Fear Installing RockBox

[AC92629]

I just heard about your product today so please excuse my noob questions and/or if this post is in the incorrect forum. I have 2 short, straightforward questions:

1. Is the installation of Rockbox easily and fully reversible? I'm concerned about it harming my iPod nano 2nd generation since the software/firmware changes seem so deeply rooted in the operating system.

2. I've heard OGG formatted audio and it seems to me to be superior to MP3, when using the same bitrate. Is there any advantage to converting my music library from MP3 to OGG or will the fact that they are both lossy formats negate the advantage or even degrade the quality? For what it's worth, many of my songs are at significantly higher bitrates than 128Kbps.

Thank you very much for your help!

[mschneider]

The 2G nano is not supported.

[AC92629]

My iPod is the 8Gb Nano. Thank for the feedback.

[Llorean]

2G means "2nd Generation" around here, while 2GB means 2 gigabytes.

[AC92629]

I believe I said 2nd Generation in my original post. I never said anything about 2G until it was mentioned in the first reply.

[Llorean]

No, I mean HE meant "2nd Generation." As in, "He said your iPod is not one of the supported models." I never said that you said "2G"

[AC92629]

My apologies. I thought 2G meant gigabytes. I'm sorry causing any waste of time. Any chance Rockbox might support 2nd generation in the future? If not, does anyone know of any other similar products that do? Thank you again for your responses.

[mschneider]

Check out the thread in "New Ports" to see how development is going. I don't think anyone has ported to it yet because the firmware is encrypted.

[AC92629]

I will check out the New Port section and keep looking for an alternative. Thank you so much for your feedback. If anyone else has other ideas, I would greatly appreciate them. Unfortunately I own 4 of the same type nanos, otherwise I would opt to purchase next generation and install Rockbox.

[pondlife]

To run Rockbox on a Nano, you'd need a 1st generation.

To your second question, converting from MP3 to OGG will degrade the sound further - you'd need to go back to the an original/lossless source to make the OGG conversion worthwhile IMHO.

pondlife

[wintermute23]

In regards to your other question, assuming you get hold of a player for which a port of RockBox exists, I believe there is no more risk installing RockBox than there is upgrading to the latest version of the original manufacturer's firmware. If you decide you don't like it, or suspect it's causing problems, you can delete RockBox completely and it'll be as if it was never installed.

[GodEater]

Assuming Rockbox ever gets ported to the 2nd Generation Nano - I don't think we can say currently how safe / unsafe the install is likely to be. We've no clue how we're going to do it, and therefore no way to know how likely that is to render the Nano non-working if it goes wrong.

This is of course though, all speculation

[bluebrother]

my usual remarks ...
1. Rockbox is not a product, it's a project.
2. please stop altering the text color. There is no reason for doing it and it can make your posts harder to read ... blue on blue is a bad idea anyway at all.

[AC92629]

I thank everyone for the feedback. I read through the iPod nano listing under New Ports. It's amazing to see how much work has been put forth toward this project and everyone who contributed should be commended. I never realized how intricate and complicated the process was; it has been a learning experience for me. From the final two entries it would seem as though there might be some hope. Let's keep our fingers crossed. I believe that from the sheer number of nanos sold a lot of people are probably anxious to see this happen.

Point taken about the font color. I didn't mean to tick anybody off by referring to Rockbox by the wrong nomenclature.

[bluebrother]

I didn't mean to tick anybody off by referring to Rockbox by the wrong nomenclature.

No biggie -- it's mostly just me being picky about it due to the fact that I usually refer to a product if I paid for it and am entitled to receive (paid) support. But as this doesn't apply to Rockbox I somewhat insist on not considering it a product (and honestly, for a product there would be a release required -- and some formalized testing before releasing it )