iRiver Owners, RockBox Rocks!

cormie

I know this doesn't belong in AH, but it doesn't belong anywhere else either. Alas, if only there was a Portable Multimedia Forum.

It's been a long time coming, Bruce, but RockBox is finally in full swing for the iRiver H1XX series. It's brilliant!

The amount of features are amazing. It takes a bit of getting used to so I wont delay in telling you how to get it.

First of all, download the latest iRiver firmware for your Model:
H140 + H120:
Europe, America, Korea

H115 + H110:
Europe, America, Korea

Then download the RockBox Firmware Patcher, extract the iRiver .hex file and then open fwpatcher.exe, find the .hex file and click patch. You may as well delete everything you downloaded but keep the patched .hex file.

Next, download the latest RockBox daily build. Click here, then click the "latest link" under your model.


Connect your H1XX to your pc,
1) Put the patched .hex file in the root directory (if there is an old one there, delete it first)
2) Put the .rockbox folder and the rockbox.iriver file from the daily build link into the root directory.
3) Disconnect your iRiver

Now I forget if it will boot into rockbox now or if it will boot into the iRiver firmware. If it boots into rockbox, turn your player off by holding stop and boot into iRiver by holding rec and pressing play. Once in the iRiver firmware, click and hold the joystick to get to the General Settings screen, update firmware.

Once updated you should be able to take advantage of this great firmware.

Warning: This is still in development so use it at your own risk. Nobody has bricked their player though and the advantages are definitely worth the small risk.

Keep an eye on this page for more up to date info and help. Keep an eye on this page for new daily builds.

Enjoy :cool:

Wertz

Gadgets?
I'm sure someone will relocate it for you in a bit.

Zaph

Cormie, for those of us who don't want to wade through all the tech-speak on MisticRiver, any chance of a quick run down of the features Rockbox adds to the H1XX, plus known bugs in it if there are any?

Thanks

cormie

I suppose Gadgets would be the most appropriate forum but a Portable Multimedia Forum would be nice.

Anyway,
RockBox features. There are so many.

-3 second boot-up
-On the Fly playlists, delete, folder creation etc
-bookmarking songs (audio books for example, you can bookmark a point in the audio file and go back to it at a later time playing other tracks in between)
-Grey Scale support (not fully implemented yet) which should allow you to view album art in black and white
-Rockboy, gameboy emulator
-Tonnes of plug ins and games like snake and many more
-Battery meter displays hours and minutes remaining
-Crossfade (gapless fading of one song into another)
-True shuffle
-Customisable display, change font size, WPS (while playing screen) which allows you to display whatever part of an ID3 tag you want and also lets you display next track info
-More audio Codec support, supports ogg wavpak and loads of other codecs.

There are many more features but make sure you browse the settings when you load rockbox to ensure they are all enabled etc and to have a proper look at everything that's there. It's still in development so some things don't work but I now use it over iRiver firmware as it can do everything so much better (it can't record yet, but you can just boot back to iRiver firmware when you need to record)

The risk is tiny so don't worry, I don't even think there is a risk. They just say that incase there is if you get me!

PiE

Yup, been using it ever since it (finally) started playing mp3's. It's quite awesome and a HUGE improvement over the crappy iRiver firmware.

Creamy Goodness

the second i saw this post i thought this firmware update looked tough (longish enough guide), i gave it a shot and i'm disappointed.

i am not sure that i have an iriver anymore, it boots up in 1/5th of the time with the old firmware on (10seconds as opposed to 2 seconds).

i'm still trying to get the hang of the userface (it's not a lot different but as i only done it literally 3 minutes ago, i need adjustment time).

this has truely brought that extra bang into my iriver and i like the fact that album art will be implimented in the future.

if only iriver released firmware like this.

cormie

Cremo wrote:

i gave it a shot and i'm disappointed..

Disappointed with what

Make sure you go through each setting, turn cross fade on etc etc. Just go through everything and you'll be sorted.

