Rockbox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Rockbox | |
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 iPod Video, ipodVision theme |
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| Developer: | The Rockbox Crew |
|---|---|
| Latest release: | 2.5 / September 22, 2005, daily SVN builds |
| OS: | Unix, Windows, MacOS supported |
| Use: | Firmware |
| License: | GNU GPL |
| Website: | http://www.rockbox.org |
Rockbox is a free software replacement firmware for digital audio players (DAPs). It is released under the GNU General Public License. The Rockbox project began in late 2001 and was first implemented on the Archos Studio DAP because of owner frustration with severe limitations in the manufacturer-supplied user interface and device operations.
Rockbox offers an alternative to the host device's operating system firmware (in many cases without removing the original firmware) and has matured to become an extensible, flexible platform that provides a plug-in architecture for adding PDA functionality, applications, utilities, and games, and has also managed to retrofit video playback functionality onto DAPs first released in mid-2000. Rockbox also includes a voice-driven user-interface suitable for operation by blind and visually impaired users.
Rockbox runs on a wide variety of portable audio devices with very different hardware abilities: from early Archos players with 1-bit charcell-based displays to modern players with high resolution color displays, digital optical audio hardware and advanced recording capabilities.
Although Rockbox's official title is "Rockbox: Open Source Jukebox Firmware", in many instances it is not actually installed to (or run from) flash memory. Instead a minimal bootloader is installed in the supported device's flash which is capable of loading either Rockbox from the hard disk or, alternatively, the original factory firmware. Installing to flash is also supported on certain devices.
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[edit] Development
Rockbox was first designed for the early Archos series of hard-disk based MP3 players and player/recorders, including the flash-only model Ondio. These devices have relatively weak main CPUs and instead offload music playback to dedicated hardware MP3 decoding chips (called the MAS). Rockbox, therefore, was unable to significantly alter playback capabilities. Instead, it offered a greatly improved user interface and added plugin functionality not present in the factory firmware. Rockbox is capable of being permanently flashed into flash memory on the Archos devices, making it a literal firmware replacement.
Versions of Rockbox have since been produced for more sophisticated devices. These perform audio decoding in software, allowing Rockbox to potentially support many more music formats than the original firmware as well as bringing the extensibility and increased functionality already present in the Archos ports. Rockbox is run from the hard disk on these devices, after being started with a custom bootloader, so to upgrade Rockbox users need only copy the files onto the player's drive and restart the device. Reflashing is only necessary when changing the bootloader, and on some platforms, is not required at all.
The first of these ports, beginning in late 2004, was for the ColdFire-powered devices manufactured by iriver, focusing on the H1xx series of hard drive players (H110/H120/H140). Approximately one year later a port for the H3xx series became functional, offering similar functionality.
In late 2005, work began on a port of Rockbox to Apple iPod portable players. As of 2006, Rockbox ports are available for a variety of iPod models (iPod photo, iPod nano, iPod 4g, iPod Video, and iPod 5g). As of February 2007, usable ports are also available for the iRiver H10 and Toshiba Gigabeat F & X series. As of March 2007, a new port for the Cowon iAUDIO M5 became functional. On March 11th, 2007, the SanDisk Sansa e200 series became the newest addition to the Rockbox lineup.
To date, all Rockbox ports have been accomplished by reverse engineering with little or no manufacturer assistance. However, as free software, many Rockbox developers and supporters hope to eventually see official manufacturer support for new ports, or at least unofficial assistance in porting Rockbox to new devices. To date, only a few companies have expressed interest in Rockbox, and none have officially contributed code to the project or included it with their hardware. The Sansa port is the first to be started at the request of the hardware manufacturer who gave the Rockbox team samples of their devices.
Rockbox is continuously developed, with new SVN builds being released after every source change.
[edit] Customization
Subject to the limitations of each particular platform, the appearance of Rockbox can be customised in various ways. Fonts and foreground and background colours can be added and selected, while a simple markup language can be used to create themes for the menu and while-playing screens. These themes can include background and other images (such as icons), plus various formats for filenames, ID3 tags, file progress, time and system information. Album art is not supported by the main builds, but can be added by patches.
Rockbox has been essentially a file-tree based player, to which folders could be dragged and dropped, then navigated by folder structure. More recent versions, however, have included a database feature which allows the player to compile information from the files' ID3 tags. The user can then navigate the files using this database regardless of file structure.
[edit] Screenshots
 iriver H120, LlamaBeta theme |
 iPod Video, Minty theme |
 iPod Video, iPodVision theme |
 iAudio X5, zenX5 theme |
 iPod Nano, Black Glass MGr theme |
 iPod Nano, Tango theme |
 iriver H320/iPod Photo, DGT theme |
 Archos Player/Recorder, WPS by Jens Arnold |
 Toshiba Gigabeat, beatMP WPS by Kirill Lanchev |
[edit] Features
[edit] Codecs
(for software decoding targets)
[edit] Lossy compression
[edit] Lossless compression
- FLAC
- WavPack (lossless)
- Shorten [4]
- Apple Lossless
[edit] Uncompressed
[edit] Game-related/misc
[edit] Other
- Gapless playback
- Replay Gain [6]
- 5 band fully parametric equalizer [6]
- OTF ("on the fly") playlists
- True random shuffle (fresh randomly shuffled list every time)
- Custom UI themes
- Stereo recording to WAV/AIFF/WavPack (lossless) and MP3 [7] (supporting devices)
- FM radio, including FM recording (supporting devices)
- Remote control (supporting devices)
- Digital SPDIF input/output (supporting devices)
- Last.fm support (even on players lacking RTC)
- Cuesheet support
[edit] Plugins
- JPEG viewer (16 bit color/33 shade greyscale) [8]
- Rockboy Game Boy emulator (port of Gnuboy) [9]
- ZXBox ZX Spectrum emulator (port of Spectemu) [10]
- Doom (port of the PrBoom engine)
- WAV to MP3 encoder
- WAV to WavPack encoder
- MPEG video player [11]
- Various games including sudoku, solitaire, minesweeper, pong and many others (see http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/PluginIndex for an official list of plugins)
- MIDI player, realtime on some targets. Requires external instrument set, available on Rockbox page.
