new ipod volume levels

[i_wolf]

Hi guys,
My ipod is due in two days!! And while im busy encoding all my albums, i noticed something in the forums here.
Supposedly because of french law apple had to reduce the volume on the european ipods in the firmware. Im assuming then that because my ipod is being shipped to me from taiwan that like an american customer i get a bare bones ipod that doesn't have any region setting???
Is it possible then that i can give it an american firmware region setting to get the better audio volume??? Also if i can do this, is there anyway of changing the location back???
Kind Regards,
i_wolf

[i_wolf]

ok someone please throw me a bone

[revmike]

here's your bone.

[ashawley]

I frankly don't know for sure. The hypothesis that's been thrown around is the setup program determines the region (either from the selection of country that you make, or based on your PC's regional settings.

Either way, I think I have a way around it. Instead of launching the install program, browse the CD for the Windows version of Updater.exe. It'll be in the "winroot" directory I believe.

Just run the updater w/o running the setup. This will configure your iPod as a Window's iPod and it should leave the volumne restriction off.

That's the theory anyway. You don't need any of the Apple software unless you're going to us MMJB (eck!). In fact I recommend leaving it off as it can cause connection problems.

You can copy the Updater.exe program and run it as a standalone app on your computer..which is what I do.

Adam

[i_wolf]

Buuu Yaka Sha! Eureeeka. Muchos Gracias. I now have US firmware. I changed my region settings in win, changed keyboard etc... everything including time zone. Made up a serial at the install bit and well now i am listening to my music as god intended (he who invented the ipod)

Thanks a lot guys

[i_wolf]

update. I restored my ipod and now its back to european. Dont know whats different but i cant seam to put the us firmware back on when i do a restore :( This is really really buggin me. Anyone else have any luck?! I should have left well enough alone!

[i_wolf]

still no luck. I thought that i had it at american settings. I copied a file off my bro's zen and listened to it at max , then swapped over to zen using same headphones and same file and tried to estimate the equivalent setting on the zen's volume scale.
Max ipod = 20 zen (zen uses a scale of 0-25)
I then deliberately reset all my region settings etc... back to european including the keyboard mouse yada yada yada etc.. etc.. etc..
i uninstalled all apple software, drivers etc..
I restarted
Reg Cleaned the registry for all apple keys that were made etc..
I then installed from the apple cd, and entered the correct information ireland etc....
transfered the same songs over again. did another comparison.
Result = the exact same as before.
It appears that i spoke too soon, this method doesn't seam to work properly.
Sorry guys if i got anyone's hopes up. I know this works great on the old ipod gen2 and before.... just gen 3 doesn't get tricked as easily.
Interestingly my bro's zen doesn't seam to be limited to any sort of volume limitation. I checked this on zen forums.
Why is it that apple have to lower the volume levels in europe and creative dont???
Further more, looking at the figures (estimate) above, it would appear that the extra "missing" volume on the ipod that is actually present would account for a 40% improvement if it was available. (US guys are lucky to have this). This would mean that if i could use the american firmware i should get
max ipod 28 > max zen 25.

Any the how, would anyone be willing to PM me the firmware, or software installer for the gen 3 ipod???

[martini]

I'm pretty sure that european users have tried to install the North American firmware already, with no change to the volume settings. If there is a fix for this out there, I haven't read anything about it anywhere. There are lots of posts on the Apple discussion boards about this as well, if you want to check what users there have tried.

[ModelCitizen]

The stuff in the Apple forums is about the second generation iPods, not the third generation ones with vs 2 software I think.

[martini]

There may be some posts about the gen2 iPods, but I'm sure I've read posts from users who just bought gen3 iPods, and were trying to hack the volume limitation.

[schiz]

Some one wanna summin all of this up for me? Getting confused.

So there looks like theres no way yet to get the volumn levels back up?Can't you lot with 3g ipods just update the firmware to one of the eariler ones?