Open Source the Firmware

[BillBauman]

Apr 20, 2010 15:42:06 GMT -5 monkeypimp said:

Apr 19, 2010 15:25:23 GMT -5 bootman said:

I don't think this is possible without new hardware.
The current upgrade process requires that a PC becomes the client. (usb controller) and the UMC the host (usb storage).

I don't think a usb controller is built into the UMC so just plugging in a thumb drive won't work.
(if this is indeed the case)

When I spoke to Vincent last week about the firmware he said(i would put quotes but I can't remember the exact wording) *this will be so much easier when you can just stick a usb drive into the umc*...I then ask him about the UMC being only a client and he said that it wasn't just a client and that it will be able to accept a usb drive and do the firmware upgrades from there, that they just weren't there to be able to do this yet.

I think there's some confusion at the Emotiva camp. I spoke to Lonnie today and confirmed my assumption that there is no USB host controller in the UMC-1. Bootman had a smidge backwards. What happens is that the UMC-1 is instructed by the Emotiva AVR Upgrade program to go into update mode, the particular chip to be updated goes into a dumb wait-state, the upgrade program begins sending data, when the chip to be updated detects data, it begins writing it to its EEPROM. There is no way for the UMC-1 to control this process on its own. The USB connector alone is sort of a hint as to the architecture. If it could accept (control) a USB storage device directly, it would have a different connector.

[jannick]

I suspect the restrictions on component output (and possibly hdmi content protection) will make sure an idea such as this will never fly. It has been clearly stated serveral times that the UMC-1 is capable of producing higher quality component output, than what the new licensing terms allows. Making it possible for the end-user to circumvent such limitations would probably be a break of license in itself.