rfq
AVForums Member
This is a latest in a long process of attempts to be able to design an OEM CD player unit.
I have been trying to crack this since at least 2010, and I have finally decided to stop pursuit of this.
For those that don't know, here is a recap of what I have done the last 5 years.
* I have bought several boom boxes with the aim to reverse engineer them in each and every case the manufacturer of the chipset has either rebuffed me or has simply declined to give me any information at all.
* Toshiba - Did not answer any request for information
* ALi Coproration Taiwan - After months of back and forth and them playing the "wing wing wing we dont understand engrish" game, they eventually told me they do not disclose information about the chip and they do the development of the software for it, in-house for each manufacturer, who gets just a hexdump to put into his FLASH memory. They also proceeded to make racist comments about how they do not want "Westerners knowing their Chinese secrets"
* Every year, when something new lands on my desk, I look into it anew, so when I got a JVC KD-R306 recently, I was interested to see the chip used was from Panasonic. I then did the necessary I got an account on their CRM portal and I asked them. I got the answer from them today, from some very polite Japanese gentlemen:
In summary, Panasonic state that the market for CD players is disappearing and is no longer viable, and volumes of the chips have declined very badly. They are also discontinuing many of the chips. They told me that the USB flash drive and Bluetooth playback capability is where they can help me because there is growing demand for that. People do not buy CDs anymore, nor do they actually want to write CD-R either, they want to either plug in their iPhone or their flash drives. They also proceeded to tell me something we all know, that SA is in dire straits and they don't see any reasonable expectation I will succeed in this climate (thanks Zoomer).
As we know, a CD player is a pretty complicated piece of machinery. Panasonic also raised concerns about the necessary support I might require to get it to work.
The digital side is plain sailing, its the numerous servo controllers that are the sting in the tail. All of these are digitally controlled analog subsystems that need to be tuned with PID constants, and this is not something you can just write code for. The loop stability is affected by the type of spindle motor, the type of laser pick-up, the friction in the deck. All sorts of things.
Based on the above, and the fact that I don't reasonably want to waste any more time on this, I think it would be prudent to state that, if you want a CD player, I can do it, but then be prepared to use a DVD-ROM drive from a PC. These things are less than ideal, because they like to spin the discs so much that the whole case vibrates- but fortunately there are ATAPI commands to force the disc speed to 1x. At least I can do the SATA interface, there are chips available to do that, and I have the necessary NDAs in place with JMicron for their chipsets.
So, today this brings closure to something that has been going on for more than 5 years.
Thanks for reading.
I have been trying to crack this since at least 2010, and I have finally decided to stop pursuit of this.
For those that don't know, here is a recap of what I have done the last 5 years.
* I have bought several boom boxes with the aim to reverse engineer them in each and every case the manufacturer of the chipset has either rebuffed me or has simply declined to give me any information at all.
* Toshiba - Did not answer any request for information
* ALi Coproration Taiwan - After months of back and forth and them playing the "wing wing wing we dont understand engrish" game, they eventually told me they do not disclose information about the chip and they do the development of the software for it, in-house for each manufacturer, who gets just a hexdump to put into his FLASH memory. They also proceeded to make racist comments about how they do not want "Westerners knowing their Chinese secrets"
* Every year, when something new lands on my desk, I look into it anew, so when I got a JVC KD-R306 recently, I was interested to see the chip used was from Panasonic. I then did the necessary I got an account on their CRM portal and I asked them. I got the answer from them today, from some very polite Japanese gentlemen:
In summary, Panasonic state that the market for CD players is disappearing and is no longer viable, and volumes of the chips have declined very badly. They are also discontinuing many of the chips. They told me that the USB flash drive and Bluetooth playback capability is where they can help me because there is growing demand for that. People do not buy CDs anymore, nor do they actually want to write CD-R either, they want to either plug in their iPhone or their flash drives. They also proceeded to tell me something we all know, that SA is in dire straits and they don't see any reasonable expectation I will succeed in this climate (thanks Zoomer).
As we know, a CD player is a pretty complicated piece of machinery. Panasonic also raised concerns about the necessary support I might require to get it to work.
The digital side is plain sailing, its the numerous servo controllers that are the sting in the tail. All of these are digitally controlled analog subsystems that need to be tuned with PID constants, and this is not something you can just write code for. The loop stability is affected by the type of spindle motor, the type of laser pick-up, the friction in the deck. All sorts of things.
Based on the above, and the fact that I don't reasonably want to waste any more time on this, I think it would be prudent to state that, if you want a CD player, I can do it, but then be prepared to use a DVD-ROM drive from a PC. These things are less than ideal, because they like to spin the discs so much that the whole case vibrates- but fortunately there are ATAPI commands to force the disc speed to 1x. At least I can do the SATA interface, there are chips available to do that, and I have the necessary NDAs in place with JMicron for their chipsets.
So, today this brings closure to something that has been going on for more than 5 years.
Thanks for reading.
