose, the authors were shocked. Amarok has many of these problems solved.
Drag and drop might be your only option on Windoze right now, but there are many other options elsewhere. Amarok has built in iPod support, though I have not tried it because because the non free music device is apparently not all joy. There are Amarok scripts available for external music devices. You define the mount point and it puts your music and playlists there. This has worked well for CF I use with Opie.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What is the best to me, may not be the best to you.
Opinion != Truth.
Now mod this up, or I will prove that you are all figments of my bored imagination.
JCR, you generally post reasonable stuff. Why the ogg flame? Do you think choice and software freedom are things for wankers? Perhaps you would like it better if you could give Apple some money for the same thing.
If by better you mean sounds better and takes up less space then ogg is better. If that's not good enough, you can move to flac. Yes, it's nice that there's no patents or royalties to keep device makers and software distributors from using the format too.
On the device side, the more I can feed it the better it is. It kind of sucks to not be able to share with your friends because their software does not know how to deal with a free format, but that's their loss not mine. I can play their inferior formats.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Seeing this is nice as I have a Samsung HT-P50 which I can plug the ipod into and play back files however the goofy DB that Itunes creates sucks for navigating songs as "UDSDC.mp3" does not tell me much.
On the other hand I wonder how well this would work with my Alpine CDA-9856 as it can hook up to an ipod. Really not a big deal I guess since I can boot it into Ipod firmware at any time though. Would be nice if the Alpine recognized the files to play though!
I can now run Windows XP on my Ipod?
So, How many of the problems have been fixed? Will you get the fixes in the box? The pressed CD you get with your new player might just be two years old.
The list was a real eye opener for me. After using Amarok, the list of problems was shocking. Hell, the problems shocked the authors.
Given how much better Amarok is at what it does, the article has not been updated. This line is obviously wrong:
With that said, iTunes is still, sadly, the best MP3 player application.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Wow, I'm surprised. Here's a group of people working on an open-source project that has been very successful, hacking in features for electronics that the original manufacturers didn't see fit to include. It sounds like something Slashdot should be all over, right?
;-) But I at least applaud them for taking their free time and trying to make DAPs better for everyone.
But no... Because they think that some improvements can be made to an Apple product, they're suddenly demonized. People are falling over themselves to say just how *utterly fantastic* the stock firmware and iTunes are, and how horrible Rockbox is for even attempting to change it.
iPods aren't perfect. Perhaps they're good enough, but there are some major features that they lack in regards to other forms of playing music (like, say, CDs or even LPs), a big one being gapless playback. Rockbox is trying to fix that. And not specifically for the iPod, in fact the iPod isn't even their main target. They started out improving the iRiver players, and now they're porting it to many platforms.
As has been noted elsewhere, it's not done yet. It's a very early port (a few months old) and the official release milestone target for iPod support is sometime in November.
I don't run Rockbox currently, because I have a Rio Karma which is already perfect.
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
So if i dont want to use itunes as a music management software, what can I use? Any suggestions for a rockbox user?
No more f-cking around with the monstrosity that is the Itunes database. For those who prefer a filesystem approach, this is a godsend, and for those who like a tagged DB, Rockbox has just added support for a pretty nice platform-independent db of its own that can be generated on teh fly by the player!
wtf? do some people just go out to make things difficult for themselves?
In all my time as an iPod owner I've never had to deal with the iTunes database.
For every minute I haven't had to 'f-ck around' with renaming files, sorting out the filesystem for my media, etc, I've done something far more enjoyable, worthwhile or profitable. I used to spend a lot of time dealing with my Foobar2000 + file system setup, and I'll never get that time back. iTunes is actually a pretty good application out of the box, and when it comes to listening to music, I'm far more into 'appliance mode software' that 'build it from scratch' software.
And then you say that (clearly due to demand), the software has added in a system that does all this. However someone else said the UI of Rockbox sucked. I appreciate all the technical effort and knowhow and skill that has been put into writing this software, but clearly it is not being written against what users want to do on their system.
So tell me again, as someone who has his CD collection ripped in AAC, an open format that actually isn't half bad, why I, and the vast majority of iPod owners, would want to downgrade their iPod experience?
I put the RockBox firmware on my 5G ipod about a week ago because I saw that you can play doom on it. That being said, I did some research before I loaded it. As has been said here, you cannot void your warranty or break your iPod by uploading new firmware. If anything goes wrong, you can always do a full restore. I have all of my music backed up anyway, so the worst scenario would be having to wait 15 minutes for the 50Gb or so to load back on to the player.
