After 3 Years, Rockbox 3.0 Released

DarkkOne writes "Rockbox version 3.0 is out. Three years in development, it marks the introduction of many new players since the 2.5 release and offers software-based playback allowing audio of nearly any commonly (or uncommonly) used format on a list of MP3 players by Apple, iRiver, Cowon, Archos, Toshiba and Sandisk. Beyond this it is FLOSS, under the GPL v2 license (or later), and includes a variety of plugins such as games and simple apps. 3.0 is the first official release for any players not made by Archos and more or less marks the beginning of a much more regular release cycle for the software."

Comments

Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[GundamFan]

I'm a relative newbie when it comes to media players and I kind of like just plugging my ipod in and letting it sync with itunes. Having said that the hacker in me knows I have an old ipod that I'm not really using at the moment.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this software?

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[FauxPasIII]

The chief advantage over the iPod OS is that it plays flac and ogg vorbis files, as well as many formats of video if your player's CPU is fast enough.
It also lets you move media to and from your your player by simple drag-and-drop operations; you don't need a special app to load it, build the iTunes database, etc.

Disadvantages? Well, the interface is different. I like it, you might not.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[AvitarX]

Pros:
Lots of games (a few are decent even)
Music can be copies off with no effort (just files on a disk)
Flac, and Ogg support
Really nice playlist builder on the device

Cons:
Harder to get a playlist from a computer
The database option is nice, but not as seamless as from iTunes (you can browse buy database or by filesystem)

I really like it, I think the whats playing screen looks great, and I like being ably to through a quick playlist together. If a friend has a song I want, I just copy it over, and listen on the way home. I want music on my computer at work, plug it in and copy to the computer.

iTunes may be great within the iTunes system, but in a social world at large I find Rockbox to be more useful.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[TheRaven64]

This means I can play my music on the iPod, but also plug the iPod in my computer and play it on my stereo.

The hard disk on my iPod (third gen) broke a couple of years ago, so things might have changed since I last used one regularly, but is this really better than just dropping it in the dock? I had my stereo plugged in to the dock, and when I got home I just dropped the iPod in the dock and it continued playing and charged - I only ever plugged it in to the computer after buying more music.

It was possible to play music from the iPod on a computer too - the music was stored in a hidden folder and, although the file names were mangled, the metadata was intact, so any player that can parse MPEG-4 atoms (or ID3 tags if you still use MP3) can index it.

Also, I don't like the 6th generation firmware on the iPod.

I think the iPod firmware peaked with the third generation, and the iTunes UI peaked with 4.x. If they'd been open source they'd have been forked at this point.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[CastrTroy]

The iTunes database actually has some nice features. It keeps track of what tracks I listen to most often, and which ones I don't. I can have a playlist of stuff I haven't heard lately. It keeps track of what podcasts I have listened to, and only keeps the ones I haven't heard on my iPod, so they don't take up space. It's also trivially easy using other programs to convert videos to formats my iPod can play. I don't see the need to carry FLAC files on an ipod, as it would just eat up all the space, and I don't see the advantage of OGG Vorbis over AAC, or even MP3. People give iTunes a lot of criticism. But I find that it's actually pretty good. The only audio library program I've found that I like more than iTunes is Amarok, which is better by itself, but doesn't have as good iPod integration.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[Nursie]

Some of us don't like the whole audio library concept in the first place. File hierarchies are great, thanks.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[morgan_greywolf]

Most MP3 players that can double as USB storage devices support Linux OOTB without modification. Very few players support OGG, although I have a Meizu Miniplayer SL (aka 'M6SL') that does.

I've seen the 4GB model for as low $50 recently, though $80 is far more typical. It comes in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like Cowons players.

I had an X5 (gave it to a friend), and now have an A3.

X5 is definietly a better portable audio player. EXTREMELY durable, good sound, plays MP3, WMA, OGG and FLAC out of the box, along with some video formats, the control is good for use without having to look at the player.

the A3 is a good multimedia player that can be moved (notice I didn't say a good portable multimedia player, there's a difference!). It's not as durable as the X5, and the case it comes with doesn't give you access to the controls without opening it up, nor does the case have a belt clip (no option to buy a case with either). The X5 cases you can buy let you access the buttons/controls without pulling out the X5, and they have cases with belt clips available too.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[mcphail]

First of all, I am by no means an audiophile. I have a 3rd generation iPod and a computer with onboard sound and 2 tinny speakers on either side of my monitor.

