Rockbox Technical Forums

Support and General Use => Hardware => Topic started by: pmp4 on July 21, 2022, 04:51:44 PM

Title: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on July 21, 2022, 04:51:44 PM
Around 12$

You can find it by "portable mp4 player student". Brandless.

It supports mp4 video (real mp4, h264 and aac, without conversion, up to 320x240).
It has a screen of 1.77" (160x128 pixels).
It has Bluetooth (not only audio, it can send/receive files too).

I dont have a clue about the manufacturer or the SoC used, so even less about if someday Rockbox could run on it, but it would be great due to his very low price. I think the hardware must be powerful enough if it can play mp4 videos (unlike another brandless portable players that doesnt support real mp4 video).

The very little information I achieved to get was:
SoC: The chip has the next data printed:
QA
2100
2021AD003C

The USB data when you connect to PC is:
idVendor           0x1782 Spreadtrum Communications Inc.
idProduct          0x4d01
bcdDevice            0.01
iManufacturer           1 Spreadtrum
iProduct                2 Generic Disk1.0

When you start it, the clock is set to 2021/01/01, so must be a new device.

The box where it come from is very like a BenJie devices clone, it has printed "Audio Play-er" in different colors than BenJie boxes but similar design.

Someone has more information about it?

Best regards.


Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saratoga on July 21, 2022, 06:56:34 PM
The features of the stock firmware aren't too important. Instead it mostly comes down to what CPU it's using and how much RAM there is. Do you have pictures of the board or a firmware file?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on July 21, 2022, 07:28:21 PM
  a link and or a picture of the device would help too
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on July 23, 2022, 04:02:14 PM
This is the device:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003708199722.html

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Portable-Music-Players-Student-Bluetooth-compatible-E-book-MP3-MP4-Black-Without-TF-Card/814076107

Almost every brandless portable player that I've seen with 160x128 lcd was using Actions Semiconductor SoC, but this is different. And certainly is not a Actions SoC because it can play real h264/mp4 videos (Actions based players uses MJPEG to play videos).

Unlike others devices, this is multitask, it allows to read txt/view jpg/play snake game while you are listening music (mp3/aac format), so I guess must be faster than other brandless similar devices.

By the USB interface info, the manufacturer could be UNISOC (former Spreadtrum Communications).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UNISOC_processors

But I didn't find what is the SoC.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I got some news.

Definitely it's a UNISOC Spreadtrum device.

Firstly I put the exact title string of the device name here, because if someone google it the name searching info, this thread can be reached:
Aliexpress: Music Players Student Bluetooth-compatible E-book Sport Video MP3 MP4 Radio Support Replacement for Windows XP/VISTA/Windows 8
Walmart: Portable Music Players Student Bluetooth\-compatible E\-book MP3 MP4 Black Without TF Card
 
I searched for feature phones using old Spreadtrum SoC chipset processors, one of most sold was: SC6531 - ARM 9 processor 312 Mhz and 32 MB RAM.
I found some feature phones that use it with 128x160 pixels lcd, and the GUI of snake game and FM radio is the same than in this portable mp4 player.
That means nothing, because obviously portable player must use another SoC without GSM communications, but at least, it's some little clue of what kind of device is.
The Operating System used by those devices is called MOCOR (but there are several versions, absolutely differents between them).

Then I tried to get information about how to read the firmware of UNISOC Spreadtrum devices.
And I found this very useful url: https://chronovir.us/2021/12/18/Opus-Spreadtrum/
Warning: Use only as source of information and DON'T use the software of that web with this portable player, because you can brick it, it's not designed for this device, and you can lock it even only trying to read the firmware.

The previous url explains how to access generically to firmware of UNISOC devices (usually phones).
You must plug USB and you must hold pressed some key (different in every device) when you start the device, and if you are doing correct, you will get the device USB with the next ID 1782:4d00.
0x4d00 is the ID of special USB mode in the device when enter to access/modify firmware. (in a normal file transfer usb mode, this device has 0x4d01 usb id).
I got the key in the portable player, it's the UP (M) button. You hold that button, and click in the RESET hole (right lateral of portable player) and the device will reset in that firmware access mode.

Well, that's all until now. I almost blocked my device doing tests, but finally I got recover it  ;D.

If I get some more information I will post in this thread, but until now, the open source tools that I found are not suitable to get the firmware of this device.

Open source tools for access firmware of anothers UNISOC devices (DONT use with this portable player, it wont work and you can brick it, only I put here as source of information of how works similar devices):
https://gitlab.com/suborg/uniflash
https://github.com/JiaDuo/yuanxinos_usb
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on July 24, 2022, 06:28:02 AM
pmp4 nice progress  8)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Friendly warning about walmart third party sellers

WM gives no fucks about third party sellers on their platform nor any fraud that takes place buyer beware
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I ordered two of these from ebay looks to be the same device

Update in a week

https://www.ebay.com/itm/403723608332
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on July 28, 2022, 07:24:57 PM
I put here the eBay name of the product to make the thread easily reachable:
Mini Portable Bluetooth MP3 MP4 Music Player FM Radio Hi-Fi Media Lossless Sound

And I put a image of player too, to make the thread easily identificable for the people who enter in it (menu icons images are different from "official" product images, but it's the same product, so at least must be two versions of the original firmware).

I have some news, SC6531 SoC operating system is MOCOR, but MOCOR is based in ThreadX operating system. So maybe another ThreadX RTOS devices experience can be useful in here (I saw Sansa Fuze + original firmware is based in ThreadX too).

Here the output of binwalk opening the firmware of a SC6531 based feature phone (with a 128x160 screen): (Firmware size 4.2 MB, 0x400000 bytes)

DECIMAL       HEXADECIMAL     DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
62844         0xF57C          Unix path: /source/src/c/sci_mem.c
66668         0x1046C         Unix path: /source/src/c/threadx_os.c
77644         0x12F4C         Unix path: /source/src/c/threadx_appmem.c
235336        0x39748         Unix path: /Layer1/source/c/datacnfproc.c
330384        0x50A90         Unix path: /Layer1/source/c/systeminfo.c

Anyway, as I said before, that means nothing, because UniSoc Spreadtrum SC6531 is not the SoC of this portable player, but must be something similar.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 03, 2022, 12:00:08 AM
First day with these devices and I already had one stop enumerating as USB and now won't even turn on that was before I started messing with getting into boot mode  :-\
taking it apart it has the same QA 2100 but with 2022ad005c
the back side of the board is marked j01 wb vl1 210315

The second one I have managed to brick and disconnecting power / reconnecting brought it back luckily
also no need to use the reset button simply turn player off (long press play/pause) then hold M while plugging USB
i then enumerates as 4d00

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 03, 2022, 06:52:47 AM
Unfortunately I think without having a upgrade file for the firmware or at the very  least some idea of the internal chip and its layout
we are never going to be able to do anything with this player

I was hoping there was jtag on the device that might allow some probing but it appears everything is done with the USB to me

maybe some deal with the chinese manufacturer and a SDK but where to start without knowing who that is IDK
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on August 04, 2022, 08:40:27 AM
The real question is how much onboard RAM this SoC contains.

The various Actions Semi SoCs found in most of these shovelware players contains only a couple hundred KB, for example.  Even the higher-end rockchip ones have less than half the RAM for rockbox to be minimally viable.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 05, 2022, 04:45:08 AM
First day with these devices and I already had one stop enumerating as USB and now won't even turn on that was before I started messing with getting into boot mode  :-\
taking it apart it has the same QA 2100 but with 2022ad005c
the back side of the board is marked j01 wb vl1 210315

The second one I have managed to brick and disconnecting power / reconnecting brought it back luckily
also no need to use the reset button simply turn player off (long press play/pause) then hold M while plugging USB
i then enumerates as 4d00

My experience is the next:

Boot mode always works, but device normal start up can be blocked doing tests.

To restore normal mode start, I use the SC6600 fdl file, with this command: uniflash.py -t sc6600l_generic dump test.bin
(using the Uniflash soft) and the portable player comes back to life. The file can't read the flash, but can come back to life a blocked device, I dont know why.

The problem with Spreadtrum SoC is that is needed a file (different for every soc) to read the firmware of the device (the file is called "nor" or "fdl", "nor" by the kind of memory to boot I guess, nor flash memory).

If we can read the firmware, things will be easy.

Here is a more complete list of fdl files than that it come with uniflash soft: http://chomikuj.pl/hubertus/Serwis+GSM/boxy/GPG+Dragron+3.55/55/GPG+Dragon+v3.50c+Crack+Download+Link+*26+Enjoy+!!/system/spreadtrum

Note: To use those files with UniFlash you must rename correctly and put in fdls folder, because UniFlash take params from the fdl filename, like the memory address to load the file.

I dont have tested all fdls that I got yet, and I can't guarantee than some fdl wont block forever the player.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 05, 2022, 04:48:47 AM
The real question is how much onboard RAM this SoC contains.

The various Actions Semi SoCs found in most of these shovelware players contains only a couple hundred KB, for example.  Even the higher-end rockchip ones have less than half the RAM for rockbox to be minimally viable.

I got several Actions based players and they are different. They can't even browse files when they are playing music.

This player can. It's like a feature phone without phone. It's not related to actions based players.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: bahus on August 05, 2022, 07:39:27 AM

Here is a more complete list of fdl files than that it come with uniflash soft: http://chomikuj.pl/hubertus/Serwis+GSM/boxy/GPG+Dragron+3.55/55/GPG+Dragon+v3.50c+Crack+Download+Link+*26+Enjoy+!!/system/spreadtrum

Note: To use those files with UniFlash you must rename correctly and put in fdls folder, because UniFlash take params from the fdl filename, like the memory address to load the file.

Another link to download all those files at once (see system\spreadtrum\ folder in archive):
http://www.mediafire.com/file/0fcqdgcyk2ymqjo/Dragon_V3.53-MobileRdx.com.rar/file (http://www.mediafire.com/file/0fcqdgcyk2ymqjo/Dragon_V3.53-MobileRdx.com.rar/file)
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 05, 2022, 08:22:42 AM
@bahus nice

Note: To use those files with UniFlash you must rename correctly and put in fdls folder, because UniFlash take params from the fdl filename, like the memory address to load the file.

the uniflash script takes commands for the address and type from the file name by default

ex. sc6600l_generic_0x34000000_single.bin


can be overridden on cmd line
'-sfdl','--single-fdl-file'
'-saddr','--single-fdl-addr'

maybe the address space could be scanned repeatedly and get lucky enough to find the proper offset
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 05, 2022, 03:42:19 PM
I got it!
Thank you very much to Bahus for the rar.

The file that works is 6531A_Write_Full_Flash_1.bin and the load address is 0x34000000
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 05, 2022, 03:52:55 PM
Here is my firmware.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/uk6slle39r7b3fo/portable+player+firmware.bin/file

And here the results of binwalk:

DECIMAL       HEXADECIMAL     DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
62848         0xF580          Unix path: /source/src/c/sci_mem.c
66516         0x103D4         Unix path: /source/src/c/threadx_os.c
77484         0x12EAC         Unix path: /source/src/c/threadx_appmem.c
235040        0x39620         Unix path: /Layer1/source/c/datacnfproc.c
330092        0x5096C         Unix path: /Layer1/source/c/systeminfo.c
1893852       0x1CE5DC        LZMA compressed data, properties: 0x5A, dictionary size: 16777216 bytes, uncompressed size: 4096 bytes
3215524       0x3110A4        LZMA compressed data, properties: 0x5A, dictionary size: 16777216 bytes, uncompressed size: 4096 bytes

---

Reading in a hex editor, the firmware contents some info from my device (my bluetooths devices scanned), so it's not "clean" from factory, it's modified with the scans and the current config of the device.

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 05, 2022, 04:11:06 PM
Here the firmware uncompressed/splitted using bzpwork (in the files res.bin ps.bin kern.bin usr.bin)

https://github.com/ilyazx/bzpwork

https://www.mediafire.com/file/qsuoqkevd42wtel/portableplayer.zip/file

And here a little demo extracting res.bin using binwalk: The image of welcome when start the device.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 05, 2022, 04:30:24 PM
Some info from a strings kern.bin:

Platform Version: MOCOR_12C.W13.04.23.BTDialer.20_Release
Project Version:   6531E_PCB_V1.0
A80_MK_220_21KEY_LCD(XXTCTC7735S_SJCTC9106_JLCTC3021_XXT9108BOE)_V1.0
BASE  Version:     BASE_SVN
HW Version:        6531E_PCB_V1.0
11-29-2021 22:09:15
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 05, 2022, 04:33:21 PM
Pmp4 awesome work
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 05, 2022, 04:41:11 PM
I'm on mobile atm but if that's right here is a datasheet https://datasheetspdf.com/mobile/1455703/Spreadtrum/SC6531E/1

It says 32Mbits nor flash and 32Mbits pSRAM internal that's 4 megabytes
Each which is not a whole lot

But it does say up to 128 Mbits is supported embedded
Which is 16 megabytes but don't know yet I'd assume 4megabytes
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 06, 2022, 05:53:39 AM
could rockbox run in a 4 MB ram device?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saratoga on August 06, 2022, 07:57:03 AM
The sansa clip has about 2.3MB, although it helps that it's a monochrome display. 4 MB should be ok for a color screen.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 06, 2022, 08:36:01 AM
note he didn't say the clip+ that was the original clipv1
I seem to remember ARM922T where as this is the ARM926E

it will be  a slightly limited experience but yes rockbox should run on it!!

