I will probably be buying a Pioneer AVX-P7000CD player soon, and adding the GPS system to it. Is there currently a way to mix the MP3 playback and AUX in? This will be necessary if I want to hear the directions from the system while using the empeg. If it's not currently implemented (I'm pretty sure it's not) can it be added to the MK II? (If I remember right, the Mk I wouldn't be capable of this, while the Mk II is).

Nice radio choice, I have the Alpine version. The thing I like about the pioneer is the menu speed. My Alpine is slow as a snail. Most of the time its worth using the remote so I don't have to deal with the menu speed. Anyway, I'm sure they could impliment this if they wanted to but I don't see it happening soon. You could build your own mixer outside of the empeg to switch between aux and mix modes if you are an electrical techie like me.
If you are interested I will be building a TV output for my empeg sometime. I plan to use it in the house and on my alpine in the car. I am, however, waiting for empeg or someone to impliment song data out the serial line. I am slowly learning more and more about linux so maybe I will impliment this step myself. What a software guy can do in a day would take me a month though.

Alex Lear

depending on your setup, this may or may not help you. since i had no amps and was to cheap to buy one, and too lazy to run wire, i am running my empeg through a pioneer dehp7something or other. since it has no aux inputs, i bought that adapter thingy that turns your cd changer bus into a changer input as well as an aux input. when i had the cd changer playing, anything playing on the laptop came through as well.

all this to say, depending on how the empeg runs through the pioneer, it may or may not work. hope that made sense.

jeremy

oh, i wish i wish i had an empeg...

That helps in my decision of the Pioneer. I was looking at the Alpine with the buttons on it for menus, but if they are worthless anyhow, I'll stick with the Pioneer. I like the fact that their nav system uses SDAL, so in theory it should last longer and have cheeper map updates.(Now if only they would release a SDAL CD for Finland for Kim).

I may just end up setting the Pioneer as the main unit, now the question is if the Pioneer will let me mix the two. I'll probably head down to the local store with one and see if they can test it. (I'd still like to see one in operation before buying since Pioneers site leaves much to the imagination). If not, an external solution will probably be needed, and I'm probably not skilled enough to do this decently.

And I'd definitly be interested in the TV option. What are your plans for it so far? Any visuals with it, or just song title and time display?

This may be possible off mine, but it depends on the controller for the IP bus this one uses. Only one cable runs to the unit, and a master controller takes care of power and routing the audio from it. Just need to decide how far I want to go, and how deep my pocket books are when I get this all put together.

And I'd definitly be interested in the TV option. What are your plans for it so far? Any visuals with it, or just song title and time display?

I was planning on doing a spectrum analyzer display. I probably can't use the empegs visuals because I doubt there is anyone that would take on that task. However, I am good with DSP hardware so its no problem to impliment my own. I can do most of the visuals that Toby created but some of them are too complex like the dancing 3D objects. I am using a SHARC DSP which is VERY powerful and has several Mbits of on chip storage. I have about the same resolution (but more room)as his though with the hardware I am using and TV limitations. I have some other really good design ideas for adding a large LCD screen to the empeg too. It would be a retrofit for my Mark 2 but a great option for a future model. So it would be more like the Alpine or Pioneer without affecting car docking or transport durability.

There doesn't seem to be much support for a TV/monitor display though. I am really hoping to find someone to output the song info out the serial line. How many people on this BBS are capable of such things?

Alex Lear

I am really hoping to find someone to output the song info out the serial line. How many people on this BBS are capable of such things?

Not too many on an official capacity since the player is closed. But, in theory, a program could be written to capture the existing serial output, do a lookup to a CSV stored database on the empeg, then spit this out the real serial port. If I had an empeg again, I might be able to work something to do this, but I'm currently empegless (and missing it badly). This solution requires a modification of the init file, and the developer image loaded.

As far as visualations, I'd love to see some new ones that use the color capacity of the TV and LCD's. If I want one of Toby's, I can still use the empeg, since it will be docked below the LCD.

