Rockbox 3.0 firmware breathes the life back into your MP3 player

Well it took three years, but Rockbox 3.0 has finally made it on the scene, with a major overhaul in the sound decoding department and support for several new players. This open source firmware replacement is chock full of tasty new features, including codec support for over 15 formats like FLAC and Ogg, 5-band parametric EQ, MPEG video, multilingual interface, Doom and a pile of other games, not to mention freedom from iTunes. Oh yeah, and it can talk to you via a spoken interface -- which comes in handy for not driving off bridges and what not. iPod, iriver, Sansa, iAudio, Gigabeat and Archos models are all supported, though Archos didn't get many of the major 3.0 improvements like expanded codecs.

[Via Ostatic; thanks Eric L]

[Forrest @ Sep 25th 2008 4:36PM]

No Zune support? :( I have an old 30 gig that I wouldn't mind trying out something like this on.

[noyp @ Sep 25th 2008 9:03PM]

They are almost done with the Gigabeat S, which the Zune 30 is based on

[ishism @ Sep 26th 2008 12:53AM]

That's what I want to know

[Tiptup300 @ Sep 28th 2008 1:49AM]

Won't happen. Nobodies been able to crack the Zune.

[Karl Hackswell @ Sep 25th 2008 4:36PM]

Aww, no Zune support?

Oh well, I guess the Zune's present firmware is okay. Cool firmware though, I would like to give it a try.

[Mark @ Sep 25th 2008 4:49PM]

While I agree that the present Zune firmware's decent, I'd still like some DivX/XviD support.

[Eric M. @ Sep 25th 2008 4:57PM]

@Mark

I was thinking the same thing. Nothing I hate more than converting my movies! That's why I loved my Creative Zen Vision M..

[Karl Hackswell @ Sep 25th 2008 5:31PM]

Didnt think about xvid support, dang that would be frickin sweet! All my bootlegs on my zune, whoo hoo!

[Zeus.:God @ Sep 25th 2008 4:37PM]

Well that's because Archos pretty much supports all of them (well most, codecs, at least).

[JohnTitor @ Sep 25th 2008 7:22PM]

no dude, it's because the Archos models they are supporting are as old as McCain
really the only modern players are the iPods and the aging Sansas

[Boarderwoot @ Sep 25th 2008 4:37PM]

wow, that looks pretty slick

[bobartig @ Sep 25th 2008 5:46PM]

Really? I was thinking, "Features = Good, Interface = crap on a stick"

[OnlyShawn @ Sep 25th 2008 7:37PM]

that's exactly what I've found previously w/ rockbox. you CAN do a lot of things with rockbox, but it's a bit of a pain to use, as it's not very intuitive...perhaps there's something new w/ the 3.0 firmware--definitely will be trying it out, but I'm not very hopeful on the interface side.

[ben @ Sep 25th 2008 4:39PM]

whats the word on battery life? I have an old ipod 5G with an earlier version of rockbox on it, and the thing just dies after a few hours or so.

[Rob @ Sep 25th 2008 4:49PM]

respect that avatar there ben

[The Dude @ Sep 25th 2008 6:06PM]

Yes, it does play doom. For about 30 minutes and your battery shits out.

At least that's how it was when I first dove into Rockbox 2+ years ago. I even submitted a skin to the gallery for iAudio X5s before I lost interest and stopped dual-booting into Rockbox altogether. I expect that they've optimized the ports for each mp3 player, though, and that it doesn't eat your battery life like it used to. If anything I think Rockbox, when ported over to a player thoroughly, increased battery life. I was going to equate a Rockbox final build with Duke Nukem Forever but there was always visible progress with Rockbox. Good job, guys.

[The Dude @ Sep 25th 2008 6:08PM]

Aww fuck, responded to the wrong post. Anyway, you're going to have to ask someone in the forums how the final build is on a 5G iPod as battery life differs from port to port.

[davo @ Sep 25th 2008 7:26PM]

battery life is good, people seeing comparable to the apple firmware for mp3 playback these days (16-20hrs not unheard of, depending on codec used and how you choose to theme your user interface)

[Darth Abe @ Sep 25th 2008 4:40PM]

@Forrest and Karl
would you really want to give up the zune firmware with the wireless features for more codecs?
although I guess I agree in principal, I prefer my devices hackable.

[Forrest @ Sep 25th 2008 4:49PM]

Oh, I have an 80gig Zune that I wouldn't think of touching with this - I LOVE my Zune. But I have a first gen model just collecting dust. If this would let me be a little more flexible in terms of formats (especially video) that I use, and allow for mass storage, it might be nice. Plus it would be fun to try on hardware that I really don't use anymore.

[inteller @ Sep 25th 2008 4:50PM]

if you have an old zune collecting dust send it to me, I'll use it.

[NickTheRat @ Sep 25th 2008 4:41PM]

ive been using rockbox on my sansa for a week now. OMG ITS AMAZING. its like....the butters son! it MAY kill battery alil faster though, even though you can decrease screen brightness. this is open source at its tops!

[Ehed13 @ Sep 25th 2008 4:41PM]

SWEET!!! this is awesome, if i had an ipod... lol... wait! no iPod Touch support? or is there? hmm must research.

