Vosonic VP8870

[ta]

That Player seems to be a good replacement for Archos Jukebox Recorders

-2,5" SATA HDD support > 137 GB
-NP-100 compatible replaceable battery
-WAV & MP3 playback
-AAC recording via mic and line in
-Huge colour lcd display
-Video recording and playback via i/o
-Photo slideshow
-Card reader
-148 x 76 x 27 mm

http://www.vosonic.com/product.php?kind=1&PA=feature&id_1=16&id_2=0&id_3=0&id_4=0

[Mystery Keeper]

I've made a list of chips I could read without disassembling the device. Which means one side of the board. I'm a programmer (though my assembler experience is next to none), but I can't handle hardware. Someone smarter pretty please, give a start to this port!

XILINX
SPARTAN
XC3S100E
TQG114DGQ0929
D4002590A1
4C

Programmable CPU
-----------------------
hynix
H27U1G8F2BTR
BC        948F
M1W80295AA3

Memory (128MB?)
-----------------------
SunplusIT
SATALink
SPIF223A-HF022
MQDY295v1 (?)
0949-00500 (?)

SATA controller
-----------------------
(Wave pattern logo)
WM8978G
03APNA4

Obviously related to audio, but who knows how much work it really does.
-----------------------
TPS6
1032
T1 01W
ZF45

Boost converter.
-----------------------
2x

CL245A
TI 72K
A841

Low-voltage octal fet bus switches. What are these? ^_^'
-----------------------
BPT
98W
ZE3H
-----------------------
BHSW
TI W
99ZH
Post Merge: January 02, 2011, 06:21:38 PMI found out several different "digital frames" (VP8870 can act as one) use .mtg files as firmware upgrade. They all have some similar elements in interface - like filepaths and icons. They even have remote controller of identical design. What does that mean? They are all built in same way? There's one firmware toolkit for them all?

[TexasRockbox]

If it's any help the Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 uses .mtg files.

I have a VP8870 as well.  Nice hardware:

1) Standard battery
2) User upgradable 2.5" SATA HDD  (easily done -- mine is 640GB)
3) Excellent 800x480 LCD with outstanding viewing angles.

Crazy bad firmware, but not a bad way to store and play hundreds of CDs worth of .flac files.

I've written Vosonic several times with suggestions to improve the firmware.  No reply and no improvements.

I have some datasheets and an interesting version of the VP8860 (almost identical except for FM) firmware.

If Vosonic would allow for gapless and screen background changes....

[Mystery Keeper]

http://www.mediafire.com/?b0266ly4cggmj

Datasheets I gathered so far:
XILINX SPARTAN
Wolfson WM8978G
Texas Instruments CL245A (Not sure if the right one)
Texas Instruments TPS61032

[saratoga]

http://www.mediafire.com/?b0266ly4cggmj

Datasheets I gathered so far:
XILINX SPARTAN
Wolfson WM8978G
Texas Instruments CL245A (Not sure if the right one)
Texas Instruments TPS61032

You should make a wiki page for this port and then put the documents on the wiki.

[Mystery Keeper]

http://www.mediafire.com/?yp0q213506j2u
Here are several different firmwares for it. Can help in reverse engineering. I still can't use wiki.

[Mystery Keeper]

Its CPU seems to be XILINX SPARTAN. But there's a string "MSP430 Firmware" in firmware upgrade file. Confusing.

[Bagder]

"XILINX SPARTAN" is an FPGA, it is not a CPU at all.

AFAIK, that FPGA can feature both soft and hard CPU cores though.

[Mystery Keeper]

Does that mean the device uses both SPARTAN and MSP430?

[Bagder]

MSP430 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI_MSP430) seems to be a tiny 16bit microcontroller at max 25MHz so if there's one of those in your player you can rest assured that there must be something else in there as well.

[saratoga]

That FPGA is basically just a huge block of multipliers that you can arrange into a fixed function DSP chain.  I kind of doubt it has enough CPU performance for the GUI in the link above.  Theres probably a real ARM or MIPS core buried in there somewhere. 

[TexasRockbox]

I have had mine apart.  Chips noted:

XILINX-x3s100e Xilinx Spartan-3E FPGA

WM8978 - Wolfson Stereo CODEC with Speaker Driver

TVP5150A M1 - TI Ultralowpower NTSC/PAL/SECAM Video Decoder with Sync Detector

TPS61032 - TI Boost Converter

TM332DM355 - TI Digital Media System-on-Chip

SunplusIT-spif223a-hf022 - Sunplus SATA/IDE

MSP430F2232 - TI Microcontroller

HY27UF(08_16)16G2A Series(Rev0.4) - Hynix FLASH Memory

[Bagder]

Spartan-3E seems to be too small to be able to feature one of Xilinx PowerPC cores but can only fit a MicroBlaze one, which I think indicates saratoga is right: there's a CPU core somewhere.

Alternatively, this is a MicroBlaze design accelerated with key parts done in pure FPGA but I'm not into those details enough to tell if that's possible with a Spartan-3E.

Edit: eek, "TM332DM355" is a Texas Instruments beast with probably an ARM9 core. See http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tms320dm355.html for a similar model

[Mystery Keeper]

So, most of that media player's functions are made in hardware? They do upgrade the firmware though. They added FLAC support too. Also, firmware is upgraded in two steps: shell, then boot. Which means booter can be altered.

[saratoga]

So, most of that media player's functions are made in hardware?

No, the TM332DM355 is a pretty typical CPU.  Similar parts are used in a lot of Creative Zen players for instance.   Check out the link posted above.  I'm not really sure what that FPGA is used for.  It seems unnecessary.