Empeg was just on Fresh Gear on TechTV.

They spelled it E-MPEG and said it cost $2000 before being discontinued. It looked like an MkIIa based on the haziness of the lens (AR lens). Check it out on the rerun.

Better late than never, eh?

Yeah... tell me about it.

And it's called Fresh Gear?

Just check out their "online" review http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/products/story/0,23008,10271,00.html
And you know that they don't know much ... as usual.

Well, honestly, when that review was written, September 7, 2000, all that information was probably correct. There was no tuner at that point, no jEmplode, and the docs said to send it back to upgrade the player's hard drive.

Of course, the idea that I want to get an MP3CD player in may car so I only have to carry 1/7th (or so) the number of CDs around is retarded. Not to mention the hideous UI associated with that. Assuming that PaulG has 120GB of MP3s, how many MP3CDs would that take up? 170? Yeah, that'd fit in his car's dash.

Bah. The z919. What a piece of garbage that turned out to be. I still remember playing around with one in the store, it was slow to track and took forever to skip through tracks. I remember stumbling upon this set of reviews at some point.

What was shown last night was not a review. It was just a 10 second clip that really had no business being in the segment. It was not a rerun.

I will try to make it into an mpeg since the next rerun is on Saturday I think.

/calculation police/

err, wouldn't the number of mp3 CDs be closer to 1200, Bit?

120GB of MP3s. About 700MB (0.7GB) worth of storage space on a CD. So 120/0.7 ~= 170. Right?

my math is:

700MB a cd X 170 CD = 119,000MB or 119GB

Hmm, must be that new math

Greetings!

Keep in mind that the 120GB empeg is based on 2 x 60GB IBM drives. 60GB in IBM sales speak. The actual space is closer to 111 real GB.

Still, that is an awful lot of MP3 CDs, certainly more than I feel like burning and storing in the car, swapping around. And even more regular CDs (over 1,300 at last count).

Who here has the most MP3's in their EMPEG?

Not actual storage space. but how much psychical space is taken up? 111 GB is a lot of music. Prehaps more music than anyone can listen to in one car ride. it only takes 3-4 days to cross the continential united states.

I know some people here have audio books stored, and if we have a program that could speak text files, then we really would store tons of stuff

Who here has the most MP3's in their EMPEG?

I think you just replied to that very person.

Here are some WMV files of the entire segment (about 5 minutes). Don't blink, you may miss the empeg part.

384k Broadband
128k ISDN
56k Dialup

whatta bunch of lamers they are....thanks for the clips Rob!

Reminds me yet again that we are members of a very exclusive and knowing club.

Interesting clip.

Actually, most of the information in that clip was probably reasonably up to date and accurate.

Hey if you want a mp3 based hard drive player in your car, then yes, the iPod with a tape adapter *is* currently, probably the cheapest way to go [unless you got a firesale empeg].

Of course, thats like saying if you want the cheapest way to to get from London to Sydney, Australia, then why fly, why not just walk there?
[Yeah right!].

The TechTV comments of course overlooks lots of relevant points, like "now I have my iPod hooked up to my car stereo via a tape adatper, what does the music actually sound like"?
Is it any better than the AM/FM radio stations available on the same car stereo?
[I doubt it very much].

or
"How do I navigate to my songs on my iPod, while driving without crashing into someone or something else, or do I simply put my iPod in play and just listen"?

These little things become important very quickly, once the initial pleasure of having lots of songs in your car fades into oblivion, and the sheer impracticality of trying to use a portable mp3 player device in a car audio environment its not designed to be used in [i.e. by the driver, while driving].

And also comparing the 2nd or 3rd generation car audio mp3 devices for price and features to the 1st generation [as represented in the empeg] was a bit uncool - but shows that those 2nd and 3rd generation devices still have yet to climb the same heights as the empeg did - some 4 years on.

Certainly as the commentator said, back in 1999 when the Empeg Mark1 was announced, being able to have 18GB of mp3 music in any hard disk player in your car for ANY price near $2000 was pretty amazing and a "gotta have".

