porting RockBox to a Mp3/MP4 player with Manufacturer's cooperation

[portable]

Some of those functions listed are not yet offered by Rockbox (video, USB OTG, fm transmit), but on the other hand Rockbox offers a lot of more functions than so.

I guess this page could shed some light on what current Rockbox can offer:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRockbox

I read from some of the rockbox pages that read Rockbox do not support OTG is because players don't. Do you mean that someone need to work on the rockbox source code before OTG, video and maybe FM transmission can be supported?

However, this page
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/FeatureComparison
indicates that Video playback with sound is supported....why you said it isn't???

[Bagder]

Do you mean that someone need to work on the rockbox source code before OTG, video and maybe FM transmission can be supported?

Yes, that's why I said Rockbox doesn't support those. We're only a limited set of people with a limited amount of spare time.

Video playback with sound is supported....why you said it isn't?

RVF video is possible (on Archos) but I doubt you'd seriously call that video support with a straight face when talking actual video.

[petur]

Of course The Manufacturer can always donate code for the missing functionality.
It's a two-way gain:

• The Manufacturer gets to use RockBox with all its capabilities
• RockBox gets new functionality that our other targets can also use

Of course the parts we are allowed to take over must be GPL...

[portable]

Of course The Manufacturer can always donate code for the missing functionality.
It's a two-way gain:

• The Manufacturer gets to use RockBox with all its capabilities
• RockBox gets new functionality that our other targets can also use

Of course the parts we are allowed to take over must be GPL...

Of course, that sounds very good if it works out eventually.

Does anyone have links to COLOUR screenshots, reviews, etc to the rockbox interface? All I see on rockbox is the black and white interface....

[Bagder]

Rockbox is not yet released for any player with color LCD and we have not worked a lot on the looks. But you can customize it fairly well still. What about a little sneak preview on RedBreva's site with existing WPSes:

http://rockbox-themes.redbreva.com/Theme_320x240x16.html

[portable]

Rockbox is not yet released for any player with color LCD and we have not worked a lot on the looks. But you can customize it fairly well still. What about a little sneak preview on RedBreva's site with existing WPSes:

http://rockbox-themes.redbreva.com/Theme_320x240x16.html

Well, I would say that the coloured ones are pretty good already. Good work Rockbox....

[linuxstb]

Reading the description of these players on your website, I was excited to see that they use 2.5" hard drives, as opposed to the smaller capacity 1.8" drives in all the other "software codec" devices that Rockbox runs on.  (The Archos devices supported by Rockbox use 2.5" drives, but they are limited to only playing MP3 and, in the near future, WAV - the CPU isn't fast enough to support other codecs).

The ability to have 120GB of FLAC files in a Rockboxed player is very tempting (and would be unique to this player) - so count me in as an interested developer if this port ever goes anywhere.

[portable]

..... - so count me in as an interested developer if this port ever goes anywhere.

No problem. You might want to sent me a e-mail (look under my profile) so I can sent you files you need to work on the player.

At the moment, I don't have the source code of orginial firmware yet. But I have the software to load orginial firmware into the A8 player on my hand and player firmware is on my site.

[linuxstb]

..... - so count me in as an interested developer if this port ever goes anywhere.

No problem. You might want to sent me a e-mail (look under my profile) so I can sent you files you need to work on the player.

At the moment, I don't have the source code of orginial firmware yet. But I have the software to load orginial firmware into the A8 player on my hand and player firmware is on my site.

First of all, I would need an actual player...

[portable]

First of all, I would need an actual player...

Which country are you located? And is it possible to see some actual work before getting u a free player...unless u are willing to pay for one

[Bagder]

linuxstb is one of the main guys behind the Rockbox ipod port and lots of codec work and more. Lots of us can vouch for his ability to port Rockbox.

And as I said before, there is little motivation for any of us to work for free without having an actual player that would run the code.

[portable]

linuxstb is one of the main guys behind the Rockbox ipod port and lots of codec work and more. Lots of us can vouch for his ability to port Rockbox.

And as I said before, there is little motivation for any of us to work for free without having an actual player that would run the code.

In that case, that means there is no doubt on your ability to port it over. However, I still need to know the country you reside in, so I can find the distributor in your country to get you a free(possibly) player.. If in NZ or Australia I can do it personally, other conuntries, I would need some arrangement to be made..

[portable]

Specification for Telechips TCC721 used in Hi-X6
http://www.telechips.com/product/product_mp3_tcc72x.htm
http://www.telechips.com/product/p_021.htm


32bit ARM940TDMI RISC CPU core
4KB instruction, 4KB data cache
Internal boot ROM of 4Kbytes for various boot procedure (NAND, UART) and security
Internal SRAM of 64K bytes for general usage
On-chip peripherals
0.25um low power CMOS process
2.5V for core, 3.3V for I/O port
Operating up to 120MHz

Specification for Telechips TCC761 used in Hi-A8 and Hi-X8
http://www.telechips.com/product/p_023.htm


High Performance Digital Multimedia & Audio LSI
Support Real time MP3 & WMA Encoding
Support MP3, WMA, OGG, JPEG , MPEG4 SP Decoding
Low Power Consumption: 16Hr with AAA @ I/O 1.8V
Main Hardware Features
Core : ARM9TDMI , 0.18um Process, Max 140MHz @ 1.5V
Embedded Nor Flash & High Performance Audio Codec Options
USB 2.0 Device/ Host
Various I/O Interface
- UART, IrDA, GSIO, GPIO, I2C, I2S Interface for CD-DSP Interface
- IDE I/F for HDD
- General Purpose 10-bit ADC
- Core : 1.5 ~ 1.95V , I/O : 1.8 ~ 3.6V

  What do you think it is capable using rockbox?

>> Here is a link that have technical manuals, application notes, etc for the arm core processor
http://seacro.tempdomainname.com/documentation/
(not sure if it helps though....)

[Bagder]

It is certainly capable of running Rockbox. ARM9 is typically slightly faster than ARM7 at the same freq and this can run twice as fast as the iPods and they manage quite fine...

[portable]

Looks like Rockbox is getting the attention it deserve....

Review of Ipod runing Rockbox by Cnet
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6450_7-6513844-1.html?tag=nl.e428

You might want to put this somewhere in your site... 

And please let me know if there are more rockbox review hiding somewhere on the internet.

Cheers
Eric