RockboxPlayerV1 - Free/Open hardware audio player for Rockbox

[casainho]

I wouldn't have anything to do with the design, since I have no knowledge of that.  I would be willing to learn (but I don't really know where to start... any links?) but I would probably slow you down.

Start by reading all wiki pages about the project. I think we will shift back to the RockboxPlayerPrototype:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockboxPlayerPrototype

[Bagder]

Allow me to also add some fluff to this pie-throwing.

I haven't added myself to this project because I don't want to build my own player. I don't believe in that concept. But if a company/someone would start making them in a nice package, I certainly would be lining up to get one. Of course I would then only be interested in such a player if it has a color screen of a suitable size and while Rockbox is about audio it plays video perfectly fine on most targets and I see absolutely no reason to build a new player in 2008 that can't play video - I think the album art fan crowd will also agree that color screens are nice. Especially not when it has an 180MHz ARM9 core.

I've contributed to Rockbox for more than six years and I've responded in this thread and on IRC quite a lot of times. But again, I'm not added on the wiki page for the rockboxplayer.

I do realize that there needs to be someone who gets the final say and of course everyone can build their own player but we need to remember that rejecting ideas and suggestions will be taken hard if not motivated properly and "you're not in the team" is not a good reason.

[casainho]

I see absolutely no reason to build a new player in 2008 that can't play video

Just because we are in 2008 does not mean we can't build a player dedicated to audio!

The hardware will be tailored for It's objectives, Good quality hardware audio player and recorder - no video player or game console; --> which does not mean video or games happen in software, however, hardware will not be tailored for that! - maybe I did not wrote very well, video or games can happen, however, for example, buttons will be tailored for an audio player and not for a game console.

[cool_walking_]

I wouldn't have anything to do with the design, since I have no knowledge of that.  I would be willing to learn (but I don't really know where to start... any links?) but I would probably slow you down.

Start by reading all wiki pages about the project. I think we will shift back to the RockboxPlayerPrototype:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockboxPlayerPrototype

Yeah I'd been reading those.  I mean I don't know anything about this hardware stuff.  I used a soldering iron once in my life for half an hour 12-13 years ago.

I started reading Electronics and Practical_Electronics on Wikibooks.  With the former I'm pretty much forgetting what I read 5 minutes later.

[casainho]

I wouldn't have anything to do with the design, since I have no knowledge of that.  I would be willing to learn (but I don't really know where to start... any links?) but I would probably slow you down.

Start by reading all wiki pages about the project. I think we will shift back to the RockboxPlayerPrototype:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockboxPlayerPrototype

Yeah I'd been reading those.  I mean I don't know anything about this hardware stuff.  I used a soldering iron once in my life for half an hour 12-13 years ago.

I started reading Electronics and Practical_Electronics on Wikibooks.  With the former I'm pretty much forgetting what I read 5 minutes later.

But can you hack RB code? :-) - Nor you and much people want, know to solder. We will buy a development board and I will make a few necessary boards just for developers, fro this prototype. Next, the idea is to have some company to assembly and sell to us that hardware :-)

[cool_walking_]

But can you hack RB code? :-)

Most probably not.  I have written simple plugins (surely written very stupidly and hence never released), but I've never written anything low level like a driver, and I haven't really looked at the core code.

[casainho]

But can you hack RB code? :-)

Most probably not.  I have written simple plugins (surely written very stupidly and hence never released), but I've never written anything low level like a driver, and I haven't really looked at the core code.

So It's an opportunity to discover, to learn :-) - also I will also learn :-) - I can code drivers but I will learn a lot looking at high level code :-)

[JonathanHull]

Well I WAS interested in this project till casainho showed his inner dictator qualities. So forget this.

[allele]

any estimations on the dimensions of the new player?  I know the hardware is still being worked on, so nothing is definite, just seeing if anyone has any idea

[notlistening]

Hi Guys,


Been lurking around the rockbox project for about three years now. Looking to dedicate my time to developing the new hardware/software for this project.

For some reason my e-mail on yahoo does not like the rockbox forums or the Wiki so I have added my details here please add me on MSN to chat directly.

I lost about 80% of my sight in 2005 but have a degree in computing for Real time Systems. I have worked on Linux driver development under embedded systems, VHDL and FPGA, c programming, embedded systems.

I have very little to do commitment wise, using But porting the SAPI engine for speech to Linux you know things to occupy my time.

If someone can contact me and get me working on a specific area I would be grateful. thomaslloyd82 at hotmail.com

Lastly my wishlist.