Back then, the largest cost component in the unit was probably the laptop drives being used.
[Ignoring the hardware/software development cost, which was probably a close second].

Thats nearly 4 years ago now - thats a long time in both computers and car audio.
Now you buy 60GB laptop drives for the price of a iPod.

If the Empeg was still being made now, it would be a mk3 model, it would cost a darn sight less than the original mark 1 (or mark 2's) did, come with at least 10 times the storage of the orginal Mark 1 could have and probably cost about 1/4 of the $2000 price tag quoted.

Still even now, there is no in-car mp3 or otherwsie unit available for under $2000 that I know of that even comes close to the empeg for features, usability and all sorts of other reasons - and Puh-lease, do not say that those Sony or whatever hard disks units come close - they sucked, anyone could see that, even the reviewers on the clip could see that [and said it].

The empeg in the clip was mostly used a "brackdrop" to the story, much like the 1967 muscle car the presenter drove at the end.

Still even now, there is no in-car mp3 or otherwsie unit available for under $2000

I'm not aware of any for over $2000 either.

"Still even now, there is no in-car mp3 or otherwsie unit available for under $2000 "

"I'm not aware of any for over $2000 either."

Well, not one "in production", but it is reasonably simple for a "technical" person to build a CarPC that plays mp3s among other media with an LCD display, controls, and more that will match up well against the empeg, and do so for a damn good price too.

Sure, the portability may not quite be there, but were it not for the empeg "firesale" I would have that alternative in my vehicle today(a good 5 years after I started thinking about building one)..

For a higher price it would be possible to use an embedded PC and make an in-dash unit as well, though it has been so long since I looked into those devices I don't know if anyone has done it yet nor the quality/availablity of such devices, but a few years ago one could get embedded PCs the size of a 3-1/2 inch hard drive.

Yes of course it doesn't quite compare but the empeg is not some deified uber-unique gizmo that makes all who own it have divine right. There are reasonably functional alternatives..

-John M

For a higher price it would be possible to use an embedded PC and make an in-dash unit as well, though it has been so long since I looked into those devices I don't know if anyone has done it yet nor the quality/availablity of such devices, but a few years ago one could get embedded PCs the size of a 3-1/2 inch hard drive.

The problem is those boards never have decent sound on them. So it is never going to approach the quality of the empeg's output.

it only takes 3-4 days to cross the continential united states

Actually, me and 2 of my budies drove from Boston to LA in 58 hours once....

This is sort of true. The embedded PC was a tough sell becauseof the sound quality, but some of the units had a PCI slot, and with a right angle adapter they were still very compact.

Now that embedded sound quality chipsets are readily available, I am willing to bet some of the embedded units today have much better sound outputs. Sure they won't quite match the empeg's outputs, but many wouldn't notice unless they had a really high system.

...it is reasonably simple for a "technical" person to build a CarPC that plays mp3s among other media with an LCD display, controls, and more that will match up well against the empeg, and do so for a damn good price too.

Well, then, by all means, you should do so, and go into limited production and make a ton of money.

Oh, wait... Are you going to put the 10 man-years or so into software development that empeg has? Are you going to use impact-resistant notebook hard drives with sophisticated caching software so that it will live for more than a few months? Maybe a keyboard and a mouse to run it -- or were you planning on some sort of hardware interface that is actually usable in a moving vehicle? And how about a decent sound processor: I'm not talking a Sound Blaster sound card here, but something with a 24 bit Burr-Brown DAC and maybe an equalizer, otherwise you might as well just encode everything at 64kB/sec and save the disk space.

It seems so easy at first glance. I was on the verge of acquiring bits and pieces to do my own "CarPC" and had just realized what a truly daunting task it was going to be when I came across the empeg, and never looked back.

Yes, it is possible to make a PC play music in your car. But to get even a fraction of the usability and sound quality of the empeg... well, Hugo and the rest of the guys@empeg might have a few enlightening tales to tell about what was involved.

tanstaafl.