ARM926EJ-S with ARM Jazelle technology, which enables the direct execution of 8-bit Java bytecode in hardware, and an MMU
Support 32-bit ARM and 16-bit Thumb instructions
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saratoga on August 06, 2022, 03:03:21 PM
Yes the original clip has 2MB of SDRAM vs. 8 MB of SDRAM on the Clipv2 and plus.  Both have additional SRAM.  The processors are quite similar except for performance, with the 9E processors having the faster multiplier and the v5E DSP extensions, which a few of the codecs use to save power. 
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 06, 2022, 07:50:30 PM
Unfortunately outside of baidu and cdsn (need wechat to download) I can't seem to find any headers so I guess one of the first orders of business will be going through that datasheet and grabbing all the hardware registers and offsets and start building up a toolchain for it

Pmp4 have you verified that you can repackage the extracted bins and write back to the device?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: bahus on August 07, 2022, 05:04:56 AM
Unfortunately outside of baidu and cdsn (need wechat to download) I can't seem to find any headers

Not sure if it's useful but some Spreadtrum 6531 related sources can be found here:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/8EPC/b3kQ4AuRf (https://cloud.mail.ru/public/8EPC/b3kQ4AuRf)

Mirror: https://mega.nz/file/cf5BXBoT#_5onK5_GHdjcykgo47AmtmTdgT7aWWO-GJWYri_jHa8 (https://mega.nz/file/cf5BXBoT#_5onK5_GHdjcykgo47AmtmTdgT7aWWO-GJWYri_jHa8)
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 07, 2022, 09:14:21 AM
Pmp4 have you verified that you can repackage the extracted bins and write back to the device?

I didnt try to flash anything yet.

I'm trying to understand firmware structure first.

I found this url with "Spreadtrum Research Download Tool" source code (2.9.7007 version)

https://files.elektroda.pl/798976,researchdownload_r2.html

I'm dont know yet if it can be useful.

"Spreadtrum Research Download Tool" uses another format of firmware, in .pac files.

Once I understand it better, I'll try a flash, it would be cool change intro/end logo or menu icons.

If it's possible I'd like to keep using open source free tools like bzpwork and uniflash software.
uniflash allows flash write, and bzpwork allows lzma compress.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 07, 2022, 10:27:36 AM
bahus yes that appears to contain the headers
It was quite a large amount of files but I think I have the relevant part contained here
http://www.mediafire.com/file/j4e6xx28fhbrzg2/6531_chip_drv.zip

there appear to be several versions of each with different base addresses so might still need some figuring
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 07, 2022, 03:09:18 PM
Not sure if it's useful but some Spreadtrum 6531 related sources can be found here:

Huge find.

It seems almost the same version firmware than player complete source code, with a lot of extra tools.

with the tool /MOCOR_12C.W13.04.23.BTDialer.20_Source/tools/DEBUG_TOOL/ResOver/Bin/ResOver.exe I can view the res.bin file (and it can modify too).

As example I put here the first 4 menu icons, extracted from res.bin using ResOver.exe
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 12, 2022, 10:48:00 PM
just an update

I haven't been able to flash the dump i made back onto the device thus far

the -wf switch just results in a timeout

I'm not sure if it needs a different command or just needs a lomger timeout
but i'll keep trying
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: bahus on August 13, 2022, 07:15:41 AM
I found this url with "Spreadtrum Research Download Tool" source code (2.9.7007 version)

That's some outdated version. Latest version can be downloaded from official web-site https://spdflashtool.com/category/research-tool (https://spdflashtool.com/category/research-tool). Tutorial how to use it: https://spdflashtool.com/tutorial/use-spd-research-tool (https://spdflashtool.com/tutorial/use-spd-research-tool)

I also saw instruction how to flash FullFlash .bin file with this tool (by default it requires .pac) https://4pda.to/forum/index.php?showtopic=625677&st=20#entry61083373 (https://4pda.to/forum/index.php?showtopic=625677&view=findpost&p=61083373)
Though it's in Russian (Краткий гайд по прошивке китайских телефонов на базе SpreadTrum SC6531) - let me know if you need it and have any translation troubles.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 13, 2022, 11:13:44 AM
I found this url with "Spreadtrum Research Download Tool" source code (2.9.7007 version)

That's some outdated version. Latest version can be downloaded from official web-site https://spdflashtool.com/category/research-tool (https://spdflashtool.com/category/research-tool). Tutorial how to use it: https://spdflashtool.com/tutorial/use-spd-research-tool (https://spdflashtool.com/tutorial/use-spd-research-tool)

I also saw instruction how to flash FullFlash .bin file with this tool (by default it requires .pac) https://4pda.to/forum/index.php?showtopic=625677&st=20#entry61083373 (https://4pda.to/forum/index.php?showtopic=625677&view=findpost&p=61083373)
Though it's in Russian (Краткий гайд по прошивке китайских телефонов на базе SpreadTrum SC6531) - let me know if you have any translation troubles.

Yeah, but the version I posted has the source code, unlike other last versions.

Anyway, the same source code can be found in the very useful complete zip you posted.
Same source code, same version in: /MOCOR_12C.W13.04.23.BTDialer.20_Source/tools/DEBUG_TOOL/ResearchDownload/Source
(I think that was the original source of the leak).

But since I saw that zip you posted, I've left the target of study research download and pac files, I'm not interested in that anymore.

My current target is modify res.bin, recompress (using bzpwork) and write using UniFlash in .bin format. Once I can flash a modified MOCOR firmware (different res.bin) without destroy the player, the next target will be a rockbox "hello world", that will be more than enough for me by now.

Resources (res.bin) structure file can be found in the file "mmi_resource_def.h" of the zip.

ResOver.exe is useful as test, but it's incomplete, it can't extract all the resources of res.bin (like animated GIF and all text strings).

I ordered another portable player because I only got one, and I think it can be bricked in my tests  ;D.
I dont know yet, but I suspect the boot mode is always on, even if you flash the wrong firmware, I will confirm that in the future.

I ordered a slightly different model, with different button, I think it's the same, from the same manufacturer. The only difference is the button design, and that it has several submodels, with internal nand memory of 8/16/32 GB and without nand memory (I ordered without NAND).

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004543172464.html (exactly 12.19 EUR, ship included, around 12 USD too)

In the pics appears differents icons, but I think it can't be trusted, and maybe it's the same firmware than the other player, because I've seen it in videos:

https://shopee.com.my/2022-New-Mini-Bluetooth-Mp3-Mp4-Music-Player-Fm-Radio-Hi-Fi-Media-Lossless-Voice-E-Book-Reader-i.513952359.14130839607

https://play-ws.vod.shopee.com/c3/98934353/103/AnoyQ3IANMHcnQUhGAIBAEY.mp4

BTW I've seen a similar player from the same manufacturer (I guess) and similar firmware, but in touch version. Same box, similar GUI design but with touchable screen, without buttons:

https://shopee.com.my/2.0-Mini-Touch-Screen-Bluetooth-MP3-Player-Portable-Audio-Music-Video-Player-with-Built-in-Speaker-FM-Radio-Recorder-Ebook-i.694651067.15656407769

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: bahus on August 13, 2022, 11:30:27 AM
Yeah, but the version I posted has the source code, unlike other last versions.
Latest source for all their tools is also posted on their website https://spdflashtool.com/source/spd-tool-source-code (https://spdflashtool.com/source/spd-tool-source-code)

My current target is modify res.bin, recompress (using bzpwork) and write using UniFlash in .bin format.
Ok but it seems Bilgus has troubles writing using UniFlash. So maybe ResearchTool would still be required.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 13, 2022, 02:57:13 PM
Yeah, but the version I posted has the source code, unlike other last versions.
Latest source for all their tools is also posted on their website https://spdflashtool.com/source/spd-tool-source-code (https://spdflashtool.com/source/spd-tool-source-code)

My current target is modify res.bin, recompress (using bzpwork) and write using UniFlash in .bin format.
Ok but it seems Bilgus has troubles writing using UniFlash. So maybe ResearchTool would still be required.

I can't confirm it, I didn't test write yet.

Maybe write address is different, I dont know.

As general advice, sometimes it's faster see USB traffic than see source code, to do reverse engineering to a usb driver.

In linux it's easy thanks to usbmon kernel module.

Just run windows over virtualbox in linux, load modprobe, and see the trafffic with tcpdump like if usb was a network interface.
something like this:
modprobe usbmon
tcpdump -i usbmon1 -s 65535 -n -q -w test.pcap

and open test.pcap with WireShark. Change usbmon1 by the number of USB bus (see with lsusb).
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 13, 2022, 04:25:52 PM
Quote
Maybe write address is different, I dont know.

this is my guess as well, as I get to 'FDL running, may start interacting with flash memory'
but a timeout once the write flash command is sent

Ive tried all three 6531A bins so at least none of them have bricked the device
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 13, 2022, 04:38:57 PM
Quote
Maybe write address is different, I dont know.

this is my guess as well, as I get to 'FDL running, may start interacting with flash memory'
but a timeout once the write flash command is sent

Ive tried all three 6531A bins so at least none of them have bricked the device

Even if it's the command was ok, we can't know if the flash really works until we have a different firmware, because we got just one firmware, and we will see no changes in the device if the flash write response is ok.

That's one reason because I'm trying to modify res.bin, it's the best way to know if write flash really works, changing gui appearance. (the another reason, it's because I dont like MOCOR standard GUI  ;D)

As I read in the Luxferre blog (the UniFlash author), write flash doesnt need fdl. Maybe I misunderstood it.
fdl is just for read the flash and another values (kind of cpu and so on), but write flash can be done just with the boot mode, without fdl.
Write flash is like upload a fdl, but instead in the ram address, in the nor flash address.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 13, 2022, 07:29:57 PM
Quote
fdl is just for read the flash and another values (kind of cpu and so on), but write flash can be done just with the boot mode, without fdl.

judging by the way the script is laid out I don't think that is the case but it's not working for me so far so I too could be misunderstanding it
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: bahus on August 13, 2022, 08:29:46 PM
Maybe write address is different, I dont know.
From instruction I posted earlier (https://4pda.to/forum/index.php?showtopic=625677&view=findpost&p=61083373) the following addresses are used:
FDL: 0x34000000
Firmware: 0x80000003

FDL file: https://mega.nz/file/RX4GRKjR#Dm79NZVtZxqmmrStJvOgasF8rzPyW2D3xHj-zcD7tKU (https://mega.nz/file/RX4GRKjR#Dm79NZVtZxqmmrStJvOgasF8rzPyW2D3xHj-zcD7tKU)
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 13, 2022, 09:16:41 PM
I might have to dig out a windows machine to try the spreadtrum flasher or my dev machine so I can run a windows vm

I get to
FDL running, may start interacting with flash memory

with two of the bins but the norss one never gets to that point

I read through your instructions and already had an incantation but unfortunately they never get past the command to enable flash write

Code: [Select]
uniflash.py flash ./oldbin.bin -wf -nr -s 0x80000003 -t 6531A_norss
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 14, 2022, 10:02:57 AM
I might have to dig out a windows machine to try the spreadtrum flasher or my dev machine so I can run a windows vm

I get to
FDL running, may start interacting with flash memory

with two of the bins but the norss one never gets to that point

I read through your instructions and already had an incantation but unfortunately they never get past the command to enable flash write

Code: [Select]
uniflash.py flash ./oldbin.bin -wf -nr -s 0x80000003 -t 6531A_norss

But the dump (read) flash command works in your machine?

I can confirm that dump (read) command works in linux using uniflash and the fdl I said in this thread.

I can't confirm flash (write) command yet.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Bilgus on August 14, 2022, 12:07:05 PM
Quote
But the dump (read) flash command works in your machine?

Yes I've dumped the device, dis-assembled and even re-assembled the stone image
so far (on linux)
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 14, 2022, 06:29:56 PM
I've tested flash (write) command, and I can confirm that doesnt work.

Crash in Line 88 of uniflash.py:
assert rcode == unicmd.BSL_REP_ACK, 'Could not start data transfer, response code is %X' % rcode

In that line ends the program, with the response code = 0xFF.

I tried to comment the line, and it starts to send data a few minutes, and then it crash in Line 96.
assert rcode == unicmd.BSL_REP_ACK, 'Something is wrong and response code is %X, block is %s' % (rcode, buf.hex())

With the response code 0x89.

The devices keeps alive, just reset, and try to dump (read) the flash, and then starts again.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: bahus on August 14, 2022, 11:36:56 PM
Hm.. Reading https://chronovir.us/2021/12/18/Opus-Spreadtrum/ (https://chronovir.us/2021/12/18/Opus-Spreadtrum/)  - 0x80000003 seems shouldn't be used when writing. It's some kind of marker and not real address...

