I'm going crazy. I drive and a empeg-wish comes to my mind, and I have to stop, write it down not to forget about it, and wait to come here to post it. I said that, I'm getting empeg-addicted...
Anyway, this is pretty obvious, so maybe somebody already suggested this:

What about a RANDOM VISUALS function in the 2.0 empeg sw that changes visual every x seconds, randomly? And what about being able to change those x seconds? And what about setting the empeg so that it changes visual every time it changes song, too? And what about a visual that shows the name of the owner? Those would all be pretty cool, to me :)
That's all. Now let me go back to work, and pretend I am normal...

Taym
_________________________
MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923

Well, the code's almost in there -- John coded it up in about 5 minutes for a show demo.

It's not tweakable right now, though, and it might not make it into the final release.



Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

Roger and John, that souns great! I really hope it does make in the final release. Great job anyway!

Taym
_________________________
MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923

How coul I forget this?
What about MIRROR and FLIP functions for the visuals? It could be associated to a key on the remote control, and it would allow the users to flip any one of the visuals upside down and left/right! Wouldn't that be great?

Taym
_________________________
MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923

At this point I'd just like to see a release of 2.0. I'd rather not bug them about new features to add in to it and further delay a beta release.
These are good ideas though.

I don't think they would delay it because of my suggestions . They'll be perfectly able to decide what to include and waht not in it, still it is important to send them suggestions asap: if they like them, it could be helpful for them to decide what to include first...

Taym
_________________________
MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923

I definitely didn't mean to stop suggesting things. That's the greatness of this forum.
I just don't want to give them any incentive to delay wrapping up of the 2.0 effort. We've had teasers for quite a long time. Probably to many teasers for their own safety.

I was not hard to expect a quick release given the speed at which they got this product to market and the hints they have been dropping about it. We have truely great people and a great product. I mean no disrespect.

I appreciate the effort to release good code and the time it takes to do that.
I also understand that priorities changed when they were bought by SonicBlue. Herein, from an empeg owner's perspective, is probably where the problem lies.

I know that my empeg is not broken requiring 2.0 to fix it, but part of the allure of buying it was due to it's upgradability, which except for bug fixes and minor tweaks has not been utilized. One could argue that tuner functionality has been added but there is no tuner yet.

Even TiVo has managed to encorporate new features into their product. I certainly expected my empeg to be upgraded quiker than the TiVo was.

I was really trying to stay quite about this issue but I feel like I need a voice so here it is. Especially after the latest late September estimation. Frankly I have a hard time putting any faith in that.

To the guys at empeg, I salute you and appluade your efforts and commitment. You truely are an outstanding group of fellows. I am proud as I could be about witnessing this project from its grass roots to where it is now and being one of a select few world wide to have an empeg and have participated in this forum for as long as I have. I want to see you guys succeed.

I know from some of the failed startup companies I've worked for that a great idea and implementation are not the only factors needed for success.
I can't help but think that some of my friends would be more inclined to buy an empeg if features were added more frequently. I've been bragging that a new version is coming for a long time.

No offense to the great work that owners have done with the empeg but I don't want to run anything that slows boot-up time. This IS first and foremost a car stereo. I'll run display server when I have it in the office but I need this thing to perform best when I have it in the car. I put my faith in kernels compiled by empeg itself. That's why I bought it. It's a consumer product.

Anyway, take this for what it's worth. I know in the grand scheme it means nothing. It will get done when it gets done. I know I will love it when it is done.

I'm glad at least in this forum that I have a voice. Along with having that luxury of a voice, you have to put up with the occasional ranting lunatic.

Cheers!

Ben,

If I read your profile correctly, you haven't been around here as long as some of us have. You registered on the BBS here about four months ago, so I'm assuming you've only owned your car player for about that long.

The tone of your message seems to come down to this: You're slightly disillusioned because you've been promised upgrades, but haven't seen a major one yet besides 1.03.

You weren't here in the days before the Rio purchase, when we'd see upgrades every couple of months, and the new features flowed forth like water from a well. Perhaps you don't know what it was like back then. They really did send new software upgrades quite frequently, which is why the "old timers" on the BBS aren't complaining too loudly about the delayed release of The Software Formerly Known As 1.1. Sure, some of the old timers are anxious, but they're certainly not feeling disillusioned. They know the software will come soon, and because Empeg treated them well in the past, they are patient to wait for it.

Sure, the 1.0x code base hasn't changed appreciably in a long time. This doesn't mean the Empeg team is abandoning us. All this means is that the thing you've got plugged into your car's dashboard is a stable product that works well. This is a good thing. Okay, there are some features and bugfixes that would be nice to have in 1.03, but for the most part, the thing just works as-is. Wish I could say the same for my PC and its software.