Creamy Goodness

cormie wrote:

Disappointed with what

Make sure you go through each setting, turn cross fade on etc etc. Just go through everything and you'll be sorted.

oops that was meant to come across as a joke, it seemed good at the time.

anyways this is by far the best thing to happen to my iriver since i swaped my ipod for one.

cormie

I thought you were saying you were disappointed that the thread wasn't complicated enough or something :rolleyes:

Yeah, **** joke anyway

Anyway, download this, extract both files into the .rockbox folder, disconnect your H, boot up RockBox, make sure View File Types is set to "All" (you can get to this menu quick by pressing and holding a-b, then just press down untill "All" is selected, then browse into the .rockbox folder and click on rockbox2.wps. Then have a little look at you're play screen. Make sure font is set to rockbox default. Nice huh?

Creamy Goodness

that's nice cormie but i don't like the rockbox logo down the bottom right it's blocking the song time line thing... was the file you posted there for the h320/340? as i only have the h140 and it looks to me that this is being squashed on to the screen.

K!LL!@N

This sounds promising, but i think i'll hold off for a little while longer.

Killian

cormie

Nope, I have a H140, go into settings, display, status-/scrollbar and make sure Scroll Bar and Status bar are set to YES. I think they are by default, but check anyway.

It may be the font you're using?
Go to settings/display/browse fonts and make sure rockbox_default is selected. I've had the squash problem before and the settings above have solved it. There may be something else I'm forgetting, make sure the above are set and let me know if it's still squashed!

Creamy Goodness

ahh that's what it was it was the font.

is there anyway of stopping the next song from scrolling across the screen?

cormie

K!LL!@N wrote:

This sounds promising, but i think i'll hold off for a little while longer.

Killian

There is actually now no reason to hold out. I've been following the rockbox progress for a good while and I had it on my H early just to check it out, up until about 2 weeks ago I used iRiver over it, but now it far surpasses the iRiver fw and there is really nothing to worry about. Give it a shot, you wont be using iRiver fw again I guarantee you! Even just for the crossfade, I was at a party last night and had my H1XX hooked up and enqueuing songs they just faded into eachother, evem if I changed from one to another without them finishing, no gap, great! Where as my bro had his H3XX and it just sounds so **** with a gap, I haven't heard the gaps in a while, but the difference is amazing once you experience gapless crossfading!

Kevin_rc_ie

i want rockbox for h3x0.

cormie

Kevin_rc_ie wrote:

i want rockbox for h3x0.

They have already started work on the H3XX. Patience son.

Kevin_rc_ie

correction

i want rockbox for h3x0 now.

OfflerCrocGod

cormie wrote:

They have already started work on the H3XX. Patience son.

What sort of time for release are we talking about?

Draupnir

Any plans for Rockbox for the h10?

cormie

I heard that once they had it working on the H1XX that it would be easier to implement on other iRivers too. I don't know when you should expect to see it on the H3XX, there will be many complications, colour, video etc. I'd say 6 months minimum maybe? Who knows! I don't know if they will work on the H10 either? I don't see why not.

The Free Man

i have a h140, did everything right. it doesnt play wma's! is that for serious, or just my ignorance?

cormie

uh oh... how much of your collection is WMA? I never really took notice of the WMA progress but it says codec progress is only at 50% so I'm assuming WMA isn't there yet, I'm not sure when it will be either. That's a pitty

The Free Man

yea pretty much all of mine are wma doh! ah well, ill keep it anyway til it does come along.

rubadub

90% of mine are WMA. Does the cross-fade work better than the ipod version? If you are listening to a live album or running album (e.g. sgt. pepper) are there any noticeable gaps or change in volume or is it truely gapless.

Zaph

So if I understand things correctly, Rockbox doesn't replace the iRiver firmware, it sits side by side with it on the machine, is that right? If so, how much space does it take up and how do you decide which software you're running?

cormie

I never knew iPod had gapless? I know the Karma does and it sounds great but yes, RockBox does perfect gapless. I just turned crossfade off to test it without that on, I tested it on Surrender by The Chemical Brothers at the end of "Got Glint" before it goes into "Hey Boy, Hey Girl" there is a continous sound and nope, no gaps:) Crossfade is beautiful if you had it on shuffle and for non continuous album tracks.

