Imod users anybody using Rockbox?

robster · « **on:** 2 Jul 2006, 11:50 pm »

Howdee-I'm a very proud owner of a 4G 60GB Redwine Imod-ed Ipod and I'm currently using I-Tunes,CD's imported from my collection at Apple Lossless. So,is anybdoy using Rockbox? does it sound better than I-Tunes? I'm afraid to try Rockbox,I'm very techno-challenged.

Cheers,
Robert

gary · « **Reply #1 on:** 3 Jul 2006, 03:04 am »

i was thinking about giving it a shot this weekend but i haven't gotten around to it. yet.

gary

borelek · « **Reply #2 on:** 3 Jul 2006, 08:46 pm »

robster,

I'll take some advice and let you know.
I hope the sound is good and after http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockbox Rockbox is supposed to play Gapless playback for all codecs, this is my concern

borelek

borelek · « **Reply #3 on:** 4 Jul 2006, 03:38 pm »

Yes robster,
it's souding very techno-challenging. But not necessarily very difficult.

let you know

hope

borelek

Vinnie R. · « **Reply #4 on:** 4 Jul 2006, 04:42 pm »

Hi guys,

I just installed Rockbox on my iMod. I love playing my FLAC files on my iPod...this is VERY cool and the sound quality is awesome! I haven't yet compared it to the same tracks in iTunes.

For some odd reason, I am getting drop-outs in the music when playing my Apple Lossless files using Rockbox. I haven't had the time to go through all the setting and see if I can fix this. I'll have to also snoop around on the Rockbox wiki and any forums that talk about this (Headfi is probably loaded with posts about it).

Best regards,

borelek · « **Reply #5 on:** 7 Jul 2006, 10:26 am »

Hello Folks,

for a Macintosh user it IS very tricky, and, to be honnest, I gave up. For the moment. I'll try again in a few days.

borelek

geofstro · « **Reply #6 on:** 7 Jul 2006, 04:22 pm »

I'm very grateful for this thread. I installed it on my iModded 60gb photo iPod and from what I can tell the improvement in sound is well worth the hassle. I say 'from what I can tell' cos so far I've only heard it playing thru my computer speakers. They're pretty good for computer speakers, being Monsoon (kinda mini-maggies), though not up to the quality of my main rig.

If it sounds this good on 'puter speakers oughta be aweseome on my main rig.

I'm also a Mac user; but I've got one of those new MacIntels with a dual boot into WinXP natively, via Apples bootcamp, which is beta software. That's one point to note folks: Rockbox isn't even at the beta stage yet, so use at your own risk. i don't think the risk is so high though, since installation is completely reversible back to Apples standard iPod firmware.

You really do need access to a Windows machine to make this as hassle free as possible and if you've previously used your iPod under Mac you have to not mind losing all the current music and data that's on it, since you'll need to re-format the iPod for FAT32 and that means running 'Restore' from ipodUpdater under windows.

After that, just follow the instructions on the Rockbox wiki or the pdf. Just a few command line entries basically and a reboot of the iPod and off you go.

One gripe I have is the way it relates playlists to folders. It got me quite confused and I need to play with it some more before I hook it up to my main rig.

For me it is worth it though for the sound quality and the ability to play flac, since I already have a lot of ripped CD's on my HD in flac format.

Hope it helps!

geoff

Papajin · « **Reply #7 on:** 7 Jul 2006, 04:58 pm »

Anybody got any idea how using Rockbox effects peripheral use? For instance say I want to use my ipod in my car with one of those fm transmitters or similar... Will something like that still work? I'd guess not, but it's only a guess. Just wondering if anybody's messed with anything like that.

geofstro · « **Reply #8 on:** 8 Jul 2006, 08:19 am »

I don't see how it would make any difference. Unless one of these peripherals relied on software running on the iPod or required you to add software to the iPod.

Hope it helps!

geoff

gary · « **Reply #9 on:** 10 Jul 2006, 11:48 pm »

Well, I was prepared to spend a few hours installing Rockbox on my iPod last night and the download site is down. It figures.

Gary

gary · « **Reply #10 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 01:17 am »

I found this link today so I installed Rockbox. It's up and running and I have a couple of problems so far, I have some sort of problem with my tagcache database as it only imported the first song of the first album by each artist and on top of that the themes don't seem to be working. However... listening to a few songs with my headphones there is definitely an improvement in the sound quality. Everything sounds tighter and more coherent, especially the bass.