There are a couple of important reasons why 2.0 is taking so long:

1) Some of the underlying components have been completely overhauled to allow for new features. For example, a replacement of the decoding engine, a new database structure, and a rewritten version of emplode. These things take time. What you don't see (but what the alpha testers do see) is that these kinds of overhauls mean a lot of new bugs. Some of them are show-stoppers, like the one that erased the player's hard disk. Just be grateful that they're taking the time to get it right before going public-beta.

2) Since the Rio purchase, they have been pressed into service doing other projects for their company. They have had to take time off of their work on The Software Formerly Known As 1.1 in order to do these other projects. We haven't seen the results of these projects, but they assure us that we will when Rio releases them. So understand that they're not just drinking ale and eating curry food, they are actually working their arses off. Just not on the car player software.

Okay, now, having said that...

Don't set your hopes too high for 2.0.

I've been testing the 1.1 alphas, and it's not that different from 1.03. At least not on the surface. I know it's been talked up as if it were the Second Coming, but when you actually use it, it behaves like an incremental upgrade, not a big overhaul. All the big changes are the ones you can't see. The new architecture allows for other advances in the future, things which you won't see for a little while.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... Don't be disappointed because 2.0 is coming along slowly. It's still coming, and in the meantime, be happy that 1.03 works so well.

___________
Tony Fabris

Aaaaah, gotta love loyal customers.... :)

Tony, are you involved in PR or CRM in any way?

(don't take me too serious right now) :))

No offense to the great work that owners have done with the empeg but I don't want to run anything that slows boot-up time. This IS first and foremost a car stereo. I'll run display server when I have it in the office but I need this thing to perform best when I have it in the car. I put my faith in kernels compiled by empeg itself. That's why I bought it. It's a consumer product.

If you only have a single drive empeg, I actually have a kernel on my empeg site for 1.03 that makes it boot even faster then the one from empeg

I do agree, boot time has become one of my priorities as well, so I have a very streamlined init structure. Home boot takes about twice as long due to all the stuff I do when in the house compaired to the car. My next goal is to keep my voladj adjusting capabilities, while elliminating the picker on startup. Once I finish a web project here at work, I'll start work on this project.

I understand your position Tony and know the choices they must make. I can't count the number of times it's been slated to be available in the next few months only to be pushed back further due to unkown secret project and the like. That's very thrilling for those of us who will buy what ever Rio is selling.
I have followed this project since I first discovered Hugo's site discussing his home project. I was number 9 in the original registration queue for what is now Mk1. Due to my financial status I decided to hold off on buying an empeg until the MK2 came out. (I feel pretty fortunate that things worked out that way.) I followed this board for quite some time passively only registering when I felt I had something to contribute. I know I'm not as strong a voice in this forum as you are. I feel I have been shut down more than once by you on my posts, however relavant they may or may not have been to what is really going on.

I do feel that my last post was not without some merit and I know I speak for several owners when I say that. And I do say it with the highest regard for the team but just hoping there is a chance that priorities can be aligned with what's important to me. I realize it's a very selfish request on my part, given Rio's need to worry about selling more widgets. I'm probably not likely to be spending an additional 1000+ of my dollars on another Rio product. So why should they be overly concerned about my well being?
I feel strongly that empeg has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep existing customers happy.They've demonstrated this time after time. I am grateful for that support.
In a perfect world 1.1 or 2.0 would be already released. This is not a perfect world. But I feel I do have a voice.

In reply to point 1 of your message.
2.0 is very complex software, undoubtedly and the development process takes time. But, empeg has stated that they have been busy on other projects. That doesn't give you a warm and fuzzy after all the bragging about how many wishes 2.0 fixes. This leads into your point 2 which I don't feel I need to comment on.

This forum has been used to excite people about coming things. Can't it also be a place for me to complain about having to wait so long? How else will Rio know? Tell me and I'll be glad to do that instead.

You sound like you know exactly what I'm saying about that point. I was beginning to think no one else cared about that issue.

You are truely a remarkable contributer to the open architecture of the empeg. I applaud your efforts. You deserve much praise.

I wish I had the skills to contribute to this effort because I certainly receive benefits.

Can't it also be a place for me to complain about having to wait so long?

Of course! I wasn't trying to supress your voice, only to answer your concerns and calm your fears.

___________
Tony Fabris

My next goal is to keep my voladj adjusting capabilities, while elliminating the picker on startup.

That one's easy. Just edit the init to launch the player first, before picker.

The voladj kernel will run "on" when you first boot the player, but when you select "quit" from the empeg's menu, then Picker will run allowing you to turn it off or on.

My next goal is to take getkey (the one that waits for a Q on the serial port) and shorten its wait time. It only needs to be a split-second as I always fill the buffer with Q's before that program even starts.