[edit] Unsupported
- Firewire
- Digital rights management
- WMA playback
- USB host capability ("USB On-The-Go")
[edit] Architecture
[edit] Kernel
The Rockbox kernel is very simple, with a flat memory model (allowing it to run on platforms without a memory management unit) and single process. Thin threads run cooperatively, returning control to a scheduler that prioritizes the audio thread; the only form of preemption is through interrupts. The operating system and plugins are written in C, with assembler used for device- and platform-specific code, in addition to performance sensitive code. The simple and lightweight architecture allows Rockbox to run on a variety of targets, with memory ranging from 1 to 64MB, and CPU speeds ranging 12 to 300MHz. Rockbox also provides limited support for multicore and asymmetric multiprocessor systems.
[edit] Supported devices
Only Archos devices have been declared to be officially supported in a release. The following should be considered to be a list of devices that at least substantially work (listed as "Supported" or "Usable" on the Rockbox wiki Device Chart). See the Device Chart for details.
[edit] Archos
- Archos Player/Studio
- Archos Recorder
- Archos FM Recorder
- Archos V2 Recorder
- Ondio FM
- Ondio SP
[edit] iriver
- H100 series (H100/H110/H115/H120/H140, aka iHP-100/110/115/120/140)
- H300 series (H320/H340)
- H10 series (H10 5, 6, and 20GB)
[edit] iAudio
[edit] Apple
- iPod 5G/5.5G (Video) [except the 80GB version]
- iPod 4G (Color/Photo)
- iPod 4G (Grayscale)
- iPod 3G
- iPod nano 1G
- iPod Mini 1G
- iPod Mini 2G
[edit] Toshiba
- Gigabeat F series (F10/F11/F20/F21/F30/F31/F40/F41/F60)
- Gigabeat X series
[edit] Sandisk
- Sansa e200 series (all non -R models)
[edit] Ports in development
Rockbox is developed by users of various portable players. Users interested in porting Rockbox to their platform are always welcome to join development efforts. [3] In principle, any device based on a CPU with a GCC port is a possible target for Rockbox, however devices that are based on components already used by existing rockbox ports are easiest to develop. Devices based on parts with no public documentation or that aggressively protect their firmware with hash checking or encryption are more difficult to port.
[edit] iriver iFP-xxx
A port to the iFP-xxx flash-based devices (starting with the iFP-790) is underway. Runs and is being actively developed, however limited memory and CPU power prevent it from playing most formats. An open source emulator to aid in development for the iFP is available. [4]
[edit] Tatung Elio TPJ-1022
The Elio TPJ-1022 is another PortalPlayer based target with initial work that has been committed to CVS.
[edit] Archos AV300
The Archos AV300 series is the first PMP (portable media player) and hybrid SWCODEC/HWCODEC device to have a Rockbox port developed. The AV320/340/380 contains both an MAS and a general purpose CPU capable of software decoding. The port is currently suitable only for developers, SWCODEC functionality has not yet been implemented. A working UI simulator exists.
[edit] Additional Targets
Preliminary investigation of the Nano2G has begun, however no one has yet determined a way to run code on the platform. Determining this will likely require someone with a BGA programmer to dump the bootrom from a Nano so that it's encryption method can be determined.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Not all AAC profiles are supported, and not all supported profiles plays back realtime on all supported targets.
- ^ WavPack hybrid mode not supported (only the lossy portion will play; correction files are not utilized).
- ^ Supports downmixing 5.1 channel audio streams to standard two channel stereo during playback.
- ^ No seeking.
- ^ AIFF supported with some limitations. [1]
- ^ a b Software decoding targets only
- ^ MP3, WavPack and AIFF are available on non-Archos devices. Multiple sample rates and bitrates available (hardware-dependent).
- ^ Thirty-three shade greyscale is achieved on 1 bit and 2 bit (4 shade) greyscale targets due to exploitation of the slow passive LCD refresh rate.
- ^ Rockboy supports original Game Boy and Game Boy Color ROMs.
- ^ ZXBox emulates ZX Spectrum 48. The original site of Spectemu. [2]
- ^ The mpegplayer plugin supports MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video streams with MPEG audio (layer II/III) multiplexed into .mpg files with no limits on framerate or bitrate. No scaling, rebuffering or A/V sync correction is performed.
[edit] External links
[edit] Official sites
[edit] Wiki port pages
- iriver port main page - H1xx/H3xx info
- iriver h10 port - iriver H10 specific info
- iPod port - iPod info
- iAudio port - iAudio X5 info
- Toshiba Gigabeat Info
- iriver iFP port - iFP-xxx info