Just to iterate all possible cases  you should try renaming working fdl files to `sc6530_something` so the following lines are executed
https://gitlab.com/suborg/uniflash/-/blob/master/uniflash.py#L255-256 (https://gitlab.com/suborg/uniflash/-/blob/master/uniflash.py#L255-256)

So try something like renaming 6531A_Write_Full_Flash_1.bin -> sc6530_wff_0x34000000_single.bin

uniflash.py flash ./oldbin.bin -t sc6530_wff
or
uniflash.py flash -wf ./oldbin.bin -t sc6530_wff

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 15, 2022, 01:23:52 PM
Hm.. Reading https://chronovir.us/2021/12/18/Opus-Spreadtrum/ (https://chronovir.us/2021/12/18/Opus-Spreadtrum/)  - 0x80000003 seems shouldn't be used when writing. It's some kind of marker and not real address...

Just to iterate all possible cases  you should try to rename working fdl files to `sc6530_something` so the following lines are executed
https://gitlab.com/suborg/uniflash/-/blob/master/uniflash.py#L255-256 (https://gitlab.com/suborg/uniflash/-/blob/master/uniflash.py#L255-256)

So try something like renaming 6531A_Write_Full_Flash_1.bin -> sc6530_wff_0x34000000_single.bin

uniflash.py flash ./oldbin.bin -t sc6530_wff
or
uniflash.py flash -wf ./oldbin.bin -t sc6530_wff

You're absolutely right!

It works!

Rename 6531A_Write_Full_Flash_1.bin to sc6530_generic_0x34000000_single.bin and put in fdls folder of UniFlash. And then:

uniflash.py -t sc6530_generic flash firm_mod.bin

Once written, restart, and dump the flash, and when it ends, it starts the player with the new firm.

I flashed a modified firmware with different icons (changed with ResOver.exe) and it works!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 15, 2022, 01:43:33 PM
Here I post a pic of the player with the new modified firmware:
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 15, 2022, 01:55:20 PM
Here I post instructions of how modify icons of the MOCOR firmware:

Just open res.bin with ResOver.exe (it works in a Windows XP virtualbox machine in linux)  and change the icons your want, with the same size/format/filename.
Once you got the new res.bin, you need to compress it in a complete firmware file.

I tried to use BZPwork but it didnt work (it lacks one file when you try to compress a folder with all files).

So instead I use BZPcmd.exe from the 6531.zip, just running windows xp over virtualbox in linux. (You can find it in MOCOR_12C.W13.04.23.BTDialer.20_Source/make/make_cmd/BZPcmd.exe)

Here are the commands:

BZPcmd.exe -L -cat2 -level 5 -usr usr.bin -usrpacsize 4096 -usrcmp b -res res.bin -respacksize 4096 -rescmp b -out part1.bin
BZPcmd.exe -L -cat -level 5 -cmp b -ps ps.bin -kernz kern.bin -res part1.bin -out firm_mod.bin

And you get the new modified firmware in the file firm_mod.bin. You can uncompress with bzpwork to verify that it works fine. I did and every file is the same, except ps.bin that change a little (but it works) than before BZPcmd.exe run.

Here is my modified firmware: https://www.mediafire.com/file/j354kp0hwcuqo5i/firm_mod.bin/file

(I just changed 6 icons from main menu and the background image/color).
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 21, 2022, 03:03:59 PM
I'm starting with Rockbox arm toolchain, to build something that it can runs in the portable player.

I though start compiling a fdl. The code of the fdl that works seems to be in the zip 6531.zip, in the folder: /fdl_bootloader/nor_fdl/src
(at least, the strings in 6531A_Write_Full_Flash_1.bin and in that code seems to be pretty the same).

One tip if someone get stuck like me: When you run rockboxdev.sh and select build toolchain for arm, it fails with no reason. But if you select arm-linux, the scripts warns that you must install the libraries dependences "mpc" "gmp" and "mpfr".
So I installed it, and run again the script with arm choice (not arm-linux), and it works sucessfully.
I tried to build a rockbox firmware for Sansa Connect (it has the same arm processor than this player) and it works.

The processor is ARM926EJ-S.

I think it's better doing tests first with fdl, because you can run it without write anything to NOR memory.

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on August 21, 2022, 03:26:50 PM
By the other side I found there are at least 4 portable players with similar firmware/gui/manufacturer.

All with a black and red box with a image of a skull, speakers, guitar with wings and "RockStar" text. With the text "Audio Player" in the bottom ("Audio Play" in big letters, and "er" in small letters).

Maybe I'm wrong, because I got just one player and the information of another players is from internet sellers and they sometimes contradict themselves.

But I think there are at least 4 kind of these portable players:

1) The first that I posted when I opened the thread, most sellers got in black color and without nand, but it seems that it exists in several colors (black, red, white, blue) and several internal nands.
Round button and 1.77" LCD 160x128 262k colors.
Cheapest price in Aliexpress: Around 11$ shipment included, without NAND memory. (I bought for 12.5 EUR).

2) The second that I posted and I ordered (but I didnt received yet), I think it's the same but with a cross-shape button under the lcd.
I only I saw it in black color, and with several internal NAND memories options.
Cheapest price in Aliexpress: Around 11$ shipment included, without NAND memory. (I bought for 12.19 EUR).

3) The third that I posted, a touchscreen version with a larger screen and without buttons in front view. Maybe it has another SoC or maybe it's the same, I dont know yet. The LCD seems to be different, I think it's 220x176 pixels (same aspect ratio than 160x128) 262k colors and ¿ 2.0 " ?, It has buttons in the lateral. In the videos that I've seen the GUI seems to be the same than in previous players.
It exists with several internal nand memories and without nand.
Cheapest price in Aliexpress: Around 24$ shipment included without nand memory.

4) One like the 3) but without touchscreen, it can only work with lateral buttons.
Cheapest price in Aliexpress: Around 17$ shipment included without nand memory.

There are available too in Amazon, eBay... with a faster shipment but higher price.

About the SoC, the only information about it is that the chip is "QA 2100" (¿Quality Audio?). And it seems a light version of Spreadtrum SC6531E but without GSM functions, and with Bluetooth 5.0 (instead Bluetooth 2.1 like the original SC6531E SoC). Processor ARM926EJ-S 208 MHz, 4 MB RAM. And 4 MB of NOR memory to store the firmware. It supports MPEG4 (AAC and H264) decoding, compliant with ISO/IEC 14496-simple profile, and 320x240 max size.

The DAC of the SoC seems to be a little crappy, it just dont play well music, specially electronic music (when it sounds beats, and it changes amplitude fastly, it sounds like fade out and in strangely). It's not related to a audio codec, it happens in mp3, aac, and wav.
But when you play the same song in bluetooth headphones, it plays fine.

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: llnx1 on August 30, 2022, 07:35:22 PM

Last year I bought some of these chineses devices from Aliexpress and I decided to disassemble some to see the hardware, ... and I found it curious that some are using a Rockchip (I don't remember version), also had one from the Ruizu brand who was using a atj2127 (same Sansa Sport)

I don't know if any of these models can support Rockbox or some cfw in the future
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on September 10, 2022, 01:48:37 PM

Last year I bought some of these chineses devices from Aliexpress and I decided to disassemble some to see the hardware, ... and I found it curious that some are using a Rockchip (I don't remember version), also had one from the Ruizu brand who was using a atj2127 (same Sansa Sport)

I don't know if any of these models can support Rockbox or some cfw in the future

Pics, links and prices are welcome!

If Rockbox can run in a 10$ device, this open rockbox to use it beyond than as just music player.
e.g: RSA token generator, bluetooth secure remote control, and so on.

A strong point of rockbox is security and simplicity: you can analyze every line of code and hardware is simple.

You can't never do the same in a smartphone.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: llnx1 on September 10, 2022, 04:47:44 PM
Pics, links and prices are welcome!

If Rockbox can run in a 10$ device, this open rockbox to use it beyond than as just music player.
e.g: RSA token generator, bluetooth secure remote control, and so on.

A strong point of rockbox is security and simplicity: you can analyze every line of code and hardware is simple.

You can't never do the same in a smartphone.

I don't have any of these devices anymore, I ended up donating or breaking due low quality

I hope you find some devuce capable of running Rockbox  :)
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on September 19, 2022, 10:11:54 AM
I've received the cross-button portable player and it seems to be another soc based different from the round-button spreadtrum based player.

https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005004543172464.html

The menu icons are like the first one (the menu icons of aliexpress pics are not real), but the game is different (it hasn't snake game, but a panda game). GUI is lightly different than first player when you enter in every option. The LCD seems to be different than first player (more pixels?), but it has 1.77 inch too.

Box is like the first spreadtrum player, red and black, with "audio play-er" text.

It doesnt work firmware mode upload usb from spreadtrum.

I got the usb in two modes, masstorage and "RDA" (I dont know what is) mode, pressing left button when it starts with a usb cable connected.

usb mass storage mode:

ID 1e04:0924 
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               1.10
  bDeviceClass            0
  bDeviceSubClass         0
  bDeviceProtocol         0
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  idVendor           0x1e04
  idProduct          0x0924
  bcdDevice           34.10
  iManufacturer           1 Coolsand Technologies
  iProduct                2 Coolsand
  iSerial                 3 USB Controller 1.0
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength       0x0020
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     2
    iConfiguration          0
    bmAttributes         0x00
      (Missing must-be-set bit!)
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              100mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           2
      bInterfaceClass         8 Mass Storage
      bInterfaceSubClass      6 SCSI
      bInterfaceProtocol     80 Bulk-Only
      iInterface              0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x02  EP 2 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x82  EP 2 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               0
Device Status:     0x0400
  (Bus Powered)


And RDA mode:


1e04:0904 
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               1.10
  bDeviceClass            0
  bDeviceSubClass         0
  bDeviceProtocol         0
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  idVendor           0x1e04
  idProduct          0x0904
  bcdDevice           34.10
  iManufacturer           1 Coolsand Technologies
  iProduct                2 Coolsand
  iSerial                 3 USB Controller 1.0
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength       0x0020
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0
    bmAttributes         0x00
      (Missing must-be-set bit!)
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              100mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           2
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass    102
      bInterfaceProtocol    102
      iInterface              4 RDA Usb
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               1
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x01  EP 1 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               1
Device Status:     0x0400
  (Bus Powered)

Another thing: I can't play mp4, the player supports it, but it can't play the same mp4 files that the first device is able to play (and my mp4 files are very compatible with any device, 160x128 size and baseline h264 profile, maybe it will work rotating 90º the mp4 file, I didnt test it yet).

Bluetooth mode: it can not pair with bluetooth 5.0 headphones, but it can pair with bluetooth 2.0 headphones.
The another first device can pair with bluetooth 5.0 headphones, but it can't pair with bluetooth 2.0 headphones (because it ask for a code, which is 0000, but obviously I can't put because player has not keyboard  ;D).

SD card slot: I dont know if it's just my player or all players, but once you put a sd card is forever because you can't get out again  ;D.

Searching in google for "coolsand rda" it appears some phones, so I guess this player is based in a light version of some feature phone soc too, but it's not spreadtrum based soc.

I pressed several times reset hole, and now the device is bricked due to that, I dont know if it will resucitate again.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on September 22, 2022, 06:49:51 PM
Finally I didnt be able to resucitate the cross-button cool sand based device, so I tear it down all  ;D.

The SoC has written: QAR 2100 2022AD06090 (Yes, here it's QAR and it's not QA like in Spreadtrum device)

I guess there are two kinds of cross-button players, cool sand based devices and spreadtrum based devices. By the other side, all round-buttons rockstar devices are spreadtrum devices (I guess).

UNISOC was the result of fusion of Spreadtrum and RDA microelectronics, so maybe the usb RDA mode of coolsand technologies devices is related to that.

https://www.design-reuse.com/news/28868/rda-baseband-ip-coolsand.html

Press reset button is dangerous in coolsand devices, I guess it erase all the first stages of NOR memory and can brick forever the SoC if you press two times fastly.

By the other side, there is no danger in Spreadtrum devices, you can press reset hundreds times without stop and nothing is bricked.
And even I guess you can write wrong firmwares and the fdl upload mode always survives (but I can't confirm it yet).

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: bahus on September 27, 2022, 10:24:53 AM
This is the device:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003708199722.html

Just received one for experiments from provided aliexpress link. And it seems it's not Spreadtrum device :(

It's reported as SMTLINK DEVICE
VID: 301a
PID: 2800
Serial Number: 20201111000001

Also in player settings I see the following Device information:
K177 yp3 1.6.23-2087945842

I ordered blue one maybe color matters( like not popular color so received old hardware version from old batch) So far doesn't look like good target for rockbox if you can't even buy reliably supported hardware.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: PaulF on September 27, 2022, 11:52:05 AM
ARM chips have a 2 wire JTAG via SWD. Has anyone tried it?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on September 27, 2022, 05:22:54 PM
This is the device:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003708199722.html

Just received one for experiments from provided aliexpress link. And it seems it's not Spreadtrum device :(

It's reported as SMTLINK DEVICE
VID: 301a
PID: 2800
Serial Number: 20201111000001

Also in player settings I see the following Device information:
K177 yp3 1.6.23-2087945842

I ordered blue one maybe color matters( like not popular color so received old hardware version from old batch) So far doesn't look like good target for rockbox if you can't even buy reliably supported hardware.