I think that flash players have great advantages over hard disks. My main concern is battery power and the flash based players far out do the drive based players. I am using a Sansa E280 with 8GB expanded memory. This gives me a 16 GB player. As i am not really too clued up on the hardware plans for this project this maybe a silly suggestion. My idead would be support multiple flash cards either the same format or differing formats giving expandability up to roughly 30GB with internal and two + external cards similar to the 30 GB hard drive cowon X5 models. The micro SDHC are very small and could be intergrated into a small player. Possibly even in parallel as you only need access to one card at a time needing less controller hardware. The next advantage is they are bump proof and they do not cause noise when recording through the mic and or when listening to music. In an ideal world you would have a HDD and flash versions.

That would meet peoples need in different ways both in size and functionality.

Battery easily replaceable ion lithium as posted before, maybe even an existing product that will have an extended shelf life like the Nintendo DS for example or mobile phone.

A mini usb connector is a must, customised cables / connectors are a nightmare. Every one has a mini usb cable somewhere, car adapters are easy to come by, my pda has a wall charger that will run anything like my zen stone which is great no need for a computer or multiple chargers.

Interface depends on the design of the player but I have to say the X5 was good, the Sansa is pretty useless but the winner is the zen stone as it is durable, simple you could modify to be used in any direction horizontal vertical upsidedown. I like the concept of the scroll wheel but find them in precise and hard to use. The durability of the players control is of great importance as they will wear out before the battery does. The tactile bump on the zen is all a vision impaired user requires.  Another option on an old phone that i found to be the most usable interface was a scroll wheel on my Sony P800. It had 5 way functionality as was on the side toward the top of the phone and required nothing else to use the devide. It supported up and down scross push away pull towards and push in to click. The position was comfortable to use for extended periods and as a bonus you could play doom on it ok

Small note on headphone jacks. I have an X5 where the headphone jack was damaged/wore out so a good choice of jack even an external one on a lead would extend the longevity of that component. The zen also has a nice feature to skip albumin with a slide switch but has no screen as it is only 1GB.

The ability to completely switch off the screen both hardware and software to save battery power. No need for vision impaired users.

Software - I want my cake and to eat it

For vision impaired users a sound to indicate start up would be great.

A feature that would announce the song that is playing next before the track starts, helps us learn the names using the voice clip.

An accessible database, to provide an alternative database version that basically takes the database structure/information and creates an empty directory tree of the years artist albumns using the PC and then uses a combination of playlists and symbolic links (saving duplication)to voice clips and music files to allow vision impaired users to utilise the database feature.

Phew, Daisy a tool to convert the files to mp4 and create a cue file based on the XML on the book Cd's.

A tool to allow configuration of a player on the PC.

Notlistening  - to anything ATM because no rockbox hardware is available 

[casainho]

Hello notlistening :-)

I am right now trying to build one bootstrap for Olimex dev. board with ARM9. My actual task is to prepare and test the bootstrap with the already tested flash led code. In the end, the flash led code will be changed by the Rockbox bootloader. Finally, Rockbox bootloader will read from one SD card FAT32 filesystem, the Rockbox firmware + data audio files.

About flash memory, I agree with you, for example, I had been hacking in Asus netbook eee pc 701 in past months and now I am with other one, the Acer aspire one -- both don't have HD, just flash drives :-)

Well, we need a lot of help to make this idea grow, of one Open hardware/firmware audio recorder/player.

I did add you to msn - my e-mail, msn, gtalk: casainho at_gmail.com

[notlistening]

Hi All,

To all those people from before that have been put off helping out on this project please reconsider. I have now started helping, have a barebones development board and have been dedicating significant amounts of time to this project.

I am learning from a very basic level in a wide variety of areas and in all honesty we have a lot of gaps in our skill sets.  I understand that to begin with we are trying to ease the prototyping as much as possible and that has lead to some decisions about hardware, ie the screen. From a base we can implement a better LCD but at the moment not knowing how to do it for the first time we want it to be a little bit less stressful.

The hardware used will be be open to debate and the hardware manufacture will have significant sway in the end. Discussion and ideas are very welcome as we do not have all the answers. What works for me doesn't work for everyone, but more choice is better than none.

If we get a player developed then it paves the way in the future for rapid development as hardware evolves. So please do not get disheartened any help is good help.

If there is anyone with experience of ARM 9 development from scratch that might be able to anwer a few questions can you PM me.

Also if people are interested in learning up to what I know i can give some useful pointers .

The most important thing that will come out of this project is a ARM 9 based rockbox port that can be implemented with differing hardware, screens, buttons, scrolly things, memory interfaces etc etc.

Tom