I quite like the standard iPod interface. I can find tracks quickly using the database and scrollwheel. I've had some issues transferring files with amarok, but gtkPod works well.

Most of my collection sounds fine on the iPod, but I was never very satisfied with orchestral music with a large dynamic range. I'd ripped some Arvo Part CDs to MP3 at increasingly high bitrates using lame. Despite that, the quiet bits (such as the closing bell harmonic at the end of "Cantus") sounded awful: some sort of bubbling distortion. It seemed fine playing through my PC, but I put that down to my dodgy hardware blotting out the bubbling noise. In the end, I resurrected my old windows partition and ripped to AAC in iTunes. It was a bit better. My conclusion at the time? AAC was a better music format than MP3.

Then I installed Rockbox. I didn't like the interface much, and preferred browsing a database of artists rather than reorganising my whole collection into folders. At the time, browsing on a 3G iPod was painful. It would take about 60 seconds to scroll through a moderate sized list of artists. (I submitted a patch to speed this up but it was rejected. In any case it works much better now.) Battery life was poor, and crashes were frequent. I considered wiping it from the machine, but then I listened to those quiet MP3 tracks again.

The difference was stunning.

Crystal clear and without distortion, they sounded as good as the original CDs (and at least as good as the AACs).

My conclusion now? Apple's MP3 decoder on the 3G iPod is appalling. Being a bit of a cynic, I suspect it has been crippled or underdeveloped to push DRM-leaden formats.

Rockbox has come a long way since I tried it. It now seems as stable as the default firmware and I'd recommend it highly.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[Rich0]

I've been using rockbox on that hardware for a year or two and I've been very happy with it. I actually bought this player only for the purpose of using Rockbox (a step of faith considering I'd never used it previously).

Using the original firmware to copy files is fairly transparent. If the device is on and you plug in the USB port, it powers on and automatically boots to the original firmware. Then when you unplug it the system automatically reboots to the Rockbox firmware. I'm sure they'll set it to just boot to Rockbox once it supports USB syncing.

About the only time it would seem to be inconvenient is if you wanted to listen to music while having it plugged into USB. That never happens for me - I can just play music on my PC if I want to.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[villindesign]

I use a cowan d2 that supports ogg and linux. The d2 has a touch screen interface.

Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware?

[vaz01]

Tags are more of a pain to maintain, but can be more useful. I actually make use of the genre tag quite a bit (after fixing the genre tags on my songs to whatever I feel like calling them). Having a ton of compilation albums, I like being able to search by artist and find single tracks on V/A's that otherwise I'd forget were there. Etc.

Organizing on the filesystem is fine and has its advantages too, unless you own an ipod or other music player that organizes by tags. It's enough of a pain to fix a thousand filenames or to fix a thousand sets of tags, but I don't want to do both. I'd rather ignore the filenames or have my music player name/rename/move things for me based on the tags.

Poor name for software

[patio11]

Next up:

* OSS firmware-updater: Brick
* Rails anti-virus plugin: acts_as_used_tissue
* Microsoft patch utility: BrokenWindows
* Apple iPhone widget: iPaid2Much

The one player missing from that list...

[Lumpy]

That reallly needs the firmware... the Zune.

I wish someone would crack that player. It's great hardware just crippled with really crappy software and DRM. If they could crack that puppy and get their firmware os on it I'd be snapping up all the unloved brown zunes I could find.

Honestly it's only now that the ipod has the screen the zune had when it was released, the Zune could have made a dent in ipod sales if the managers at Microsoft did not have their head so far in their rear you couldn't see their shoulders.

Re:The one player missing from that list...

[plasmacutter]

Honestly it's only now that the ipod has the screen the zune had when it was released, the Zune could have made a dent in ipod sales if the managers at Microsoft did not have their head so far in their rear you couldn't see their shoulders

Microsoft has a nasty habit of acting like they already have a monopoly in markets they are merely exploring.

