Americhip Video In Printer - hacking it?

[IsaacHayes]

I got one of these devices from work, some form of advertisement for compuware. It's a 320x240 backlit LCD with a speaker, li-ion and a micro usb port. It shows up as a 512mb or so flash drive.

A coworker had worked on it trying to change the video, he formatted it or something. Anyway some files are back on it but it's not working. the logo.avi in the root was 0kb.

The files on it break down like this:

PLAYLIST (folder)
(these files have binary stuff in them, 0-2kb. The only text I can make out is
C:\VIDEO\MFAENG~1.AVI and C:\VIDEO\logo.avi)

allplay.1
dirplay.1
nowplay.0
nowplay.1
nowplay.2

VIDEO (folder)
(neil diamond mp3, but I don't think thats stock as the date is newer... lol)
logo.avi 0kb


I found a site http://americhipvipconversion.com/faq.html
But it looks like that's for their wedding photo stuff not commercial...


Anyone have one of these and can look at the structure, or hacked one? Or know a link to hack it? I'd think these would be hacked all over the net but I can't find jack shoot.

I ran a video through that online converter and it came out as:
.avi v1.0 container
interleave 36ms 1.1 v frames
audio frames aligned on interleaves

video
xvid
kpbs 544 qf .236
320x240 30.010 fps

audio
mp3 mpeg2-layer3
16000hz cbr 128kbps 1 channel


So any ideas? I'm guessing the play list needs to be fixed, but I have no idea on the format or editor???

EDIT: When you safely remove from PC, it goes into charging mode.
When you disconnect the charging (usb) cable it says "File Failed to Open"

[Google Adsense]

[SofaKingWeToddDid]

good question, i would guess you need the right format (size, compression audio rate and shit) of video...

that is a really cool thing to have though BTW!!!

[pocket-rocket]

EDIT: When you safely remove from PC, it goes into charging mode.
When you disconnect the charging (usb) cable it says "File Failed to Open"

It sounds like it's looking for something like an autorun file or the like, but you probably already knew this

[IsaacHayes]

Well I got the video to play!!!! moved it into the video folder........ LOL

Since I have no idea how it was setup originally, I don't have a good base to go off of. There was a logo.avi in the root, but I copied mine into \video\ and it played.

Now I noticed the nowplay.X files are gone, except 2 of them... Interesting...

I'm going to try to edit the playlist thing and remove all the extra binary characters and see if it works... I made a back up just in case.

yeah it's neat, my coworker tossed it after giving up. He was supposed to get it going for something else... They wanted to convert it to play a slide show or mp3 or something?!? whatever it's mine now.

Ideas to use it for? I'm thinking about putting maybe some cool video footage of my car(s) or something and having it for maybe when I take the orange car to car shows... Maybe some drag racing footage or something would be neat.... Since it's made to be an advertisement display thing... _shrug_

[pocket-rocket]

That would be pretty slick

[IsaacHayes]

It recreates all the files in /playlist folder so that is a non-concern.

But I can't get it to play more than 1 video in the VIDEO folder... even though those files in the play list show up in the playall.1 and dirplay.1 files... BUT it will play 2 videos, if I put one in the root and then one in the VIDEO folder.... strange...

I tried making more folders with videos and it skipped them but did list them in the play list.

Next I will try putting subfolders under video and see if it works by going down each directory...

This looks like there are at least 5 wires going to the play switch. If you hold it down it powers off the unit (after playing the last video it goes black but the backlight stays on for a while and won't reply unless you power cycle it). So i'm thinking that I might be able to break out some of those wires to more switches... From some videos on line I've seen of these things, they can have several buttons and you can click for several videos/advertisements. I bet they all use the same unit just tweaked...

Still can't find anyone hacking these things yet.. surprising...

[gumbo2k]

It recreates all the files in /playlist folder so that is a non-concern.

But I can't get it to play more than 1 video in the VIDEO folder... even though those files in the play list show up in the playall.1 and dirplay.1 files... BUT it will play 2 videos, if I put one in the root and then one in the VIDEO folder.... strange...

