Rockbox on iPod Video 5.5 Gen 30 GB. Need opinion.

[kpkeerthi]

Does anyone here run rockbox on iPod Video 5.5 Gen (30GB)? How does the battery life compare to Apple firmware's?

EDIT: My iPod now runs Rockbox exclusively. I have posted my experiences in Post# 15 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5647186&postcount=15).

[Polygon]

unless rockbox has drastically changed since i used it on my mini, i believe the battery life is worse then with apple's firmware

[grossaffe]

unless rockbox has drastically changed since i used it on my mini, i believe the battery life is worse then with apple's firmware

when's the last time you used it? A few months back, battery life has been improved.

and to the OP, why don't you just try it out? its not like you can't take rockbox off, and you'll be dual booting anyways.

[tdrusk]

I think it was only a little bit less. Not much though.

[hakimaki]

Battery life still stinks. I love what you can do with Rockbox however battery life on a 30g video isn't all that great to begin with.

[zmjjmz]

Rockbox is awesome, but I'm not sure if it can play videos...

[nick09]

I got my 80GB 6th Gen Classic to work with songbird. Songbird is not in the repos either but with Songbird I can add music and videos. The album art was a mess but I don't really care as I just listen to music most of the time.

Turning the backlight down saves a ton of power too. Even at zero I still have some backlight. Which is enough as at 50% it is blinding.

[fjf]

I use it. Battery life is a bit shorter than with the apple firmware. But when you install it you can boot from any of them. No problem.

[grossaffe]

Rockbox is awesome, but I'm not sure if it can play videos...

It plays MPEG videos.

[Spike-X]

I found that constantly updating and scanning the database drained the battery of my 5.5 Gen 80 Gb model, so a while back I wiped it and re-loaded all my music directly from the computer onto the iPod (using it as a portable storage device and dragging the folders straight over, rather than going through a database-based program such as AmaroK).

I find that using it in file browser mode saves on battery life, and I can also edit playlists a lot more easily, as file names are no longer a jumbled mess.

[1ny0urfac3]

the recent updates have battery mostly on par with apple, i love rockbox

[fjf]

Thats one of the key feature of rockbox: drag-and-drop folders, no need for tagging music files, avoiding itunes and all that crap. Plus support for many audio file types (including flac, ogg, etc), and a very nice interface. I never used the original firmware.


I found that constantly updating and scanning the database drained the battery of my 5.5 Gen 80 Gb model, so a while back I wiped it and re-loaded all my music directly from the computer onto the iPod (using it as a portable storage device and dragging the folders straight over, rather than going through a database-based program such as AmaroK).

I find that using it in file browser mode saves on battery life, and I can also edit playlists a lot more easily, as file names are no longer a jumbled mess.

[th3james]

Yeah battery life is much better than it used to be, it never runs out on me. (although i tend to do short trips)

rockbox is amazing, sound quality is vastly better, and library management is much more advanced, not to mention its v hackable

[kpkeerthi]

Thanks for your replies. I'm going to try it when I get time and post back my experiences.
I'm not a sucker for battery life. I just use it for about an hour or so everyday. I'm good if the battery could last atleast 75% of what the stock firmware gives me.

[kpkeerthi]

Can't wait to share my happiness :)

Got Rockbox installed. It was super easy to set up. The bootloader installed without a hitch and booted to a nice default screen. Love the default look.

Grabbed extra fonts/themes/icons and customized the look the way I like.

Tried a few VBR (extreme) & 320 kpbs CBR MP3s and the quality of sound is excellent. I was really worried about the quality Rockbox might give but I'm extremely satisfied with it.

I can browse by album, artist, etc. Play numerous other formats (http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SoundCodecs), view album arts, set album/track gains and almost anything you could think of. I've got a lot of FLACs and OGGs that I will now be able to play in iPod. If you are experienced and know what you are doing, the 5-band fully-parametric equalizers & crossfeed can do wonders.

I can finally get rid of Banshee I have been using to transfer music. I'm starting to feel that it is getting overly bloated and will now switch over to mpd/sonata. I wrote a simple rsync script to sync my music collection with Rockbox. A simple sync-ipod command is all I would need to do to keep it synced.

Rockbox has been playing for the past 5 hours after a full recharge and still going on great: I find battery life on par with Apple's. I have not measured it exactly but this (http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodRuntime) seems very encouraging.

Overall, I'm more than happy with Rockbox. It does rock, really :guitar:

[hakimaki]

Well this thread made me try Rockbox out again on my 5g 30g Ipod. 3 months ago I was getting 2-3 hour battery life, now Im getting 10-14 hours depending on my usage habits. Surely on par with apples firmware now if not better. I take back my previous post. =)

[fjf]

There are also fantastic new themes to be used with rockbox:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/pub/Main/WpsIpod5g/arboxWidgets_wps.png



http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/viewfile/Main/WpsIpod5g?rev=2;filename=iwpreview.png

[tdrusk]

Awesome. Don't forget to put DOOM on it.