I've Hacked It!

shell · 06-22-2008, 07:37 PM

YouTube - Zune with Hindi and Telugu (Indic...

Using my hack, the Zune can now support ANY Unicode language. I will post the full writeup within the next few days. Until then, you can look at this eye-candy.

runtohell121 · 06-22-2008, 07:53 PM

yea nice job.. only works for zune 30.

EndUnknown · 06-22-2008, 08:01 PM

and I assume only 1.X fw?

shell · 06-22-2008, 08:02 PM

RE: Runtohell
1. I don't own any of the newer Zunes.
2. Just because it doesn't work for the newer Zunes doesn't mean this isn't big. Before the Zune could only support CJK, now it can support ANY Unicode language. The text rendering can be funny though.

RE: Dark
As far as I know, yes. I really don't wanna go back up to firmware 2.x and see if this works or not after all the trouble I've been though with this already.

runtohell121 · 06-22-2008, 08:03 PM

and now the question is...
what did you use to hack it?
what software?

Dizzy · 06-22-2008, 08:07 PM

awesome job! looking forward to the write up.

Netrix · 06-22-2008, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by runtohell121

and now the question is...
what did you use to hack it?
what software?

Yeah.. I'd really like to know as well. Good job by the way. I only read English, but it's amazing anyways.

shell · 06-22-2008, 08:08 PM

This isn't the full writeup that I'm promising but this is the basics of it:
I found a rather elaborate way to trick the Zune software into thinking that another Unicode font (in this case Code2000) is really SimSun. This took so long because there is no such thing as a tool that will simply edit TTC files!

shell · 06-22-2008, 08:30 PM

Some more pics. The Telugu tends to render quite well, here is a good example:

Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the Hindi which really does not render well, especially with half-letters (virama in a word sort of), but here's one that came out quite well:

Scrapz616 · 06-22-2008, 08:40 PM

I'm a bit disappointed, I thought you hacked the zune for like a new firmware, but this is still pretty cool. Support for more languages, but too bad it's only for the 1x firmware.
Either way good job, this will actually help a lot of people with songs in languages other than english.

mikem709 · 06-23-2008, 06:03 PM

This will help tons for people who speak and listen to more than just english. Now that the zunes have gone international, MS should think about their target audience more.

Veritas · 06-24-2008, 05:50 AM

Oh my!!
I speak and write Hindi myself,
though I never expected to see anyone else of my race with a zune.
What's up brother! I hope you're enjoying the Hindi on your zune =]
It's so great, I never expected ANYONE to do Hindi on the zune.
You must be good with this. PM me if you want to talk 'shell'.

ozric · 06-24-2008, 09:18 AM

Great start, but just wanted to alert you to the fact that the Devanagri script (Sanskrit derived; Hindi etc) isn't showing up correctly. It is displaying a common error which is described on the Wikipedia page (top right box). It can be fixed by installing Complex Indic Script support. Don't know how hard that is do do on the Zune?

shell · 06-24-2008, 12:57 PM

Don't patronize me. I know very well that that is happening and I have already addressed that. It is actually displaying somewhat properly as some of the vowels and marks are being placed properly. The only problem it is having is with the Hindi short i and general half-letters

ozric · 06-24-2008, 08:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shell

Don't patronize me. I know very well that that is happening and I have already addressed that. It is actually displaying somewhat properly as some of the vowels and marks are being placed properly. The only problem it is having is with the Hindi short i and general half-letters

How could what I said be construed as being patronizing?? All I did was point out that the script isn't rendering properly. It is a common occurrence even with web browsers which lack Indic support. My last comment ought to be read "I wonder if it is difficult to fix?".

Anyway, again, great work. Hopefully this will be ironed out, because as minor as the error is, it screws up the words.

Edit: I only just noticed the line above the screenshot where you mentioned the issue. Sorry.

shell · 06-25-2008, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozric

How could what I said be construed as being patronizing?? All I did was point out that the script isn't rendering properly. It is a common occurrence even with web browsers which lack Indic support. My last comment ought to be read "I wonder if it is difficult to fix?".