Look, the firmware doesn't take a whole lot of space on the player and you can always boot into the original Apple firmware whenever you want by holding down the menu button when starting the player. So just go for it, it'll be fun.
I am a big fan of open source software, especially when it is worked on so actively. The games are pretty neat too. Let's face it, iPod stinks in the extras department. When I get bored, I can just boot into RockBox and play some Pac-man or Arkanoid. It's also fun to show to friends.
The only down side is the battery consumption, it really needs some optimizing in that department.
-stonefry
LostLogic is rewriting the core playback functions right now, so daily's might, (WILL) be buggy.
And it is not yet fully optimized for the ipod hardware.
Having said that, I love it, and I gladly put up with the crashes and lockups rather than have to deal with the limiting, yet (barely) functional apple os.
I hate Itunes Windows with a passion. And using amarok to import my music is tolerable, but not optimal.
Now I can just drop and drag, and almost all my music plays, regardless of format.
Seriously, the Ipod is overrated. Next time I am getting a Cowon Iaudio X5 or maybe an A2. Opensource firmware from the korean manufacturer for the A2....
So if Rockbox is buggy, give it a couple months and try again, they are working on it daily. It is in very active development.
Also, anyone who wants a cheap large capacity player can buy an archos jukebox on Ebay ($20-40) and a laptop HDD (~$100 for 100GB).
Which gives you a player with 66% more capacity than the largest iPod at about a third of the price, if you don't mind it being somewhat bulkier and having a monochrome monitor.
From TFA:
Because while Rockbox plays well with MP3, Vorbis, FLAC, ALAC, WavPack, and a few other audio formats, it doesn't play encrypted AAC files, which iTunes Music Store (iTMS) users have been paying for, nor does it play any version of the Audible format, leaving some audiobook fans out in the cold.
Wow, is anyone else shocked replacing the firmware of a digital audio player renders it unable to use DRMed files the new firmware doesn't support! Like, thanks for the insight that one has to license proprietary technology (generally) to use it.
so i guess you've never actually used itunes before because if you had you would have known that you can turn off the itunes store in the prefs. when you turn it off it no longer appears in the source column
/ http://suffocate.us
/ http://johngrayson.com
I'd bet the battery life on this sucks. allegedgly Ogg is not as mathematically efficient (sucks batteries), and on top of this all the groovy ad hoc software power management tricks ipod probably does will get chucked.
The whole point of the ipod is seemless integration. Who needs ogg when you have AAC (with or without DRM).
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Cowon makes great players that look reasonably pretty (iPod looks better though in my eyes), support all kinds of codecs (ogg, flac, asf, mp3, wma, ...), can encode mp3 over the mic, the built-in FM radio, or line-in, play MPEG4 video, and run linux.
No-brainer, really
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Speaking from the perspective of someone who has actually used Rockbox, why all the hate? It's excellent piece of software that will only get better with time. And why all the ogg hate as well - I guess because in recent listening tests it continually comes out on top?
To the ipod sheep - go back to listening to your drm'd Britney Spears, wearing your fashionable clothes, and voting for idiots like George Bush & Tony Blair. Rockbox was never for you anyway...
Incorrect, as CmdrTaco explained in a fairly recent discussion on editing.
"Next is proper anchor texting. I fix the hyper text on the vast majority of submissions. People link the word 'Here' or 'Article' or 'CNN' and I find that very frustrating. I want the hypertext to be the most appropriate 2-3 words that tell you exactly what you're clicking on. I think that is absolutely essential. Every URL should matter, and every bit of hypertext should tell you exactly what it is you're going to get when you click that mouse button."
So, nobody's an idiot. You're both just very ill-mannered over something that shouldn't matter so much. Even Zonk's not an idiot - he's just not very good at his job. Cut him some slack.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
The firmware was great on the Archos Jukebox players. The version I tried on my Nano worked basically the same way as the Archos Jukebox Rockbox firmware, but that was the problem. Apple's interface on the iPod is really, really, really well done. It's nice that Rockbox provides support for more codecs, but if they want people to use it on an iPod they need to make some major interface adjustments. Rockbox seemed very clunky compaired to the native interface. The fonts stink compared to the native firmware.
I hope that they make more headway, but for now, I'm sticking with the native firmware.
