Rockbox Development > New Ports

Step by step - How to port a new MP3 player?

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Llorean:
Well, the rockbox binary itself takes up less than 300k of RAM I believe, and the user interface can run on a slower than 12mhz SH1 processor. But those have a dedicate hardware decoder to handle MP3 playback.

It also runs on one 75mhz ARM7 core in the iPods, and a 120mhz m68k coldfire processor in the iRivers. Though in both of those the processor itself is used to decode the music.

Odds are fairly good that Rockbox can work on your MP3 player, though depending upon its capabilities not every feature of Rockbox will necessarily be usable. For example, if it uses a hardware decoder for MP3 playback, Rockbox can't really add OGG support.

saratoga:
Some chipsets are very difficult to support.  Others are very easy because they are so similar to existing Rockbox targets.  Best thing to do would be to open the unit and scan the PCB.  That way you'll know how much work will be involved.


--- Quote ---By the way, the Lyra player seems to have a "preloader" and from this preloader it's lauch the actual MP3 player software. On the player HDD, a directory is called "lyra_sys" which contains a couple of executable files. And I guess that the ONLY file that I will need to "rebuild" with ROCKbox is the one called "mp3.exe".

Do you think I'm in "danger" of renaming or changing that file only. From what I know about hardware (PC, routers, FW, switches, etc...). Most equipment have their "preloader/bootloader" and I don't need to mess with anything else than the application that is actually processing audio files.

--- End quote ---

Rockbox cannot use software that came from your player (aside maybe from the bootloader).  You'll have to replace everything else.

Bagder:
Allow me to point out that we already know what CPU this Lyra player uses:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/TexasInstrumentsTMS320#DM270

This is good because its a known ARM7 CPU core.

This is bad because we lack docs and I don't think there's any free compiler for the DSP parts...

LinusN:
There is a free assembler (gas), but no compiler.

Platin465:

--- Quote from: Llorean on April 06, 2006, 01:45:48 PM --- do some research to find out if you can still get into the player if those files become corrupt. If this is also true, then working on Rockbox because a much safer prospect.

--- End quote ---

You should have no problem if those files become corrupt, as long as you have a working backup of them or the latest firmware, which is those files.  I have one of the Lyra players, and upon seeing those files in it, I proceeded to move them to my computer.  The player no longer functioned as a player.  I moved the files back, and it worked fine again.  So if they become corrupt, and they don't damage the hardware in the process, you shouldn't have any problems replacing the files with working ones to get it back up & running again.

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