Yes, rockbox and the iRiver firmware sit side by side. I think rockbox becomes the default and you turn that on how you usually would turn the iRiver on (press play), to get back to the iRiver Firmware you hold rec and press play.

Rockbox is less than 600kb to download so I presume that's how much space it takes up on your hard drive once you have it on.

Other features I forgot to mention:

Progressive scrolling and progressive scan: When scrolling through a list of files, the more you scroll the faster it goes, this is the same when ff/rw through a song, and it's great because when it gets towards the end of the song it slows down again:)

100 step volume: instead of 40 max, 100 is the max. This doesn't mean rockbox is louder, it just means you can get closer to your desired volume. This is good for me as I would go to bed with music playing on my H, 3 would be slightly too loud but 2 would be slightly too low, rockbox allows for the in between.

If I were you guys after experiencing what rockbox has to offer, I'd be tempted to re-rip to lame MP3. :rolleyes:

OfflerCrocGod

cormie wrote:

If I were you guys after experiencing what rockbox has to offer, I'd be tempted to re-rip to lame MP3. :rolleyes:

Indeed I think you have to be insane to rip to wma. Utterly loony. I cannot wait until this is running on the H3** series

The Free Man

yes i'm tempted to do that, but itll take days....

cormie

For when you do...

The Free Man

thanx buddy, ill get around to that sometime
have you tried the gameboy emulator yet? does it control well?

cormie

no prob, follow that guide, it'd good, it will take about 10 mins to set up and then you'll be able to get the best rips on your CDs.

I'm not much of a gamer, I've really only tried the wonderful Tetris DX on it but I haven't given it a proper shot, but it seems to be fine. I have some pretty sick high scores from the actual gameboy, I'm not sure if I'd be able to beat them or come close on the H1XX but I'm sure for the likes of pokemon and other games it's fine, you'd have to test and compare yourself I really wouldn't know.

herobear

rockbox isnt compatible with the remote how pointless is that
that alone makes me not wanna bother with it, besides the fact that it has an ugly ui, and alot of my mp3s blend in together causing dodgy errors.

well im gonna stck with the iriver firmware for the moment anyway

Zaph

It doesn't work with the remote? What's the point then? Surely the Rockbox guys know that the remote is one of the best features, so why not make sure their gear works with it? Think I'll wait a bit before installing Rockbox to see if they come up with a fix for that.

Creamy Goodness

i don't use the remote itself but in the rockbox options somewhere i could of swore i saw some options for the remote.

cormie

RockBox does work with the remote. As I have said, this is still in development, it improves every day and you can download the improvements every day. The remote function is almost complete so don't worry. I don't use the remote either for every day use.

What dodgy errors are you talking about with your MP3s?

The UI aint the prettiest but once you get used to it, it doesn't really matter how it looks as it's so much better to use. All these issues will be resolved in time. At the moment their main concern is fixing bugs, getting the codecs etc etc. Once all that is done maybe nicer menus will be designed, it's open source so if someone wants something, they just do it.

Zaph, there is no harm in just trying rockbox, you'll still be able to use your iRiver firmware as it is, but you probably wont use it much after you install rockbox. Surely the 3 second boot is enough to get you to spend a few minutes downloading etc:)

herobear

RockBox does work with the remote. As I have said, this is still in development, it improves every day and you can download the improvements every day. The remote function is almost complete so don't worry. I don't use the remote either for every day use.

well yes it works, but it might as well not do, since the fat lotta help it is, the sreen just constantly displays that rockbox logo,
some clarification on other problems that im having,
1. the sound is awful, i need to push upto the early 70's to hear anything other than a whisper
2. that playlist on the fly idea doesnt seem to work for me(it also treats every single folder as a separate playlist, so that when the last song in the folder finishes, the sound goes dead)
3. it displays EVERY single frickin file on the harddrive, regardless of whether it can utilise it or not(i have a lot of programs/word documents/pictures everywhere which is a pain, pointlessy trawling through)
4. when i click on a song too play, and then quickly move onto another song, it starts up the new song, cuts after a few seconds and plays a a few seconds of the first, then returns to the second again

so how exactly do i get rid of the rockbox firmware without screwing my iriver up ?

is it just a simple delete job ?

cormie

The remote will be up and running in no time. Patience is a virtue:)

1) But once you get it up to the 70's it's ok, right?
2) Settings, General, Playback, Move to Next Folder: Yes
3) Click and hold A-B, press down until it says "supported"
4) Tried it a few times, it doesn't happen to me?