I do wish that Apple supported Ogg. I don't really care about mp3's anymore. Ogg and MP4 are the future. They are proper media containers and mp3 files are not. Since iPods support MP4, I rip to MP4 these days.
I have been using Rockbox on my H120 for a pretty long time and couldn't live without it, as it adds so much like the ability to um,... playback music properly (i.e. gapless playback which for some reason just about every player with the exception of the Rio Karma lacks), as well as additional format support and display customization. I also have a iPod nano but I havn't put Rockbox on it yet though, mainly because the nano isn't my main player and I don't use it for any serious listening.
We're talking iPod here son
Which part of "beta" and "as soon as" did you miss and felt that your only option was to increase the overall entropy of the universe by basically repeating what I just said?
Think aspirationally!
Da Blog
Weird. I see several people saying they're happy with iTunes and don't agree with the premise of the article -- that "iTunes leaves a lot to be desired" (based on links to outdated and off-point criticisms).
Hatred I'm not reading. You're totally right that people are maybe more skeptical of Rockbox than they should be -- but let's blame the article submission for that. Saying "iTunes sucks, but Rockbox tries to fix it" is bound to get reactions like "iTunes sucks? Why do I like it then?"...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
What again is stopping you from ripping to Apple Lossless? It is lossless you can easily batch transcode in the future w/o loss of quality.
Why 320kbit MP3? LAME since 3.90 has had excellent VBR presets which give you the quality of a 320kbit MP3 at ~60% the file size (and reduced CPU consumption on playback - and all the extra battery life that entails).
Here's the problem... People don't like itunes because it's essentially a gateway to the itunes store.
Yeah, I felt the same way before I used iTunes, and that was one reason I resisted switching to iTunes even after I got an iPod shuffle. I particularly hated having the iTunes links so pervasive - a link in the play libraries list and more links in the playlist itself (as icons next to songs)...
But the thing is, you can turn all that shit off. preferences->parental control->Disable Music Store. Done and done.
It's purpose is to get you to buy apples's drm laden music from their proprietary service.
Ugh... Please learn the difference between a contraction and a posessive pronoun, as well as how to turn a name into its posessive form...
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Whilst the iRiver releases are there, and i hear work great, last time i checked (a week or two ago) the Ipod Support, whilst functional was strictly Daily Builds -- most of which worked well, but lacked polish to a usable point at the moment - what I saw worked well, just the bugs etc - I installed it with no problems on my Ipod Video (tho installation meants extracting broadcom drivers video support isnt there yet (unless I missed it) and put on a more bearable GUI there were quite a few problems (trying to go back to menu from playing screen etc) and crashes requiring a reset werent uncommon.
:)
On the other hand, not ahving to use software to transfer, other than nautilus/mv are a great advantage, and I cant wait for a full release of this. Keep up the good work
When I first installed Rockbox I liked all the features you list here (and especially the gapless playback, something my iRiver H120 won't do) but I didn't really care for the UI.
So I downloaded a few more skins from the homepage. None of those really did it for me either. I was stumped and frustrated. So frustrated I began poking around inside the UI files.
About an hour later I had downloaded a nice, weighty Helvetica font from a Web site and tweaked one of the skin files to have the correct positioning info for the graphical elements to account for the new font metrics -- and voila! That's the Rockbox skin I use to this day. I like it better than the one iRiver ships the device with, in fact.
So to all you haters who don't even own iPods who snicker and moan "why would you want a GPL iPod, who cares" -- well, that's why you care. And believe it or not there once was a time when everything worked that way. As recently as the 1980s, if you had a car and it had engine troubles, you could work on it yourself. In maybe the 1960s and early 1970s, if you bought yourself a battery-powered radio and you went to change the batteries, chances are you might have found a schematic diagram of how the radio was built pasted to the inside of the battery compartment. You think GPL media players are only for dorks? I say being spoon-fed pablum is for babies. This idea that products arrive at your door like the manufacturer built them and you do what the manufacturer wanted you to do with them and when you don't like it anymore you throw it away is fundamentally f'ed up. It's a product of the modern disposable consumer culture that, if you're really a geek, you should be fighting against. The iPod is a very nice device with a great UI -- but if there's something about it that you don't like, then why shouldn't you be empowered to change it?
Breakfast served all day!
Allow me to refresh your memory:
"You sound like you are very sure, but you are wrong."
