Hi
Is there anyway to backup the MP3's on the empeg in case of theft or a hard drive crash???

Jamie

Is there anyway to backup the MP3's on the empeg in case of theft or a hard drive crash???

Di, Rob, is this one in the BBS FAQ or the official FAQ?

JAbraham, this is a big point of contention and has been the subject of many long discussions here on this BBS and elsewhere.

In order to comply with copyright laws, the Empeg is a music player only, not a music copier. If it were a music copier, it would have to implement the SCMS scheme (Serial Copy Management System), and Empeg would have to pay a tax to the RIAA for every unit sold. This is based on the law known as the AHRA (At Home Recording Act).

The addition of an Empeg-to-PC backup feature would make it fall under the category of music copier, and therefore make it come under the scrutiny of the RIAA, and we don't want that.

The reason Empeg is taking this stance is because Diamond (makers of the Rio) already won this battle in court against the RIAA. The reason they won is because the Rio can only receive files, not send them back to the PC. (As shipped. Yes, there is third-party software which lets you copy files off of a Rio, and the same thing applies to the Empeg as well.)

Before you start going off on the tangent of "but I'm sure they could win in court against the RIAA if they tried", or the tangent of "but the Empeg is really just a computer", don't bother. That's been beaten to death already, too. Empeg is in business to make money, and to do that, they can't waste money on pointless legal battles. It would crush them and we'd never see another player made. They have to be very careful how they proceed.

So, we're back to the issue of MP3 backup:

Now, let's see. You put the MP3 files into the Empeg yourself, right? They had to come from somewhere. That "somewhere" was probably your PC's hard drive. Seems to me that if you've already got them on your PC's hard drive, then that qualifies as a backup. And if you deleted them from your PC because you were out of space, then how would a copy-files-back-off-of-the-empeg feature help you anyway? The Empeg can't magically make the files any smaller, so they can't solve your storage problems for you. Seems to me that backing up your MP3 files is up to you and your PC.

Now, there is one thing that the Empeg should be able to back up, and that's the playlist database. That's something that's being discussed and might appear in a future revision. But it would only back up the indices and song information, not the actual MP3 files. Backing up the MP3 files is still up to you.

___________
Tony Fabris

One reason why I wouldn't mind gong from the empeg to the computer is the organization of the id3 tags. I know we *should* be organizing them pre-input to the empeg, but I find it easier to organize on the empeg. It'd be cool if you could output the files according the the database info, with associated id3 etc. I suppose it's one of those battles where you "don't wanna go there", and legally, it makes perfect sense. But honestly, how many people want to dedicate umpteen gigabytes to hold the original files??

Do you think it'd be possible (or plausible) to implement something where if you delete the file off the empeg, you can put it into a backup repository somehow??? Now that would be cool.

The empeg doesn't use ID3 tags (other than to copy them to it's own database when you first import the track). Any changes you make to the track tags are reflected only in the empeg database, so if you were to copy the MP3 back from the player the ID3 tags would be entirely unaffected.

Rob

Grumble grumble. I understand the legal implications and why they need to be careful....but it doens't make me happy. I simply will not be happy until they find a way to let me backup my empeg...because frankly...I don't really wanna have to keep 36 GB of MP3 files sitting around on my PC as well as on the empeg.

Greetings!

One thing that might work is if you load an FTP or HTTP server and use the filename wrapper system to assign
human readable symbolic links to the files. The instructions for how to do it are here. This link was on the developer site.
While not as easy as being able to restore via emplode, it will still get the job done.

I hope this helps. I haven't tried it myself, but it looks like it should work... The reason this is not a legal issue
for empeg is that you are modifying the software / using the developer kernal, loading your own software, etc. In
other words, it becomes your liability.

By the way, I agree with keeping a local backup, but that is sometimes not practical. I am very anxious to get
my empeg in that the hard drive my files are on is slowly becoming unstable. I have a backup, but restoring would
be very annoying. Once loaded, I can replace the PC drive, and download the music back. (No, I have no physical
space or power left in my very small case to fit another hard drive to offload the audio - I tried that this past
weekend...)

Paul G.
Q# 15189

I simply will not be happy until they find a way to let me backup my empeg....I don't really wanna have to keep 36 GB of MP3 files sitting around on my PC

Does anyone else see a contradiction in this?

Rob

Two copies of the original???!!!

(sound of sharp intake of breath)

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Two copies of the original???!!!

Actually I think he's referring to the fact that the guy says he doesn't want to have to keep 36GB of his MP3s duplicated on his PC, but yet he's bitching about the lack of support to backup the MP3s on his empeg.

(O|||||O)

yes yes, we all want to be able to use the empeg as a file shuttle, and we can, with just a little tweaking... ;)

Actually I think he's referring to the fact that the guy says he doesn't want to have to keep 36GB of his MP3s duplicated on his PC, but yet he's bitching about the lack of support to backup the MP3s on his empeg.