I would consider this propensity a godsend, otherwise, you would see it only AFTER they drove everyone else out of the market.

Re:The one player missing from that list...

[walter_f]

That reallly needs the firmware... the Zune.

Great Hardware? This does not surprise me at all.
After all, the Zunes are, hardware-wise, designed and manufactured by Toshiba (afaik).

Then again, the real Toshibas are known for their excellent audio quality *and* (some of them at least) are being supported by Rockbox.

So why bother with an under-cover Toshiba, hampered by mediocre third party firmware?
Get a real one (Gigabeat). ;-)

Does it come with a web server as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Feels like the site is being hosted on one of these devices.

Superior

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty cool. I use rockbox on my sansa and it is worlds better than the stock. It fixes stupid problems the sansa has like volume leveling... Plus its pretty.

Re:Been using this for years...

[theantipop]

There seem to be big battery life improvements, especially with the 5g ipods.

Rockbox is great!

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

I actually traded my brand spanking new 6th generation iPod because the idiots at Apple encrypt the firmware so that you can't install alternative firmware anymore. I bought a second hand 5th generation iPod with half the capacity to be able to use Rockbox, just because I severly dislike the Apple firmware.

I can tell you, it was the first and last Apple product I bought and will ever buy. If you think out of the box ( in this case: Apple's straightjacket ) they will do their utmost best to block you from utilizing the product like you would want to.

Re:Rockbox is great!

[TheRaven64]

If you think out of the box ( in this case: Apple's straightjacket ) they will do their utmost best to block you from utilizing the product like you would want to.

They tried to do this with computers in the '80s, and it cost them most of their market share. Now they're trying to do the same thing with music players and phones.

Apple's success is largely due to the fact that they don't design for focus groups, they design for Steve Jobs, who generally has good taste. If your usage is close to his usage, then you'll be happy. The more your usage diverges from his, the less attractive they are.

Rockbox rules

[kcbanner]

I've used it on my iRiver h120 player and it is 100x better than the stock firmware for that player. It boots faster, clean file browser, better power management and it can play OGG and FLAC and all that good stuff. Its awesome.

Creative?

[neokushan]

Any word on compatibility with Creative's players? They're a pretty big part of the PMP market and the next company that comes to mind (for me) after Apple.

Re:Creative?

[fuzzix]

Any word on compatibility with Creative's players? They're a pretty big part of the PMP market and the next company that comes to mind (for me) after Apple.

It appears to be in the very early stages.

I'd love to see a Rockbox port to the flash based ZENs if only to fix the pathetic functionality of the SD slot... How Creative got away with calling it memory "expansion" or "upgrades" is beyond me.

Ipod Nano 2nd gen support?

[WDot]

TFA is slashdotted, so I can't get at it, but does anyone who read it know if the Ipod Nano 2nd gen is supported? I know there was a problem supporting it before because of some encryption mechanism, but has that been fixed or is my flac collection still useless with this Ipod?

Re:Ipod Nano 2nd gen support?

[jackpot777]

I just checked too, because I have been waiting for someone to crack that hardware and bring out a video player for my little iPod nano. And the short answer: no. Come ON, Apple. Bring out an update to allow us all to play video on our old hardware. /stupid thing to say. They want me to buy another one.

The best combination

[poity]

Go to buy.com and choose one of their recertified Sandisk Sansa players (I got one of the E series) and slap rockbox on that thing. You now have yourself a $40 player with $200 worth of functionality. No more worrying about losing or dropping it when it's so cheap.

Re:The best combination

[walter_f]

Remember, in order to run Rockbox, you have to get a rev 1 Sansa (no more available as new stock, just as used items or in refurbished lots).

On a v2 Sansa, Rockbox will not run.

Re:The best combination

[GodEater]

Be careful to make sure that any of the sansa's you pick up this way are version 1.0 of the hardware. There is a v2.0 which replaced all of the internals which (currently) won't run Rockbox. www.froobi.com (if you're in the USA/Canada) certify their sansas as "Rockbox ready" so you *know* you're getting the right hardware version.

You don't like "box of rocks"?

[Futurepower(R)]

You don't think "box of rocks" is a good name? LOL.

