Cosmic Gecko Posted September 11, 2006 Report Share Posted September 11, 2006 Finally got around to putting my Z1 into the car this past weekend. I did a bit-for-bit copy of an original virgin image (via dd in linux) onto a 100-Gig Seagate drive (leaving 70Gigs unaccounted for, for now -- I just wanted to make sure the image was usable.). Everything worked great while I had the Z1 hooked up to the bench power supply. Everything also worked great when the unit was in the car -- until I started driving around. Then the unit would randomly freeze up regardless of what operation I was trying -- navigation, A/V, play a dvd. This leads me to wonder if the "freezing" problem has more to do with the (non-Automotive rated) hard-drive's inferior ability to withstand vibrations, because I can reset the Z1 unit back to a working-state by cycling power to it. Perhaps it's a combination of the HD's poor responsiveness (it has to pause until it can correctly read the sector), along with the Z1's software freaking out from timeout issues? Hmm... On a side note... I gave up on the password-sniffing rig for now, as my logic analyzer seems to think some data lines are floating, and I can't pinpoint the reasons for it at the moment.. probably need to add some resistors to pull the signal up or down... *grr*. I'll probably take a long break from that and work on an FPGA-based solution after the holidays. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shoaf213 Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 [quote name="Deep Throat Jr"]I heard from a little birdie that you are on the right track. From what I hear you need to do some reverse engineering for the mp3's, It will not be easy but it is possible. You will get it soon As I slip away into the dark again. :D[/quote] If you know something we don't it would be nice to share instead of giving false encouragment and cryptic advice..... I know EVERYONE wants to be able to load MP3's on the HDD...It's SEEMS like it would be as easy as figuring out what type of compression Pioneer uses and duplicating it, but, either way... I WILL GLADY PAY FOR [b]ANYONE[/b] who can figure this out, and I'll pay well! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cosmic Gecko Posted September 26, 2006 Report Share Posted September 26, 2006 Getting MP3s onto the Z1 is being worked on, but it's a slow-going process. My approach (work in progress): * Mount the 4 partitions unlocked HD under Linux (/mnt/z1/[SDATA, etc..]) * rsync --progress -a /mnt/z1/* /mnt/z1copy * Reinstall the HD into the Z1, and have it extract a CD * Put the drive back to the Linux box. * rsync --progress -a [b]-n[/b] /mnt/z1/* /mnt/z1copy <-- -n = "dry run" At this point, I'd know exactly which files have been changed or added, and then I can copy both versions to a workarea for further analysis in a Hex Editor. I still think it's just a matter of identifying the Catalog files, and deciphering the format. The first experiment is to replace an *.AAC file with an MP3 file of something else, and then HexEdit the AAC file's entry in the Catalog File to the MP3 file's filename. If the Z1 plays the MP3, then bingo, we're golden -- we'd know that the Z1 is capable of playing MP3s from the hard drive. After that, it's a simple matter of writing an application to drop the MP3 files and update the Catalog files. Though, everyone's still on their own to get the drives unlocked in the first place.. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shoaf213 Posted September 27, 2006 Report Share Posted September 27, 2006 what about the HDD not playing an MP3, but finding out what format it WILL play and converting MP3's to that format and uploading those files to the HDD?? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cirbirus Posted September 27, 2006 Report Share Posted September 27, 2006 [quote name="Cosmic Gecko"]Getting MP3s onto the Z1 is being worked on, but it's a slow-going process. ... I still think it's just a matter of identifying the Catalog files, and deciphering the format. The first experiment is to replace an *.AAC file with an MP3 file of something else, and then HexEdit the AAC file's entry in the Catalog File to the MP3 file's filename. [/quote] I don't think that's going to work because the existing ac3 files are a modified version and you can't just swap them out with a standard ac3 file. Basically they removed all the format information. I was close to getting the format of the files on the Z1 but I lost interest when I was unable to replace my hard drive due to the crashing problem. [quote name="Cosmic Gecko"] If the Z1 plays the MP3, then bingo, we're golden -- [/quote] It won't. [quote name="Cosmic Gecko"] we'd know that the Z1 is capable of playing MP3s from the hard drive. After that, it's a simple matter of writing an application to drop the MP3 files and update the Catalog files. Though, everyone's still on their own to get the drives unlocked in the first place..[/quote] Sorry but that's just not going to work for the reasons described. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bdmpastx Posted September 27, 2006 Report Share Posted September 27, 2006 I am almost willing to bet that the Z1 is not ripping them into mp3 file format but rather the wma format with a variable bit rate. It is just the way that microsoft does things by default. And since they make the OS for Pioneer, it is almost a sure thing. Microsoft development teams that work with companies such as Pioneer always tend to steer them into thier products and not a 3rd party mp3 ripper. I also think that you will find that the library function within windows media player is very much in tune with that on the Z1. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shoaf213 Posted September 27, 2006 Report Share Posted September 27, 2006 Well, if it played WMA's, that's easy enough Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cosmic Gecko Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Mmkay, now I grok what Cirbirus is describing. The catalog files and filesystem aren't the problem -- it's appears to be easy enough to follow. The bummer part is that the Z1 appears to be hard coded for a header-stripped version of the file, which is (I assume from the file extension) encoded in Sony's [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATRAC3]ATRAC3 format[/url]. The slight ray of hope is that this is the same format used by the Sony PSP, and there's an active hacker-scene there that figured out how to convert to the normal ATRAC3 layout. We just need to figure out how to munge up the headers so that it's playable on the Z1. I'm probably repeating someone else's work here, but I can't seem to locate any older threads on the topic. [b][update][/b] aha, found a [url=http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=530&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=atrac3&start=30]thread[/url] with useful info. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bdmpastx Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 hmmm...why would Pioneer use a piece of software from a competitor? Or better yet, why would Sony allow a competitor use it's software. Just because the file has an extention that is the same as another, doesn't mean that it is the same file structure within that file. I wish that I had a spare HDD to play with this. Does anyone here do HDD emulation? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gamezilla Posted September 29, 2006 Report Share Posted September 29, 2006 so since you guys finally figured out a way to unlock the hard drive, do you see any possibility of copying mp3's straight onto the hard drive from your computer? I'm also willing to help out as I have alot of computer knowledge, but I dont have the Z1 yet...I'll be getting it in a few weeks. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
billyinlilla Posted October 13, 2006 Report Share Posted October 13, 2006 I can just see now...Two pioneer geeks looking at all these posts and saying :shock: "We got em" :shock: ... I only wish i had a ton of money to throw your way to do this...Can`t wait for the outcome, Keep up the good work guys... Ain`t this fun. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cirbirus Posted October 13, 2006 Report Share Posted October 13, 2006 [quote name="bdmpastx"]hmmm...why would Pioneer use a piece of software from a competitor? Or better yet, why would Sony allow a competitor use it's software. Just because the file has an extention that is the same as another, doesn't mean that it is the same file structure within that file. I wish that I had a spare HDD to play with this. Does anyone here do HDD emulation?[/quote] Thank you for treating my posts and actual research as if I had done nothing. Your baseless assumptions and uninformed opinions on how things SHOULD be are clearly more relevant than my actual research. Keep up the good work. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
todds650r Posted October 22, 2006 Report Share Posted October 22, 2006 On the Windows Automotive Embedded website they indicate that Pioneer uses this OS. Not sure what that means....perhaps you can do something with this information. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
todds650r Posted October 22, 2006 Report Share Posted October 22, 2006 [url=http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jan06/01-05InfotainmentExperiencesPR.mspx]http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/pres ... cesPR.mspx[/url] Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A4rium Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 [quote name="ducatiboy"] [quote name="Anonymous"]Hi Guys Any news on this topic? woudl ove to be able to dump mp3's directlly onto HD :)[/quote] The way it is stock, no you can't dump MP3's to the hard drive (while it is installed in the car). There is a theory that we can remove the hard drives out of the head units, hook them up to a PC and transfer directly. But so far no one (including myself) has had the guts to yank the drive out of their unit and try it.[/quote] New in the forum and just wanna say thanks for the all the infos. Just an idea, I'm thinking of using a media enclosure for 2.5" HHD. [url=http://www.shop4tech.com/item4760.html]http://www.shop4tech.com/item4760.html[/url] and connecting it to aux via RCA, it's like a mini pc, mostly interested in playing MP4 videos, MP3s, jpegs... Instead of connecting it to RCA, we can probably connect to the Z1 input "AV IP bus" (used for TV tuner) if there's an adaptor. AV IP bus to RCa or AV IP bus to USB then we can control the media enclosure from touchscreen and maybe even use the USB to power up the media enclosure. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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