Anyone want to implement that one for me? I'm not set up to do linux compiles or I'd have done it already.

___________
Tony Fabris

That one's easy. Just edit the init to launch the player first, before picker.

I knew I forgot something in that last post. I want to keep the adjusting capabilities, and hold the setting across reboots. Thus, if I quit the player and disable voladj for audio books or similar things, it stays disabled even through a reboot. I have a few ideas on this, and will probably have something workable in a short time. Although I'm not sure how long it will be until I have a releasable version.

My next goal is to take getkey (the one that waits for a Q on the serial port) and shorten its wait time. It only needs to be a split-second as I always fill the buffer with Q's before that program even starts.

Attached to this message, you find a binary of getkey.c that was patched to wait only one second (instead of 5). I don't know how to decrease the time any more (because it uses alarm which takes the number of seconds to wait before sending SIG_ALRM to the task calling it as an argument).

cu,
sven

proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, #080000113)

THANK YOU!!!!

___________
Tony Fabris

There's never really been a spec or a feature list for visuals - Toby codes pretty much what he thinks is a good idea at the time. Whatever looks good when a release comes around gets included.

Rob

We just drop money at a secret location in Sunnyvale every two weeks.

Rob

Ok, I'M A MORON. I've tried editing the init (the one in /bin) five ways till Sunday but still can't get the player to run 1st (before picker) on power up. Please, please tell me the magic words...

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

I don't know what your init looks like. But if you're using the one I put in the "for dummies" file, you would probably change the WHILE loop to look something like this:

while [ 1 ] ; do
echo "Press q now to terminate to a shell prompt."
echo
/drive0/var/getkey q && /bin/bash
echo Running Player...
/empeg/bin/player
/drive0/var/pick_list
done

I simply moved the pick_list command to the end.

Note that I've left the getkey before the player run. You may choose to change that, or maybe not, I'm not sure how you want things to behave if you need to drop to the shell.

I haven't actually tried this myself, it just looks logical to me. Anyone want to try it?

___________
Tony Fabris

Perfecto! Worked like a charm. Perhaps a FAQ tweak? I sure think this beats the original where the picker always comes up 1st. The boot speed thread prompted me to fix this ;-)

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

Let me know if you have any success moving the GetKey prompt, too. I can think of some good reasons why one might want GetKey to fire before the player is launched, but if you launch the player first, then the boot will be even faster.

___________
Tony Fabris

I considered starting a thread about which visuals look best on which psycho-active substances, but thought better of it

Rob

(not that I would know, BUT) some of the less-often-thought of ones probably would..
-mark

...Still (barely, pending 1.1 release) proud to have owned an Empeg since 00287

Tripping Prisoner, Sugar Cube, Hofmann - I mean, what could Toby have been thinking?

Rob

somebody's been taking too much of that extamasy..
-m

...Still (barely, pending 1.1 release) proud to have owned an Empeg since 00287

Here's a visual I'd like:

WIBNI the "static" visual could be my custom boot logo instead of the Empeg (or Rio) logo? Or an image loaded from a file (perhaps using config.ini to specify which file)?

Another one I'd like (probably an Info rather than a Visual) is an indication of how far through the track we've got. The way I imagine this is for the Line Info to progressively invert starting from the left (the way progress indicators work in Netscape and in Windows).

Along with the progress meter, it would be nice to use a similar display for seeking - perhaps pressing Left and Right buttons together could switch into seek mode, and then Left, Right, or Rotate would move within the current track - ideally with the position shown in a menu window, like Volume etc. indicators.

PS. Somebody *please* tell me that the Toilet Floor renaming is just a joke. I'll lose what little respect I get if my empeg goes all PC...

--

Toby (not the Prolux one)

Since I mentioned player controls, one thing that bugs me is that during a search, if I mis-type one character, I have to start again from scratch.

It would be nice, then, if there were a "backspace" key on the remote - maybe we could use the search key, so that if there's any pending input it becomes backspace instead of going on to the next search type?

Also - how are we supposed to type the hex digits a-f when entering PINs? Is this something the Kenwood remote has that the Rio doesn't? (I have a Rio one, though I've told my software that it's an empeg).

--
Toby Speight

It would be nice, then, if there were a "backspace" key on the remote - maybe we could use the search key, so that if there's any pending input it becomes backspace instead of going on to the next search type?



You can use the reverse track button to backspace in the search.

As for visuals... If anyone has seen dancing Tux in the windowmaker dock.... I'd LOVE to have that as a visual on the empeg... It should be pretty simple to do... It's just a couple of static images of tux in various positions played in sequence... And for some reason or another, it always brings a smile to my face watching him go epileptic to certain tracks..