Anyway, again, great work. Hopefully this will be ironed out, because as minor as the error is, it screws up the words.

Edit: I only just noticed the line above the screenshot where you mentioned the issue. Sorry.

Sorry, I just get annoyed when people don't read posts and end up restating information that has already been clearly stated in an effort to seem up on things.

shell · 06-26-2008, 06:37 PM

Ok, I haven't posted the explanation yet because my zune has been freezing like crazy. WHOOOOOOOH! I don't think it has anything to do with the hack though.

I'm gonna manually delete the firmware on the HD (as it now CRASHES before I can even get into sync) and hope it restores properly

UPDATE: Killing firmware and moving to 1.3 didn't help, gonna reformat and re-up to 1.3 and re-sync everything >.> god damn it!

UPDATE 2: After a bunch of **** (1.2 -> 1.3 -> FORMAT -> 1.2) I think it is working. I think the problem was that the system partition got corrupted, so I formatted it from my computer and worked from there. It is back on 1.2 and seems to be working fine so far. I am charging it and I will get back to everyone in the next couple days after I make SURE that the freezing doesn't come back (and is thus unrelated to the hack).

Spike! · 06-26-2008, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikem709

This will help tons for people who speak and listen to more than just english. Now that the zunes have gone international, MS should think about their target audience more.

To be correct, it will only help people who have an older zune or know how to Downgrade, since all new Zunes ship with the new firmware. Seems like alot of effort to only be able to use this with the old firmware, i'd definatly use it if it was on the new one.

shell · 06-26-2008, 07:47 PM

I love how you undermine the work and cleverness that went into this hack by simply bitching about how it doesn't work on the newer firmwares (yet). Honestly, I'd get cracking on working on hacking the new firmwares but to be honest with you, at this point after all I went through with this, I think I'm happy. This way if I don't find out how to hack the new firmware, then I don't need to do the downgrade and resync again. Anyways, in my previous post, UPDATE 2 is living true for right now. Sorry for postponing the writeup, I'm just making sure that people don't follow my writeup and end up freezing up their Zunes left and right. Once I'm sure that the freezing wasn't caused by the hack, I will post that writeup I promised.

Darth Camel · 06-26-2008, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shell

I love how you undermine the work and cleverness that went into this hack by simply bitching about how it doesn't work on the newer firmwares (yet). Honestly, I'd get cracking on working on hacking the new firmwares but to be honest with you, at this point after all I went through with this, I think I'm happy. This way if I don't find out how to hack the new firmware, then I don't need to do the downgrade and resync again. Anyways, in my previous post, UPDATE 2 is living true for right now. Sorry for postponing the writeup, I'm just making sure that people don't follow my writeup and end up freezing up their Zunes left and right. Once I'm sure that the freezing wasn't caused by the hack, I will post that writeup I promised.

They're really not "undermining" your work. All they are doing is pointing out that the appeal of this hack is limited due to the fact that it is using the older firmware. Everyone else is still saying it's great work and congratulating you though, as you should be. It's excellent work.

06-22-2008, 08:07 PM	#6 (permalink)
Dizzy Joe the Plumber Moderator Ultimate Zuner Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 6,729 Reputation: 348	awesome job! looking forward to the write up. __________________ Stop activity immediately if you feel short of breath, faint or dizzy, experience chest pain, or profuse perspiration. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

06-22-2008, 08:40 PM	#10 (permalink)
Scrapz616 Support Team Super Zuner Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New York Posts: 1,679 Reputation: 148	I'm a bit disappointed, I thought you hacked the zune for like a new firmware, but this is still pretty cool. Support for more languages, but too bad it's only for the 1x firmware. Either way good job, this will actually help a lot of people with songs in languages other than english. __________________ To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. *Throw Ya L's Up* To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