All the above is with todays latest build. Make sure you keep it updated, it takes about 70 seconds to update between downloading and putting it on your H.

There is also the new bootloader, version 4, follow the instructions on the first post to put the latest one on your H.

I don't know how to get rid of rockbox actually. I have no desire to.

If you reeeeally want to, click here and someone should be able to help. But I suggest you get the latest bootloader, daily build and also put that WPS file on, and when you have all that done, go through the menus and have a look at the different options to make sure you're preferences are met.

This is an example of the kind of progress that goes on:

17 Jul 21:44 Miika apps/playback.c 1.117 Fixed a problem that caused codec switching to fail on certain rare conditions.
17 Jul 21:02 Miika firmware/pcm_playback.c 1.60 Check that remaining bytes counter is not zero.
17 Jul 19:29 Miika apps/recorder/peakmeter.c 1.23
firmware/export/pcm_playback.h 1.20
firmware/pcm_playback.c 1.59 Initial attempt to support peak meter on iriver. It still has some strange behaviour and readings might not be correct.
17 Jul 15:59 Linus firmware/system.c 1.57 iriver: Reduced LCD write cycle length to 65ns, almost halving the execution time for lcd_update, from 1.8ms to 1ms in 120MHz
17 Jul 15:35 Miika apps/playback.c 1.116 Fixed the gapless playback.
17 Jul 13:42 Linus firmware/system.c 1.56 iriver: Adjusted to optimal I2C bit rates
17 Jul 11:19 Magnus apps/screens.c 1.102 Bring back missing information (path, frequency) in the ID3 information screen.
17 Jul 00:19 Mats apps/lang/svenska.lang 1.66 Empty line removed.
17 Jul 00:13 Mats apps/lang/svenska.lang 1.65 Synced.
16 Jul 21:06 Daniel apps/FILES 1.29 added codecs/lib/SOURCES, as mentioned by Antonius Hellmann
16 Jul 12:25 Magnus apps/dsp.c 1.7
apps/dsp.h 1.3
apps/playback.c 1.115 Restructured DSP code for readability and speed. Simplified the API.
16 Jul 08:56 Jens apps/lang/deutsch.lang 1.81 Synced.

Just have some patience and you'll be dancin' in no time. Remember, they are still in development, they haven't even got the radio/recording features done yet, so just wait and in time all will be well.

long_b

Sounds deadly alright ... what are the chances of them getting an "official release" out do you reckon, with some kind of up to date manual ?

Came very close to killing my 140 there a couple of weeks ago (by disconnecting too early) - have come over all overprotective after that I'll tell ya.

cormie

Well you see they update it daily, I don't know when there will be an official release, but it's good enough at the moment if all you do is listen to music and don't record much and don't switch between the radio often.

It seems really safe too. The developers obviously know what they are doing and not one player has been bricked yet:)

OfflerCrocGod

The Free Man wrote:

thanx buddy, ill get around to that sometime

If I were you and I had the required storage I'd look into ripping everything into FLAC or APE format and then convert the songs of each CD that I'd actually want into MP3. That way you would have a lossless back up for all your CDs and you could listen to those with Winamp but you could then transfer your MP3s to your portable player. I realise that the hassle would be great but the advantages of perfect copies of all your CDs and the ability to convert from the lossless format to whichever new or wanted lossy format you want could be very usefull. Of course if you have a million CDs then I suppose you can forget this

brian_ire

unfortunately rockbox wasnt for me, at the moment anyway. For someone who lives by their iriver remote, the lack of fuctionality in the remote (at the moment) makes it pointless for myself.

about deleteing it off your player, all i did was a simple delete and then reinstalled the iriver firmware to be on the safe side, now shes back working again in all her "remote" glory.

cormie

keep an eye on rockbox.org and hopefully the remote will be in full swing soon:) probably along with allot more improvements by then also:)

grumpytrousers

Well, for the record, I downloaded and installed that rockbox doo-hickey last night and have to say I'm well impressed with it. The quick boot-up, and the fact that it passes the Sgt Pepper/Night At The Opera/Live-Album-Of-Choice test with flying colours makes the job a good 'un.