I've just received on of those devices from Dell. In my eyes they are a horrible waste of resources
and I'm going to complain to our account manager there about it. After all it is a throw away video player. How much more disrespect for the environment can you put into one device?

The back side label says that it was produced by i-look-innovations dot com, a small german company. They probably only manage the printing and data preparation process. Their website shows several versions of those devices.

Anyway the deed is done and rather than disposing of it as toxic waste I want see what can be done with it.

The device has a magnet in the lid and by this it is switched on when opened.

It has a micro USB socket, a wheel for volume adjustment and two buttons.

After a couple of seconds that it takes to boot it starts playing back the first video.
Button 1 restarts the first video.
Button 2 restarts the second video.
In either case playback loops until you either press a button or switch off the device.

I'll try to attach a zip file with the stuff that was on the device, except for the video files.
Please let me know if you want those too.

Here's a quick glance at the device as I look at it from a Linux box. (I attached it while it was switched on. If you attach it when it is switched off, it still shows up as a USB device but it will not do the the storage device emulation. I guess in that mode you'll need some driver but you might be able to change the firmware
Anyway here's what the device reveals as a storage device:

# lsusb
...
Bus 002 Device 019: ID 10d6:1101 Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd D-Wave 2GB MP4 Player / AK1025 MP3/MP4 Player
...
# dmesg | tail -50
...
[17637263.812031] usb 2-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 19
[17637263.949279] usb 2-5: New USB device found, idVendor=10d6, idProduct=1101
[17637263.949283] usb 2-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[17637263.949285] usb 2-5: Product: media player
[17637263.949287] usb 2-5: Manufacturer: actions
[17637263.949289] usb 2-5: SerialNumber: ㈱㐳㘵㠷㜸㔶㌴ㄲ
[17637263.949383] usb 2-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[17637263.950119] scsi109 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[17637263.950271] usb-storage: device found at 19
[17637263.950272] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[17637268.949064] usb-storage: device scan complete
[17637268.995679] scsi 109:0:0:0: Direct-Access     GENERIC  USB DISK DEVICE  0100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[17637268.996138] sd 109:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[17637268.998396] sd 109:0:0:0: [sdb] 309248 512-byte logical blocks: (158 MB/151 MiB)
[17637268.999463] sd 109:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[17637268.999466] sd 109:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 12 00 00
[17637268.999468] sd 109:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[17637269.001664] sd 109:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[17637269.001670]  sdb:
[17637269.028045] sd 109:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[17637269.028050] sd 109:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
...
# mount -o ro -t vfat  /dev/sdb /mnt
# find /mnt
/mnt
/mnt/VIDEO
/mnt/VIDEO/DELL II_MASTER_Video1.avi
/mnt/VIDEO/Dell II_Nero_Video2.AVI
/mnt/SYSTEM
/mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST
/mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/ACTMMLIB.PLS
/mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/dirplay.1
/mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/nowplay.0
/mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/nowplay.1
/mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/nowplay.2
/mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/nowplay.3
# ls -lsa /mnt/VIDEO/
total 32008
    4 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root     4096 Jan  1  2006 .
   16 drwxr-xr-x 4 root root    16384 Jan  1  1970 ..
 7336 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  7511382 Dec 22 15:39 DELL II_MASTER_Video1.avi
24652 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 25242650 Dec 22 15:39 Dell II_Nero_Video2.AVI
# ls -lsa /mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/
total 2076
   4 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Jan  1  2006 .
   4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root    4096 Jan  1  2006 ..
2048 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2097152 Jan  1  2006 ACTMMLIB.PLS
   4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     114 Jan  1  2006 dirplay.1
   4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root      24 Jan  1  2006 nowplay.0
   4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root      32 Jan  1  2006 nowplay.1
   4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root      24 Jan  1  2006 nowplay.2
   4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root      24 Jan  1  2006 nowplay.3
# file /mnt/VIDEO/DELL\ II_MASTER_Video1.avi 
/mnt/VIDEO/DELL II_MASTER_Video1.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 320 x 240, 25.00 fps, video: XviD, audio: MPEG-1 Layer 3 (stereo, 44100 Hz)
hefry:~# file /mnt/VIDEO/Dell\ II_Nero_Video2.AVI   
/mnt/VIDEO/Dell II_Nero_Video2.AVI: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 320 x 240, 25.00 fps, video: XviD, audio: MPEG-1 Layer 3 (stereo, 44100 Hz)
# 
# hexdump -C /mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/ACTMMLIB.PLS 
00000000  01 02 00 00 d4 87 2d 01  08 00 00 00 80 00 00 00  |......-.........|
00000010  99 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  35 00 00 00 41 63 74 69  |........5...Acti|
00000020  6f 6e 73 20 53 65 6d 69  63 6f 6e 64 75 63 74 6f  |ons Semiconducto|
00000030  72 20 43 6f 2e 20 4c 74  64 2e 20 28 43 29 43 6f  |r Co. Ltd. (C)Co|
00000040  70 79 72 69 67 68 74 20  52 65 73 65 72 76 65 64  |pyright Reserved|
00000050  2e 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
00000060  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00000080  00 03 00 00 0c 03 00 00  18 03 00 00 24 03 00 00  |............$...|
00000090  30 03 00 00 3c 03 00 00  48 03 00 00 ff ff ff ff  |0...<...H.......|
000000a0  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00001000  00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00001020  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00001060  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 f8 ff ff ff ff  |................|
