Modify the firmware in my Pioneer Premier car cd player?

[BigToque]

I've got a Pioneer Premier P880PRS in my car and there is something about it that I really dislike.

When playing MP3's, you can have the unit display track name/time, track name/album, album/time, artist/time and album/artist. It does not allow you to show track name/artist.

I find this to be very strange and VERY annoying.

I was wondering how it might be possible for me to modify the firmware to alter one of the display modes to display track name/artist.

I can't seem to find any websites where people discuss this kind of thing.

 

[Miklebud]

My 7800 does Artist/trackname... That's odd...

 

[DarkThinker]

Originally posted by: BigToque
I've got a Pioneer Premier P880PRS in my car and there is something about it that I really dislike.

When playing MP3's, you can have the unit display track name/time, track name/album, album/time, artist/time and album/artist. It does not allow you to show track name/artist.

I find this to be very strange and VERY annoying.

I was wondering how it might be possible for me to modify the firmware to alter one of the display modes to display track name/artist.

I can't seem to find any websites where people discuss this kind of thing.

Ya good luck with that, this is what I think you will need to do :
You'll have to desolder the main ROM chip in there and then dump the binary contents on a PC, then decode the memory addresses then you need to put the chip back into the unit, then use the unit to map all the I/O connections to a Digital Analyzer then try to determine what commands are being issued to due to that display interrupt you are causing. Then determine were the "Name" variable is stored and where the "Artist" variable is stored in memory.
Once you get a firm grasp of what you need to do to then you'll have to re-remove the chip then copy the contents to a PC, then manually and yes manually edit the binary content of the code (granted you have figured that out by then) then rewrite the new firmware to a new chip then solder the new chip in to the unit.


In other words.....get a better player.

 

[BigToque]

Originally posted by: DarkThinker

Originally posted by: BigToque
I've got a Pioneer Premier P880PRS in my car and there is something about it that I really dislike.

When playing MP3's, you can have the unit display track name/time, track name/album, album/time, artist/time and album/artist. It does not allow you to show track name/artist.

I find this to be very strange and VERY annoying.

I was wondering how it might be possible for me to modify the firmware to alter one of the display modes to display track name/artist.

I can't seem to find any websites where people discuss this kind of thing.

Ya good luck with that, this is what I think you will need to do :
You'll have to desolder the main ROM chip in there and then dump the binary contents on a PC, then decode the memory addresses then you need to put the chip back into the unit, then use the unit to map all the I/O connections to a Digital Analyzer then try to determine what commands are being issued to due to that display interrupt you are causing. Then determine were the "Name" variable is stored and where the "Artist" variable is stored in memory.
Once you get a firm grasp of what you need to do to then you'll have to re-remove the chip then copy the contents to a PC, then manually and yes manually edit the binary content of the code (granted you have figured that out by then) then rewrite the new firmware to a new chip then solder the new chip in to the unit.


In other words.....get a better player.

I understand that it's not exactly an easy thing to do. There is almost always some kind of enthusiast community that has already done all this stuff though. I'm surprised that I can't find a site where people are discussing this.

 

[jtvang125]

I doubt you'll find anything. The car stereo hacking scene isn't here yet. Most of the common headunit hacks/firmware changes are bypassing safety features and allowing bigger hard drives to be added. Something as small as that probably won't be bothered with.

 

[DarkThinker]

Originally posted by: BigToque

Originally posted by: DarkThinker

Originally posted by: BigToque
I've got a Pioneer Premier P880PRS in my car and there is something about it that I really dislike.

When playing MP3's, you can have the unit display track name/time, track name/album, album/time, artist/time and album/artist. It does not allow you to show track name/artist.

I find this to be very strange and VERY annoying.

I was wondering how it might be possible for me to modify the firmware to alter one of the display modes to display track name/artist.

I can't seem to find any websites where people discuss this kind of thing.

Ya good luck with that, this is what I think you will need to do :
You'll have to desolder the main ROM chip in there and then dump the binary contents on a PC, then decode the memory addresses then you need to put the chip back into the unit, then use the unit to map all the I/O connections to a Digital Analyzer then try to determine what commands are being issued to due to that display interrupt you are causing. Then determine were the "Name" variable is stored and where the "Artist" variable is stored in memory.
Once you get a firm grasp of what you need to do to then you'll have to re-remove the chip then copy the contents to a PC, then manually and yes manually edit the binary content of the code (granted you have figured that out by then) then rewrite the new firmware to a new chip then solder the new chip in to the unit.


In other words.....get a better player.

I understand that it's not exactly an easy thing to do. There is almost always some kind of enthusiast community that has already done all this stuff though. I'm surprised that I can't find a site where people are discussing this.

The thing is, it's due to the nature of the market. Hacking scenes turn up when there are steady platforms and worthwhile features to be unlocked, Name/Artist feature for example is not for instance something that an intelligent hardware hacker would spend money + ass loads of time + risk hardware failure for.

However that same hardware hacker or group of hackers might risk a PS3 and put time and money into it to figure out how to disable HDCP restrictions on the PS3, or how to get a PS3 to save CD games to HDD. Why because the platform is steady hardware wise...and a mass market benefit exists....etc

 

[ObiDon]

i name all my music files with artist/tracknumber xx/track name. that way they play in order without a playlist and the deck shows the artist and track name when the display is set for filename.

if id3 tags cause any problems, you can strip them off with ID3remover before you toss them on a cd

 

[BigToque]

Originally posted by: ObiDon
i name all my music files with artist/tracknumber xx/track name. that way they play in order without a playlist and the deck shows the artist and track name when the display is set for filename.

if id3 tags cause any problems, you can strip them off with ID3remover before you toss them on a cd

The deck I have directly connects to my iPod (and controls the iPod from the deck). All my MP3's are tagged. I love not having to carry around CD's

 

[ObiDon]

Originally posted by: BigToque

Originally posted by: ObiDon
i name all my music files with artist/tracknumber xx/track name. that way they play in order without a playlist and the deck shows the artist and track name when the display is set for filename.

if id3 tags cause any problems, you can strip them off with ID3remover before you toss them on a cd

The deck I have directly connects to my iPod (and controls the iPod from the deck). All my MP3's are tagged. I love not having to carry around CD's

i forgot about that. mine has that too, but i rarely drive far enough to need more than 700MBs of music

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

I have a similar problem on my Pioneer 5000 with it showing "XM Tuner" on one line the whole time. Dumb. I know I'm listening to XM, just show me the name and track.