Circuit City.....RIP

I visited my local circuit city this past Sunday for their last day in business.  It was a sad day indeed.  I had my camera with me so I was able to take some pictures for your viewing pleasure.  As a side note, a guy with a camera whom was taking pictures was forced to delete his pictures that he took by an unruly securty guard (bouncer).  I hid my camera at that point, I'm guessing he didn't see me.

Here are some outside shots (yes, it was yet another beautiful day in Los Angeles).  Note the U-Haul van.  The liquidator was selling off all of the store display fixtures and one happy customer filled this U-Haul van with them.

The Inside was even more sad.  The customer section of the store as confined to a small section at the front of the store.  There wasn't much merchandise left, just some miscellaneous items including bulk packs of DVD blanks and audio/video/computer cables.

Note the sign below - I assume this was from an earlier time, however, some employee(s) did some modifications to it.

Here are some pictures from inside the rest of the store where they were tearing apart the display fixtures.  The store looks a lot bigger when it is empty.

Onda VX747 Gets Linux?!?

A while ago I reported to you about the open source "Rockbox" OS being ported to the Onda VX747, well now Linux has been ported!?!  There is a great writeup and thread on VM-KERNEL.ORG about it:

http://vm-kernel.org/blog/2009/02/24/linux-on-onda-vx747/

http://code.google.com/p/jz=hacking/wiki/index?tm=6

While it still looks rough, Linux has indeed been ported to the Ingenic JZ4732/JZ4740 chips.

Here is a nice video from the developers

As you can see, they have Linux with a full GUI working.  Of course, now if you want to have other Linux apps ported, they have to be compiled for the JX47xx chips but this is a great start!

This could also be ported to the Onda VX757 as it is basically the same player as the Onda VX747 except that it does not have the touchscreen.

For those interested, here is the Rockbox site for the VX747 and other Ingenic based players port of the open-source Rockbox OS: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/OndaVX747

Sorry I've been away...

I'm sorry I've been away for a while.  In addition to taking time out to travel, We've been working on our 2009 product lineup.    I would like to give a special thanks to everyone whom wrote in in the meantime.  I have several new blog articles planned in the coming days.  Meanwhile, we are having a spring sale on our existing product range at Planet Metropolis and our eBay outlet store.

- Dave

New Teclast X21

Teclast just announced their new X21.  This is an audio only player (and quite a large one) although it does have some nice features.  Here are the main specs:

* Rockchip RK2601A

* 1.0" 2-color OLED display (128X64 resolution)

* Built in FM transmitter

* Built in microphone

* Capacitive touch buttons (slip touch)

* Extra long battery life

Well, we don't know exactly what that battery life is yet and I assume that it comes with the standard flavor of NAND FLASH capacities.  Normally, I would recommend staying away from a MP4 player using the Rockchip RK26xx family but this family is perfectly fine for an audio only device.

New 3.5" Teclast Player...Teclast M35?

The Teclast OEM (original equipment manufacturer) is now showing a new 3.5" MP4 Player.  The details are still rough but it will have the following features:

* Rockchip RK2706

* 3.5" OLED display

* Capacitive touch buttons (not touch screen)

* Support for CMMB/DVB-T

* 1500mAH Li-Ion Battery

I think that the 3.5" display alone is great as you can expect this player's size to be similar to the iPhone/iPOD Touch.  The fact that the display is a large 3.5" OLED display means that this player will have nothing short of stunning video quality. I would expect that the OLED display will mean that this won't be one of the lower cost models however.

I find it interesting that Teclast's OEM is now starting to put the CMMB/DVB-T standard into their players.  This is the next in a line of added features that started with TV-Out and FM Transmitters.  There is no news whether or not this player will support TV-Out or an FM Transmitter but it is quite likely.

We don't yet know what this player will be called and we have no news as to when it will become available.  Stay tuned here for more information.

Spotlight: Rockchip!

Anyone who is "in the know" about chinese portable media players knows the name Rockchip. Rockchip is a chinese semiconductor company that specializes in SOC (System On a Chip) ICs for mobile devices. FuZhou Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd. was established in 2001 in Fuzhou China to develop audio and video processing ICs.

The first Rockchip IC to become known to the west was the Rockchip RK2608A. The RK2608A is a SOC for portable media players (mp3 players, mp4 players, etc...). This chip was the mainstay controller IC found in chinese PMPs in 2007. Some products that used this chip include: Onda VX858, Ramos RM550, Ramos RM850, Hacha PC20, Hacha PA20, and many more. The RK2608a based players were limited to playing back video files mostly no better than 24fps and at fixed display resolutions.

The RK2608a's limitations propelled Rockchip to release the RK2706. The RK2706 is the first in the current line of Rockchip SOC ICs that utilize a dual core 400MHz ARM MCU + proprietary Rockchip DSP. This high performance dual core allowed for the development of products that have video playback up to 30fps and varying display resolution. This led to a new breed of PMP/MP4 players that were advertised as being able to play back files "without conversion". The truth is that RK2706 based players can play back many files without conversion but playing back files with too-high video bitrates and display resolutions that do not match the PMP's native LCD resolution can sometimes require "conversion" (conversion is taking an existing file and running it through a audio/video file conversion program to lower the frame rate, lower the bit rate, reduce the display resolution). One of the first PMPs to use the RK2706 was the Ramos RM970 introduced in early 2008. Some other players that use the RK2706 are the Teclast T50, Teclast M26, and Hacha PC20a.

I'm not aware of any western companies that use the Rockchip ICs or big name Asian companies, but if Rockchip keeps gaining popularity and chinese PMPs keep gaining increased popularity, perhaps one day you will walk into Best Buy and buy an product with a Rockchip IC in it.

You can visit the Rockchip website directly here: ROCKCHIP WEBSITE

We've updated our look...

We've updated our website look over at PlanetMetropolis.com. All are welcome to stop by for a visit:

PlanetMetropolis.com