00001070  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
000030c0  00 80 00 00 13 80 00 00  26 80 00 00 39 80 00 00  |........&...9...|
000030d0  4c 80 00 00 5f 80 00 00  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |L..._...........|
000030e0  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00004cb0  ff ff ff ff 72 80 00 00  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |....r...........|
00004cc0  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00008000  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  30 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  |........0.......|
00008010  02 30 00 ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff 31 00 03 00 02  |.0.........1....|
00008020  00 00 00 02 31 00 ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff 32 00  |....1.........2.|
00008030  03 00 02 00 00 00 02 32  00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |.......2........|
00008040  ff 33 00 03 00 02 00 00  00 02 33 00 ff ff ff ff  |.3........3.....|
00008050  ff ff ff ff 34 00 03 00  02 00 00 00 02 34 00 ff  |....4........4..|
00008060  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 35  00 03 00 02 00 00 00 02  |.......5........|
00008070  35 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff 2d 07 00 00 16 00  |5.........-.....|
00008080  00 00 02 73 00 6f 00 72  00 74 00 62 00 79 00 54  |...s.o.r.t.b.y.T|
00008090  00 69 00 74 00 6c 00 65  00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |.i.t.l.e........|
000080a0  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00030000  00 00 03 00 0c 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00  |............ ...|
00030010  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00030c00  00 0c 03 00 0c 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 21 00 00 00  |............!...|
00030c10  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00031800  00 18 03 00 0c 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 22 00 00 00  |............"...|
00031810  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00032400  00 24 03 00 0c 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 23 00 00 00  |.$..........#...|
00032410  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00033000  00 30 03 00 0c 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 24 00 00 00  |.0..........$...|
00033010  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00033c00  00 3c 03 00 0c 00 00 00  06 00 00 00 25 00 00 00  |.<..........%...|
00033c10  54 03 00 00 00 80 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |T...............|
00033c20  55 03 00 00 13 80 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |U...............|
00033c30  56 03 00 00 26 80 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |V...&...........|
00033c40  57 03 00 00 39 80 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |W...9...........|
00033c50  58 03 00 00 4c 80 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |X...L...........|
00033c60  59 03 00 00 5f 80 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |Y..._...........|
00033c70  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00034800  00 48 03 00 0c 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 26 00 00 00  |.H..........&...|
00034810  5a 03 00 00 72 80 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |Z...r...........|
00034820  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00035400  00 54 03 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 25 00 00 00  |.T..........%...|
00035410  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00035500  00 55 03 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 25 00 00 00  |.U..........%...|
00035510  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00035600  00 56 03 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 25 00 00 00  |.V..........%...|
00035610  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00035700  00 57 03 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 25 00 00 00  |.W..........%...|
00035710  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00035800  00 58 03 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 25 00 00 00  |.X..........%...|
00035810  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00035900  00 59 03 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 25 00 00 00  |.Y..........%...|
00035910  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00035a00  00 5a 03 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 26 00 00 00  |.Z..........&...|
00035a10  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
00200000
# 
# hexdump -C /mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/dirplay.1
00000000  66 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  c0 79 0a 80 01 00 00 00  |f........y......|
00000010  43 3a 2f 56 49 44 45 4f  2f 00 26 00 20 fa 09 00  |C:/VIDEO/.&. ...|
00000020  00 00 0c 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 43 3a 2f 56 49 44  |..........C:/VID|
00000030  45 4f 2f 44 45 4c 4c 49  49 7e 31 2e 41 56 49 0a  |EO/DELLII~1.AVI.|
00000040  26 00 20 fa 09 00 00 00  0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |&. .............|
00000050  43 3a 2f 56 49 44 45 4f  2f 44 45 4c 4c 49 49 7e  |C:/VIDEO/DELLII~|
00000060  32 2e 41 56 49 0a 1a 00  20 fa 40 00 20 fa 44 4e  |2.AVI... .@. .DN|
00000070  45 46                                             |EF|
00000072
# hexdump -C /mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/nowplay.0 
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 fb ff ff ff  |................|
00000010  d4 87 2d 01 00 00 00 00                           |..-.....|
00000018
# hexdump -C /mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/nowplay.1
00000000  00 00 00 00 c4 2b d1 ff  02 00 00 00 fb ff ff ff  |.....+..........|
00000010  d4 87 2d 01 02 00 00 00  1a 00 20 fa 40 00 20 fa  |..-....... .@. .|
00000020
# hexdump -C /mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/nowplay.2
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 fb ff ff ff  |................|
00000010  d4 87 2d 01 00 00 00 00                           |..-.....|
00000018
# hexdump -C /mnt/SYSTEM/PLAYLIST/nowplay.3
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 fb ff ff ff  |................|
00000010  d4 87 2d 01 00 00 00 00                           |..-.....|
00000018
#

