Rockbox - CLOSED

Hi, everybody.

I've seen many posts mantioning Rockbox, but no thread dedicated to this subject.
I think most of us would be delighted to have the option to install Rockbox on our M6s or M3s, right?

IMO having also Rockbox for its players would be a great selling point for Meizu and a great technical feedback.

So I have some questions about it:

1) What do Meizu thinks about Rockbox? Are they considering to promote its port in some way?
2) What does the Rockbox team think about porting Rockbox to Meizu players? Any skilled Meizu fan out there can start it?


One last consideration about SRS WOW: it has been substituted for Samsung's own SW, but Samsung itself uses SRS WOW on many of its products.
So, is it possible to know the real reason why Meizu dropped it? Was it exclusively a matter of royalties?

PS
I bought a black 8GB miniplayer in Chengdu last sunday (8/4), but price was still 999CNY, plus I got USB charger, silicone skin and anti scratch films (not original) for a round 1000CNY!

This is the website for Rockbox so you check out what it is all about.
Its basically open source firmware for mp3 player. Adds features that were not part of the original firmware and support for players that are no longer supported by manufactures.

http://www.rockbox.org/

Hardware used in miniplayer



more photos here
http://en.meizu.com/userforum/forum_posts.asp?TID=254

Proccesor - Samsumg ARM9 SA58700X07 also used in iriver clix
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semi...eet_051103.pdf

Touchpad Controller - Quantum QT411
http://www.qprox.com/products/qslide_qt411.php

FM Radio - Sanyo V24000

Digital Audio Encoder/Decoder - Philips 380HN
http://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datashe...UDA1380HN.html

Power Management - Linear LTC3455 , for charging lithium battery via USB
http://www.linear.com/pc/productDeta...?navId=LTC3455

Of course Meizu does not want Rockbox on their players. No mediaplayer producer would like it I guess.
I don't know wether these Rockbox guys have time for the Meizu players, because to write a firmware for a player you don't know much about is quite difficult and needs time.
But you're right, most Meizu users would like it I guess.

Idk I have rock box on my ipod and I like it but meizu's software is good. Also on my 30gb ipod video scrolling throw lots of songs with rockbox is slooow, I wounder how quick a meizu would be. I would try it out though if some one made it so good luck with it

imo rockbox is nice for player like the Ipod that have very limited functionalists but doesn't seem necessary for the M6 as it has plenty of options

of course it would be nice to have it available anyway for those who like to rockbox their player

I dont think any manufacturer will ever promote rockbox as its a replacement for their own firmware...

Rockbox would be awesome on miniplayer, meizu firmware lacks many features to compare with rockbox. Rockbox has tons of features, games, themes, program utilities etc. lots of display, playback configurations and extends battery life. I don't think any mp3 original firmware can beat rockbox functionality. it's a pity that nobody seems to be working with rockbox project on meizu m6...;/

so, who wants to start it?

Sounds fun.... shall we start?

Open Source is always the better solution.

Even if Meizu doesn't want to develop on Rockbox (which I can understand) a open source firmware would eliminate bugs in short time, add features and so on, as there are a lot of people around with knowledge to cope this. Besides that hardware which supports opensource is always more interesting for the users. Large communities build up and it is also a fun to work on stuff like that. Just remind the Linksys WRT54G router with its open source firmware projects. These routers got filled up with features and all the major projects released firmwares far better than the Linksys Ones. Of course it was Linksys' fault (or maybe luck?), because they implemented GPL code into their firmwares. When this was discovered, they had to put their firmware under GPL too and therefore open source. People were able to modify and improve the firmwares and so on. But the main point (which meizu should also consider) is that these Open Source firmware projects made this router so popular. First Linksys was shocked when they had to release the source code but quite soon they discovered that this pushed the popularity of their routers a lot. And as their newer versions had different hardware and so no open source project support, they released the WRT54GL (L for Linux) which they dedicated to the open source development. They did of course the right thing here.

Rockbox => Battery life sucks, u will get a single digit battery life since code isn't optimized, u r ok with that? most ppl will not be i guess..

