Rio Karma

[LambdaCalculus]

I have been struck by the Idea Storm again, folks.  

A coworker has just recently shown me a most coveted prize: the Rio Karma... truly a DAP of hardcore proportions. Anyone who has owned (or will own!) this DAP know of its rich features, such as... Rockbox?

Wait... no Rockbox on it? Are you daft?

So now I'm on the hunt for information about the Karma, and I've gotten quite a lot of good information on hand!

-- The Karma is PortalPlayer based; it has a PP5003 SoC, dual-core ARM7 which can clock at up to 90Mhz. This is essentially the same as the PP5002, but with the "broken" cache fixed. (I should note that the Karma played both Vorbis and FLAC natively, so of course the CPU had to be powerful enough to handle it!)

-- Quite a bit of the hardware inside is similar to other supported targets; for example, the Karma uses the same Hitachi hard drives as the iriver H10 20GB, and the DAC/headphone amp is a Wolfson 8721/8731... the same as in the early iPods!

-- There's much more to be said, but I'm going to be posting that to its upcoming wiki page.

I don't have my own Karma (yet), but once I get one...  

[scharkalvin]

Here's your chance to snag a few of them.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-Of-5-Rio-Karma-20GB-MP3-Players-90260461-5000-Songs_W0QQitemZ170174719952QQihZ007QQcategoryZ51004QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[evilnick]

I've had a few (3) Karmas in my time. They were waaaay ahead of their time and it was only when I found out about Rockbox on the H1x0 series that I decided to jump ship.

The main disadvantage was in the non-standard database-only way of loading files - just like the iPod, although there was a way of loading "regular files" onto it, but these couldn't be played by the firmware.

ISTR that there was quite a bit of interest in hacking this. I'd recommend searching on the forums at Riovolution.com and also as the codebase was the evolution (or at least similar to) the Empeg series of car players then there has been some discussion there too. (For where 'there' is, that'll have to be a job for Google).

Shame that it was plagued by HDD issues as it was ergonomically sound, played gapless ogg/flac/mp3 and had some really nifty db features (anyone who's owned one and hung around said Riovolution foums enough will remember "Wendy flags" with fondness!).

Best of luck with this, Lambda.

[LambdaCalculus]

Here's your chance to snag a few of them.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-Of-5-Rio-Karma-20GB-MP3-Players-90260461-5000-Songs_W0QQitemZ170174719952QQihZ007QQcategoryZ51004QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I see lots like that often, so I may pick up a lot after Xmas is over.

If I manage to, I'll gladly send out some Karmas from that lot to any devs who are interested, and purchase one fully working one for the day Rockbox's logo does splash onto the screen.

[GodEater]

I used to have one of these players too - it's what my iRiver H140 ended up replacing because I ran out of disc space on it. Also - one of my very good friends was one of the developers on it

[bascule]

At the risk of turning this thread into a dewy-eyed reminiscence session I too used to have a Karma and the physical interface was absolutely superb.

You could operate almost all the functionality from the corner scrollwheel via a combination of spinning or clicking it. You could have the current playlist as the WPS, so you could see further ahead, but still have playback and volume control.

It was the Karma that got me into MP3 players, but also introduced me (via their forums) to Vorbis and properly-tagged files. It is also why I now exclusively use the Rockbox Database, as the Karma was also fantastic in that regard, allowing insertion and deletion of whole albums or artists and automagically building playlists based on previous listening patterns (RioDJ, anyone?  8-) ).

It may also have been on there (although I forget now) that Rockbox was mentioned, leading me to this fantstic community once all (three!) of my Karmas had breathed their last via a combination of HDD and USB connectivity failures...

It was a sad day that the Rio brand was sold out, with all the technical and interface innovation now apparently lost, followed shortly by the infiltration and subsequent death-by-spamming of the forums.

