Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion

some feedbacks

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shzy:
hello everybody.  I have used Rockbox for my ipod video for the past 3 days, updating daily. but tonight I have decided to switch back to the old apple firmware. I think maybe I should leave some feedbacks in support of this great project, you guys did a great job. in the 3 days of Rockboxing, I have basicaly experienced every kind of problem that ppl usually met, like skipping, quick battery drain, dead screen, etc. but fortunetly I was able to dig through the forums and find some helpful answers.  

what I like about Rockbox is

- I have about 180G of music, mostly mp3 192kbit or above.  the drag-and-drop method of rockbox is just like my old iriver mp3 player, which is the biggest reason that I gave it a try at first.
- sound equilizer is amazing, I was able to produce the most amazing sound coming out of a portable player without an amp.  
- WPS is very cool, display a lot of useful information
- support FLAC, APE, etc.
- can directly open image and text files, very helpful when navigating albums with cover and description
- many many plug-ins (though I only tried a few)

What I dislike about Rockbox

- Battery problem! something I realized is that Rockbox drains battery extremely fast when operation is being done. I did a full battery bench with 128kbit mp3 repeat, LCD off, EQ off, player sitting still, and the total playing time is about 9h (sorry forgot to save the txt file). this is a reasonable time since apple gives 14h. but when i am using it during the day (switching albums when all songs are done, EQ on, walking, being in the cold, etc) battery runs out in about 3~4 hours. this is much faster than the original apple firmware.  I verified this result by doing similar test in 2 days.  so hopefully in the future a better Rockbox with more energy efficient operating system could come out.  
- songs in high bit rate (>256kbit) skips when EQ is on
- scrowing speed very inconsistent, sometimes super fast, sometimes super slow
- most WSP only support english
- can't play video

the biggest issue I have is the battery problem. I listen to about 6~8h of music on my ipod a day, literally anytime not in class and not talking w/t others.  according to the data above I have to charge the ipod during the day. in the past 3 days I approximately went through 5 cycles, double the amount I would usually spend in 3 days.  thinking about saving the battery life-time, it seems taking Rockbox out of my ipod is the best choice, not mentioning the occasions where ipod runs dead and I have to live without music (which drives me crazy).  

Overall, I think Rockbox is an awesome firmware, I would definitely keep an eye on it consistently in hope for a better version.  Thanks again for the great work, cheers

Jack

Yotto:
As someone who read the forums, you know that each of your points is either being worked on or isn't a problem but an expectation that isn't met.

Llorean:
Not to mention that:

Rockbox on iPod has NOT BEEN RELEASED YET. Anyone who reads the information available will know about all these problems. It's not done. There's still a LOT of work to do. This is not a finished product. If you wanted better battery life with Rockbox, you could've invested in a better supported player, or not installed it yet. You've basically listed all the known issues on the IpodStatus page, that have been there for pretty much a year now.

Oh, and two points.

1) Rockbox can play video. Please, read the manual. It's there for a reason.
2) If a WPS is only in English it's because its author created it in English. They aren't part of the localization system, and can't really be. The WPSes in the gallery aren't part of Rockbox, but rather contributions by various people who feel like making them.

Febs:
I'm not sure that we've put anything in the manual yet about video.  The PluginMpegplayer wiki page is still the best resource for information on video.

Llorean:
It appears we haven't. I could've sworn we had, but that was my "It's late, and I'm about to doze off, let me finish this post" brain.

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