Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player

[AlexP]

2) "as per our requirements" means whatever is long discussed in this forum and mentioned in the wiki. It is a mutually agreed list of requirements and nothing specific to a single person.

Mutually agreed my ....  There has been one person pretty much saying this is what *we* want.  I have said many times that I personally would be interested if sensible hardware choices were made, which in my opinion, has not so far happened.  I mention the screen as one example.

However, I'm not a "senior developer", so take this as you will.

[spark]

For me, the opinion of a rockbox expert is valuable.
I agree that some of the discussions might have gone bitter between some people. But i don't want that to be a reason to scrap the idea.

we need to work co-operatively to get something productive.

Please assume we have the decent screen size and color requirements on board. And video is playback definitely acceptable.

[Llorean]

Well, you addressed the question to "Rockbox senior devs" then used "we", and since I assumed you didn't qualify yourself as a Rockbox Senior Dev, I thought you were separating it into two groups, rather than including yourself into the "we." I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but I'm sure you can see how it could very easily be read that way.

(note: $ refers to USD)
Basically, *most* needs of Rockbox users can be met by existing players on the marked. The Toshiba Gigabeat F40 / F60 is a beast of a player for $100 to $120 (refurbished or used) that has good video playback speed and a very fast processor. You can get a c200 or e200 for <$50 - $60, sometimes less than $20 and they feature radio, recording, internal mic, and MicroSDHC.

For most of the Rockbox devs, based on my observations of their opinions the desire is for a player that offers a few of the more obscure features. These are not in any particular order.
1) Digital recording
2) Large storage (possibly even 2.5" HD depending on how big this necessitates the final unit be)
3) Input has tactile feedback (buttons, mostly, rather than touch sensitive things or wheels that waste a lot of space for essentially being 2 buttons)
4) Enough power that none of the formats stutter at any compression rate, even with all CPU intensive DSP effects enabled (with the exception of the Monkeys Audio codec, which frankly has requirements not suited for a DAP anyway at its higher rates).
5) Good audio output (carefully chosen components, and very little or no introduced noise from other problems)

Of course price very much depends on the feature set, but I personally would be quite willing to pay $200-$250 for a player that met all my personal needs, knowing Rockbox would run well on it.

[AlexP]

I agree with Llorean's assessment.  Something along the lines of the iriver H100 with a bit more speed for video and a nice screen.

I would say though of the things Llorean listed, for me the most important is storage size and audio quality.

[spark]

it's ok Llorean. we can forget the misunderstandings. thanks for your views on price and features.

Apart from electronics, we also need to create a decent casing. one thing is for sure, the open hardware player will not beat the commercial players in terms of price, unless we can produce it in volumes of maybe 100+, which i'm afraid may not be the case.

If we want to make the player popular, it needs to have a unique feature that is not available in commercial players. Can anyone share some light here?

My query still remains. Is it really worth spending time, effort and money on this idea?

Something along the lines of the iriver H100 with a bit more speed for video and a nice screen.

noted. thanks.

[ZincAlloy]

just being designed for Rockbox IS a unique feature in my humble opinion. just take a look at the unsurpassed set features that Rockbox has to offer.

add to that a digital input, great audio quality, a decent screen, a large capacity hard drive and put it into a sturdy casing and you've got an Ipod killer. The audiophile crowd will love it for sure - and not only them. A player that focuses on great music playback is what many music enthusiasts are looking for.

I DO think that it is worth spending time, effort and money on this idea. And I'm sure you will be able to sell far more than 100 players.

[spark]

That's a nice input. Audio Professionals seem to be the right users.
I think, having a line-in jack with analog + SPDIF input is definitely a good and unique feature.

Professional audio means large files. so we definitely need a HDD as large as possible.

A decent sized LCD is important for easy use. Bright backlight for outdoor use.

We need some more good inputs. Any professional audio people here? Please tell us what feature you feel is important and is not there on the likes of ipods.

[ZincAlloy]

I think this kind of device would appeal more to bootleggers and audiophiles, but audio pros sure would find some uses for a digital input, like plugging into a digital output for a quick bounce of a mix to check it on different speakers, headphones or a car stereo. personally I don't see too much use in a digital input, but it seems to be the reason why the iriver h100 series is still very popular.
An analogue line input will be important for people who like to digitalize their analogue media. You might want to provide them a cable and some adaptors as well, so they will be ready to go. Nice bonus would be if a little microphone was included (like iriver did it with the h300 series) for voice recording without hard drive noises - though an internal microphone will be more handy in every day situations (I've seen several journalists recording interviews on h300 series players with the internal mic).
Musicians sure would love some kind of primitive multi track recording, or at least being able to record while playing back music. I think hardware limitations made it impossible to implement such a feature in existing targets, but you'd better ask somebody who knows this kind of stuff better than me. 

audiophiles do need big harddrives for they want lossless compression (flac!!!) or none at all. they sure don't like the audio quality of ipods and don't use stock headphones. You'll want to give them good audio hardware that is able to drive bigger than average headphones (but they'll power really big-ass headphones with external amplifiers, so a line out is important).
You can expect audiophiles to disklike the quality of itunes downloads, so they are not bound to itunes or ipods with their music collections.

in a nutshell: rockbox is a bit geeky, focused about music playback and many like it for it's vast amount of features. consequently, the player needs to be all about music playback and features, too. less flash, more features .... hey, that's a great slogan...

can't hurt to add an fm reciever, btw...

[AlexP]

I actually use the digital output much more than the input on my h100, as I don't do much recording.

[ZincAlloy]

interesting. what are you using it for?

edit: just a little thought: a player made to run open source firmware could be a big thing in the news. there's quite some marketing potential there

[casainho]

(note: $ refers to USD)
Basically, *most* needs of Rockbox users can be met by existing players on the marked. ... You can get a c200 or e200 for <$50 - $60, sometimes less than $20 and they feature radio, recording, internal mic, and MicroSDHC.

Thats not a precise information, actual selling Sansas are V2 models and Rockbox do not work with them.

[ZincAlloy]

but there's old ones available on ebay.

[casainho]

but there's old ones available on ebay.

I would not count with that option, to buy an used player. I saw a few times that suggestion on the mailing list, for people looking at a player in which Rockbox works.

As you said before: "in a nutshell: rockbox is a bit geeky..." thats true and if people needs to buy used players to have access to use Rockbox, so It will be even more geeky, not generally available

[ZincAlloy]

there's still new players on ebay, though harder to find.

[spark]

FM & mic are almost common features.

I'm sure there must be some more uncommon and useful features that we can implement.

How about multichannel (e.g. 5ch) audio output? Rockbox does support AC3 (Dolby Digital). Is analog or digital out preferred for multichannel audio?