As you can see the device only has 160MB storage but if the USB interface could be run in
host mode the device could potentially access external storage or maybe even networked storage.
But that depends on the firmware and I don't think we'll ever see that software released.

Anyway .. good luck and let me know If you managed to teach it some new tricks :-)

[howley71489]

ifu use super converter the video files are avi containers that have been encoded with Xvid and mp3, resolution is 320x240 at 25 frames per second, ~1500 kbps b-rate , audio is set at 44100 sampling, chanels:2, and 128 kbps b-rate.
installing Xvid codec and by using the super converter to incode it.
all u have to do is rename the files to overwrite the current .avi files

[gumbo2k]

ifu use super converter the video files are avi containers that have been encoded with Xvid and mp3, resolution is 320x240 at 25 frames per second, ~1500 kbps b-rate , audio is set at 44100 sampling, chanels:2, and 128 kbps b-rate.
installing Xvid codec and by using the super converter to incode it.
all u have to do is rename the files to overwrite the current .avi files

Yeap.

Apparently the Device was prepared with a vfat filesystem while the device's own
firmware prefers simple 8.3 DOS file names. If I don't want to do anything other than
exchange the video files, obviously I'll have to see to it that the 8.3 DOS name matches
the one in the plalist files. So much was clear.

Still I'd like to be able to do something more than just put a different video file in.
At the very least I'd like to be able to prepare playlists with more than two (or four) files.
And I'd love to control (at least via the playlist files) repeat and shuffle settings.

The device is apparently just a stipped down version of an ak1025 based mp3/mp4 player.
The kind that is sold as 3g ipod nano clones. So it should be possible to get that kind of
functionality out of it. :-)