Although I kind of like the idea of a Rockbox port, I don't think I'd go back now. I'm really loving my Rockboxed Sansa... which, incidentally, I use upside-down because having the wheel at the top makes the operation as close as I feel I can get on any of the current targets to a Karma and works really well for me, as I like to use one-digit operation as much as possible and I can now operate most function with just my thumb using the wheel and the Select button.

I'll shut up and get my coat now...

[GodEater]

I think I agree - the Karma was the opposite of most of the Rockbox targets. The OF was actually really good, and only let down by the shoddy hardware. Mine went back to the CEO/CTO of Empeg himself at least once to get him to mend it.

[LambdaCalculus]

No arguments here that the OF in the Karma was the bee's knees... but some of the reasons Rockbox would be beneficial are:

1) We can add in the missing codecs supported by Rockbox, such as Musepack, Monkey's Audio, and AAC.

2) Most everything in the Karma OF is already in Rockbox, and

3) Why not?

When the holidays are over, I'll hit eBay and get a lot of Karmas for the porting effort. My offer still stands to the devs!

[GodEater]

1) We can add in the missing codecs supported by Rockbox, such as Musepack, Monkey's Audio, and AAC.

Monkey's Audio on a decrepit PortalPlayer target? You're kidding right ?

3) Why not?

Scarcity of working hardware. But by all means go ahead!

[LambdaCalculus]

Monkey's Audio on a decrepit PortalPlayer target? You're kidding right ?

 

At least we can have Musepack and AAC, though!

Anyway, like I mentioned before, it turns out that the PP5003 in the Karma is very, very similar to the PP5002, except that (from what I read) the PP5002 had a "crippled" cache, and the PP5003 doesn't. So the PP5003 might be a little better performance-wise.

I'm going to hunt down datasheets and as much information for the unique hardware in the Karma, but since a lot of its internal hardware is also in some of the other targets we support (iPod and H10, I'm looking at you two! , that should make it less painful to start a port.

Oh yes, almost forgot... gotta see the firmware upgrade format on the Karma. I hope the Deities Above and Below are good to me and reveal that they're mi4-based!

[GodEater]

Anyway, like I mentioned before, it turns out that the PP5003 in the Karma is very, very similar to the PP5002, except that (from what I read) the PP5002 had a "crippled" cache, and the PP5003 doesn't. So the PP5003 might be a little better performance-wise.

You recall that even the Gigabeat is known to struggle with Monkey's right ?

Oh yes, almost forgot... gotta see the firmware upgrade format on the Karma. I hope the Deities Above and Below are good to me and reveal that they're mi4-based!

Don't hold your breath...

[LambdaCalculus]

You recall that even the Gigabeat is known to struggle with Monkey's right ?

Yes, I've read about that on the Monkey's Audio wiki page. But that's the fault of the author of the codec for making it so slow.

Don't hold your breath...

I won't.

[scharkalvin]

Lambda:
From what I've read the Karma's weak spot was the HD.  You might take a look at the CF/HD adapter I used in my attempt to convert my Gigabeat F10 to use a CF card to replace the Karma's HD.  (I'm investigating so random disk read errors with mine, probably the CF isn't as fast as the disk in the interface and might need something in the ATA logic to compensate.  But this adapter was reported to work in ipods so the HW idea is probably sound).

[LambdaCalculus]

The wiki page is up!

http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/RioKarmaPort

scharkalvin: The iriver H10 and the Dell DJ (which I haven't forgotten about! ) use the same hard drive. It's a Hitachi Travelstar Model HTC424020F7AT00 drive, 44-pin, horizontal orientation. So we would need to find a CF-to-IDE adapter that fits into the case, which is a wee little thing to begin with!

[evilnick]

I'd recommend searching on the forums at Riovolution.com and also as the codebase was the evolution (or at least similar to) the Empeg series of car players then there has been some discussion there too. (For where 'there' is, that'll have to be a job for Google).

and then today you're thankful that someone in IRC pointed you in that direction... I'm offended!