My Spreadtrum device was bought exactly from here:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003353647527.html

And it's black, round button, from "COLHU Store"

I didnt know that it could be so many differences (Spreadtrum, Coolsand, SMTLink).

Until now, in this thread, the largest amount of information is about Spreadtrum, but anyway it would be interesting get information about any other cheap manufacturer.

Good luck!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on October 12, 2022, 05:00:23 AM
I bought another "RockStar" portable player from here:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004725085169.html

15.67 EUR shipment included (received in 12 days to Spain). "Azu Store".

It's the version with side buttons (it's not touch).

Aliexpress photos are fake.
LCD screen is the same than in round-button version, 128x160 pixels 262k colors, 1.77 inch.
This seems to be a little darker, but I think the LCD is the same, the difference is from the material that cover the LCD, it's a little less transparent in the side buttons version (I think it's a kind of crystal in side buttons version, and a kind of plastic in the round button version).

There are another cheapest versions and even one touch version for 17 EUR from another sellers, but I didnt test and I can't confirm that it will be spreadtrum devices.

I can confirm this device is a Spreadtrum device, same fdl to read and write firmware than round button version.

It has little differences about the other round button, this is what says the little paper that comes in the box:
-Round button version:
   Battery 250 mAh
   Bluetooth 3.0
   Weight 31g
   90.5 x 39.5 x 10 mm
-Side buttons version:
   Battery 210 mAh
   Bluetooth 4.1
   Weight 51g
   57.5 x 43.5 x 11.5 mm

I tried to read firmware, modify it and write it, all successful and ok.

Firmware seems to be a little different from Round button version, uncompressed it has different sizes of every partition, but kern.bin is almost the same, same information about hardware, just different compile date. All GUI and menus are the same in both versions, round-button and side-buttons.

Quote
Platform Version: MOCOR_12C.W13.04.23.BTDialer.20_Release
Project Version:   6531E_PCB_V1.0
A80_MK_220_21KEY_LCD(XXTCTC7735S_SJCTC9106_JLCTC3021_XXT9108BOE)_V1.0
BASE  Version:     BASE_SVN
HW Version:        6531E_PCB_V1.0
12-17-2021 11:50:29

Then I tried some more (useful from a RockBox future implementation point of view), I tried to write the Round button version firmware in the Side buttons device, and it worked, it works almost in the same way, but it have little differences (now it can move through the menu using the left buttons too, with the original firmware I can only move using right buttons).

The button to active special firmware upload mode is the left-up button.


Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on December 07, 2022, 09:55:42 AM
I bought a touch version from here, "peoplemarketing store"

https://aliexpress.com/item/1005004741657835.html

I bought the version with 16 GB sd card included and headphones, it's not the cheapest and I reallly I dont need the sdcard, but I didnt know if it was a sdcard or a version with internal memory. Of course I recommend buy it without sdcard.

I received in 18 days (to Spain shipment). Price: 20.27 USD

There are cheaper sellers, just for 15 $ the touch version (without headphones/sdcad), shipment included. But I cant confirm if it's the same player or not.

I can confirm this player is Spreadtrum based too. And it can run firmwares uploaded to this thread, but others firmware are not usable because this player have less buttons (just 3 buttons in the right side) and touchscreen only works with his firmware. But his firmware can be read and modified like the other players, same fdl in UniFlash.

It's needed some workaround to replace the firmware for a modification, unlike previous 2 players, I'll put instructions if someone is interested. But it can be done, all software related, without open the case.

This seller sells the touch version for 14.70 EUR and the side buttons version for 12.75 EUR, but I can't confirm if it's the same player, you never know with aliexpress  ;D https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004990376825.html

I made a video with the firmware modification of the touch version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj2eyzGatVo

As curious thing, this version has a Dictionary English to Chinese (instead games), but I can't find the list of words in the firmware, so maybe it has some nand memory inside the SoC, I dont know, I tried to read another memory zones with UniFlash without luck (NOR memory is 4 MB like the other players). Unpacking firmware, sizes of every partition is almost the same than other firmwares, except usr.bin that is 4 MB in this players and 3 MB in the others.

And in this version I can pair with BT 2.0 headphones (because I can put the "0000" code with the touchscreen keyboard), it works fine.

Regards!


Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on March 28, 2023, 12:40:10 AM
hey guys sorry to have a noob bump this thread but has there been any progress on getting rockbox to work on one of these cheap mp3 players? these are all over ebay for super cheap https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/R4wAAOSwsXxjY7qz/s-l1600.jpg, if i could install rockbox on this i would buy ten of them! the cost of sansa clip plus keeps raising and i keep soldering new headphone jacks and battery's in them but this would be much easier! thanks for the great work guys!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on March 28, 2023, 01:38:35 PM
hey guys sorry to have a noob bump this thread but has there been any progress on getting rockbox to work on one of these cheap mp3 players? these are all over ebay for super cheap https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/R4wAAOSwsXxjY7qz/s-l1600.jpg, if i could install rockbox on this i would buy ten of them! the cost of sansa clip plus keeps raising and i keep soldering new headphone jacks and battery's in them but this would be much easier! thanks for the great work guys!

I dont know if it's worth the endeavor, because I think the hardware is discontinued with round button (if you see customer reviews, you will see that recently sellers sent a different model of another manufacturer).

And for the same price than touch and side button, there are available 2.4 inch players, and even cheaper.

I bought recently this mp3 player:

https://aliexpress.com/item/1005005048280448.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nApKtXceP6w

Touchscreen 2.4 inch 320x240 pixels

(the spreadtrum of the start of this thread is 1.77" inch screen and 160x128 pixels).

Price of 2.4 inch screen touch player: Around $17 USD shipment included, but buying 10 pieces, the price is so low as $12 shipment included.

It's a newer player, although in some way is inferior to spreadtrum: the touch sensitivity is worse, it's not support mp4/h264 video, it's support a own AVI format of MJPEG video, but the screen quality is a lot better.

By the other side, battery is a issue in spreadtrum players, 210 mAh, it's so low, it seems the hardware sucks too much energy (2 hours duration playing music).
The battery in the 2.4 inch is 300 mAh, but its endure more time (I dont know exactly how much more yet, but it's acceptable).

Besides, the new models that some sellers send of round button players, it seems to use a SoC of the same manufacturer than 2.4 inch players. Some players are labeled as "MUSICROSS", it's not Actions the manufacturer, but in a some way it's similar. AVI format of video is different from Actions players (Actions use AdPCM as Audio Codec in video files, and these players use raw PCM 16bits to store the audio in AVI files). The internal name is "YP3" (instead MP3), I think the "Y" is from "Yang".

The Usb information is:
ID 301a:2801 SmartlinkTechnology USB2.0 Device

And the company who created the video converter for the player is called "Yang yang" and "Shenju".

Some icons/images from the GUI of the firmware seems to be copied from Actions firmwares of players like BenJie brand.

The firmware id of my 2.4 inch player is: yp3_2.0.40 2212081020 (I guess 2212081020 must be something like Year-Month-Day-Hour-Minute of compile or something like, i.e: 20:10 8 December of 2022).
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on March 28, 2023, 01:52:43 PM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on March 28, 2023, 01:56:14 PM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks

In Spreadtrum players you can see the date of the firmware if you dump the flash (see the posts of this thread, in the file kern.bin), and my players firmwares were not more old than 1 year from the firmware date until the buy date.

Anyway, it's a good news if it appears new and cheapers players.

A 2.4 inch touchscreen player for $12 was unthinkable just a few years ago.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on March 28, 2023, 02:01:45 PM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks

They're usually "discontinued" as soon as the initial production run is complete.  Or they exhaust the supply of cheap parts, whichever comes first.



Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on March 28, 2023, 02:07:21 PM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks

They're usually "discontinued" as soon as the initial production run is complete.  Or they exhaust the supply of cheap parts, whichever comes first.

I think the case of the spreadtrum players is a little special.

These mp3 players of 1.77" inch it seems to be the only that use that SoC from Spreadtrum manufacturer.

But there are a endless amount of brands of cheap feature phones that use a similar SoC (but with GSM comm).

The common in brandless mp3 players is Actions Semiconductors as SoC manufacturer, and now this other company, that it's similar and I dont know the exact name, it seems a little clone from Actions, but it's another different.

And a lot of models from Ruizu/BenJie/AgpTek I think it use also Actions Semiconductors SoC.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on March 28, 2023, 05:45:35 PM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks

In Spreadtrum players you can see the date of the firmware if you dump the flash (see the posts of this thread, in the file kern.bin), and my players firmwares were not more old than 1 year from the firmware date until the buy date.

Anyway, it's a good news if it appears new and cheapers players.

A 2.4 inch touchscreen player for $12 was unthinkable just a few years ago.

do you think it means we are getting closer to having a cheap player that would make a great rockbox device? sooner or later it will become powerful enough with enough ram that its a perfect device for rockbox?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on March 28, 2023, 05:46:37 PM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks

They're usually "discontinued" as soon as the initial production run is complete.  Or they exhaust the supply of cheap parts, whichever comes first.

how long does it take for you guys to port rockbox to a new player? if it takes 6 months and the mp3 player is only available for 2 years is it still worth it for you guys?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saratoga on March 28, 2023, 10:17:49 PM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks

They're usually "discontinued" as soon as the initial production run is complete.  Or they exhaust the supply of cheap parts, whichever comes first.

how long does it take for you guys to port rockbox to a new player? if it takes 6 months and the mp3 player is only available for 2 years is it still worth it for you guys?

Unless the device is really similar to an existing one, often a very long time.  Very common that devices have been discontinued for a while by the time there is a working port.  As for what is worth it, usually people pick a device they like to work on.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on March 28, 2023, 10:37:59 PM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks

They're usually "discontinued" as soon as the initial production run is complete.  Or they exhaust the supply of cheap parts, whichever comes first.

how long does it take for you guys to port rockbox to a new player? if it takes 6 months and the mp3 player is only available for 2 years is it still worth it for you guys?

Unless the device is really similar to an existing one, often a very long time.  Very common that devices have been discontinued for a while by the time there is a working port.  As for what is worth it, usually people pick a device they like to work on.

if it takes a very long time then now im losing hope LULZ!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on March 29, 2023, 07:24:58 AM
thank you for trying pmp4! i have bookmarked this thread, ill keep my eye on it if you guys find a good player to rockbox! that would be super kewl! any idea how long each of these no brand players are manufactured then discontinued? if they only make them for 1 year then its almost like none of these would make good players to rockbox! thanks

In Spreadtrum players you can see the date of the firmware if you dump the flash (see the posts of this thread, in the file kern.bin), and my players firmwares were not more old than 1 year from the firmware date until the buy date.

Anyway, it's a good news if it appears new and cheapers players.

A 2.4 inch touchscreen player for $12 was unthinkable just a few years ago.

do you think it means we are getting closer to having a cheap player that would make a great rockbox device? sooner or later it will become powerful enough with enough ram that its a perfect device for rockbox?

I dont know it yet, I dont know the processor/ram specs of this 2.4 inch player.

But screen is great, and sound is ok (Spreadtrum DAC is crappy, the DAC of the 1.77 inch player of the start of this thread).

A couple of years ago and still today, a Ruizu player of this features of 2.4inch touchscreen had a price of 30 - 50 USD. Like the Ruizu M17 http://www.ruizutek.com/m17_81236.html

This 2.4 inch player cost is $12 and it does almost the same things, so that is good news.

I think price is important to make mp3 players popular again, if you can't achieve a good player for less than $50, then people always will choose a second cheap smartphone as mp3 player instead a mp3 player.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on March 29, 2023, 02:47:05 PM
please keep us updated pmp4! this is exciting stuff! rockbox is the best thing ever!!!111
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on March 29, 2023, 03:32:56 PM
please keep us updated pmp4! this is exciting stuff! rockbox is the best thing ever!!!111

I contacted the aliexpress seller asking them all the information they can give me about the mp3 player, they previously sent me the video converter for the player (that I didnt found it anywhere in internet), so if they give me news, I'll post it here.

If you or another reader of this thread buy a mp3 player I recommend too to ask all the information available to the seller and post it here.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on March 31, 2023, 06:19:05 AM
I forgot to say something.

2.4 inch player has a USB connector Type C.
i.e: it's not a old stock that's cheap because they can't sell. It's cheap because his pieces are really cheap and cheap to manufacture.

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: bahus on March 31, 2023, 07:11:35 AM
The internal name is "YP3"

The Usb information is:
ID 301a:2801 SmartlinkTechnology USB2.0 Device

The same manufacturer of my 1.77 inch player: https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,54269.msg250949.html#msg250949
Functionality looks very similar to Actions SoC based players. Can't say anything nice about it.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on March 31, 2023, 04:25:08 PM
The internal name is "YP3"

The Usb information is:
ID 301a:2801 SmartlinkTechnology USB2.0 Device

The same manufacturer of my 1.77 inch player: https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,54269.msg250949.html#msg250949
Functionality looks very similar to Actions SoC based players. Can't say anything nice about it.