[andy @ Sep 25th 2008 5:13PM]

I don't think you understand the point. The Rockbox firmware is an alternative to the dated, crappy iPod classic firmware. The iPod Touch firmware does just about anything you'd want the machine to do, outside of the extra codec support.

[Unknown @ Sep 25th 2008 4:58PM]

Hopefully they fixed the issues with database corruption and slow database updates, those issues prevented me from fully adopting RockBox on my iPod nano last year.

[Poom @ Sep 25th 2008 11:20PM]

That seems awesome! Except that it'll make your iPod look like one of those Chinese fake though..

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 25th 2008 4:47PM]

Wow. Beautiful. Well I just might hang on to my 6 year old iPod Video afterall.

[v3xx @ Sep 25th 2008 4:52PM]

6 years old huh. i'd say closer to 3.

[SneAKz @ Sep 25th 2008 4:51PM]

6 year old? the iPod video came out in late 2005. It could only be 3 years old max.

[aardWolf @ Sep 25th 2008 5:00PM]

No... see, he has the iPod video that hasn't come out yet. It has holographic support and built-in literal "Time Machine" support... so it could easily be 6 years old. :-)

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 25th 2008 5:19PM]

Oh for fucks sake. My point will never be discovered while hidden behind this inaccuracy.

[Master Bruce @ Sep 25th 2008 6:15PM]

"My point will never be discovered while hidden behind this inaccuracy."

Best comment in a while! 2 thumbs up!

[v3xx @ Sep 25th 2008 4:49PM]

wow engadget is so late today. i bet the next post will be iphone 2.2 beta or how the metallica cd audio quality blames ipod.

[Pasha @ Sep 25th 2008 4:57PM]

i've had it on my iRiver H340 since the day it was ported
i also bought a 1st gen iPod nano just so i could use use it with rockbox

it won't work on zune, or later generation iPods due to the fact that the firmware is encrypted, making it very hard to get the bootloaded on there.

[Chris @ Sep 25th 2008 4:55PM]

RockBox has been around for a very long time. I had it almost 2 years ago on my nano (which got lost) then my friend video ipod (which got stolen. Its very customizable and surprised everyone that saw my custom GUI.

[Chris @ Sep 25th 2008 4:58PM]

Link to the theme I made on the RockBox Forums
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=14125.0

[Chris @ Sep 25th 2008 5:56PM]

I wonder if using this firmware enables it to be used as a webserver beacuse it would appear that they are being hosted from an 1st gen ipod...

[kojo87 @ Sep 25th 2008 4:57PM]

damn now i wish i wouldn't have sold my Gigabeat S30

[CaptSaltyJack @ Sep 25th 2008 5:01PM]

I might be in the minority, but I think the iPod UI looks better without Rockbox. Rockbox makes it look gimmicky/cheesy and a little bit busy. I, for one, LIKE the clean look of the iPod's UI.

[Podaman @ Sep 25th 2008 5:08PM]

Agreed. I wonder if you can keep the iPod UI... yet free your iPod from iTunes and its file format restrictions...

[Peter @ Sep 25th 2008 5:13PM]

BTW, there are MANY different skins; actually ~51 as of now for the 5G iPod Video.

[goober_nut @ Sep 25th 2008 5:19PM]

@podaman: I believe I read that if you hold the left arrow button down for 10 seconds while starting up, you can get your original UI back..don't know how true that is

[Chris @ Sep 25th 2008 5:37PM]

Its dual boot. Turn it on and put on the 'Hold Key' and it boots into normal iPod mode

[john @ Sep 25th 2008 5:04PM]

Hooray needless ornamentation!

[Peter @ Sep 25th 2008 5:04PM]

Well, I'm going to upgrade to rockbox 3 from the previous version on my sansa as soon as I find my charging cable ... stupid proprietary USB cable, does anyone know where I can find a 3rd party one for the e200 for under $6 incl. S&H (besides eBay)

[Toadlet @ Sep 25th 2008 5:18PM]

Easy, monoprice.com
I'll definitely try the new Rockbox on my Sansa C series.

[Peter @ Sep 25th 2008 5:33PM]

Hey, thanks, I'll probably buy from there if I don't find mine soon.

[well weapon @ Sep 25th 2008 5:12PM]

I'm seeing some clean, design-led elegant UI graphics on the left. and a dogs dinner i'd get sacked for passing off as design on the right.

but seriously, the iPod has consideration given to white space and margins (which on such small screen estate is laudable), to clear, considered type heirarchys, and clear use of a careful restraint. the 'improved' one on the left is pretty much the direct opposite, with superfluous angles and gradients, terrible colour choices and textures that look like computer software box art from 1995 and almost illegible type.

all that to add freetard crap like .ogg and .flac. could they not have kept the award-laden UI and packaged the codec support as a plugin?

[Benson @ Sep 25th 2008 8:40PM]

Well, no, they couldn't have. If the iPod firmwares were open, they could have, but since they aren't, you have to go with the "freetard" firmware to have options. There are different themes, BTW, and if none of them meet your standards, you can make your own. A lot better to start with a crappy UI and be able to fix it, than to start with a crappy backend and be able to do nothing about it, IMHO.

[tekdroid @ Sep 25th 2008 10:45PM]

iff Ogg and FLAC is freetard crap to you, I'd say your ears might be in the same boat.
http://www.vorbis.com
http://flac.sourceforge.net