Denon LCD screen CPU/Soc and TheKikGen Firmware utilities

Hi,

Walking the Mixxx forum I have seen this very interesting publication of the user ounsatn.

Did any of you know about these projects on GitHub?

It seems that nothing has been discussed about this “hack” in this forum.

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On Facebook there is a whole group of people that are doing something similar to this on mpc’s - they are called the Hakai group.

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We have a Facebook group for hacking the force to do things like this.

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@Myalteredsoul

We have a Facebook group for hacking the force to do things like this.

Wow, how interesting!

Excuse me if the questions I’m going to ask next, seem like something out of an interview:

@Myalteredsoul :

  1. Could you tell us, please, what progress has been made, especially with Denon brand / Prime OS devices in this Facebook group?

  2. What can we expect from the hack of these mpc’s today or in the near future? The Mixxx forum even discusses the possibility of porting this open source software to these Denon Prime series devices. Could this be feasible?

  3. Is there any progress regarding modifications or customization of the Denon OS firmware?

  4. (This last question, perhaps, would be addressed to a member of the Denon team) To what extent is it legal to reverse engineer the firmware of these devices? I understand that of course re-programming with 3rd party firmware would put it out of warranty and might even render them unusable.

But… What if the firmware was created from zero, ie there were no Denon proprietary code parts?

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Most of the Engine OS is built upon open source software anyway so there are only few proprietary elements that need a rewrite. I would even state that a reverse engineer of engine is not meaningful as, e.g. the analysis and library management of Mixxx is way better than that of Engine. If one would be able and install a customized Mixxx version onto the SC6000 I would directly go for it.

If you check out the main branch of Mixxx (future 2.4 version) there is already the possibility to export to Engine format, at least until v1.6 and I used it natively running on my Linux box. As from 2.0 onwards the database changed it is no longer working, except you stay with 1.6.x firmware on your player.

Crazy idea, but maybe Denon would be better to support Mixxx development and use the power of that open source project for their players instead of going around in circles with Engine. A plugin extension could make sure that things like Soundswitch could be added proprietary.

PS: there are efforts made to run Mixxx on a RPi (also arm based) on a 10" touch screen. I don’t find the link now but there was a guy turning his ddj-400 in a standalone player attaching the RPi with screen running Mixxx

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@DjOsZ Thank you very much for the info.

I totally agree with your point of view regarding the features and functionality of Mixxx in relation to Engine OS. Denon has shown that software development, unlike hardware, is far from its strong point. The waveform analysis engine, bpms, etc. of the tracks, the interface, and library are tremendously basic, almost, I would say, like a kids app. Support and updates are very slow, do not meet user demands and with each supposed improvement or step forward, new bugs appear and two steps backwards.

Therefore, I also agree with your opinion (it is not a crazy idea) that if, tomorrow, I had the opportunity to install Mixxx on my Denon SC5000M unit, I would do it immediately with my eyes closed.

At this point, and with all due respect, the Denon developers having not shown that they are competent and up to the demands of software like Mixxx, VDJ, Traktor or Serato, I would also quickly suggest to Denon/inMusic alliance or acquire Mixxx, or else its units, at the software level, will never reach the desired sales and impulse, to compete with brands like Pioneer and their Rekordbox software.

If anyone else could share their experience exporting Mixxx on their Denon Prime series player or controller, or ideas or future projects, I would be greatly appreciative.

A greeting.

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Aquire Mixxx is no point as there is no company behind. It is a community driven open source project. This means, Denon could use the source code available or even better to support this project so there would be a win win situation for Mixxx and Denon and of course for us, as the users…

There are enough examples for combining commercial interests with open source projects. MS, Intel, IBM and others are contributing a lot of code to the Linux kernel so it supports their commercial needs better. AMD released their GPU specifications years ago as their drivers were not really great. The open source community picked it up and developed open source drivers. I use amdgpu… Why not apply this to a DJ software?

In all honesty, I don’t believe Denon would ever go this route but I like a little bit of dreaming. :grin:

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I do not fully agree with this statement:

Open Source Acquisitions:

A key factor in legitimizing the Open Source business model has been significant acquisitions of Open Source projects over the past decade.

One of Open Source’s biggest years of acquisitions was 2018, with five significant assets equating to over $50 billion.

  • IBM acquired RedHat for $32 billion
  • Salesforce bought Mulesoft for $6.5 billion
  • Adobe acquired Magento for $1.7 billion
  • Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion
  • EQT Partners acquired Suse for $2.5 billion.

Exactly this - don’t wanna go too detailed here on that but what was acquired are companies or infrastructure. Mixxx project is not a company, while Radhat, Mulesoft and the likes are. But back to topic …

I wrote you a personal message with more information.

Cheers!

Remarcable answer … are also my toughts :clap:t2::clap:t2::clap:t2:

Mixxx in Denon hardware for the win!! I love mixxx, this post made my day