Rockbox - You need it.
 

ported from findthejake.com

I traded my folks my four gigabyte iPod Nano for their forty gigabyte Toshiba Gigabeat. The Nano is big enough to do the things my mom would use it for and I needed the extra storage space for my movies and music to take with to Guam. I am taking a laptop but it only has a 30gig hard drive so there was going to be some massive space issues. Luckily though for me, my folks are way cool and helped me out again.
Now some things about the Toshiba, like the iPod it comes with it’s own software and unfortunately like the Ipod it encrypts all the music you upload to it. As soon as I loaded the Gigabeat software, GigaRoom, I became annoyed with it. The program was buggy, kept locking up and the manual was in Japanese, a language that is still on the “to learn” list. So I did what every 20 something does and googled for help.
What I found is an amazing program called Rockbox. It is an open source freeware replacement firmware for digital audio players. Started back in 2001 because of owner frustration with the Archos proprietary software, it has now expanded to have ports for almost every version of six of the major brands. The firmware even supports dual-boot on many of the platforms and has some awesome plugins. Remember Doom? Yup you can now play it on your iPod. Read texts? Yup. Mpeg movie player on mp3 players never meant to play video? Yup. And let’s not forget gapless playback! Formerly this was only available on the Creative Zen player’s but now no longer! So perk up you fans of beauty!
The installation was amazingly simple and the best part about it is that I can now drag and drop my files without having to worry about any encryption or having to use any archaic proprietary software. There are also many reports of improved battery life on most of the supported players. Unfortunately there is no port for my Dad’s 80gig iPod Video yet but just about every other iPod is supported. If you are sick of iTunes or just want more freedom with your music and files then this program is the way to go.



Anyone else try this?

Niceone, that sounds like a great program! If only I still had a player. :(

I can understand why Apple would do that, their so poular they can do what they like really. But I wouldn't have thought Toshiba where that big in the mp3 market and making their players a pain in the arse to use isn't going to help them get into apples league. Every other player on the market should be open like the creative players so they have one up on apple.

Only problem with it is that it drains the battery alot faster then your normal UI does so its fine for short trips but when travelling it might be more trouble than its worth

Thats on ipods at least, as Jake said on some platforms it does increase battery life ...really need an edit button

yeah on mine it actually increased battery life.

yep, use it with my iriver ihp120 mp3 player. takes a bit of getting used to but very good overall