Can someone help me identify this mysterious pseudo-ipod?

[DestonianTheory]

I have been searching for hours in various places, only to learn practically nothing.
the picture below (from the listing) implies that there is a way to add album covers, but I have not been able to find out if or how to do this.

If I knew anything about the chipset in this thing I suppose that would help or solve the problem.
The player works fine right now, but I can't found out what it is. No model no. or company name.
The only information I could find was the firmware version, which I found in the settings menu.
It says the FW version is 9.5.54 but that is really all it says. Version number, no name, no nothing.
It came from hong kong or singapore via Ebay. Here is a link to the ended listing.
If anyone knows more about this thing than what I have written, I'd love to know.
I am quite puzzled. I cannot contact the seller and there are no screws on the player so I can't
take it apart and find the chip numbers that way. I should note that this thing uses a standard Ipod
cable, which I found very surprising. It also has the touch sensitive wheel and has a very
rudimentary motion sensing function. You can shake it to skip from one track to another.
This is driving me insane knowing nothing about this hardware. Someone please help
me keep what's left of my sanity.

Thanks,
Destin

[makd511]

you cant!!
as ever the sellers are selling an ipod lookalike player and they are using images of the REAL ipod and that is what you are seeing there in that images - your player can not show album art, so far there (as i know off yet)are no clones nanos that can

The only one possibly will be the nano clone exact gen 5 from digital kingz, they have mentioned that their version MAY support art soon but it does not as of now and no other nano clones does either im afraid - that image is of a real nano not the one you have - sorry

[DestonianTheory]

Thanks for that info. I was suspecting that as a matter of fact. It's interesting that the thing came with a booklet, written with badly structured english, which has a picture on the front that is obviously a real ipod! It would be nice if the booklet had any actual info in it other than "how to plug in your player" and "how to use the photo viewer" blah blah... Still, there must be some way to find out what chips are inside this little thing. The hardware at least seems pretty decent, and I mod everything I ever own that can be modded, anything from a phone to a router to a laser pointer! I'm just sure that this hardware is capable of running a much better firmware with a much better gui, but whether or not this firmware exists is another question. Probably not. I still won't be comfortable till I somehow find out what chipset the thing is using or even who manufactured the chipset, and referably take a shot at actually modifying firmware one way or another. I hope I don't smash it open!! Anyone have any ideas about some way to identify the hardware with some sort of software? MP3 player tools didn't do it unfortunately, but surely that's not the only method of querying the hardware.

[makd511]

does it player AVI - more than likely its an actions semiconductor shipset as they power just about all ipod clones, if it does AVI then it will be the newer (is) series if its stil in AMV mode for videos then its the older ones - but 99% sure it actions

[DestonianTheory]

It does not play avi. I did, however, notice something that I had not thought to look for. In device manager, under the disk drive properties (for the player) it says Actions HS USB Flash Device. I suppose that's a start at least. But now there is more: I suspect that this player has the fake meory doubling or whatever it is called. The reason I say this is that one of the "MP3 Player Tools" programs (the avi converter) reports the drive at roughly 4000 MB. I tried to delete the partition but the option is grayed out in Computer Management>Disk Management. A program called "MP3 Player Disk Tool," that came with version 4 of MP3 Player Tools, consistently reports that there are no removable devices attached to the computer. Maybe if I'm lucky I can keep the device from becoming totally useless. Can anything be done about this fake memory thing, i.e. use the 4 gigs that aren't fake. It will hold close to 4gb so I know it has at least that much real memory.

[Skinski]

I guarantee you it has hacked memory. Every player from Hong Kong/China on Ebay listed with 8GB plus is hacked. I have bought literally over a 100 of them and every single one of them bar a few 4GB players and the 2GB players are hacked memory.

You can use Check Disk to remove the hack quite easily. Forget about modding them too as you will likely brick the thing.

I have bricked my fair share.

If you have not left feedback yet and you have only just purchased it then demand 50% partial refund and you'll find yourself with a 1GB or 2GB player for $10. Not a bad deal imo.

[makd511]

personally dont ask for a 50% refund - complain, get the seller banned, sorry skinski but we have to stop this ebay scamming, i know it seems you are well versed and know what you are doing but its not good at all - compain to ebay and paypal ASAP, get ALL your money back and get the seller banned