If you have an MP3 player (iPod, etc.) you are probably still using the original firmware that came with it. Well whatever you have probably sucks! Try rockbox for one day, and I guarantee you will like it.
http://www.rockbox.org
HOWTO: Install Rockbox on Your iPod Nano/Color/Photo and watch Movies!
(sadly this is only for Windows users)
I bet your skeptical right now thinking, "You can't watch videos on your iPod nano!" Well, I dare you, go to youtube right now, and put in "videos on iPod nano". Then you will see what I am talking about. NOTE: This does not work on 2nd generation iPod nanos (aluminum case that looks like old iPod mini)
Step 1: Get What You Need
Ok let's get started. Go to : http://www.rockbox.org
and look at the sidebar. You should see something that says "Downloads" at the top. Under that, click "Current build". Then if you scroll down you should see pictures of many different MP3s. Select the iPod nano, photo, or color build and download the file. The file should download right to your desktop if your using Mozilla Firefox (if not get firefox it is infinitely superior to IE). Next, go to
http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/iaudio/
and it should prompt you to download the bootloader. Download this to your desktop as well.
Step 2: Install the Firmware on Your iPod
The firmware itself is easy to install. First, ensure that your iPod is plugged into your computer. Then merely double click on the bootloader icon. It opens a command prompt and looks for your iPod. Then it asks you whether or not you would like to install the firmware.
CAUTION: THIS WILL WIPE ALL THE MUSIC, PHOTOS, ETC. FROM YOUR iPOD!
Once you ensure that all your content is backed up, continue to install the firmware. Once the command prompt assures you that the firmware is installed, return to the desktop. There is the Rockbox folder you downloaded earlier. This folder has a folder inside it titled ".rockbox". Move this .rockbox folder into your iPod by dragging and dropping directly into the iPod. This may take a few minutes to complete, so have a drink, and get ready for the fun stuff.
Once this is complete, rockbox will be installed on your iPod. You may now unplug your iPod from the computer and boot it up. The Apple logo should appear, and shortly after the rockbox logo (featured above). Then you should see several options, such as a file browser, plugins, and settings. Under plugins you can find several games such as spacerocks, bubbles (Snood like game), and chessbox. You can run these with a few clickss of the select button. Once you are done enjoying the plethora of utilities and apps for rockbox, we can move on to step 3.
Step 3: Doom (skip this if you don't want to play doom on your iPod)
Now we're getting into the good stuff. Moving on, we can first start by getting a game called Doom to run on your iPod. First go to
http://download.rockbox.org/useful/rockdoom.zip
and download the game WAD. Then go to your iPod. Inside the iPod under the .rockbox folder you created, create a new folder labeled Doom. In there, place the folder you just downloaded. Doom should now work under the plugins menu on your Rockbox. Merely hit plugins, doom, and then play the game. Have fun!
Step 4: Themes
Here, we can customize rockbox, to well, look kickass! Lets begin by going to
http://www.rockbox-themes.org/
and select your build (nano, color, photo). Then you pick the theme you like and download it. Your theme should come in a folder named "
" and in that should be the ".rockbox" folder that we keep seeing. Open the .rockbox folder and also open the .rockbox folder on your iPod. Then, drag and drop the theme .rockbox contents into the .rockbox on your iPod. You should be prompted by another window that says something about copied files and just hit "yes to all". When the files have been copied, you can unplug and boot your iPod. Then, go to "Settings", and then "Browse Themes". The name of the theme you downloaded should be listed, so merely select it and the theme will load! Now your iPod looks kickass and soon we can play kickass movies!
Step 5: The Moment We've all Been Waiting for...MOVIES!
Movies are fairly tricky to get on the iPod, but if you carefully follow these instructions, you to can make people jealous with your video playing Nano (or video or color). To begin, we have to go here
http://biggmatt.com/winff/downloads/winff-version-0.28.html
and then find the windows download for his program. This program will allow us to encode our videos. Install the app, and lets get going. Hopefully you have a movie file (only .mpg, or .avi files will work no itunes files!). Now right click this link
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/pub/Main/PluginMpegplayer/presets.xml
and hit save as. Save this into the WinFF folder (default is C:/Program Files/WinFF) and replace the old presets. This way, you can encode easier. If this step doesn't work properly the encoding process will fail! Now, let's run WinFF. Run the program, and then you should see the window for the program. Now we must encode our movie files. First, go to the top and hit "add file", this is the file for the movie you want to encode. Once selected, hit the "encode to" and then select iPod and then 4:3 version. Once done, select the output of this movie file. Make this a folder on your iPod (not in the .rockbox folder), such as " vids". Then hit start converting. A twenty minute long video takes roughly fifteen minutes to encode, so if you're encoding a movie you may want to find some other activity to do while waiting, it will take awhile. Once done encoding, unplug your iPod from the computer and select the movie file using the file browser on rockbox. (You may need to go to settings and enable that you see all files first). Scroll over the file, and hold the select button. A menu will pop up. Select "open with.." and then select "mpegplayer". The movie should start buffering, and then playing. Now you can watch movies on rockbox! Congrats!
Step 6: Lets get some tunes on your iPod.
Getting song files are pretty easy to do as well. Sadly, they can't be files that you downloaded from iTunes (wrong format it is m4p not the mp3 file we can use). You can only use MP3 files on rockbox. So, first on the iPod (not the .rockbox folder) create a folder for your music (ex. " music"), and simply drag and drop your music from the folder on your computer. Simple as that. Then on rockbox, open them in the file viewer and use the select button. Rockbox will then switch to the player view and begin playing your music.
And that's it! Your iPod now kicks some serious ass.
If you have/had any problems with this tutorial email me at natetenz@yahoo.com (no spam please, I will block you).
