How To: Novice

[jeff]

Basic Questions and Answers on Themeing/Skinning.

[bignose]

how you add the skin

[mixin]

This guide is designed to teach people how to apply a ready made skin to standard firmware on H3mod

What is needed:

• Clean Firmware
• H3mod
• A lovely skin

These will all be in zip files, so you will need to extract them preferably into the same folder. You might want to put your themes in a theme folder.

1. Open up H3mod.exe



This is how the program looks. When you first load the program you'll probably not have anything listed in the Bookmarks section, but not to worry!

2. Load your Firmware



Simply go to File > Load and find the blank firmware you downloaded to apply the skin to.



After loading the firmware you should get what you can see under 1. There will be a list of bookmarks and a picture of some letters and numbers.

3. Applying the skin
If you goto Skin > Import Images you can load the skin



Then find the skin you downloaded and extracted earlier on:



If you've loaded it properly this pop-up should appear:



At the top it should say "xxx Pictures loaded" where xxx is a number. The number may not always be the same, because it depends on how many images the skin creator has decided to change.
Just click on OK, and you should be taken back to the normal H3mod window.

[mixin]

4. Previewing the skin
This step isn't essential but is a quick way to check if the skin has been loaded.
Goto Skin > Preview, of press the F2 button on your keyboard.
You'll get a pop-up like this one:



You can scroll through the slides and different parts of the h300 using the back/forward arrows.

5.Saving the modified firmware
If you goto File > Save As you can save the firmware so you can upgrade it on your H300.



I find it best to save it straight onto my H340, so it means that i don't get confused as to which firmwares are modified and standard. It will also make your life easier when you want to apply a new skin, because you always need to load standard, non-modified firmware into H3mod.



(Always save the firmware with the name: H300.hex)

Once you've saved it on your H340/H320, you can then load unplug it from your computer then goto Settings > General > Firmware Upgrade on the device. Upon the player rebooting, you should then have your nice new skin on the player.

[Carman]

Nice guide, this will be a good reference point to send newbies to

On a side note - Not sure if you know this (judging by your screen dumps you don't), but if you press Alt+Print Scrn when you wanna do a screen dump, it will only capture the active window, rather than the whole screen, which saves alot of cropping and time.

[Corrupted]

i got a couple of errors when i first loaded the firmeware, the first saying:




2 original images could not be found in the currently loaded firmware:
____________________ ____________________ ____________________ _
Remote\Remote Computers
Remote\Remote Functions Settings

You probably opened an already modified firmware file.
If this is not the case, make sure you have the correct reference
file: reference_106.bin for US and older firmware versions,
or reference.bin for all 1.20 or later versions.
Also make sure you really use the original, unmodified H300.hex file.




then another one saying:




The default bookmark file could not be found, therefore the missing images are not listed in the bookmarks. You should start by loading the unmodified firmware at least once to create file. This will alow you to use modified firmware in future sessions. Missing file:
C:\Documents and Settings\####\Deskto p\Unused Desktop Shortcuts\h300kor-v125\H300 VER 1.25 K.h3x.




is that normal or will it stop the firmware from working properly?

[kevfer]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,
I downloaded the H3Mod software, but when i click on the executable I get an error message that goes like this:

H3MOD.EXE - COMMON LANGUAGE RUNTIME DEBUGGING SERVICES

APPLICATION HAS GENERATED AN EXCEPTION THAT COULD NOT BE HANDLED

PROCESS ID=OX31X (796), THREAD ID=0X430 (1072)

Any help would be great. Thank you and Happy New Year to all!

[mixin]

Do you have the Microsoft .NET framework installed?

[kevfer]

Yes, I installed per instruction on the H3Mod web page...

[Lord Julius]

kefver: try downloading and running iFormat, also from www.cerebus.de. That
also uses .NET, and if you get a similar error, we know at least that it's a .net
installation problem. Other than that, I have no idea.

[Dazza]

Originally Posted by Corrupted

i got a couple of errors when i first loaded the firmeware, the first saying:




2 original images could not be found in the currently loaded firmware:
____________________ ____________________ ____________________ _
Remote\Remote Computers
Remote\Remote Functions Settings

You probably opened an already modified firmware file.
If this is not the case, make sure you have the correct reference
file: reference_106.bin for US and older firmware versions,
or reference.bin for all 1.20 or later versions.
Also make sure you really use the original, unmodified H300.hex file.




then another one saying:




The default bookmark file could not be found, therefore the missing images are not listed in the bookmarks. You should start by loading the unmodified firmware at least once to create file. This will alow you to use modified firmware in future sessions. Missing file:
C:\Documents and Settings\####\Deskto p\Unused Desktop Shortcuts\h300kor-v125\H300 VER 1.25 K.h3x.




is that normal or will it stop the firmware from working properly?

i get the same error..

[Lord Julius]

Dazza, I'm pretty sure you don't have build 1828 or later, that bug is gone.
Try downloading the latest version (1830) complete, not only the update,
that should fix it.

[kevfer]

I did as you stated, downloaded iFormat and i did get the same error! By the way, I looked at my registry and did not find an entry for H3Mod...

[mixin]

I think the best thing you can do is try and reinstall .net framework and see if that fixes anything.

[Chrisjs]

Will this work if i just load the 1.02 US firmware instead of an international version? I don't necessarily want to mess around with foreign firmware, but wouldn't mind a new skin.

[damagician]

AFAIK it will work with any firmware.

Just wanted to say thanks for the guide mr mixin. Flashed this morning thanks to your lovely guide and LJ's wonderful programme.

[speedWh0re]

What happens if I was to, say, stuff up some pictures (ie. wrong amount of colours or wrong palette or something similar). Would the firmware be flashable and would it brick my player if it did end up flashing? Or would I just have dodgy looking images?

[kagelump]

Originally Posted by speedWh0re

What happens if I was to, say, stuff up some pictures (ie. wrong amount of colours or wrong palette or something similar). Would the firmware be flashable and would it brick my player if it did end up flashing? Or would I just have dodgy looking images?

nope, it just makes the pictures look horriable

[mixin]

With all the safety features built into H3mod, it'd probably give you an error/alert message if there was any chance of bricking the player.

[celluloid.dreams]

no comment from me on that last post by mixin ay julius :P

[kevfer]

Oh, man this is killing me. I can't get H3Mod to work! Looks like it may be a .net issue or something like that.

[donkhead]

the message at the top of the h3 mod page scares the crap out of me, like the paperweight part. I have korean v 1.25 when i get this skin will i be able to still play my videos? Can i restore the original firmware? Is it really that risky?

[alienshards]

H3mod does do checking to make it safer.

if it gives you warnings, it's best to heed them.

if you used clean firmware, and there were no warnings, then mostly nothing will go wrong.

but there is the slightest possiblity that something gets corrupted or something is different about your player.

and so, probably to avoid having to pay for bricked players, that warning is included.

(of course, these are my thoughts- don't take them for truth. )

[Lord Julius]

Hi donkhead: the is meant to scare the crap out of people...
When changing firmware, there is always the technical possibility
of runining the device. Indeed, a very early buggy version of H3Mod
did kill one player.

These days, though, with so many people who have done it, it's
mainly there for legal reasons. Unfortunately many people seem to
have a tendency to sue immediately if they have a problem, and I
don't want to end with a lawsuit at my door.

So, it has been well tested by now, and to the best of my
knowledge is safe, but I can't give a 100% guarantee that there
are no programming errors in it.

[edit] oh, and you won't lose any functionality; videos and all will stay.
You can also go back to the original firmware, no problem.