SanDisk goes after the iPod iPuppets (CNet) [LWN.net]

Back in January, LWN predicted that manufacturers of digital audio players would eventually become interested in Rockbox. Now this CNet UK article suggests that the time has come. "SanDisk is reported to have quietly approached the open source developers behind Rockbox, a free operating system for MP3 players. The company is said to be interested in porting the Rockbox software to its e200 player.... Not only would a Rockbox port earn SanDisk credibility with grassroot geeks, but the software offers a number of appealing features, including support for nearly every codec going."

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SanDisk goes after the iPod iPuppets (CNet)

Posted Jun 4, 2006 2:34 UTC (Sun) by antidrugue (guest, #33991) [Link]

[quote=SanDisk goes after the iPod iPuppets (CNet)]
"...the software offers a number of appealing features, including support for nearly every codec going."
[/quote]

Rockbox is very solid indeed. But it lacks good support for some proprietary codecs, namely Apple's [i].aac[/i].

I hope this stimulates further more the development of Rockbox.

SanDisk goes after the iPod iPuppets (CNet)

Posted Jun 4, 2006 15:56 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

DRM-encumbered codecs will never be supported, sorry.

SanDisk goes after the iPod iPuppets (CNet)

Posted Jun 4, 2006 17:41 UTC (Sun) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

There is support for MPEG-4 AAC-LC already and it's been there for a while (around a year I'd guess). However so far there's been little interest in optimizing it to achieve realtime playback on most devices or fixing various glitches.

nix is correct that DRM will never be supported by Rockbox, for good reasons.

SanDisk goes after the iPod iPuppets (CNet)

Posted Jun 4, 2006 21:39 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Oops, I forgot there were any non-encumbered variants of AAC (things wrapped inside AAC: isn't it a container format of some sort?)

SanDisk goes after the iPod iPuppets (CNet)

Posted Jun 4, 2006 23:52 UTC (Sun) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

MP4 (aka MPEG-4 Part 14) is usually the container format for both AAC and Apple Lossless (ALAC). Encumbered AAC such as the tracks sold by iTunes consist of plain MP4/AAC encrypted with proprietary FairPlay.

Unencrypted AAC can be produced by free software such as FAAC and decoded with free software such as ffmpeg and FAAD. This is the format supported by Rockbox.

SanDisk goes after the iPod iPuppets (CNet)

Posted Jun 5, 2006 9:52 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Aha. Thanks for clarifying: I had a lot backwards.

I would switch

Posted Jun 4, 2006 4:51 UTC (Sun) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559) [Link]

right now i am using gnupod's feature that automatically serializes oggs as mp3s when transferring to the ipod device, which in a sense equates to "virtual" support for ogg on the ipod, but rockbox looks just great. rockbox appears to scratch almost every itch people have with the ipod.

I would switch

Posted Jun 4, 2006 15:57 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

... except for power consumption: it eats power twice as fast as the stock firmware (perhaps in part because it only uses one of the two ARM cores).

But then it only started making sounds on the iPod at the start of this year, and nobody's optimized it for power consumption yet. That's coming. :)