I agree, it's like a Actions clone, but it's not actions.

So it must be a new version, instead a old version, newer than Spreadtrum.

At least this SoC has a decent DAC, unlike Spreadtrum. Although maybe in processor/ram is worst, I dont know yet.

The video format is AVI, is it?

Actions 1.77 inch players video format is AMV 160x128 (MJPEG video+AdPCM audio).
But this Actions-clone use a MJPEG AVI format 128x160 in 1.77 inch players and raw audio s16, 240x320 in 2.4 inch players.

Another good thing: Spreadtrum bluetooth doesnt work well in mono connections (using one earbud), it hangs after 20mins.
But this actions-clone works well with one earbud.

Besides, the battery consumption seems to be lower.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on March 31, 2023, 11:06:21 PM
can you fix a bad DAC chip with firmware or will it always be bad because its hardware?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on April 03, 2023, 05:24:24 AM
can you fix a bad DAC chip with firmware or will it always be bad because its hardware?

I guess is DAC, but I dont know 100%.

I know that in any format, even .wav, Spreadtrum players play bad some music, maybe you don't notice in some songs, but in electronic music songs, you can listen how sounds fades out and in every beat.

Of course that is only applied to wired headphones, with bluetooth earphones there's no problem.

Anyway, even the most cheap Actions player has not that problem, and YP3 players neither.

Spreadtrum is a widely used SoC in feature phones, so it's hard to believe that is a hardware issue and it can't be corrected through firmware.

But if a 2.4 inch player 240x360 is cheaper than a 1.77 inch 128x160 player, who would choose Spreadtrum instead YP3?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on April 05, 2023, 08:57:43 AM
No luck getting more information about 2.4 inch players from Azu Store.

I dont understand why some manufacturers and sellers are so dark and little transparent about the hardware they sell, they would sell a lot more publishing more information about their products, like Raspberry Pi does. They have nothing to win hiding information.

I ordered another player to "Outdoor Hobby Store" in Aliexpress, 1.77 inch 128x160, I think it's a YP3 player, but I dont know yet.

10.42 EUR in slow shipment, and so cheap as 8.7 EUR ordering 10 pieces.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005083316039.html

(it's button version, it's not touch).
It's similar to Spreadtrum players, but it has not FM radio.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on April 13, 2023, 04:28:18 PM
Some news, the YP3 player name in original chinese is 云p3

云 is a Chinese character that means "cloud".

https://www.shenjugroup.com/zh-CN/news/82.html

That seems to be the official web of the SoC manufacturer.

Google Translate from Chinese:

Quote
2022 29/03
Tuesday
Shenju Technology releases cloud P3 chip solution, helping traditional MP3 to enter a new stage
product description2036 views
       The cloud P3 chip officially launched by Shenju Technology at the end of 2021, as the world's first new dual-core AI chip that combines, transforms and upgrades cloud technology and traditional MP3 solutions, has successfully entered the mass production stage. Up to now, the batch shipment has exceeded one million pieces.

       Shenju Technology Cloud P3 chip integrates the main control and Bluetooth functions, is equipped with the latest real-time operating system, has excellent overall performance and low power consumption, and is a highly integrated IC. The cloud P3 chip solution adopts plug-in card storage, does not need Nand flash, does not lose programs, has excellent performance and lower cost.

       In terms of music, the Shenju Technology Cloud P3 chip solution not only supports full-format audio playback, but also supports lossless sound quality. The audio quality can reach up to 192khz/24bit, and you can enjoy CD sound quality through Bluetooth playback, which can bring users a high-quality HIFI experience. In addition, Shenju Technology will also realize the linkage between MP3 and mainstream music platforms through cloud technology, and music member users can simultaneously enjoy the music privileges of mobile APP and better sound sources on MP3.

       In terms of recording, the Senju Technology Cloud P3 chip solution has an excellent ENC noise reduction algorithm, which perfectly realizes the VAD vocal detection and recording function, and can provide the same high-quality recording as a recording pen.

       The P3 chip solution of Shenju Technology Cloud also has some practical small function updates, such as: customizing the name of the song favorite list, multiple mode version upgrades, one-second power on and off, etc., to provide users with a better experience. There will be more functional updates in the future, so stay tuned.

       By providing the whole industry chain service starting from the chip, Genu Technology helps traditional MP3 manufacturers to create more competitive cloud P3 products and move towards a new stage of intelligent mainstream. At present, this chip has entered the stage of stable mass production, and related terminal products will be launched in succession this year.

云 pronunciation is "Yún", so Y seems to come from there. YP3 instead MP3, and Y meaning Cloud chinese character that first letter in pinyin is "Y".
"YangYang" seems to be the software developer of the Video Converter for Shenju (the SoC manufacturer), video converter "PwConverter" is based in FFmpeg software.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on April 14, 2023, 01:11:41 AM
Some news, the YP3 player name in original chinese is 云p3

云 is a Chinese character that means "cloud".

https://www.shenjugroup.com/zh-CN/news/82.html

That seems to be the official web of the SoC manufacturer.

Google Translate from Chinese:

Quote
2022 29/03
Tuesday
Shenju Technology releases cloud P3 chip solution, helping traditional MP3 to enter a new stage
product description2036 views
       The cloud P3 chip officially launched by Shenju Technology at the end of 2021, as the world's first new dual-core AI chip that combines, transforms and upgrades cloud technology and traditional MP3 solutions, has successfully entered the mass production stage. Up to now, the batch shipment has exceeded one million pieces.

       Shenju Technology Cloud P3 chip integrates the main control and Bluetooth functions, is equipped with the latest real-time operating system, has excellent overall performance and low power consumption, and is a highly integrated IC. The cloud P3 chip solution adopts plug-in card storage, does not need Nand flash, does not lose programs, has excellent performance and lower cost.

       In terms of music, the Shenju Technology Cloud P3 chip solution not only supports full-format audio playback, but also supports lossless sound quality. The audio quality can reach up to 192khz/24bit, and you can enjoy CD sound quality through Bluetooth playback, which can bring users a high-quality HIFI experience. In addition, Shenju Technology will also realize the linkage between MP3 and mainstream music platforms through cloud technology, and music member users can simultaneously enjoy the music privileges of mobile APP and better sound sources on MP3.

       In terms of recording, the Senju Technology Cloud P3 chip solution has an excellent ENC noise reduction algorithm, which perfectly realizes the VAD vocal detection and recording function, and can provide the same high-quality recording as a recording pen.

       The P3 chip solution of Shenju Technology Cloud also has some practical small function updates, such as: customizing the name of the song favorite list, multiple mode version upgrades, one-second power on and off, etc., to provide users with a better experience. There will be more functional updates in the future, so stay tuned.

       By providing the whole industry chain service starting from the chip, Genu Technology helps traditional MP3 manufacturers to create more competitive cloud P3 products and move towards a new stage of intelligent mainstream. At present, this chip has entered the stage of stable mass production, and related terminal products will be launched in succession this year.

云 pronunciation is "Yún", so Y seems to come from there. YP3 instead MP3, and Y meaning Cloud chinese character that first letter in pinyin is "Y".
"YangYang" seems to be the software developer of the Video Converter for Shenju (the SoC manufacturer), video converter "PwConverter" is based in FFmpeg software.

this is good news?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on April 14, 2023, 07:47:01 AM
this is good news?

That means that we know the SoC (System On a Chip) manufacturer name, it's not useful for anything in itself, but it's the first needed step.

Feel free to ask Shenju more information about their products.

Some people in Aliexpress customers comments complain about the MP3 player is a scam because they can't play AVI videos as the instructions says.
The player allows play videos, I did it, but in a Shenju special format, they should be more transparent publishing information and tools in his web, and people wont believe that they products are scams.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: meyertime on April 21, 2023, 06:13:02 PM
Hi, I tried to catch up on this thread.  I'm looking for a new device to use with Rockbox to record FM, and I explored a number of generic MP3 player devices from Amazon.  (I need to use a low FM band 72-76 MHz as well, so I'm looking for specific FM chips.)

One device is branded "MUSICROSS", and it appears to be identical to the device you first linked to in this thread, other than the "MUSICROSS" logo.  I took it apart, and it has an SoC branded "Jointbees MP3".  I couldn't find much info about this chip, but the "Jointbees" brand did link to the Shenju website.  So is this a "Spreadtrum" chip that might work with Rockbox, or would it be more of an Actions clone?  Here's the Amazon link, by the way:

https://www.amazon.com/MUSICROSS-Bluetooth-Portable-Walkman-Recorder/dp/B0B87ST5QR

The good news for me is this device has a chip marked "5807M", which appears to be an RDA5807M FM tuner, which can tune as low as 50 MHz, but the stock firmware doesn't give that option.  If I could port Rockbox to it, then I'd be in business.

Anyways, if this one won't work, I'd be willing to buy some other devices and help with the effort to port Rockbox.  It sounds like the Spreadtrum devices are the best bet so far?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: pmp4 on April 21, 2023, 07:30:29 PM
Hi, I tried to catch up on this thread.  I'm looking for a new device to use with Rockbox to record FM, and I explored a number of generic MP3 player devices from Amazon.  (I need to use a low FM band 72-76 MHz as well, so I'm looking for specific FM chips.)

One device is branded "MUSICROSS", and it appears to be identical to the device you first linked to in this thread, other than the "MUSICROSS" logo.  I took it apart, and it has an SoC branded "Jointbees MP3".  I couldn't find much info about this chip, but the "Jointbees" brand did link to the Shenju website.  So is this a "Spreadtrum" chip that might work with Rockbox, or would it be more of an Actions clone?  Here's the Amazon link, by the way:

https://www.amazon.com/MUSICROSS-Bluetooth-Portable-Walkman-Recorder/dp/B0B87ST5QR

The good news for me is this device has a chip marked "5807M", which appears to be an RDA5807M FM tuner, which can tune as low as 50 MHz, but the stock firmware doesn't give that option.  If I could port Rockbox to it, then I'd be in business.

Anyways, if this one won't work, I'd be willing to buy some other devices and help with the effort to port Rockbox.  It sounds like the Spreadtrum devices are the best bet so far?

I dont know 100% sure, but I think that "musicross" devices are not Spreadtrum, it's Shenju SoC (actions-like clone).

I can tell you that I have Spreadtrum players with FM and it has no separated FM chips, FM function is integrated in the SoC,

You can difference Spreadtrum from Shenju, because Spreadtrum play real MP4 h264 video, by the other side Shenju play a MJPEG AVI format with PCM audio, and actions SoC play AMV and/or MJPEG video with AdPCM audio.

I dont know what processor/ram has Shenju SoC, but I'd like to know it.

I wrote Shenju and they dont reply as usual. I encourage you to write them too.

I think they are damaging their own interests when they hide information to customers, but it's fine. They will know how to handle their company.

I think Shenju players have a great hardware with a crappy firmware, it's a shame. They woud sell a lot more, making 3 obvious changes to firmware (no possibility to seek a position of a song, video, no information in the firmware about video codec, when the most obvious is include a QR code with a link to the video converter and so on). They copy, they dont innovate, and they dont reply to customers, shameful!.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: meyertime on April 21, 2023, 11:59:29 PM
Is there a way I can learn about it besides contacting Shenju? (I'll try contacting them too)

I guess I don't really care if it has a separate FM chip or not as long as it can go as low as 72 MHz. Do you know the FM capabilities of that SoC yet?

I also have 2 more very similar devices that I'll take apart too.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: meyertime on April 22, 2023, 12:00:56 AM
Oh, I'll try a MP4 h264 file on each of them too.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: meyertime on April 22, 2023, 02:07:14 AM
Funny how different the internals are for players that look identical on the outside!  One thing that was consistent is that they all have the same FM chip.  That would be good news for me, but they also all apparently have a low-power decoder SoC that is Actions or similar, with not enough RAM.  None of them would play an MP4 file.

So finding a Spreadtrum device and helping you port Rockbox to it might be my best bet?

Here are the details of the devices I looked at, with all the identifiably-marked chips:

MUSICROSS
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B87ST5QR
SoC: Jointbees MP3 152FA1BHA0 (Shenju)
FM: 5807M JD969 (RDA5807M)
Amp: NS4150B 2250D
Firmware: yp3_2.0.43
MicroUSB, no power switch

arungo
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VRYK6L4
SoC: Rockchip RKNANOC-L SDADU8054 2223
FM: 5807M TL567 (RDA5807M
Flash: P25D32H 1H53H (32Mb)
Firmware: 2020/05/01 1.1.00 AS211D_V1000
MicroUSB, physical power switch

RUIZU
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073R7ZHVC
SoC: ATJ2157 FP50AMQ 35K ID (Actions)
FM: 5807M TL569 (RDA5807M)
Flash: 2236 I-2 29F64G08CBABA WP B BYTW (64Gb, Micron)
Bluetooth: ATS2851 ZP41HMPG 35K (Actions)
Firmware: V3_I 2022-06-23
USB-C, physical power switch
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on April 22, 2023, 08:36:37 AM
SoC: Rockchip RKNANOC-L SDADU8054 2223
SoC: ATJ2157 FP50AMQ 35K ID (Actions)

Both of these have a total of 224KB of RAM.  So Rockbox isn't ever going to happen on these.

