Trio TCH1643

[cenobyte]

Hello everyone, I tried to contact you all on IRC, but my session always got terminated for some reason. I have a Trio tch 1643 player that does not seem to work for transferring files to it. My brother bought it for about a hundred bucks about 2 years ago but now that it seems broken, has given it over to me for hacking. I would like to get anything at all going on the device instead of the default firmware . When I lsusb, I get 'rockchip media player' and I know some work has been done on this platform, but I was unable to find out how to manually set up a player with unusable support. I downloaded the installer but did not find the player. I am not averse to developing or helping, I just need to know how to load the files onto the player and what files, etc. On my particular player, there are no hardware buttons except for the on/off slider switch so the touchscreen would have to work. I am not a programmer per se, but I have been learning more as time goes by. I would like to do anything I can for myself and us all for the Rockchip platform so let me know how I can get started developing and testing... Thanks!

[cenobyte]

Even if I can only get a broken something, I'd still like to try. If not, thanks for trying.

[wodz]

Open it, take photos of components. Google doesn't provide any trustworthy info about what powers this DAP.

[cenobyte]

OK, so here is the one photo I think we need to see. If you need me to further disassemble it, let me know.

[wodz]

Its rk27xx - we have limited support for this platform. Catch me on IRC so we can look what can be done. In the meanwhile you may get familiar with rockbox/firmware/target/arm/rk27xx, rockbox/utils/rk27utils stuff as well as rk27xx datasheet floating around.

[knob]

I'm guessing this has the same fuselage as the Ramos T8 and Archos 43 Vision, all are Rk2705
and 480x272 touch screen, there is an SDK knocking around for the T8.

Might be worth seeing if the Ramos T8 firmware will work on this player, it would make a dual boot with Rockbox and testing easier.

[wodz]

knob, you seem to be well oriented in this matter. I would like to get 'T8'. What other brands to look for? Is it something particular I can look for in item description?

[cenobyte]

So is there special software I will need to use to flash? I am familiar with the Ben Nanonote pocket computer which uses usbboot to flash. Is there a similar program I would need to flash, especially since my player is not in the official installer?

[wodz]

Your player is not in official installer for a reason. You need to write touchpanel driver at least. Other bits may need to be tweaked as well. The point was it is doable in reasonable amount of time to port rockbox to work on your target. We don't service 'port requests'. If someone is interested he needs to get his hands dirty.

You don't need special software to flash rockbox on rk27xx player. But still you need to have working binary. Can you access hidden/system partition? We will need BASE.RKW firmware file to confirm configuration of various settings by dissasembling it. Look for 'rockchip system partition' on google. You may also try (at your own risk) rkusbtool from rockbox/utils/rk27utils. Having original firmware extracted is the very first step. More photos of internals will help also. It is interesting for example if this DAP uses external codec or the one integrated in rk27xx SoC. Another possibility is to have firmware upgrade file for *your* player.

[knob]

@cenobyte
Have you got a copy of the original firmware, I think it would be *.img rather than *.rkw.

See if you can revive your player first, if that works then you can copy the Rockbox bootloader into the firmware image and experiment further, as for Rockbox you would need to get the lcd working first, not easy, a datasheet for your LCD might help, the reference build is different all together in this respect.


@wodz
I don't think any rk27xx series devices are made anymore apart from the Hifimans and rk2738 ebook readers, maybe some Texet T900 are available in Russia.

ownta.com may have some old stock, but it's best to check they actually have in stock what they advertise.

It's very difficult to get hold of these now, most generic no-name PMP's you would usually end up with are Rk261x or rk28xx, no way of telling from the description I'm afraid.

It's always a problem with Rockbox as soon as the port gets developed the manufacturer moves on to something else so it's a game of catch up. ;-)

[cenobyte]

OK, so I used testdisk to analyse the partition on the player because when I plugged it in, it was not appearing as a removeable disk. After that, I can now see a 21MB partition on which i found a HOLDON.BIN file and a folder SYSTEM with FILEINFO.DAT FILESORT.DAT SAVE.BIN and STATINFO.STA. Have I hit something, or are there more hidden partitions?

[wodz]

@knob
What about this one http://www.ownta.com/onda-vx530t-mp4-player-with-4.3-inch-touch-screen-and-tv-out-function-4gb.html
I vaguely remember this being rebranded T8 but there seems to be a few different versions.

[knob]

One sure way to check:-
ftp://ftp.onda.cn/download/driver/oamp3/VX530T/

If it is rk27xx then it's best to message ownta to see if they actually have any to ship , they are not too good at updating their stock levels, but they respond to questions ok.

Cheers
knob

@cenobyte
copy the contents of the system folder while you can, look for a second partition and copy the contents of that too, you need the RESOURCE folder,  then we can make an image file.

[cenobyte]

I have managed to see the 16GB part of the player but nothing appears to be on it (even with "show hidden files") . The 21mb partition is not showing up again, so maybe the SYSTEM folder was the equivalent of RESOURCE? If not then I have to keep looking...

[knob]

The layout of the firmware partitions do vary, early players had 1 partition later replaced by 2.
If you haven't done so already you might want to check this thread out:-
http://mympx.org/forum/mods-themes/41908-firmware-extraction-new-rockchip-rk27xx-series-players.html

err just a thought! 

My brother bought it for about a hundred bucks about 2 years ago but now that it seems broken, has given it over to me for hacking

Your brother didn't by any chance flash the player with the wrong firmware? If so then there would be no point in trying to pull it off the player