The OP wondered why there was no mention of video support for the iPod. My answer was because video was not supported. You told me that I was wrong because video works on your Archos. I told you to keep up with the discussion, that we were talking iPod. Then I agreed with you that there would probably be video support.
Weird - even though you missed the point of the subthread, I still agreed with your opinion, yet you're still tweaked.
-h-
And they are about equally supported on Rockbox as the iPod is. (Perhaps a tiny bit more)
--Brandon
What's this cow on iaudio X5 or A2 stuff? ;)
(Sorry, just had to do the "brands-nobody-knows-about" bit.)
No, I don't think anybody should bother explaining that to you. Ignorance can be bliss and I see no reason to create a sense of dissatisfaction among the iPod masses. You've already concluded it would be a "downgrade", so you should stay in your happy world.
If, on the other hand, at some point you should find yourself frustrated with the lack of a feature in your chosen DAP, remember this article. Consider it a friendly tip that there are good choices out there that empower you to use your DAP the way YOU want to use it.
I currently use Rockbox on my iRiver and it made what was already an outstanding DAP even better. I was curious enough to do just a little investigating over at www.rockbox.org when I finally was frustrated enough with the lack of gapless playback of my songs. I then found that there were several features Rockbox offered that I would like to have and gave it a go. I've been happy with it for a year now. It bothers me not in the least if Rockbox never gains widespread fame. I only care that there is enough interest in it to keep development going and that appears to be quite true.
BTW, some corrections to a couple of your points. First, Rockbox is not "build it from scratch" software. It can be, if you're interested. But for appliance mode people, you just install the pre-built firmware and you're ready to play.
Second, the UI does not suck. It does pale in comparison to the iPod, but it is quite functional and easy to learn. One nice thing is that it does evolve. If something doesn't make sense, it gets corrected. I consider the small investment in learning the UI basics to be a very cheap price for the additional features I get with Rockbox. A UI that a simpleton could navigate does me no good if I still have a DAP that doesn't work well as a music player.
Anyhow, enjoy your Apple product. I'm enjoying my iRiver and Rockbox.
I just installed Rockbox on my iAudio X5. It took me about 15 minutes. First, searching the webpage for the information. Then asking in the IRC channel about a few things I was unsure about; I got immediate, to the point answers. The actual installation took under a minute, and suddenly I had a usable user interface and a lot of games on my player. I have tried it for a while now, and it seems quite stable. I'm amazed by the simplicity and elegance of this software.
I remember using Rockbox on my very first MP3 player- a 10GB Archos Jukebox. Man, if people got over the funny lookin thing (see http://www.globay.com/bilder/hardware/big/archos_6 000.jpg) they were even more confused when they saw you playing Snake on it.
I've been using slashdot long enough to have a four digit UID, and I must admit that I have never during all this time seen anybody say anything more false. In fact, not only is your statement false, it is the exact opposite of the truth in an egregiously offensive and inciteful way.
Since you seem to lack even the minimal imagination necessary to envision why non-pirates would ever want to use an alternative codec, let me put it to you bluntly and in great detail. Right now, as of this writing, the aotuv vorbis encoder is widely believed to have by far the best sound quality of any codec at low bitrates. There are detractors who disagree, but the funny thing is, those decractors never bother to perform any actual listening tests, and if you bother to perform actual listening tests, you'll find that ogg vorbis not only wins the quality battle, it wins it by a metric mile.
We're talking stuff on the scale of "Ogg vorbis at 96 kbit beats the world's best mp3 encoder at 128 kbit and no other codec at 96 kbit even comes close to beating mp3." That kind of thing.
Now, before you get all up in arms about how portable players have unlimited disk space and file size is no longer a constraint, let me remind you that the iPod nano has a maximum of 4 gigabytes of disk space as of this writing, and no other flash player on the market has larger capacity. Thus anybody in the market for a totally skip-proof digital audio player is stuck with a maximum of 4GB drive capacity, and in this context, file size is important.
Therefore, people who rip their own CDs and play them on flash players have tremendous incentive to choose the highest quality audio format when ripping their CDs, so as to maximize the use of their portable player's limited disk space.
That is why a wide range of supported codecs is important. Coincidentally, Rockbox supports ogg vorbis on the iPod nano, which is exactly the usage scenario I describe.
But wait, there's more!