06-24-2008, 09:18 AM	#13 (permalink)
ozric Experienced Zuner Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: A Hup-Ho World Posts: 109 Reputation: 12	Great start, but just wanted to alert you to the fact that the Devanagri script (Sanskrit derived; Hindi etc) isn't showing up correctly. It is displaying a common error which is described on the Wikipedia page (top right box). It can be fixed by installing Complex Indic Script support. Don't know how hard that is do do on the Zune? __________________ To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Spinning Zune courtesy To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

06-26-2008, 06:37 PM	#17 (permalink)
shell Squirt Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 17 Reputation: 12	Ok, I haven't posted the explanation yet because my zune has been freezing like crazy. WHOOOOOOOH! I don't think it has anything to do with the hack though. I'm gonna manually delete the firmware on the HD (as it now CRASHES before I can even get into sync) and hope it restores properly UPDATE: Killing firmware and moving to 1.3 didn't help, gonna reformat and re-up to 1.3 and re-sync everything >.> god damn it! UPDATE 2: After a bunch of **** (1.2 -> 1.3 -> FORMAT -> 1.2) I think it is working. I think the problem was that the system partition got corrupted, so I formatted it from my computer and worked from there. It is back on 1.2 and seems to be working fine so far. I am charging it and I will get back to everyone in the next couple days after I make SURE that the freezing doesn't come back (and is thus unrelated to the hack). Last edited by shell : 06-26-2008 at 07:44 PM.

06-22-2008, 08:02 PM	#4 (permalink)
shell Squirt Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 17 Reputation: 12	RE: Runtohell 1. I don't own any of the newer Zunes. 2. Just because it doesn't work for the newer Zunes doesn't mean this isn't big. Before the Zune could only support CJK, now it can support ANY Unicode language. The text rendering can be funny though. RE: Dark As far as I know, yes. I really don't wanna go back up to firmware 2.x and see if this works or not after all the trouble I've been though with this already.

06-22-2008, 08:08 PM	#8 (permalink)
shell Squirt Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 17 Reputation: 12	This isn't the full writeup that I'm promising but this is the basics of it: I found a rather elaborate way to trick the Zune software into thinking that another Unicode font (in this case Code2000) is really SimSun. This took so long because there is no such thing as a tool that will simply edit TTC files!

06-22-2008, 08:30 PM	#9 (permalink)
shell Squirt Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 17 Reputation: 12	Some more pics. The Telugu tends to render quite well, here is a good example: Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the Hindi which really does not render well, especially with half-letters (virama in a word sort of), but here's one that came out quite well:

06-23-2008, 06:03 PM	#11 (permalink)
mikem709 Zuner Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 94 Reputation: 10	This will help tons for people who speak and listen to more than just english. Now that the zunes have gone international, MS should think about their target audience more.

06-24-2008, 05:50 AM	#12 (permalink)
Veritas Squirt Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 10 Reputation: 10	Oh my!! I speak and write Hindi myself, though I never expected to see anyone else of my race with a zune. What's up brother! I hope you're enjoying the Hindi on your zune =] It's so great, I never expected ANYONE to do Hindi on the zune. You must be good with this. PM me if you want to talk 'shell'.

06-24-2008, 12:57 PM	#14 (permalink)
shell Squirt Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 17 Reputation: 12	Don't patronize me. I know very well that that is happening and I have already addressed that. It is actually displaying somewhat properly as some of the vowels and marks are being placed properly. The only problem it is having is with the Hindi short i and general half-letters

06-26-2008, 07:47 PM	#19 (permalink)
shell Squirt Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 17 Reputation: 12	I love how you undermine the work and cleverness that went into this hack by simply bitching about how it doesn't work on the newer firmwares (yet). Honestly, I'd get cracking on working on hacking the new firmwares but to be honest with you, at this point after all I went through with this, I think I'm happy. This way if I don't find out how to hack the new firmware, then I don't need to do the downgrade and resync again. Anyways, in my previous post, UPDATE 2 is living true for right now. Sorry for postponing the writeup, I'm just making sure that people don't follow my writeup and end up freezing up their Zunes left and right. Once I'm sure that the freezing wasn't caused by the hack, I will post that writeup I promised.

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