Other poor names:
Image manipulation software: GIMP. A gimp is a cripple.
Beatles: They named their band after a kind of insect? Some unlikely names don't stop success.

I am very impressed with the fact that the Rockbox team lists all the contributors.

Re:You don't like "box of rocks"?

[rmadmin]

I think GIMP is actually a great name for it. Compared to Photoshop, it certainly is crippled. Kthx.

Better than Stock. Why isn't it more widely used?

[internic]

I got an Archos Ondio flash-based player years ago, but after the newness wore off I found the usability sorely lacking. I was really disappointed. I heard of Rockbox fairly early on, but I figured the last thing I wanted to deal with was troubleshooting problems with firmware on my mp3 player, so I thought "not now, but maybe some day". A year or so later, I was finally so fed up with the Ondio I figured I'd give it a try. Man was I sorry I'd waited so long. The Rockbox firmware made the player much more useful, and it even added features that had not existed at all before (e.g. grouping via ID3 tags). To top it all off, I don't recall ever really running into any bugs in the firmware.

What this really leads me to wonder is, why don't some of these player manufacturers team up with Rockbox to make that the official firmware of their player? It seems like, with people inside the company to help with the hardware interface part of it, Rockbox would be a very solid choice, and the company wouldn't have to pay a license fee or write firmware from scratch. And, of course, they could even make the version on the player branded and incorporates whatever eye candy they please.

Re:Some things are not working in 3.0

[GodEater]

The battery life for *most* of the ipod range is now superior to the original firmware, and the remaining models are on a par with it. We already have our own USB stack for mass storage which will work on the sansas (and other portal player based targets), but we've had issues with it when used with SD cards plugged into the unit, which is why it's not currently enabled by default. Of course work is progressing to fix these issues.

Re:Video

[maeka]

With the iPod Video it is suggested you boot into Apple firmware to watch videos. Rockbox does not support the Broadcomm video decoder, and thus must attempt to drive the large screen with CPU decoding. You will not get 24FPS in MPEG2 on the 320x240 screen with the iPod's 80Mhz processor.
Most all other targets have a much better processor to screen size ratio and play video better.

Re:Video

[GodEater]

While you can use Rockbox on the 5G ipods to playback video using the MpegPlayer plugin (not based on mplayer as other comments suggest) and MPEG 1/2 format movies, we actually recommend still using the Original Firmware (OF) for movie playback (which is fine, since Rockbox allows you to dual boot back to the old OF whenever you like). This is because the 5Gs include a hardware video processor which no public specs are available for, and which Rockbox is therefore unable to use. It far outperforms our software video rendering sadly.

Re:Does it still suck?

[muellerr1]

I can charge my e200 while listening to Rockbox. The sound quality is also much better than the stock firmware.

Finding a non-iPod Rockbox compatible DAP

[wrkerr]

My first DAP was an Archos Jukebox 5000, and 2 years ago I put rockbox on it, and was really impressed. Rockbox was great then, and now I'm sure it's much better. The problem though, is that that DAP has long since gathered spiderwebs, and I'd like one with more storage.

Where could I find one of the Rockbox compatible DAP's for a reasonable price? The Cowon iAudio all seem very overpriced, and the SanDisk SANSA's all have too little storage. I need at least 20GB of storage. Am I looking in the wrong places?

Re:So what's the best hardware to use?

[DarkkOne]

See the BuyersGuide page on the wiki but popular hardware are the e200 (there's a website called Froobi that sells ones they make sure are the v1 hardware for the e200 series, since the v2 is not yet compatible) or the Gigabeat F or S. All of these can generally be had for USD100 or less.

Thank you RockBox

[John Sokol]

Rockbox is very well written clean code.

  I have been working on an NXP ISP1582 driver, this is for USB2.0 Device interface and Rockbox has been one of the cleanest example code pieces for this, demonstrating how to use this chip.

I hope to eventually release my code in to the Linux kernel although it doesn't look anything like the RockBox code, they help me get past some roadblocks on how to communicate with that chip.

So Thank you Rockbox, I hope it will have a long future ahead.

Re:Some things are not working in 3.0

[erayd]

You will need to download the source, and compile it with USE_ROCKBOX_USB and USE_HIGH_SPEED defined.