The RKNANO-C is also a bit underpowered, with only a Cortex-M3 @100MHz.  The ATJ2157 has a CM4F @288MHz, a lot better, but without RAM it's pointless.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saratoga on April 22, 2023, 12:35:34 PM
The M3 has a fast multiplier, so for audio it'd probably be a lot faster than the old armv4 devices, but it might be a lot of work to get all the old armv4 assembly working on thumb2.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: meyertime on April 22, 2023, 04:18:01 PM
Yeah, I don't think any of those devices will work for Rockbox.  The remaining unknown is the Shenju Jointbees chip, but I'm pretty sure it's an Actions clone.  It has the same form factor, and their site does list a similar chip with only 216 Kb RAM: https://www.shenjugroup.com/en-US/products/Hi10-6.html  So we can keep reaching out to Shenju, but I don't have high hopes.

Is it worth getting a Spreadtrum device and going that route?

I'm also open to other suggestions.  Looks like there's a few higher-end devices that Rockbox ports are being actively-developed for, but as far as I can tell, none of them have FM...  Recording 72-76 MHz to a lossless format is really my only requirement.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Milardo on April 22, 2023, 08:17:00 PM
Yeah, I don't think any of those devices will work for Rockbox.  The remaining unknown is the Shenju Jointbees chip, but I'm pretty sure it's an Actions clone.  It has the same form factor, and their site does list a similar chip with only 216 Kb RAM: https://www.shenjugroup.com/en-US/products/Hi10-6.html  So we can keep reaching out to Shenju, but I don't have high hopes.

Is it worth getting a Spreadtrum device and going that route?

I'm also open to other suggestions.  Looks like there's a few higher-end devices that Rockbox ports are being actively-developed for, but as far as I can tell, none of them have FM...  Recording 72-76 MHz to a lossless format is really my only requirement.

I have a ruizu X02, it has fm radio and is still being sold I think. It would be great for rockbox like a lite version, even if it doesn't have any plugins, games, etc. I think the most important feature to include in a rockbox lite version would be all the audio processing features
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on April 22, 2023, 09:21:45 PM
I have a ruizu X02, it has fm radio and is still being sold I think. It would be great for rockbox like a lite version, even if it doesn't have any plugins, games, etc. I think the most important feature to include in a rockbox lite version would be all the audio processing features

The Ruizu X02 is built on a RKNANO-B SoC, which has way, way, way too little RAM (128+96KB) for anything remotely recognizable as "rockbox" to be ported to it.  No themes, very limited WPS, no plugins, no database, most codecs gone (IOW only what the hardware has decoders for, and that assumes we have docs on how to actually _use_ those engines), no DSP engine (as that requires manipulating the raw/decoded audio data) and a near-complete rewrite of the codebase as we'd have to directly stream all data directly from the SD card into the HW codec.

It will actually be _less_ work to write a new player codebase from scratch that's tailored to the RKNANO's features/limitations, and the result will be something pretty similar the original X02 firmware, because the hardware simply isn't capable of much more.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on April 23, 2023, 03:57:15 PM
reading your guy's posts now it seems like a miracle that the one mp3 player in the beginning of this thread had 4mb of ram!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: meyertime on April 23, 2023, 07:56:35 PM
reading your guy's posts now it seems like a miracle that the one mp3 player in the beginning of this thread had 4mb of ram!

No kidding! That's why I'm thinking of getting that device, even if the DAC is poor.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on April 24, 2023, 01:22:30 AM
reading your guy's posts now it seems like a miracle that the one mp3 player in the beginning of this thread had 4mb of ram!

No kidding! That's why I'm thinking of getting that device, even if the DAC is poor.

if you manage to get rockbox working on that mp3 player i'll buy ten of them LULZ!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on April 24, 2023, 07:46:25 AM
reading your guy's posts now it seems like a miracle that the one mp3 player in the beginning of this thread had 4mb of ram!

It is pretty unusual by today's standards, that's for sure.

What I think happened is that its manufacturer got a large pile of the Spreadtrum SoCs for practically nothing, making the resulting devices cost-competitive with the more "modern" shovelware ATJ2157/RKNano-based  units.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: spaceship9876 on April 27, 2023, 06:12:08 PM
would the RKNanoD SoC be viable? - https://www.rock-chips.com/a/en/products/RK_Nano_Series/2016/0908/790.html
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on April 27, 2023, 06:34:22 PM
would the RKNanoD SoC be viable? - https://www.rock-chips.com/a/en/products/RK_Nano_Series/2016/0908/790.html

The RKNano-D has a total of 1MB of RAM, with no provision for external memory. 

Additionally, this memory is actually split between the two processor cores.  While the datasheet implies they can access each others' memories, it's not clear if they share a common mapping.

Regardless, 1MB of RAM just isn't going to cut it, at least not without a significant culling of our functionality, including moving back to exclusively codecs that the hardware can decode.

So, no, this isn't really viable for what folks think of as "rockbox".
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: spaceship9876 on April 28, 2023, 11:46:54 AM
this looks extremely interesting: https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/04/25/sonatino-raspberry-pi-zero-sized-esp32-s3-audio-board/

would this be rockboxable?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on April 28, 2023, 11:53:27 AM
this looks extremely interesting: https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/04/25/sonatino-raspberry-pi-zero-sized-esp32-s3-audio-board/

would this be rockboxable?

based on reading this thread it looks like you need a minimum of 4mb of ram to run rockbox. probably 8mb preferred. 
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on April 28, 2023, 04:43:33 PM
Well, 2MB will work, but it means losing some codecs and plugins.  Plus a small, monochrome screen (higher resolution / bit depths require bigger framebuffers)

But the ESP32 devices use *PSRAM* which is off-chip, and connected over SPI, so it's _considerably_ slower (and higher-latency) than on-chip SRAM, or even off-chip DRAM.

So, no, these ESP32s aren't ideal.

This is a _far_ better basis for a port:  https://www.electro-smith.com/daisy/daisy

It sports a Cortex-M7 @480MHz, 64MB SDRAM, 8MB QSPI flash (plus ~384K/1M onboard SRAM/flash IIRC), and a decent WM8731 96Khz/24bit codec.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on April 29, 2023, 01:01:53 AM
rockbox running on 64mb of ram holy fudge.......
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on April 29, 2023, 10:56:44 AM
rockbox running on 64mb of ram holy fudge.......

Honestly, when we're running off of solid-state storage, you'd probably be hard pressed to see a difference with anything over 16MB of RAM.  If you leave out some of the games, anything over 8MB is probably superfluous.  The main reason the old-school ipods etc had so much RAM was because the spinning-rust hard drives were quite power hungry, and the more RAM you had, the longer you could leave the hard drive powered down.  Granted, flash storage uses power too, but compared to spinning rust, peak power is far lower and powerup is nearly instantaneous, so you can get away with buffering a lot less than before.

That said, these days, it's probably _cheaper_ to buy a 64MB RAM chip than one that's "only" 8MB.

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on April 29, 2023, 12:41:49 PM
rockbox running on 64mb of ram holy fudge.......

Honestly, when we're running off of solid-state storage, you'd probably be hard pressed to see a difference with anything over 16MB of RAM.  If you leave out some of the games, anything over 8MB is probably superfluous.  The main reason the old-school ipods etc had so much RAM was because the spinning-rust hard drives were quite power hungry, and the more RAM you had, the longer you could leave the hard drive powered down.  Granted, flash storage uses power too, but compared to spinning rust, peak power is far lower and powerup is nearly instantaneous, so you can get away with buffering a lot less than before.

That said, these days, it's probably _cheaper_ to buy a 64MB RAM chip than one that's "only" 8MB.



forgive me for not reading all threads on this message board but why doesn't one of you geniuses make a player from that board and we all kickstart it? not enough people would put money down because a dedicated rockbox player is a niche thing?
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saratoga on April 29, 2023, 01:55:36 PM
rockbox running on 64mb of ram holy fudge.......

Honestly, when we're running off of solid-state storage, you'd probably be hard pressed to see a difference with anything over 16MB of RAM.  If you leave out some of the games, anything over 8MB is probably superfluous.  The main reason the old-school ipods etc had so much RAM was because the spinning-rust hard drives were quite power hungry, and the more RAM you had, the longer you could leave the hard drive powered down.  Granted, flash storage uses power too, but compared to spinning rust, peak power is far lower and powerup is nearly instantaneous, so you can get away with buffering a lot less than before.

That said, these days, it's probably _cheaper_ to buy a 64MB RAM chip than one that's "only" 8MB.



forgive me for not reading all threads on this message board but why doesn't one of you geniuses make a player from that board and we all kickstart it? not enough people would put money down because a dedicated rockbox player is a niche thing?

See here:  https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,6751.0.html
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on April 30, 2023, 05:29:41 PM
rockbox running on 64mb of ram holy fudge.......

Honestly, when we're running off of solid-state storage, you'd probably be hard pressed to see a difference with anything over 16MB of RAM.  If you leave out some of the games, anything over 8MB is probably superfluous.  The main reason the old-school ipods etc had so much RAM was because the spinning-rust hard drives were quite power hungry, and the more RAM you had, the longer you could leave the hard drive powered down.  Granted, flash storage uses power too, but compared to spinning rust, peak power is far lower and powerup is nearly instantaneous, so you can get away with buffering a lot less than before.

That said, these days, it's probably _cheaper_ to buy a 64MB RAM chip than one that's "only" 8MB.



forgive me for not reading all threads on this message board but why doesn't one of you geniuses make a player from that board and we all kickstart it? not enough people would put money down because a dedicated rockbox player is a niche thing?

See here:  https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,6751.0.html

thanks for the link. if after 15 years of talking about it we aren't any closer to making a dedicated rockbox player i guess i wont hold my breath that its going to happen soon. either way i would put some cash down on a kickstarter if it did!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: lubatur on April 30, 2023, 06:27:27 PM
Quote
either way i would put some cash down on a kickstarter if it did!
Me too.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: meyertime on May 01, 2023, 01:30:14 AM
thanks for the link. if after 15 years of talking about it we aren't any closer to making a dedicated rockbox player i guess i wont hold my breath that its going to happen soon. either way i would put some cash down on a kickstarter if it did!

I would do what I can to fund it as well.  I shied away from reading that enormous thread...  I wonder if it would be easier now than it would have been back when that thread was started.  With Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and similar boards readily available.  I think someone would just have to take the time to design it, build a prototype...

Unfortunately, I don't have time for such fun.  If it were me, I would take the easiest route using readily available parts to get something that works.  It would probably be bulky and ugly.  That's why I thought it might be easier to just take a device that already exists and port Rockbox to it.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on May 01, 2023, 10:23:29 AM
> I would do what I can to fund it as well.  I shied away from reading that enormous thread...  I wonder if it would be easier now than it would have been back when that thread was started.  With Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and similar boards readily available.  I think someone would just have to take the time to design it, build a prototype...

The tl;dr of that (and all other "rockbox should build its own hardware") thread:

1) Nearly all of those SBCs are designed to be always-on, powered through USB, with no thought to running on a battery. Retrofitting that after the fact is pretty janky.
2) Building a prototype is relatively straightforward (that is to say, about the same effort now as it was ten years ago)
3) Designing and fabricating a custom PCB is easier/cheaper than ever.
4) Designing and tooling up to manufacture e case is where most of the fixed cost comes from, easily in the five digits.
5) 3D printing prototypes likely won't give us the fine detail necessary, and the per-unit costs will be astronomical for anything we'd hope to sell.
6) These fixed costs don't change if we want to build one unit or one million.
7) Supply chain realities mean that we'd need to commit to building every unit we ever hope to produce up front, as there'd be no guarantee we could build another batch even six months layer.  So that's a lot of part inventory that needs to be purchased in advance.
8) We have to produce something not only price-competitive with everything rockbox runs on today -- both new[-ish] units like the Eros Q/K players but also the huge inventory of secondhand ipods.
9) Going after the "audiophile" market is a pointless exercise, as they are always chasing the latest shiny thing and finding reasons we don't measure up to the competition (lacking features like tube amps and "oxygen-depleted gold-plated optical connectors to reduce jitter")

Not to say this is impossible, but to give you an idea about the kinds of numbers we're looking at, I'd say we'd need about $100,000 in up-front funding for design and tooling plus the cost of parts to build an initial 1000 unit run, which will probably be closer to $100,000, ie per-unit costs of about $100.  And actually selling those things would require even more up-front money for things like business liicenses, regulatory approval, and minor hassles like getting a license from MPEG/LA so we can decode AAC and other necessary codecs.  So did I say $100,000?  Make that $200,000 as lawyers aren't cheap.

the tl;dr of that:   Any hypothetical kickstarter would probably need to be something like $300/unit for a 1000-unit run, for something roughly equivalent to an ErosQ/K. (Real econmomies of scale start to kick in over 10,000 units, and that requires even more money up front)  Or folks can just buy an old ipod instead.

