I don't recall if this has been covered before, but with the mic on the Mk2, it would be nice to record a personal memo........... No more sticky notes or dashboard notepads!

Although I do recall Hugo discussing the impossibility of recording from the radio.

Mike......................................(working on losing the "stranger" status)

Better,

Sequential memos. So each time you initiate record, it will record a new memo... then you can play them back in sequence. Best use would be to voice record turn by turn directions.

"empeg! next turn" (yeah yeah I know you have to push a button)

Calvin

With the Mark 2 it is possible to record from the microphone, tuner and aux inputs - but the sample rate is limited to 22.05KHz. This feature probably won't make the first software release either, but hopefully won't be too far behind.

Rob

Pushing the Button would suck.. and drain a bit portion of the cool factor :(

i hope that can be resolved.. PLEASE. :)

Empeg Kicks Ass
S/N 00203
<A HREF="http://www.iretro.com">http://www.iretro.com</A>

You can mount the button on the floor, then you can step on it with your foot to initiate a voice transaction. That way, you can mystify your passengers into thinking that the empeg will RESPOND TO YOUR VOICE ONLY. Or you can mess with their minds, like, if you pointed your finger at one particular passenger, it will then respond to her voice, but only when you point your finger (and step on the switch in secret). Fun for hours and hours.

Calvin ("yes, i am cruel")

It's too late. i envisioned being a couple of feet from my open top jeep yelling for it to play whatever song and the girls being amazed.

Im disappointed and kinda angry the way people were angry over the disclaimer. Im not angry at all at the disclaimer.

This is the first major disappointment for me as a EMPEG consumer. The only thing that makes me feel better is that this isn't the way EMPEG envisoned it either.

I hope some miracle can be resolved. I'd rather have spotty VR performance without pressing the button. Than dead on VR with pressing the button.



Empeg Kicks Ass
S/N 00203
<A HREF="http://www.iretro.com">http://www.iretro.com</A>

VR is not an exact science; at-home VR with a good microphone and controlled environments is spotty. VR with background noise & limited RAM (seen how much RAM the average PC VR package takes? Often it's 64M+ just for the VR, plus a 300Mhz or above CPU) is much more of a challenge. As for shouting at your car to play music while you're not even in it - this is practically star trek. The VR mics needed for reliable in-car operation cancel out any noise that doesn't come from where the driver is sitting (roughly) so this would never work.

Shipping in-car systems often use an attention button just because otherwise it gets to be a much harder problem - like the Jaguar system.

The VR system we've been evaluating is pretty simple (less chance for it to get stuff wrong) and has a basic tree structure which defines what order words can appear in. There are single-word commands for player control (play, stop, tuner, mp3, etc) and you can play voice-tagged playlists by saying "select " but the speaker-dependent bits (ie the playlist names) seem to be very hit & miss, and you're limited to a maximum of about 200 of them.

We're looking at alternatives too, but we've been very busy on non-mk2 stuff (still empeg stuff, just not a product we'll be selling ourselves) for the last 5 months so please bear this in mind. On the positive side, Mike's got real shuffle (as requested) in there plus some other cool stuff for the next release of the car player software.

Hugo

Will the "attention button" have to be one of the buttons on the remote or front panel -- or will it/can it be a separate button that can be located at the user's discretion -- i.e., on the back of the steering wheel, or perhaps foot operated (good idea, Calvin the Cruel...)

I guess if it operates from the remote, then any button that can project the appropriate IR code would work, wouldn't it? That might make for an interesting option -- a wireless sticky-backed button powered by a watch battery whose only job would be to send the "attention" signal to the empeg. Maybe an optional repeater might be required (either a passive reflector or a powered slave unit) depending on where the button was placed... I'd be happy to pay extra for something like that.

What causes the 200-list limitation on playlist selection? Is that a 200 word limitation, or could I define 200 playlists with names like "Classical Music Piano Concertos by Mozart"?

How likely is it that VR capabilities will be defined by hardware limitations? Of course, I'm looking to be able to say things like "... empeg, please play a mixed selection of Baroque era music, with emphasis on late Bach, and maybe a little Vivaldi. Choose mostly bright, up-tempo works, with no harpsichords please." I mean, Captain Picard can do that, so why can't I? ;-)

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Heh. I admit I perpetrated the fanciful recognition possibilities ("empeg! make me a ham sandwich, and a coke"). Typically the upper set limit (200 phrase-words) is due to memory and processor speed. memory and processor speed affects the quality of the stored "voice prints" and the quality at which the software can discriminate. After a certain point, any new words you add will begin to sound like another word in the list and as you add more similar sounding words you begin to degrade the recognition performance. You can get around that by increasing the resolution (memory & cpu) but there will always be that upper limit kinda "there." At least on this type of system.

The OnStar system will soon be incorporating General Magic's very excellent voice recognition system. Rob, if you're reading this, it might be a good idea to take a peek at http://www.generalmagic.com and take a very close look at the Portico product. General Magic's recognition system is suitable in noisy environments to an extent, and is very close to star trek as much as you can get. You can say stuff like "portico! do a web search for all documents made last year by mr. smith, and fax me the top 15 results to my usual phone number. also, route all my office calls to my cell phone, and reschedule my afternoon appointments to next wednesday."

Of course this takes a huge amount of cpu power, and OnStar's system gets around that by having a cellular link, that when you hit the onstar button, it will connect to a mainframe, and the processing is done offsite, but will appear to be instantaneous on the client end. ;) This functionality is not yet in OnStar I think, but it will be!

Calvin

Just mount the mic switch under the gas pedal for easy access... floor it to leave a message...