I've used Rockbox on my iRiver H340 for over a year now (basically since the first user-targeted betas for that player), and battery life used to suck..until four months later, when they fixed that for the H340. It is a great project, and definitely the best choice for a firmware if there is a port for your player and you love your gadget and are willing to play around with the options a bit to set them to suit your taste and habits.

I started a thread about porting Rockbox to the M6:
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=10078.0

If you would like to participate, please read the following to see what you can do to help during the first stages of development:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/NewPort

There is already a bit of info about the M6 hardware around: if you have more, please keep it coming!

I would love to see this happen, but it is only possible if miniplayer enthusiasts with the necessary skills or the will to acquire them devote a bit of their time and energy to it...once the port is started, I am sure the Rockbox community will welcome it with open arms.

It is a great way to learn and have fun, AND get a new firmware for everyone running on your player!

Seriously now...

As one who uses RockBox on several of my iRiver DAPs and one of my NANOs, I have to say that MEIZU firmware covers almost everything that RockBox offers, with a far better integrated GUI.

MEIZU's codec support is also very well realized, so RockBoxing a MEIZU player would be a Moot Point!

Not to mention that fact that it's a Quick Way To Void Your MEIZU Warranty~

Originally Posted by DaHarder

Seriously now...

As one who uses RockBox on several of my iRiver DAPs and one of my NANOs, I have to say that MEIZU firmware covers almost everything that RockBox offers,

it also covers a lot of annoying bugs, which rockbox lacks to do

with a far better integrated GUI.

this point is not clear to me. What is "integrated GUI"?

MEIZU's codec support is also very well realized, so RockBoxing a MEIZU player would be a Moot Point!

adding .mpc and .wv playback and the whole bucha games along with getting rid of most obvious bugs is a moot point?

Not to mention that fact that it's a Quick Way To Void Your MEIZU Warranty~

and this is a BS, which made me reply for this post. If you are using rockbox, then you know that with their firmware one always obtains a "dual boot". Means you always can revert to original firmware, and updating the original firmware usually wipes out the rockbox completely. So how would one lose the warranty here?
Of course, there is always a chance to turn your DAP into a brick. But no one forces you to install rockbox.

Your Point?

We Agree To Disagree... Enough Said!

i agree with aten's opinion I really miss rockbox since i have sold my iriver H320 :D

As a matter of fact, Sandisk actually asked the Rockbox team to port Rockbox to their Sansas. Which is pretty smart in my opinion; you gain the recognition of the Head-Fi community, (Even though Head-Fi hates the Sansa due to the lousy sound quality), and you get someone to do the dirty work for you for free.

Originally Posted by aegisofrime

As a matter of fact, Sandisk actually asked the Rockbox team to port Rockbox to their Sansas.

the rockbox team was contacted by one person from sandisk with such suggestion. They donated some hardware (a couple players and some sort of development pcb board). No help was offered besides this. Sandisk representatives refused to make any datasheets available for rockbox team, therefore these guys were struggling for some time to get the sound working on sansa e2xx. But then the help came directly from the manufacturer of the DAC which agreed to provide them with datasheets after the guys have signed some sort of NDA. (actually, the whole story is here http://daniel.haxx.se/rockbox-sandisk-connection.html)

Which is pretty smart in my opinion; you gain the recognition of the Head-Fi community, (Even though Head-Fi hates the Sansa due to the lousy sound quality), and you get someone to do the dirty work for you for free.

there was another story though, when a representative of some small Australian company asked rockbox people to port the firmware onto their player, and it seems as if it was supposed to be only firmware available for this model. I really dont know the end of this story is it had some development at all. You can find this somewhere on their forums.

Originally Posted by DaHarder

Your Point?

my point - it is worth the efforts. But someone really has to start the action according to their guide.

guys i have miniplayer to and i think that making rockbox is worth the efforts!lets start!after creating wiki page MeizuM6Port < Main < TWiki we need to decrypt the original firmware (the code is in a rar archive which is in the firmware file after the first 8KB) i dont exactly understand what is it.any ideas?

Yes, we should start a port. Anyone on this forum with any technical know-how should contribute. Too bad Meizu doesn't open up their firmware though...

It seems that there is also an unofficial firmware on the chinese bbs.. if it's not fake, then maybe it can be used as guideline.