And a 1.5 or 2 DIN slot Mark III with an LCD screen would be awesome. Hopefully in time, empeg will get more money and such to develop such a cool toy. It would definitly require a new mainboard, and so far, the existing boards for all of the empeg products are pretty much minor mods to the origional board (Makes perfect sense since they need to get estlablished before branching out to major things).

The mk2 is pretty majorly changed from the mk1!

There's no change of a TV out as there's no video controller - it's not a PC. We can (and most likely will) add track info outputs to serial if people ask for it - it's not a major job for us to do.

Hugo

The mk2 is pretty majorly changed from the mk1!

I know theres many changes there, my point originally was that I can't wait for empeg to be in the position to make different types of products. Right now, 2 car players have been made, but only one sold at a time because the second one was an upgrade from the original, but still offered all the core features (MP3 playback, display on a VFD, etc...) of the original. I want to see the company in a position with a few different players for sale at the same time, like major car audio companies. (The empeg Mk IIIa IIIb and IIIc for example).

As far as TV, I know the existing products won't introduce this, but by what I understand, Alex is looking to build a box that takes the empeg's serial output and audio outputs to create information for display on a TV. For me, it would be cool to have something like this displaying on a 7 inch 16:9 LCD in the dash.

Currently there's no way to mix these; the dsp can only select one input at a time. The mk2 can sample the aux input (at up to 29kHz) and therefore mixing could be done in software.

It's not a wishlist feature yet, but it's possible.

Hugo

There's no change of a TV out as there's no video controller - it's not a PC. We can (and most likely will) add track info outputs to serial if people ask for it - it's not a major job for us to do.


OK, this is me officially asking for song info output :)

As for the TV out, I know empeg is not interested to take this on. Thats why I have figured out the details.

Drakino, did you have any visualisations in mind? I agree, color would be a major advantage for a TV visualisation.

Alex Lear

Hugo, does the DSP really sample the AUX at 29KHz? This means it can only reproduce up to 14.5KHz signals. If people are plugging in CD players wouldn't that trim off the high frequencies?

Alex Lear

No, the DSP routes audio paths internally at 44.1Khz, but it doesn't allow the StrongARM to sample those paths. On the Mk.2 we added an ADC, primarily to sample the microphone input, but it can see the other inputs as well if required. It runs at a fairly low sample rate because we had a convenient way to interface it into the StrongARM, and that's all we need for voice recognition or, say, RDS TA recording.

Rob

That's not really what we do. We sell a core product, and develop alternative products for other people to sell. Making and selling hardware involves a lot of work beyond the R&D activities in which we specialise - one leading edge own-brand product is enough for us :-)

Rob

I'll throw this over in the wishlist as well, but that quality should be fine for voice announcements for the nav system. When I want to play a CD, or other thing hooked into the IP bus, I'll definitly switch over to the normal AUX mode. The main reason I want to hook it up with the empeg first is due to the EQ that was built in.

Drakino, did you have any visualisations in mind? I agree, color would be a major advantage for a TV visualisation.

Well, some of my favorite are the full screen evolving ones for WinAmp, like G-Force. It all depends on the power of your box for what can be done I suppose. I frequently will just drive way outside city limits, and park my car to relax to music. Ever since I sold my empeg, I have brought along my laptop, and use the visualisations to also relax. (Definitly helps my stress, but adds quite a bit of miles to my car quickly)

one leading edge own-brand product is enough for us :-)

Easy solution then, go down to your local Clones-R-Us store, and get most of the staff cloned a few times. Then, set all the clones up with offices, and let them work. :-)

The DSP's I work with are much more powerful than a PC for this type of processing so almost anything can be done but visualizations are easier to make in a PC. I will probably start with a simple spectrum analyzer. I really like the "fire" look in the main winamp program. As for full screen, I like the geiss visualisation. I might go for one like that (with basic or no options)

Alex Lear