Zune suppport unicode

[scheme]

First, sorry for my poor english



I just got my brand new zune yesterday.

Disassembled it, connect its harddisk to my computer and put some font files into system partition.

As mentioned in the my last post, zune properly display non-US character (see the above image, there's korean and japanese).

I couldn't understand why on the earth MS did not install non-US character fonts. -_-;

Before disassemble my zune, I tried to change zune's firmware file which downloaded from MS's server by changing hosts file.

But, the firmware cabinet file seems to have a digital signature.

Hmm. cab (computer side + may be zune side too) + bin (zune side?) double signature check?

So, I could not upload firmware cabinet file that altered to include non-US font files.

If once we have a hack method to access to the zune's system partition, make the zune to support unicode character will be a piece of cakes.

[lpxxfaintxx]

F**king awesome man. Our H&M team tried this also with a Zif Hard Drive enclosure, but failed. I guess we'll try again some other time. What exactly did you do? Just drag and drop the font in?

Han Gook mal hae?

[Fez]

Originally Posted by lpxxfaintxx

Han Gook mal hae?

Yah i guess you would like to put korean language on the zune..

[lpxxfaintxx]

Lol, not really. 99% of my songs are in English. I have a few german, japanese, korean, and french songs here and there.

[scheme]

What I did is

0. Disassemble the zune and connect its harddisk to computer. (cause we do not have a hack method to access the system parition yet )

1. make the folder named "Fonts" under the system patition's root directory

2. Put font files (msgothic.ttc gulim.ttc mingliu.ttc simsun.ttc) into the folder.

and these file could be found under the %systemroot%\fonts on your windows machine. (If some of file is missing, install the east asian language pack to your windows)

3. assembling zune and turn it on. The zune will be support unicode character.

Originally Posted by lpxxfaintxx

Han Gook mal hae?

Yeah, actually I'm korean. For that reason, my english s**ks

[lpxxfaintxx]

Nah doo. Dae han min guk!

Haha, I'm Korean too, but I'm practically American. Born and raised in America, I can barely speak/read Korean.

[scheme]

Originally Posted by lpxxfaintxx

Nah doo. Dae han min guk!

Haha, I'm Korean too, but I'm practically American. Born and raised in America, I can barely speak/read Korean.

AH? Jung Mal? Ha Ha I Run U Yeon I. Nan Seoul E Sal A.

(Hmm.. Korean-English expression looks awkward. )

It's almost midnight here. I should go to sleep.

[God]

Originally Posted by lpxxfaintxx

F**king awesome man. Our H&M team tried this also with a Zif Hard Drive enclosure, but failed. I guess we'll try again some other time. What exactly did you do? Just drag and drop the font in?

Han Gook mal hae?

That is not accurate, we hadn't gotten past working on hacks that would have done alot more than just allow Asian characters.


But, if this is real, congratulations for stumbling onto something like this.

[skullcandy527]

wow this is great. Im korean so i have alot of korean songs

[LedZepp]

Problem with this is, there is no way (yet) to do this without an adapter.

[ghostz]

doing this is it possible to change font style and color????????????????

[God]

this mod only allows you to add unicode support, not to replace the font

[LedZepp]

No, we have only started this now. As of now only the ability to add support for asian characters is possible.

[ZunePet]

Cool. It works for me too!

Tested with 'dingbats' font (a unicode font, part of the 'msgothic.ttc' font collection)
Photos (sorry for the blur). 3 tracks with dingbat characters in the name:
Before hack, dingbats characters drawn as boxes: http://aibohack.com/zune/before1.jpg
After hack: http://aibohack.com/zune/after1.jpg
Thanks to 'scheme' for the discovery. Thanks to 'lpxxfaintxx' for the heads up.
-----
Technical note:
It is calling the WinCE API 'AddFontResource' which *should* add fonts or font collections (officially ".ttf" is one font, and ".ttc" is a collection, but the API handles both)
So in theory, you should be able to use regular .TTF files (rename to one of the 4 hard coded .ttc file names)
NOTE: the built in 'Convection' font is around 130KB of data. The extra unicode fonts are an additional 40MB!

Unfortunately, tweeking these files is not very practical because it requires a hard drive swap
-----
> doing this is it possible to change font style and color????????????????
It may be possible to replace the limited built-in 'Convection' font, depending on how it does the font matching. Someone needs to do more experimentation.
Color is a different problem. With full access to the hard drive, there are visual attributes in one of the settings database.

Unfortunately, tweeking these files is not very practical because it requires a hard drive swap
-----
re: tweeking the font files without the hard drive swap.

