FAQ - Features we will not implement

What is this NoDo document?

This is a list of Feature Requests we get repeatedly that we simply cannot do on certain models of players. View it as the opposite of a ToDo! This NoDo document is currently organized in two sections: (1) features we will not or cannot implement on any players, and (2) features that we will not or cannot implement on Archos players.

Features we will not implement on any line of players

Implementing the ability to playback DRM crippled files

Firstly, this would be extremely difficult to implement legally - Rockbox is not legal entity as such, and therefore is unable to enter into license agreements with providers of DRM technology.

Secondly, Rockbox is open source, which would mean that any DRM technology we incorporated into our codebase would suddenly become visible to the whole world, completely defeating its purpose. Remember, DRM achieves part of it's security through obscurity, and publishing the keys necessary to decrypt DRM crippled media would essentially render it useless.

Finally, the members of the Rockbox community don't like DRM, and we see no reason to encourage its use by allowing our firmware to read it.

Support other filesystems than FAT32 (like NTFS or ext2 or whatever)!

Adding support for more filesystems will just take away valuable RAM for unnecessary features. While flashing the ROM allows a custom bootloader to be installed, and in many players' cases this allows the possibility of various filesystems to be used FAT32 is openly supported in most/all desktop operating systems and adding a second (or more) filesystem will cost all Rockbox users who don't use that filesystem, and only benefit the subset who do.

You can partition your player fine, just make sure the first one is FAT32 and then make the other ones whatever file system you want. Just don't expect Rockbox to understand them.

Add scandisk-like features!

It would be a very slow operation that would drain the batteries and take a lot of useful ram for something that is much better and faster done when connected to a host computer.

Alphabetical list skipping

Add support for non standard tag formats

Features that we will not or cannot implement on the Archos line of players

Record to MP3pro format!

The recording hardware (the MAS) does not allow us to record to MP3pro.

Crossfade between tracks on devices using hardware MP3 decoding!

Crossfading would require two MP3 decoders, and we only have one. This is not possible.

Support MP3pro, WMA or other sound format playback!

The MP3 decoding hardware can only play MP3. We cannot make it play other sound formats.

Converting Ogg->MP3

The mp3-decoding hardware cannot decode Ogg. It can be reprogrammed, but there is too little memory for Ogg and we have no documentation on how to program the MAS's DSP.

Doing the conversion with the CPU is impossible, since a 12MHz SH1 is far too slow for this daunting task.

Multi-band equalizer!

The MAS only offers the standard bass/treble settings and we can't do anything about it.

CBR recording!

The MP3 encoding hardware does not allow this.

Change tempo of a song without changing pitch!

The MP3 decoding hardware does not allow this.

Graphic frequency (spectrum) analyzer!

We can't access the audio waveform from the MP3 decoder so we can't analyze it. Even if we had access to it, the CPU would probably be too slow to perform the analysis anyway.

Cool sound effects!

Adding new sound effects requires reprogramming the MAS chip, and we can't do that. The MAS chip is programmable, but we have no access to the chip documentation.