I trust I'm right that we should not be expecting our radios to work on it, nor the remote control to do much (bar volume and track skipping) yet and that we can boot up with old-skool iRiver firmware rather easily!

well done all round to those rockbox boffins!!!

cormie

I'm sure in a short time the remote will be fully functional, give it a while for radio and recording though!

rubadub

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Indeed I think you have to be insane to rip to wma. Utterly loony.

Jesus I must check myself into john of gods so, along with those crazy fucckers who prefer pepsi over coke.

mine are all 128 (again shock horror, how can you listen to that crap) many sites say 128wma is better than lame 128, I prefer it myself though can only really tell a slight difference on some albums with good earphones. most people/nerds/techies have a bias against wma because there is a "w" in it and they can hear bill gates laughing at them in the background of all their rips...

but I still want to try out rockbox. can you hook up lame so it will grab all your songs titles? i rip through windows media player because it is so simple I think there is some way to put lame encoders in that.

cormie

I've nothing against Windows, I mean, what else would I have used if it wasn't for Windows? Anyway, I linked a good page in a previous post on this thread that will tell you the best way to encode to MP3 using lame, follow the steps and yes, it can grab song titles from a DB too:) I've heard things about 128wma being better than 128 mp3, but I rip to Varial Bit Rate myself which I think is the best thing to do. I'm not much of an audiophile, but I've read many sources saying Lame with EAC is the best way to go.

OfflerCrocGod

rubadub wrote:

mine are all 128 (again shock horror, how can you listen to that crap) many sites say 128wma is better than lame 128, I prefer it myself though can only really tell a slight difference on some albums with good earphones. most people/nerds/techies have a bias against wma because there is a "w" in it and they can hear bill gates laughing at them in the background of all their rips.

It has nothing to do with windows or it's quality it's that MP3 is and will be supported by any and all players out there so if you ever come across a situation where wma is not.....well your sitting pretty while with MP3 you will be supported, who cares if it sounds better if you can't play it? By way there is a large difference between 128 and 256 or Variable 192-320, a really large difference for some songs.....128 is FM radio quality.

Dr Cox's Ego

In one sentance: what, exactly, does it do?

grumpytrousers

Dr Cox's Ego wrote:

In one sentance: what, exactly, does it do?

What does what do?

The Rockbox firmware is essentially an alternative (open source) operating system for the H1xx series of Mp3 players manufactured by iRiver which gives certain features not there in the native system; among the fancy assed things in it are a dead quick boot-up, enhanced playlist stuff and seamless track to track playing - c.f. reference to Sgt Pepper etc above.

However, (and I'm breaching your request of one sentence here!) it doesn't currently support the Radio which is built in to the unit, and the remote control functionality is limited to skipping tracks and volume.

cormie

The iRiver is a piece of hardware which uses a piece of software called a firmware. The iRiver firmware will allow you to choose music and a few other things, but lacks features that make listening to your music, that bit more enjoyable. RockBox is a third party firmware created using open source development. It allows multiple developers to work and improve it at their own pace. The job eventually gets done and is free for all to use. It is far superior to the iRiver firmware as it has been developed by iRiver users who want the best out of their expensive hardware. It offers such features as, on the fly (create as you) playlists, gapless playback, crossfade and many more as listed in previous posts. Not one sentance, sorry:( It's brilliant though, get it;)

cormie

grumpytrousers wrote:

However, (and I'm breaching your request of one sentence here!) it doesn't currently support the Radio

Or recording functionality, but these can still be accessed using the iRiver firmware by holding the REC button and pressing play.

Radio and Recording will be implemented soon and recording is set to have such features as a peak meter (greatly missed on iRiver) which will show you the volume of the recording whilst it's recording so you can adjust it to the desired sound to avoid distortion and the likes.