> Unfortunately, I don't have time for such fun.  If it were me, I would take the easiest route using readily available parts to get something that works.  It would probably be bulky and ugly.  That's why I thought it might be easier to just take a device that already exists and port Rockbox to it.

... And then there's what I didn't mention above, (10):  It's going to take time to write the software needed to make all of this work.  And all of this effort is the equivalent of several full-time jobs.

In an ideal world, the sanest approach would be to reach out to one of the Chinese ODMs and ask them for a quote to produce 10,000 units of an existing player design, conditional on having our logo on the case and a full set of schematics.  That would be something that would easily translate to a kickstarter.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saratoga on May 01, 2023, 02:03:20 PM
If designing and making an attractive and functional mp3 player case was easy there wouldn't have been so many awful, janky devices made over the years :)

PCB is easy enough though if you don't mind it not being a portable device. 
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on May 01, 2023, 06:49:29 PM
> I would do what I can to fund it as well.  I shied away from reading that enormous thread...  I wonder if it would be easier now than it would have been back when that thread was started.  With Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and similar boards readily available.  I think someone would just have to take the time to design it, build a prototype...

The tl;dr of that (and all other "rockbox should build its own hardware") thread:

1) Nearly all of those SBCs are designed to be always-on, powered through USB, with no thought to running on a battery. Retrofitting that after the fact is pretty janky.
2) Building a prototype is relatively straightforward (that is to say, about the same effort now as it was ten years ago)
3) Designing and fabricating a custom PCB is easier/cheaper than ever.
4) Designing and tooling up to manufacture e case is where most of the fixed cost comes from, easily in the five digits.
5) 3D printing prototypes likely won't give us the fine detail necessary, and the per-unit costs will be astronomical for anything we'd hope to sell.
6) These fixed costs don't change if we want to build one unit or one million.
7) Supply chain realities mean that we'd need to commit to building every unit we ever hope to produce up front, as there'd be no guarantee we could build another batch even six months layer.  So that's a lot of part inventory that needs to be purchased in advance.
8) We have to produce something not only price-competitive with everything rockbox runs on today -- both new[-ish] units like the Eros Q/K players but also the huge inventory of secondhand ipods.
9) Going after the "audiophile" market is a pointless exercise, as they are always chasing the latest shiny thing and finding reasons we don't measure up to the competition (lacking features like tube amps and "oxygen-depleted gold-plated optical connectors to reduce jitter")

Not to say this is impossible, but to give you an idea about the kinds of numbers we're looking at, I'd say we'd need about $100,000 in up-front funding for design and tooling plus the cost of parts to build an initial 1000 unit run, which will probably be closer to $100,000, ie per-unit costs of about $100.  And actually selling those things would require even more up-front money for things like business liicenses, regulatory approval, and minor hassles like getting a license from MPEG/LA so we can decode AAC and other necessary codecs.  So did I say $100,000?  Make that $200,000 as lawyers aren't cheap.

the tl;dr of that:   Any hypothetical kickstarter would probably need to be something like $300/unit for a 1000-unit run, for something roughly equivalent to an ErosQ/K. (Real econmomies of scale start to kick in over 10,000 units, and that requires even more money up front)  Or folks can just buy an old ipod instead.

> Unfortunately, I don't have time for such fun.  If it were me, I would take the easiest route using readily available parts to get something that works.  It would probably be bulky and ugly.  That's why I thought it might be easier to just take a device that already exists and port Rockbox to it.

... And then there's what I didn't mention above, (10):  It's going to take time to write the software needed to make all of this work.  And all of this effort is the equivalent of several full-time jobs.

In an ideal world, the sanest approach would be to reach out to one of the Chinese ODMs and ask them for a quote to produce 10,000 units of an existing player design, conditional on having our logo on the case and a full set of schematics.  That would be something that would easily translate to a kickstarter.

thanks for this write up! if only some chinese maker would just make a player we could rockbox and sell it until the end of time all our problems would be solved!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: llnx1 on May 15, 2023, 08:04:23 AM
This look interesting, Anbernic often releases device source code of their devices

Has anyone seen this k3s soc ? I searched on google but didn't find anything about k3s, only v3s

I believe this device must have something like cortex A7 and at least 32 / 64mb ram for run Game Boy Advance, what should be enough to run Rockbox port

This a video from this device

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVvBxdhKOQY

(https://i.postimg.cc/mkPJgnKS/wxc1rjboq00b1.jpg)
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on May 15, 2023, 01:58:12 PM
I believe this device must have something like cortex A7 and at least 32 / 64mb ram for run Game Boy Advance, what should be enough to run Rockbox port

I'd be shocked if it didn't have the hardware specs to run rockbox quite well, but the lack of a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack is concerning.  It's also not clear if there's expandable storage (they didn't show one side of the device at all, so there _could_ be an SD slot there...) but it looks like a really nice form factor, and the guessimated price point (~$40) is pretty nice too.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: llnx1 on May 15, 2023, 03:58:20 PM
I believe this device must have something like cortex A7 and at least 32 / 64mb ram for run Game Boy Advance, what should be enough to run Rockbox port

I'd be shocked if it didn't have the hardware specs to run rockbox quite well, but the lack of a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack is concerning.  It's also not clear if there's expandable storage (they didn't show one side of the device at all, so there _could_ be an SD slot there...) but it looks like a really nice form factor, and the guessimated price point (~$40) is pretty nice too.

Apparently it will be a Funkey S clone by Anbernic which have a internal SD slot, a SOC is a v3s (not k3s) and bad side is a lack of p2 port (need a USB C > P2)

https://linux-sunxi.org/V3s

For 40~45 dollars and being easy to sell (Aliexpress) I believe it is a good option to develop a port, let's stay tuned when it launches
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on May 16, 2023, 12:32:35 AM
great find guys! looking forward to reading this thread as more info comes out!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on May 16, 2023, 10:42:17 AM
Apparently it will be a Funkey S clone by Anbernic which have a internal SD slot, a SOC is a v3s (not k3s) and bad side is a lack of p2 port (need a USB C > P2)

If I could wave a wand and build a "just for rockbox" player, I'd pick the S3 as its SoC -- It's essentially the V3s with double the RAM (ie 128MB) but in a much smaller BGA package.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: osaka on May 18, 2023, 06:32:50 AM
The remaining unknown is the Shenju Jointbees chip, but I'm pretty sure it's an Actions clone.  It has the same form factor, and their site does list a similar chip with only 216 Kb RAM
The firmware for the chip is definitely different from Actions. My player enters some kind of upgrade (boot ROM?) mode if VOL (down) is held on reset: enumerates as mass storage VID_301A&PID_2800 and seems to accept C0 00, C0 03..06 vendor-specific commands (only managed to get a CSW back yet); IsActionsFirmware (CC) stalls the endpoint instead.
The company itself seems closely tied to Zhuhai Smartlink Technology Co., Ltd. as they use their USB Vendor ID and website looks almost the same. There's front page excerpts for the datasheets in English in the News section but sadly no other new information. They boast OTA function for the TWS headphone chipsets, I'm currently trying to locate an app responsible to pull some firmware out maybe.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: saucell on August 04, 2023, 11:03:25 PM
https://anbernic.com/products/rg-nano?variant=43921381818625

the anbernic is super beefy in specs but also expensive! still worth rockboxing imo i would buy one!
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: K4sum1 on September 10, 2023, 04:24:59 AM
Probably not able to run Rockbox, but the Droid Razr M is very cheap (~$15 used) and an (old) Android phone. Probably a lot more capable than new devices of similar price.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: sandreas on September 14, 2023, 10:27:35 PM
FYI:

 I filed and issue  (https://github.com/FunKey-Project/FunKey-S-Hardware/issues/5) at the FunKey S hardware repository, wether they would be interested in forking a dedicated audio player...

I think the FunKey S would be a very interesting platform, because it is completely open hardware / firmware (https://doc.funkey-project.com/developer_guide/hardware_reference/) and the only things missing would be a touchscreen (Sitronix ST7789V), an audio jack and an appropriate case . However, the quality of the selected audio chip would be something very important...

Perhaps someone is able to work on this, I would be interested.

As an Android device, I'm pretty happy with my Unihertz Jelly 2e, which has Android 12, is pretty fast, has an Audio Jack, a programmable custom button (I use it for media control), decent battery life and is about 100 bucks used. 
Currently I'm developing a Fully Cross Platform App (Win,Lin,macOs,iOS,Android) with AvaloniaUI (C#) for Music and Audiobooks (ToneAudioPlayer (https://github.com/sandreas/ToneAudioPlayer)), but it is pretty far from being released.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on September 14, 2023, 10:47:11 PM
The FunKey hardware is actually very well suited for a DAP -- The V3/V3s SoC would be my choice if I were starting a design from scratch today, and the only real strike against the FunKey is its clamshell design -- it has to be open to be used (there's a magnetic switch that completely kills power when you close the unit up)

But a touchscreen is IMNSHO worthless in a DAP, because without hard buttons, you have to be able to see the screen in order to effectively operate the device.  This makes it a non-starter for visually impaired folks, or in situations where looking at a screen would be unsafe. 
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: Trzyzet on September 15, 2023, 07:11:47 AM
The FunKey hardware is actually very well suited for a DAP -- The V3/V3s SoC would be my choice if I were starting a design from scratch today

The problem is you have only one choice with this SoC - Use built-in audio codec because the only I2C must be already splitted for charge IC and buttons.
For me it's a big no no.

Would be nice to find a cheap, not very powerful SoC with 64/128MB of RAM, support of 512GB cards or more and USB 3.0 controller.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on September 15, 2023, 10:13:40 AM
The problem is you have only one choice with this SoC - Use built-in audio codec because the only I2C must be already splitted for charge IC and buttons.

Putting aside the point that I2C is a low-speed shared bus that can have many devices on it, audio data traditionally is sent over an I2S bus.

The V3 (and S3) has an I2S bus.  But oddly enough, the V3s does not.  Probably because it's a QFP package with fewer pins than the BGA that the V3/S3 uses.

(Honestly I'm surprised the FunKey used the V3s over the S3; it's a much larger physical footprint.  Though that lower density might make for a cheaper overall BoM)

IMO the S3 is pretty much the perfect SoC for a DAP, due to having plenty of oomph and integrated DRAM.  It's similar in that respect to the Ingenic X1000, which is already widely used for DAPs.   Both Allwinner and Ingenic have older parts that are still plenty good for Rockbox (F1Cxxx and JZ47x0, respectively) and newer parts that do little but pile on more CPU cores that Rockbox has no real use for.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: sandreas on September 16, 2023, 04:16:09 PM
Quote
But a touchscreen is IMNSHO worthless in a DAP, because without hard buttons, you have to be able to see the screen in order to effectively operate the device.  This makes it a non-starter for visually impaired folks, or in situations where looking at a screen would be unsafe.

Yeah this may be correct. But having a touchscreen AND buttons for play/pause, vol+, vol+ and possibly next, previous and hold would be the best approach in my opinion. Most people are familiar with phones these days and a clickwheel from the older iPods is pretty complex and way less flexible than a touchscreen, even when the touchscreen is small.

Looking at the Sony NW-A306, I like their basic approach (besides it is a bulky, power hungry android beast), the only thing that bothers me is the missing headphone remote support via audio jack. It works via USB-C to jack adapter with mic support from amazon, which made me laugh. I'm pretty sure OMTP via TRRS for headphone remote control could be implemented in linux pretty easily, because it is just detecting a click-pattern in the mic input... I wonder why nobody seems to care about this.

Apple prefers CTIA, but the click pattern works on ALL their devices from 2009 ipod classic (rewind and fast forward does not work on 2009 classics) till today, even on MacBooks with audio jack have support. On my iPod Nano 7G I can either use the EarPods remote and even the the devices buttons to control the whole playback scenario...

That's all I need without looking at the screen or even touch the device. And it works flawlessly...

Speaking of hardware, I thought this writeup was pretty interesting:

https://jaycarlson.net/embedded-linux/

The Rockchip 3308 kind of won there, but looking at the power consumption chart (https://jaycarlson.net/embedded-linux/#1602627646244-26484bfd-5515), I would prefer a chip that is just slightly more than enough for modern audio codecs needing as little power as possible. I think the V3(s) is a good fit and the completely finshed hardware and firmware design of the FunKey S would be an interesting base to start. And it's cheap enough.

Another one would be the MangoPI:
https://mangopi.org/
Looks like they have an Audio-Player (Cyber Pad 1 mini - https://mangopi.org/cp1m) on the front page... maybe worth doing some further research

BTW: Here is a DIY Gaming Console also with a reference design for Allwinner S3 (Called X-Boy Plus) WITH Audio Jack, but I did not find much information about this and no purchase information:

Demo-Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTBzunSkPDQ
Repository: https://github.com/hsinyuwang/X-Boy
Schematics (V3s): https://bbs.aw-ol.com/assets/uploads/files/1691901010607-schematic_allwinner-v3s-game-handheld_2023-08-13.png
More info: https://bbs.aw-ol.com/user/hsinyuwang

However, I'm not skilled enough to give this redesign a go (and I don't own a 3D printer!). Hopefully these guys see the potential and maybe fork the design for a dedicated audio player, maybe with rockbox support :-) I would buy it, even when rockbox does neither support OMTP nor CTIA nor Bluetooth nor Wifi... 


Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on September 16, 2023, 09:37:03 PM
But having a touchscreen AND buttons for play/pause, vol+, vol+ and possibly next, previous and hold would be the best approach in my opinion. Most people are familiar with phones these days and a clickwheel from the older iPods is pretty complex and way less flexible than a touchscreen, even when the touchscreen is small.

Except that Rockbox sports a _very_ different UI paradigm from "phones these days".  The latter carries with it all sorts of functional user expectations that Rockbox will never meet -- it's not something that can be papered over with a new theme. 

This goes well beyond audio playback controls; It is a hard requirement that _every_ UI element be usable/available without looking at the screen. 

If what you want is effectively a smartphone with more buttons, there are countless DAPs out there that are all trying to outdo each others by (badly) copying smartphone design (anti)patterns from the era of crappy uninstallable crappy carrier/vendor apps.

Meanwhile.  The problem with building a new DAP isn't in the component selection or even things like PCB design/layout; it's the huge up-front cost of making a (robust) enclosure and obtaining enough components up front for sufficiently large production run -- economies of scale begin to really kick in at 10,000 units, but anything under 1,000 units is probably not even worth the effort, since anything created will have to be cost-competitive with not only the current crop of mass-produced DAPs but also the considerable secondary market for refurbished ipods.

Honestly, what we really need is someone who can speak Mandarin and is willing to negotiate with a Chinese OEM so they'll crank out a batch of an exsiting design for us, on the condition that we get schematics and some reference source code along with it.

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: sandreas on September 17, 2023, 08:06:53 AM
Quote
This goes well beyond audio playback controls; It is a hard requirement that _every_ UI element be usable/available without looking at the screen. 
Did not know that... I like the approach.

Quote
If what you want is effectively a smartphone with more buttons, there are countless DAPs out there that are all trying to outdo each others by (badly) copying smartphone design (anti)patterns from the era of crappy uninstallable crappy carrier/vendor apps.

No, what I mainly would like to have is a working SOLUTION to my personal problem. However, I don't think this will ever happen, because it is way to specific.


All these are fulfilled by:

Some optional nice to have features would be:

What bugs me the most on the iPod nanos is that they are so hard to repair and have low battery life. That's why I'm looking for alternatives.


I would be happy with a 3d printed case... at least for now. The sophisticated industrial production would be not a criteria, but I understand that this would be the approach rockbox would like to go.

Thanks for your opinion.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: speachy on September 17, 2023, 08:53:58 AM
  • Small device - the smaller the better, but I would say that the maximum is 110x60x20mm
  • readable display
  • Repairable (incl. a replaceable battery)
  • Hackable / develop software for it
  • Extendable storage
  • Extra buttons (next, prev, hold)

There are quite a few devices available right now that meet this criteria, including several still purchasable new -- The Eros Q/K (+ clones) clock in at 90x55x15mm, the xDuoo X3ii is 102x53x15, the classic ipods, and more.  My daily driver is an original xDuoo X3 (106x45x14) which even has dual SD card slots.

What bugs me the most on the iPod nanos is that they are so hard to repair and have low battery life. That's why I'm looking for alternatives.

It's also purely internal-flash-based, which means it _will_ eventually fail and become a (crappy) paperweight.  That's one of the best arguments for the HDD-based iPods; the spinning rust can be replaced with a CF or SD card, easily swappable when it fails.

I would be happy with a 3d printed case... at least for now. The sophisticated industrial production would be not a criteria, but I understand that this would be the approach rockbox would like to go.

3D printing is awesome for prototyping, but it's horrendously expensive (and slow) for serial production.  (And you have detail/tolerance/finish limitations which can cause problems for things like buttons, which is a really big deal here.

It's actually pretty straightforward to build a prototype DAP using (eg) an SoC devkit and a protoboard; but to build your own PCB you need to already have the enclosure.


Thanks for your opinion.
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: sandreas on September 19, 2023, 01:50:29 AM
Quote
Thanks for your opinion.

Thanks for providing so much information :-) I really appreciate the time it took to answer these long posts.

Quote
There are quite a few devices available right now that meet this criteria, including several still purchasable new -- The Eros Q/K (+ clones) clock in at 90x55x15mm, the xDuoo X3ii is 102x53x15, the classic ipods, and more.  My daily driver is an original xDuoo X3 (106x45x14) which even has dual SD card slots.
Yeah, I know that. I'm the proud owner of several iPod classic 2009, I modded myself with an iFlash Quad, 512GB storage via micro SD (more would be detected, but do not work as expected because of memory and cpu limitations) and a 2200mah battery.

This thing is absolutely great, here is why I do not use it on a daily basis (I use it as a vacation device to have all my audio books with me):

I could use Rockbox and fix all this, but since there is lots of other things that do not work, it would be a huge amount of work... Rockbox whilst I appreciate all of the work that was put in is just not ready enough for listening to m4b audio books in my opinion :-)

Quote
It's also purely internal-flash-based, which means it _will_ eventually fail and become a (crappy) paperweight.  That's one of the best arguments for the HDD-based iPods; the spinning rust can be replaced with a CF or SD card, easily swappable when it fails.

Absolutely... I already thought of dumping the firmware and hacking it via reflow soldering and putting a cable between the flash chip and the soldering spots. I'm pretty sure the iPod 7g has:


But I did not find the time.

Quote
3D printing is awesome for prototyping, but it's horrendously expensive (and slow) for serial production.  (And you have detail/tolerance/finish limitations which can cause problems for things like buttons, which is a really big deal here.

It's actually pretty straightforward to build a prototype DAP using (eg) an SoC devkit and a protoboard; but to build your own PCB you need to already have the enclosure.

Yep. But I don't need a polished one. I would need one that works. Would be great to "go in production", but that has some challenges that will also slow down the release to in two years from now :-) I would like to have one as soon as possible.

For now, I'm happy enough with my iPod nano 6/7 and my Unihertz Jelly 2e running Audiobookshelf app. You can read about my Audiobookshelf experience here (https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf-app/discussions/864).

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: sandreas on December 12, 2023, 06:21:32 PM
In the long term, this device might be interesting:

https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t-display-s3-pro?bg_ref=7LJo9u5wwo


Price about 40 bucks. Based on ESP32-S3.

It's not very powerful, but this is only a question of time... It could also be extended to have an audio jack, because there already is a DAC included... Touchscreen contols, decent form factor.

Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: cleansugar on March 19, 2024, 03:56:12 PM
for references

The Cheapest MP3 Music Players from Ebay - Test and Teardown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2DHw_EMJOc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2DHw_EMJOc)

Cheap Chinese MP4 Player Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqbHN9hjygQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqbHN9hjygQ)

DFRplayer mini
https://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1121 (https://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1121)

https://github.com/Arduinolibrary/DFPlayer_Mini_mp3/raw/master/DFPlayer%20Mini%20Manual.pdf (https://github.com/Arduinolibrary/DFPlayer_Mini_mp3/raw/master/DFPlayer%20Mini%20Manual.pdf)

XY-V17B Mini MP3 Player Module Audio Voice Board 8Bit I/O UART Control Support SD Card TF Card
https://www.icstation.com/mini-player-module-audio-voice-board-8bit-uart-control-support-card-card-p-13279.html (https://www.icstation.com/mini-player-module-audio-voice-board-8bit-uart-control-support-card-card-p-13279.html)

Ruizu x02 digital music player review and tear down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uco3KGROhz8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uco3KGROhz8)

ATJ2127 MCU
https://ko.datasheetbank.com/pdf-view/ATJ2127-ETC (https://ko.datasheetbank.com/pdf-view/ATJ2127-ETC)
ATJ2127 UPGRADE.HEX decryption
https://github.com/nfd/atj2127decrypt (https://github.com/nfd/atj2127decrypt)
https://github.com/Suber/PD196_ATJ2127 (https://github.com/Suber/PD196_ATJ2127)

PFB29-12AL Flash
http://forums.xgecu.com/archiver/?tid-1168.html (http://forums.xgecu.com/archiver/?tid-1168.html)
Quote
XGecu Programmer Forums's Archiver
XGecu Programmer Forums » T56/TL866II Plus新增芯片支持 » Question for chip support
snipey 发表于 2023-8-16 03:42

Question for chip support
Is there any support for the following chip? If not, is it possible for me to add the chip manually some how?
PFB29-12AL
_
1438

It appears to be by spektek; here were the product specs I found.

https://www.spectek.com/pdfs/SPECTEK_4GB_NAND_m40a.PDF

It is a 16GB SD card with two of these chips and a microcontroller (So 2x8GB cards).

Thanks.

FNNM40A
https://13.209.45.252/?q=FNNM40A (https://13.209.45.252/?q=FNNM40A)

A strategy to emulate NOR flash with NAND flash
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1807060.1807062 (https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1807060.1807062)
This paper quotes "Spectek. 2007. FNNM40A 16Gb NAND Flash memory data sheet."
Title: Re: New cheap portable player in the market
Post by: rockcandy on March 20, 2024, 07:00:27 PM
Great discussions, insights, and information you have all provided above.
 
Seems like this thread lost momentum over the uncertainty and variability of the hardware inside various brands/models/iterations of the media players.
 
So I just wanted to point out, there exists a HUGE and consistent supply of complete finished devices, in new condition, which are ALWAYS powered by a Spreadtrum SC6531
 along with 4MB of RAM. You DO NOT need to order large quantities, you can buy just one, no problem.

They are CHEAP. They regularly go on sale for less than seven USD shipped, and their usual retail price is still under ten dollars shipped. Another good news: they even have
REMOVABLE rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries.

They are LEGIT, and readily available on Aliexpress. Furthermore, they're "Choice" items, meaning they're ready for immediate shipment, and will therefore arrive much faster. 
   
The catch is, they come in the form of a feature phone.

Yes, I'm talking about the 2G GSM phones. Typically they look like the kind of candy bar style Nokia handsets you may remember from the 2000's. Probably not the most attractive,
 nor very light, nor so small. But acceptable, super durable, and portable enough IMO.
 
I've bought a few of those before, set them up and given them away as FM radios. They were some of the cheapest FM radios I could find which came with a stereo 3.5mm
output jack and a rechargeable (800 to 1800 mAh) Li-ion battery that is actually managed by a proper power management unit.

I myself have been using Rockbox on a Sansa clip+, now with its battery health in decline. My search for the next Rockbox player has led me here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One example: MKTEL OYE 3 - $6.22 sale price for the Red color (there's an Aliexpress "anniversary sale" going on now through March 27, 2024)
(save another 2% using Aliexpress coins) = $6.10

(Spreadtrum SC6531EFM), 1800 mAh battery. Rubberized plastic back plate. The main body looks and feels like ABS plastic. Large quantities (1200+ units available as of this writing, and they do get replenished regularly) between the 3 different colors

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805015455298.html (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805015455298.html)

You might get them for even less if it's offered to you as part of a personalized "Super Deals" on the homepage (search for it, add to cart, show some interest in the item etc., and eventually the algorithm might offer it to you). If you're new to Aliexpress, they may be bought as a "Welcome Deal" for as low as $1.24 (or about five dollars off). If you miss the anniversary sale, being Choice items, they'll be on sale again at the beginning of every month.

I never opened up the devices physically, but dialed the "secret" code below and it reported SC6531.

#*8378#4# (#*test#4#) - uptime/charge/IMEI/chipset information

<CHIP TYPE>
SC6531EFM_AB

The same seller (Desoon) also has MKTEL M2023 with a smaller (but not that much more portable) 800 mAh battery, for around the same price, in large quantities (1600+ units available). M2023 also reported the identical string for its chip type as OYE 3.

I have no affiliation with Aliexpress/Mktel/Desoon, other than having bought from them before. They just seem widely available on Aliexpress. There are also other brands such as PLUZZ and more, although it's probably wise to stick with the most available brand/model for consistency.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another way to look at it: 2G feature phones must have sold in the hundreds of millions by now globally. It's ancient technology, to be honest. By market share, MediaTek and Spreadtrum/Unisoc appear to have a strong duopoly when it comes to 2G handset SoC. MediaTek MT626x family are ARM7, and Spreadtrum SC6531x family are ARM926EJ-S. These phones usually advertise either 32 "Mb" or "mb" or "MB" of RAM and ROM, more likely than not, it's the small b for bits, not Bytes. (32Mb = 4MB).
 
The mp4 players at the start of this thread may have been Shenzhen's attempt to leverage existing/surplus feature phone parts into creating newer sleeker media players based on the same 1.77 inch screen. Unfortunately their components were all over the place. I just thought it's probably worthwhile to target the phones themselves instead, given how abundant/available/affordable they are.

Thank you!