Ok I have an iPod (the shame I Know .. I needed high capacity in a relatively small form factor) I hate the default apple software ... sure it allows u to play video but it just doesn't support enough music formats (basically i have a large FLAC and OGG Collection).

So I applied the formula iPod + Rockbox == Competent player

First Off
[CENTER]"What is Rockbox?"

[/CENTER]
An Open Source Music Jukebox Firmware with an emphasis on AUDIO QUALITY and format support.

[CENTER]"What Can It Do?"
[/CENTER]

It Can Run on all These Players:
[LEFT]

• Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
  
• (not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
  
• Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
  
• Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5 and M5L
  
• iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
  
• SanDisk: Sansa c200, e200 and e200R series
  
• Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)

[/LEFT]
And Can Play All these Formats:
[CENTER]Lossy
[/CENTER]

• MPEG (2,3)
  
• OGG Vorbis
  
• MPC
  
• AC3 | A/52 | Dolby Digital (not on 3rd Gen iPod)
  
• AAC |MP4 (not on 3rd Gen iPod)
  
• WMA
  
• SPEEX (Only on Gigabeat)

[CENTER]
Lossless
[LEFT]

• WAV
  
• AIFF
  
• FLAC
  
• ALAC (not on 3rd Gen iPod)
  
• Wavpack
  
• Shorten
  
• Monkeys Audio | APE (currently playback is too slow on iPod)

[/LEFT]


"Is it Hard To Install?"
[LEFT]Speaking from my experience with the iPod , NO its extremely easy to install

Select the related manual for your device [Here] and follow the instructions

But the basic steps for my iPod were:

• Install Bootloader (read the manual for the location)
  
• Install a Build (latest [Here])

[CENTER] "What Sort Of Fun Does It Bring?"
[/CENTER]

• A proper file manager
  
• Plugins
  
• Games (including freeDoom)
  
• Gapless Playback
  
• 5-band fully-parametric equalizer, and crossfeed
  
• High-resolution volume control, 64-100 levels (model-dependant)
  
• Abilty to create your own themes or use user-uploaded ones
  
• Advanced crossfading
  
• ReplayGain support (volume normalization)
  
• Cuesheet support
  
• JPEG image and text-file viewing
  
• MPEG video support
  
• Customizable Tag Database
  
• Unicode support
  
• Advanced On-The-Go playlist creation
  
• Multilingual Interface - 30 supported languages and counting
  
• Optional fully voice-driven interface
  
• Mass Storage Support and an independant song DB So you are not tied to any Sync Software (drag and drop)

[CENTER]"Any Issues ?"
[LEFT]My Experience was one of Nirvana, except 1 niggling issue:

• After transferring songs to the device you need to update the database on the device , but you have to option of using the device database or file manager for playlist management -- if you use the file manager (like myself) this is a non issue

potential areas include:

• Long term iPod users may regress to the apple way of doing things (eg adding to playlists) -- but the geekier methods in rockbox are actually IMHO more intuitive
  
• After a Sleep Timer shuts it down the previous Dynamic playlist is cleared (probably an issue with my needs to be updated old daily build)

[/LEFT]
[/CENTER]
[/LEFT]
[/CENTER]
[Official Rockbox Site]

Example Screen Shot (iPhone Theme "crashbox" -- taken from the rockbox.org site )
[IMG]http://upload.overclock3d.net/get.php?id=3880[/IMG]


Note This is a rapidly evolving Open Source project -- and has probably advanced since this post

Write more pleas about it .






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First Million Dollar way , Millionaire mind secrets , millionaire next door , making money , buy millionaire mind book , blog , market , new look business

Rockbox is great but at the time of writing, is not supported for the Sandisk Sansa e200 V2 series of players

Can tell if you;ve got a V2 or not by checking the back of the case, at the bottom, right corner (i think).