Elta 8883A! WTF?

[oddball]

Noticed they have a new firmware section for the 8883A. Nothing there yet. Anyone know the difference?

http://www.elta.de/english/download....yer/-Laufwerke

Not listed on the products page though.

[JamesAnthony]

Very interesting.

Some 8883s were shipped as 8883A. I think I have one. There's a sticker at the top left corner, if you look at the machine from above.

I've just learned today that one shouldn't flash their 8883A with the 8883 firmware - which I did. Didn't notice any ill effects except that the OSD appears at the beginning of a avi/mpg file.

Back on topic. Seems the firmware will be released today or tomorrow. Could it be... subtitles? And being a german release - would they have the special characters that are missing from other Mediatek updates?

James

[JamesAnthony]

Bugger me...

So busy looking for info on the 8883A, that I didn't realise that there's an update for the 8883 available. And it's downloadable!!

James

[JamesAnthony]

SL8 just posted this on the DMF forum. It's the changelog for the 8883 firmware:

elta GmbH, Model: 8883MP4

Attention: NOT for 8883A with sticker SST39VF080
------------------------------------------------------------

Initial Release:

Version: 05.00.01.06
Sub Version: 00.00.01.06
8032 05.00.01.06
Servo: 01.05.01.00
RISC: 05.00.01.06
DSP: 03.03.00.14


------------------------------------------------------------
Update from 17.12.03:

Version: 05.00.02.02
Sub Version: 00.00.00.01
8032 05.00.02.02
Servo: 01.07.00.00
RISC: 05.00.02.02
DSP: 03.03.00.23

- improves Divx audio/video synchronization


------------------------------------------------------------
Update from 07.05.04:

Version: 05.00.03.05
Sub Version: 00.00.00.01
8032 05.00.03.05
Servo: 01.05.01.00
RISC: 05.00.03.05
DSP: 03.03.00.95

- DivX subtitle support (srt, smi), only English language
- OSD languages had to be changed to German, Enlish and Italian due to lack of memory.
- (S)VCD on CD-RW is now playing smoothly without artefacts
- Timecode is no longer displayed when playing AVI
- Zoom factor disappears automatically when Zoom button is pressed

------------------------------------------------------------

The lack of memory is not really a good thing... is it?
So much for the hope of special character's.

[plazz2000]

The elta 8883 firmware update is out!!

http://www.elta.de/downloads/softwar..._7_1052004.zip

[JamesAnthony]

From a polish forum...

Hello,

As far as I know there is no MediaTek 1389 based player with right subtitle
support. Yamada published recently firmware for 6600 player with subtitles,
but it is far from perfect (aligned left instead of centered, long lines
croped, no national characters).
Elta promises new firmware since January, but most people already lost the
hope. The problem is that firmware for MediaTek based players is written
only by MediaTek itself in Taiwan. In fact Elta and rest of distributors can
do nothing. Even worse: the newest firmware for Yamada 6600 is 1299 kB big.
Elta sells at least three 8883 models: old 8883, newer 8883A and the newest
8883 "with sticker" units. Only old 8883 series have 4 MB of flash ROM,
newer versions are equipped only with 1 MB of flash. I guess not every 8883
user will get subtitles...

Regards,
Thomas

Now, that CAN'T be good!! And maybe explains the delay in posting the 8883A firmware...

Of course they may actually be ensuring that the 'old 8883' firmware keeps to the 1mb limit to ensure easy ports between the different systems.

James

[oddball]

Sucks. Anyone had any luck hacking the firmware?

[JamesAnthony]

8883A Firmware now available. Can't download it until I get home though...

Should be interesting... or the same as yesterday's release for the 8883 not A!

At least the OSD problems should now be cured(avi. timestamp and perpetual 'zoom' information).

As for hacking the firmware - I've been seeing something called MTKtool in relation to the Mediatek 1389. Sites are in Polish though.

I suppose if Mediatek are going to be so slow in releasing updates, people will just have to create their own firmwares - and fix some of the obvious errors to date, ie only english characters, and left bound text.

James

[oddball]

and 42 character limit on filenames or subs are not even recognised :P

[Mtz]

White subtitles outlined with black.

Enjoy,
Mtz

[Leak]

Originally posted by Mtz
White subtitles outlined with black.

Enjoy,
Mtz

There wouldn't perhaps be one in the works for us that have an 8883 without the A?

np: Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Warriors Of The Wasteland (Attack Mix ft. Gary Moore) (Twelve Inches (Disc 1))

[oddball]

I wonder the same

[pirates]

Originally posted by Leak
[B]There wouldn't perhaps be one in the works for us that have an 8883 without the A?

hi all,

here you can find modded elta 8883 FWs with subtitle outlining:

elta 8883
elta 8883A

based on original FW 5.0.3.5_2 from elta with

- subtitle outlining
- hungarian OSD instead of italian

don't forget to rename the file to uppercase and follow the upgrade instructions, otherwise the player won' recognize the upgrade.

please note, that these FWs are based on the original FW, and MTZ's firmware version has in addition to the outlining modded fontsize, characterset and background picture too.

greetz,
peter