Rockbox

divine`

divine`

divine`

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Wow.

This has transformed my iPod. It's brilliant, easy to install, easier to use and massively customisable.

I love it.

Have some picture of my, now new and exciting, iPod.

rockbox1.jpg


rockbox2.jpg


rockbox3.jpg


I highly recommend people give this a try on any player if there is a compatible version, it can dual boot too afaik, so you can switch between Rockbox and the OEM firmware/software

http://www.rockbox.org/
 
I used the Rockbox (firmware) on an iAudio X5 to install Voice Menus on (for a friend who is blind) and it worked a treat....to get a similiar (voice menu) package for his Nokia mobile cost him £150....great bit of kit. ;)
 
james.miller said:
keep an eye on the battery life and let us know how it fairs. rockbox is great but it does giv e the players a good battery pounding lol
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It's about half what it manages using the Apple software.

That's with the supposedly power saving 'Load to RAM' option used, so it reads the disk less.
 
What's the advantage using Rockbox over normal firmware?

The pictures aren't exactly different to what the Vid iPod offers?
 
Allsorts... more than I can remember and list out.

Wikipedia says:

Rockbox features

Beside the ability of playing and recording audio files, Rockbox offers a lot of playback enhancements that other firmwares may not have implemented already. Listed below are a handful of these features.

* Gapless playback
* Replay Gain[2]
* 5 band fully parametric equalizer[2]
* OTF ("on the fly") playlists
* True random shuffle (fresh randomly shuffled list every time)
* Custom UI themes
* Stereo recording to WAV/AIFF/WavPack (lossless) and MP3[3] (supporting devices)
* FM radio, including FM recording (supporting devices)
* Remote control (supporting devices)
* Digital SPDIF input/output (supporting devices)
* Last.fm support (even on players lacking RTC)
* Cue sheet support

[edit] Plug-ins

Developers of Rockbox are able to create new plug-ins, which provide the user with other enhancements that may not be available on various firmware modules.

At the current development stage, the following plug-ins are available.

* JPEG viewer (16 bit color/33 shade greyscale) [4]
* Rockboy Game Boy emulator (port of Gnuboy) [5]
* ZXBox ZX Spectrum emulator (port of Spectemu) [6]
* Doom (port of the PrBoom engine)
* WAV to MP3 encoder
* WAV to WavPack encoder
* MPEG video player [1]
* Various games including sudoku, solitaire, minesweeper, pong and many others (see http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/PluginIndex for an official list of plugins)
* MIDI player, realtime on some targets. Requires external instrument set, available on Rockbox page.

[edit] Unsupported features

Rockbox development is always ongoing. However, either due to the lack of support from external companies or platform drawbacks, Rockbox has a few features which are not yet implemented.

* Firewire
* Digital rights management (intentionally)
* USB host capability ("USB On-The-Go") (this is part of a Google summer of code 2007 project)
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I use it because the SQ seems better, it can go a lot louder, the EQ actually seems to affect the music now and I can use a theme so that it matches my phone :p
 
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Andybtsn said:
Does it still sync with iTunes? As in play counts etc?
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No idea, I stopped using iTunes a long time ago because it annoyed me.

I would imagine it still works with iTunes, as Rockbox is only a different boot really, the apple firmware is still there...
 
I've had Rockbox on my iRiver H120 for about 2 years now. It's astounding just how much of a difference it makes. Well worth the 30 minutes or so I took to read up on it and flash my player.:p
 
Seriously considering this, but can someone answer these questions?

-Someone mentioned battery life, is it worse than normally? (5g 30 Vid Ipod)
-I take watching video's is still possible?
-Is it possible to add a song to a playlist whilst listening to it? This really annoys me with the current firmware that I can't add a song to ''on-the-go'' playlist whilst listening to it.
-What are the custom EQ's like? Can I create a bassy EQ that betters the Ipod's custom EQ's?
 
Andybtsn said:
Seriously considering this, but can someone answer these questions?

-Someone mentioned battery life, is it worse than normally? (5g 30 Vid Ipod) * it cuts it by about half as devine realised
-I take watching video's is still possible? yep although i dont know what state codec support is at.
-Is it possible to add a song to a playlist whilst listening to it? This really annoys me with the current firmware that I can't add a song to ''on-the-go'' playlist whilst listening to it. * yep sure is
-What are the custom EQ's like? Can I create a bassy EQ that betters the Ipod's custom EQ's? * ipods i believe have problems with signal levels and the eq. using too much eq overdrives the signal level and causes it to distort no matter what volume the player is running at. with rockbox you can decrease the levels so its all in check, in a nut shell.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks James, considering I'm travelling to Amercia next week battery life is very important so not going to bother with this.
 
you can dual boot to get round that problem but ultimately thats the deal breaker really. i had rockbox on my 5gb iriver h10 pure and the battery life was cut to around 3.5 hours. it sounded great but it was a bit... grr lol.


i need a new player, what with my d2 being pinced and wanting to get back to the gym. trobuel is, ive no idea what i want now.
 
Why does it reduce battery life so hugely? Surely it can't need to access the hard drive that much more, the screen isn't on any longer etc. :/
 
james.miller said:
i need a new player, what with my d2 being pinced and wanting to get back to the gym. trobuel is, ive no idea what i want now.
Click to expand...

Well I'll leave a vote for the Meizu M6. Pretty cheap on the bay, pretty good features, although I'd recommend getting a case for it, at the same time, as its a little easy to scratch due to the coating :)
 
im not sure if id be happy with one to be honest. half the output power, half the battery life, no sd slot.... id go with an m6, but i'd really be thinking of a d2:rolleyes: lol
 
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