[The Rino]

I've been trying to find info about how well Rockbox works w/ the iPod 5G. I tried the current build a month ago and it had a bunch of bugs, delayed button response, pauses during playback(especially w/ advanced EQ settings). Those were the three main ones that caused me to change back to the original firmware. Any thoughts?

 

[Febs]

There were was a change committed just today with some optimizations to MP3 playback. Still, the EQ is fairly CPU intensive, and the more bands of the EQ that you use, the more CPU you use. I usually just use the hardware EQ, as that doesn't use any CPU cycles at all, and I don't have any problem at all with pauses during playback.

 

[nelamvr6]

I'm using it with a 5.5 G iPod and I don't have any problems, but then again I don't use any EQ settings either...

 

[cooperpwc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm using it with a 5.5 G iPod and I don't have any problems

x2. It works great on my 5.5 G iPod. Flawless in fact.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febs /img/forum/go_quote.gif I usually just use the hardware EQ, as that doesn't use any CPU cycles at all, and I don't have any problem at all with pauses during playback.

x2 again. I sometimes use hardware EQ (bass boost by a few DB) with my Vibes which is very effective. I never use software EQ.

 

[itim100]

There are also builds offered by other users on the forums that offer support for the second processor in the ipod, as well as acceleration for the scroll wheel and other nice additions. Partial support being added for the second processor really helped things, made rockbox nearly as responsive as I had always hoped for.

Although, there is a strange bug where the scrolling seems significantly slower unless the thing is already playing a song. Maybe you won't experience this: If a song is playing and you go to scroll around it's wonderful. Makes no sense, I know... But if you are unhappy with the responsiveness of the software, look for a build that tries to add support for the coprocessor .

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by itim100 /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are also builds offered by other users on the forums that offer support for the second processor in the ipod, as well as acceleration for the scroll wheel and other nice additions. Partial support being added for the second processor really helped things, made rockbox nearly as responsive as I had always hoped for. Although, there is a strange bug where the scrolling seems significantly slower unless the thing is already playing a song. Maybe you won't experience this: If a song is playing and you go to scroll around it's wonderful. Makes no sense, I know... But if you are unhappy with the responsiveness of the software, look for a build that tries to add support for the coprocessor .

On this forum?

I guess I should do some searching!

 

[dagobah]

My 5G iPod with Rockbox and the hardware EQ works great. I haven't touched the software EQ since I had major problems with it when Rockbox was first ported to the 5G, though I understand that it works much better now.

Here's some custom builds:
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?board=36.0

 

[The Rino]

I'm not sure what the difference is between the hardware EQ and the software EQ. Does the RB manual cover this? How do I know which EQ I'm using? Can U only use one EQ at a time?

 

[warrior05]

I'm in the process of getting a 5.5 iMod. I gave up on Rockbox with my 4th gen but all this talk about the 5 gen Rockbox has me hopeful. Can anyone provide real world battery runtimes playing FLAC files? I was just too fed up with 4-5 hour runtimes on my 4th gen. I figured the only way I could get gapless lossless playback on an iMod with decent battery runtimes was to go 5 gen and Apple's firmware. I've even installed iTunes

and started converting files. Believe me - this was a tough call for me since I'm so anti-iTunes but I felt I had no choice.

 

[cooperpwc]

Rhino, hardware EQ has its own special settings on the iPod version of Rockbox. It shows multiple bands but only the lowest (bass) and highest (upper treble) actually do anything at this time. I (and anyone else whose posts I have read here) only use the bass so I can't comment on the treble band but the bass is excellent. It is actually a function that is built into the Wolfson DAC chip - therefore hardware EQ as opposed to something that is manipulated in the Rockbox software. It's perfect for adding a little bit of bass boost to light headphones like my early version Vibes. Very clean, very effective, no distortion.

I guess you could use it with the software EQ at the same time but layering strikes me as asking for SQ trouble. I really don't know.

Scott, I use Lame V2 --vbr-new files on my iPod 5.5G with Rockbox and battery life still generally sucks compared to the iPod OS. That's the downside. However... if you keep a continuously stocked dynamic playlist (always a few songs entered ahead) or listen to entire albums, it isn't so bad. Rockbox can't control the iPod disc caching properly and every time you "change gears" and move to a new song it sucks massive amounts of power. It can be the difference for me of 3 plus hours and up to 6 hours.

Hopefully someday a wayward Apple employee will join the Rockbox team and teach them how to optimise the cachng. That's apparently what happened with iRiver and the H140 battery life is supreme.

 

[warrior05]

Thanks for the info, Paul.

Good idea about an Apple employee with the know-how joining the Rockbox team!

I stuck with Rockbox for over a year but I've had enough. If they do ever get it resolved, Rockbox will be on my 5.5 in a heartbeat! But for now it is ALAC and iTunes.

Now I just have to wait for my iMod from Vinnie. Hopefully he'll have my iPod from Apple either today (Friday) or Monday. Thankfully I won't have to wait long when Vinnie ships me my iMod since he's in CT and I'm in NY.

I'll start obsessing about it towards the end of next week.