Following the link above the installation is cake, and other than the couple of issues above I have no problem recommending this to anyone. Hopefully I'll get those sorted out tonight too.

Gary

gary · « **Reply #11 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 01:28 am »

Turns out the tagcache database takes a few minutes to update in the background, and my songs didn't all show up because I rebooted the ipod too soon. And the themes are working now, so I'm a happy camper. Feel free to post or pm me with any questions about getting Rockbox installed. After 10 minutes it's 100% worth it.

Gary

robster · « **Reply #12 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 11:27 am »

Hi Gary,
do I click on the word PROCESS in the link? to get started? to download Rockbox for my RWA IPod,if so it's down.

Cheers,
Robert

gary · « **Reply #13 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 11:58 am »

Quote from: robster on 11 Jul 2006, 11:27 am

Hi Gary,
do I click on the word PROCESS in the link? to get started? to download Rockbox for my RWA IPod,if so it's down.

Cheers,
Robert

No, the "process" link is down unfortunately. What you want to do is download the "Rockbox Installer v7.7.zip" file at the bottom of the page and extract its contents to your harddrive with a program like winzip or winrar. There's a readme.txt file in that zip file with very clear instructions on how to install it.

As for the sound quality, one thing I noticed with my iPod was that I had to turn up the gain and crossover on my bass amp to get enough bass. Now, with Rockbox that's not the case and I had to set everything back to flat because the bass became much much louder. I think the iPod software does have some sort of EQ running, even when you manually turn the EQ off, and that's not the case with Rockbox. There's a pretty good chance that this is responsible for the improvement in sound quality I heard when I listened to the first few songs with headphones. On my main system things sounded about the same once I changed the settings on the bass amp.

Gary

robster · « **Reply #14 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 12:46 pm »

Super! thanks Gary.

Cheers,
Robert

robster · « **Reply #15 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 01:40 pm »

O.K. now I have Rockbox on my windows PC,when I intsall it on my RWA Ipod,will it play my Apple Lossless music? All my music is imported from my Cd collection in Apple Lossless.

Many thanks,
Robert

ted_b · « **Reply #16 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 02:17 pm »

I'd love to use Rockbox (as I use Foobar2k) but large entire-album FLAC files with cue sheets is unsupported.
I've registered my wish on the Rockbox forum. The combo of Vinnie's iMod, good FLAC support and better sonics is just too good to be true I guess.

gary · « **Reply #17 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 02:19 pm »

You have to use tagcache to build a database of the lossless file tags on your iPod. Unfortunately I can't find directions on how to do that, but basically somewhere in the settings menu there is a tagcache item and when you select it there is an option to build the tagcache database. When you tell it to update let your ipod sit for at least 20 minutes (I screwed mine up by shutting it down while it was still building the database). Then you need to go to the file settings and change it to ID3 files and turn the iPod off and back on again. When you restart you'll be able to browse the file structure much like you do with the regular apple firmware (artist -> album -> song, etc.).

Another option is apparently foobar, you can do a google search for "tagcache rockbox twiki" and looked at the cached results for general instructions that are about 80% down the page. I'll probably try this tonight if I can't fix the problems with tagcache.

Hope that helps

Gary

robster · « **Reply #18 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 02:30 pm »

Many thanks Gary. You are so kind.

Cheerss,
Robert

gary · « **Reply #19 on:** 11 Jul 2006, 11:03 pm »

Quote from: Vinnie R. on 4 Jul 2006, 04:42 pm

Hi guys,

I just installed Rockbox on my iMod. I love playing my FLAC files on my iPod...this is VERY cool and the sound quality is awesome! I haven't yet compared it to the same tracks in iTunes.

For some odd reason, I am getting drop-outs in the music when playing my Apple Lossless files using Rockbox. I haven't had the time to go through all the setting and see if I can fix this. I'll have to also snoop around on the Rockbox wiki and any forums that talk about this (Headfi is probably loaded with posts about it).

Hi Vinnie

Are you still having the dropout issues? The same thing happened to me, but only when I tried using a graphic-intensive theme. If I switch to one of the regular themes it works fine.

Gary