Vorbis may be the quality leader today, but this has not always been the case. In the past there have been periods where vorbis was not the quality leader, and in the future I fully expect other audio formats to surpass it in time. Hence, in order to guarantee the maximal utility of an audio player in the future, it is mandatory that the user must be able to add support for new codecs as time goes on, in order to take advantage of the high rate of improvements in the audio codec landscape.
Needless to say, the only way to guarantee the ability to add new codecs in the future is to run free software on your audio player. Coincidentally, that's exactly what Rockbox is: it's free software.
For all these reasons and more, a wide range of supported codecs is necessary to have in an audio player, ESPECIALLY if you rip all your music from your own CD collection and thereby possess total control over the choice of what codec to use.
I like the "manage music through metadata" concept, I think it's so much better than browsing through folders. I don't know who invented it, but I first used it in iTunes and for that I give them credit. The iTunes interface for playing back songs and editing metadata is also well designed.
But iTunes also has done enough to piss me off that I am now moving away from it. The music store popping up whenever you misclick. Ripping to friggin' m4a/AAC as default, which isn't half as widely supported as MP3. And most of all, not allowing you to cut and paste tracks from your iPod.
I now use rhythmbox for browsing/playback + easytag for tag editing (under ubuntu) and I don't regret itunes at all.
Or do you just get open source software on your iPod? And this article has nothing to do with iTunes
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
The past few years, Slashdot has been inundated by Microsoft and Apple trolls. It is not longer the free software mecca it once was.
There is a lot of chaff to sort through to find the nuggets of knowledgeable, free software wisdom on Slashdot any more.
Cross fade is bloody simple.
It only requires the decompressing of 2 mp3 streams at once. Or if the DSP is too slow, pre-decode enough ahead of time
to have 4 seconds of raw audio in ram of current time+4 of MP3-A. ( thats only what... 4*44100 * 4 bytes = 705600 bytes. trivial!!!)
Then start decoding MP3-B and ad the damn samples with a scaler or table for gods sake.
Is that really that hard to do?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I understand that it's still a work in progress, and I admire the work that's obviously gone into this. Just not ready for primetime yet. I'll check back in a few months and see where it is then. Meanwhile, Apple's own OS is working fine for me.
BTW... FWIW, I'm not using iTunes at all. I'm a Gentoo Linux user that alternates between Amarok and gtkPod for interfacing to my iPod. Right now, Amarok is my favorite. Just right-click to choose (an album, song, or playlist) and transfer.
Why Care about Ogg??? Some of us are linux users. Open Codecs work with most tools out of the box. Because of Licensing issues MP3 does not work out of the box for most of us. AAC and WMA are now supported by some software and services but ogg is supported by every linux tool I have come across so far. Ogg offers better size/quality than MP3 though is probably comparable to ACC. I also care who owns the data format I keep my data files in - This may be hard for people to understand as it does not provide any short term benefits. In the long term however it safeguards you against things like vendor lockin. What I am more interested in is support for non lossy codecs such as flac. Particularly being able to record in these formats. Also being a linux user - I simply do not have access to iTunes - but have a large collection of Music that I have ripped from my CD collection and purchased online in Ogg Vorbis and Flac format. I understand why the majority of users may want to stick with the Apple firmware. But something like Rockbox makes the Ipod look more attractive to somebody like me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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!
Kind of funny... I didn't know the artists got 8-14 cents a song... that sounds like a really good deal for the artists to me... and the relatively little apple does for its share is kind of expensive... paying for all that bandwidth
Like anyone can even know that
The cash advance is "recoverable" which means that it will be deducted from royalties before the artist starts receiving royalties. Having to work for the labels for the duration of the contract is the risk the artist takes, but the label risks not making the advance back, as well as not making back any the money they spend promoting the artist.
All things considered, you are much more likely to make money with a label, because you get the cash advance up front, and you get promoted. If you're going indie, you're not going to be able to promote yourself as effectively. You're going to have to work another job while you're trying produce and promote your music.
To anyone who has an iPod, changing the interface away from the one Apple has perfected is a HUGE downgrade. Then again, you have an iRiver, where ANYTHING is better than the factory interface. It sort of undermines your point.
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
So, if at all, its informatinve, you moron moderator! I never knew Rockbox was already in use for other DAPs.
An Apple sucker gets some mod point, and you know whats going to happen.
Agreed. Other than the music store, I'm almost sure that iTunes's features are actually a subset of amaroK's (yes, that includes iPod support).
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.