Has anyone tried loading Rockbox into their Ipod?
http://www.cnettv.com/9742-1_53-29035.html


http://www.rockbox.org/manual.shtml
Supposedly, you can play many files that you couldn't before including .flac which is a nice lossless format.

Also, it has very customizable EQ settings. Free digital EQ'ing at our finger tips.
http://download.rockbox.org/manual/r...l#x9-1050006.8


Now I have not done this.... yet. But i think this is a kick ass feature for anyone that desires a well balance system or just wants to tailor the sound how they want.

Perhaps this weekend, my ipod will be dual bootable (apple or rockbox) and the car audio (ipod path only) will be eq'd properly!

 

I have it on my Ipod Video, but didn't like the interface too much, so I never really messed with it. It's a pain in the ass to put IPL on the 5th gen Ipods though.

 

I ran rockbox for about 6 months. There are tons of skins available online so any complaints about interface (yes, default one sucks) are easily resolved. The functionality of it is superb. I loaded exclusively FLAC files on it and it played them back, with gapless playback, another missing feature from apple ipod. The 2 reasons I did it originally were gapless and flac.

Then, i got an iphone on release day. iphone supports gapless playback natively, so that solved a huge concern, and I just reencoded my flacs into high quality MP3s, and of course I'm in love with the iphone.

So, any updates they've done since about March, which was the last time I updated my binaries, I'm not familiar with. While I'm on the topic, the things about it I didn't like were otherwise missing "OEM" features like pausing playback when headphones disconnect (gym) or when my usa spec disconnected (car turning off). With the oem OS on it, the ipod turns off 2 minutes after the car does and then it will have battery. With rockbox, it doesn't interpret the "no power" signal as "stop playback" that way oem OS does, so I'd go to use it later and the battery would be dead. There were tons of minor inconveniences like that which made the experience only a 4 out of 5 stars. But, overall, it was a great product, especially for a gpl / homebrew app.

 

Thanks for the feedback....

I installed the latest incantation of rockbox with clean looking skin on my ipod video.

The ability to play flac files is nice. Although, I didn't hear the boost in fidelity (from mp3) i was hoping to. A lot of playback has a harshness noticeable in vocals, usually female. I figured it was the encode/decode portion of mp3s until i played flac files in the car. This was my original complaint with the ipod, but now i'm wondering where in the system the fidelity is worsening. The customizable eq in rockbox is awesome for tweaking, but i wasn't able to tweak out the fidelity problems yet.

It should be noted that i'm using a modified stock amp (xover and tweeter section) and much improved speakers.

Although i'll likely ask this in a new thread, has anyone traced out the shortcomings or dissected the stock h/u? Anyone notice much fidelity difference between various ipod interfaces to aux? i'm a bit puzzled as to where the bottleneck is.

 

how do you load stuff on an ipod?

 

check out for instructions (note this manual is for the ipod video, different manuals per device)
http://www.rockbox.org/manual.shtml

there are auto and manual install methods. afterwards you'll have the choice to boot up the ipod into Apple's UI or Rockbox's (default)

 

The rockbox equalizer utility works wonders!! I don't yet have pics of my settings, but after tweaking the 5 band digital EQ (variable gain/attenuation, center frequency and Q), its sounding like real music.

I'm sure others would find this EQ a great benefit. After my tweaks, the vocals are much more present and a lot of the harshness (brightness) in the upper frequencies has been lessened. I don't think i'll listen to the fm radio or CD player much anymore... it will be the ipod only if i want performance.

 

anyone have this problem? I'm getting a read fail error.

Loading rockbox. ipod
Error!
Can't load rockbox. ipod:
Read fail (image)
Hold MENU+SELECT to reboot
then SELECT+PLAY for disk mode

 

is this error from an auto install attempt? I do recall getting an error (but i don't remember if it was the same) when attempting the auto install, bagged it, then went the manual install route.

The manual install worked fine for me... ipod video 5g.

Extract the mp3 player specific zip to ipod (should show up as .rockbox in your root ipod directory)
Extract fonts zip to ipod
Extract a particular theme you want in the background and the wps (while playing screen). There are some nice larger font options for car or general use.

http://download.rockbox.org/manual/r...-ipodvideo.pdf
starting page 13

 

i manual installed everything. did everything the manual said to do. some how it screwed up my ipod. none of my songs shows up anymore and it took like 5 minutes just to load up on itunes. ituned just told me to restore it so i did. now i have to put all the music back into my ipod.

 

Well that sounds awful... i erased my ipod songs before i ever loaded rockbox so i don't know if i would have encountered a glitch. I have yet to load it up with many songs to test out song navigation or the database updater.

I'm glad to hear its back in working order.

 

Current build of Rockbox seems to be very buggy IMO. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I tried loading it onto my 3rd gen Ipod, and it seems to be dead now and will not boot up. Deffinately do this at your own risk.

 

Perhaps i had luck on my side when loading the software. From others experience, it sounds like anyone interested in installing should wait for another rev.

Rockbox would probably be better off with your feedback. Hopefully, they can assist you in reviving your 3G ipod.