It *may* be possible to trick the update software to update these files. The update process handles the special 3 BIN files (EBOOT.BIN, RECOVERY.BIN and NK.BIN) and copies them to the system partition.
Certain other files appear to be permitted as well (.AC3, .TTC and .TTF file extensions). There is similar logic in the GigaBeat-S. Someone needs to do more experimentation.
-----

re: can this be used for a homebrew hack?
Possibly. It is the only place in the registry with a direct link to an optionally loaded file on the "Hard Disk" (the first partition, AKA the system partition)
Since you can place your own TTF files on the device, a corrupted one may be possible to crash the device in a semi-predictable way.
The font loading/rendering process is rather complicated. Bugs/exploits have been found in the past.
For example: http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cve...=CVE-2007-1213

Someone needs to do more experimentation.
DISCLAIMER: This may be a hole to get true homebrew working, or it may be yet another dead-end. Don't get your hopes up. If anyone is seriously looking at a Zune homebrew hack, I recommend looking in this area.

[wetworker]

Props on this hack, it would be nice if zune owners could change font styles and font colours.
man i wish i had the programing skills like you guys, oh well back to playing with pixels... keep up the good work guys.

[lpxxfaintxx]

Originally Posted by ZunePet

Cool. It works for me too!

Tested with 'dingbats' font (a unicode font, part of the 'msgothic.ttc' font collection)
Photos (sorry for the blur). 3 tracks with dingbat characters in the name:
Before hack, dingbats characters drawn as boxes: http://aibohack.com/zune/before1.jpg
After hack: http://aibohack.com/zune/after1.jpg
Thanks to 'scheme' for the discovery. Thanks to 'lpxxfaintxx' for the heads up.
-----
Technical note:
It is calling the WinCE API 'AddFontResource' which *should* add fonts or font collections (officially ".ttf" is one font, and ".ttc" is a collection, but the API handles both)
So in theory, you should be able to use regular .TTF files (rename to one of the 4 hard coded .ttc file names)
NOTE: the built in 'Convection' font is around 130KB of data. The extra unicode fonts are an additional 40MB!

Unfortunately, tweeking these files is not very practical because it requires a hard drive swap
-----
> doing this is it possible to change font style and color????????????????
It may be possible to replace the limited built-in 'Convection' font, depending on how it does the font matching. Someone needs to do more experimentation.
Color is a different problem. With full access to the hard drive, there are visual attributes in one of the settings database.

Unfortunately, tweeking these files is not very practical because it requires a hard drive swap
-----
re: tweeking the font files without the hard drive swap.

It *may* be possible to trick the update software to update these files. The update process handles the special 3 BIN files (EBOOT.BIN, RECOVERY.BIN and NK.BIN) and copies them to the system partition.
Certain other files appear to be permitted as well (.AC3, .TTC and .TTF file extensions). There is similar logic in the GigaBeat-S. Someone needs to do more experimentation.
-----

re: can this be used for a homebrew hack?
Possibly. It is the only place in the registry with a direct link to an optionally loaded file on the "Hard Disk" (the first partition, AKA the system partition)
Since you can place your own TTF files on the device, a corrupted one may be possible to crash the device in a semi-predictable way.
The font loading/rendering process is rather complicated. Bugs/exploits have been found in the past.
For example: http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cve...=CVE-2007-1213

Someone needs to do more experimentation.
DISCLAIMER: This may be a hole to get true homebrew working, or it may be yet another dead-end. Don't get your hopes up. If anyone is seriously looking at a Zune homebrew hack, I recommend looking in this area.

Thanks, but I don't think anyone here is capable of purposely creating a corrupted font. Know where to start?

[God]

Originally Posted by lpxxfaintxx

Thanks, but I don't think anyone here is capable of purposely creating a corrupted font. Know where to start?

creating a corrupted font is child's play, the hard part is getting it so that the firmware will not view it as corrupt and instead will encounter an overflow condition or some other predictable error that will accomplish something

[Dizzy]

Man, Engadget took this totally awesome hack and trashed it all to hell. I know they ain't exactly MS fanbois, but what jerks.

Don't let em get to ya scheme. You may have opened up a bunch of possibilities.

[wetworker]

gizmodo and engadget I swear must be getting paid by apple, it's the most biased site when it come to Zune related stories.

Did you guys catch the Lg prade story they did saying it was a copy of the iphone, when the Lg prade won a design award like 6 month b4 the iphone was released in 2007.

[iyoojin]

hey, is it possible to do this without opening the zune? i just got my 2 days ago and i have a bunch of korean songs and i dont feel like voiding my warranty yet...

and also, whats the safest way to open the zune up?