Elta 8882 - Firmware questions

[whazzaa]

At the moment i am overloading this board with questions about the Elta 8882, because is just bought this player and i'm trying to figure out what the limitations are with this player.

This because i had some trouble with it my self.

Now i found out that this player is build on :
kernel: uClinux 2.4.17, processor: Sigma Design 8500

I also found a page that describes the UClinux incl the way to compile and decompile the firmware.

http://www.uclinux.org/pub/uClinux/

I want to decompile the firmware and see if there are any options how to modify this firmware, and if it's possible to write new options in it. Baby steps at a time, first thing is to modify the startup logo's and other screens in this fimrware. Then let's see how the divx encoding is done.

It seems that it's possible to mount the .bin ( firmware ) under linux and readout the structure of the firmware. Maybe it's possible ?

Are there any owners of this player Elta 8882 that have tried to readout the firmware and were able to modify things ?

Ps @Doom9 maybe it would be nice to make a sub in this forum for the different Hardware Divx players ?

The other players that i found:

www.waitec.com
Waitec DVD X4 (kernel: uClinux 2.4.17, processor: Sigma Design 8500)


www.umax.com
Yamada DVX-5500, Yamada DVX-6000 (kernel: uClinux 2.4.17, processor: Sigma Design 8500)
The Yamada DVX-5500 is a cloon of the Cosmic CO-213.


www.woxter.com
Woxter XDIV 500 (kernel: uClinux 2.4.17, processor: Sigma Design 8500)
The Woxter XDIV 500 is a cloon of the Cosmic CO-108.


www.northq.com
NorthQ NQ5000 (kernel: uClinux 2.4.17, processor: Sigma Design 8500)
The NorthQ NQ5000 is a cloon of the Cosmic CO-301.


www.jamo.com
Jamo DVR 50 (kernel: uClinux 2.4.17, processor: Sigma Design 8500)

[whazzaa]

I found someone who's verry skilled with UClinix.
He's willing to help me out to see if it's possible to reverse engineer the firmware or if it is possible to add different functions to the Player, and maybe add some codec's.

Wel at this phase it looks verry good.

I looked at the firmware, and it must be possible to boot the complete firmware from a cd. So modifications can be tested this way before we flash the unit.

Under linux we have to mount the firmware as a loop device and write the contents to a cd, And boot this cd like booting into the flash procedure. Hopefully this wil work.

I'm looking for people who have tried this.....

Cheers

Wh@ZzAa

[Doom9]

well.. even if you manage to decompile, you're lacking the API documentation to access the hardware... and adding codecs isn't just a piece of cake.. it requires very skilled codec and embedded device developers, and the cpu power you have available is very limited. If you're thinking about speeding up DivX3 decoding, or adding QPel, better add skilled assembly coder to the requirement list above.

[AlphaDivxMovies]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58237

I really question the legality of doing this, reverse engineering reminds me of divx 3.11 and Micosoft.

[zag2me]

You can unpack the kiss player firmware easily but changing the actual player code is difficult because it involves some large program files. It is nice to look into this firmware and change things, the things the kiss scene has managed to do so far is.

-Change graphics, backgrounds ect..
-Reverse engeeneer the network protocol for the dp-500.
-Change the webradio to display custom stations.

Without the Sigma designs development kit, it is very hard to do any advanced stuff. This kit is only available to dvd hardware manufacturers.