I'm not sure I understand you... Did you mean to say what I said in my original reply to this thread:

"Seems to me that if you've already got them on your PC's hard drive, then that qualifies as a backup. And if you deleted them from your PC because you were out of space, then how would a copy-files-back-off-of-the-empeg feature help you anyway? The Empeg can't magically make the files any smaller, so they can't solve your storage problems for you. Seems to me that backing up your MP3 files is up to you and your PC."

Is that what you meant?

___________
Tony Fabris

Ok guys, don't give the dude a hard time. Hypothetically, if I have a 36 gigabyte empeg, and I have a PC with 8 gigs of hard drive space. I invest great amounts of time ripping and encoding and uploading to the empeg. However because of limited PC space I wipe out the 8 gigs and do another 8 gigs. Over the course of 2 years the contents of the empeg is now irreplacable due to emotional attachment or whatever. This includes equilizer settings and other prefernces on the empeg as well.

So what's called for here, is a utility in emplode that pulls out a copy of the empeg contents, perhaps in an encrypted form, stream it out, break it up into ZIP disk sized chunks, or onto a CD burner. These ".bak" files can't be used by any other program but empeg, but in the case of catestrohpic failure (ahem, tony) the procedure can be reversed.

This would be also helpful for those who run the developer edition, and keep third party programs on board, and don't want to lose those in a failure.

I wish Palm Pilots did that, that's for sure. Every time I lose the contents of my pilot due to a failure, I lose *all* the third party programs and it's quite an ordeal to restore it all.

Calvin

So what's called for here, is a utility in emplode that pulls out a copy of the empeg contents, perhaps in an encrypted form, stream it out, break it up into ZIP disk sized chunks, or onto a CD burner.

But, Calvin -- 36 gigabytes would require 360 zip 100 MB ZIP disks. Assuming that somebody would want to hang around and copy that many disks, the expense would be such that you could afford to buy a second empeg as a backup storage device and use the empeg clone utility to copy your music over to it -- and still have enough money left to buy an amp and a subwoofer.

The CD burner idea might be more practical, it would only take about 50--60 CDRs to store 36 GB, but it would require a full 8-hour day to do it, and it would require a $100 CD burner (are they cheaper than that now?) and about $30 worth of media.

Better way would be to buy a 40 GB hard drive for about $200 (ebay?) and make that a dedicated empeg storage device on your PC. That's what I'll do when my music collection finally outruns the current storage on my PC.

tanstaafl.





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

You've got a point about storage difficulties, Doug. There are ways around them (tape drives, for example, DLT's like the one on our file server will hold 35 uncomressed GB on a single tape).

But here's my main argument to the backup-supporters (again, in different words):

If the reason you need to backup your empeg is so you can move the files onto a third-party backup medium, then why didn't you just do that before you deleted the files from the PC?

For instance, let's say that you wanted to retrieve the MP3s from the Empeg so you could burn them onto a CD-ROM. Or put them onto a backup tape. Or stick them on Jaz drives. Or whatever.

Why didn't you just do those things in the first place? When you sent the tunes to the Empeg, you knew it was one-way. Why did you delete the files from the PC without backing them up? Even if you did have a way of pulling the files back off of the Empeg, you still have exactly the same storage and backup problems as you did before you deleted the files.

I'm now officially one of the people who's had an Empeg drive go bad, and I still don't see a good reason for them to offer a music backup. A playlist/database backup I can understand, but not a music file backup.

I can understand this: You store the files on the PC, but then the PC's hard disk goes bad or gets stolen. Okay, fine. But then there's the issue that the PC's files are really just a second-generation copy from the CD originals which (assuming you legally own the music) you could just re-rip at the expense of time.

And if somehow the MP3s aren't from CDs but they are legally owned (for instance, online purchases or free downloads), then we're back to: Why didn't you back them up yourself in the first place? You knew the Empeg wasn't meant as a backup medium, so you shouldn't have trusted it to be your second copy.

Really, the root complaint boils down to this:

"Wow, here's a perfectly good box with 36gb of storage sitting next to my PC. It seems a big waste to have the data transfer be one-way only. And it's a waste to have to keep my music files in three different places just so I know that they're backed up. Besides, the Empeg would make a great file taxi, too."

Yes, I will totally agree with that. It's a valid complaint. But it's one that Empeg can't address right now if they want to stay in business.

In the meantime, the Empeg hasn't changed the amount of storage on your PC and hasn't changed your ability to keep your files backed up. It's just given you a reason to amass more files and it's increased your need for a backup system without solving the backup problem for you.

___________
Tony Fabris

I think it is just the fact that the unit doesn't do it that bothers people. They don't want a one way street. I understand the reason for the one way street. The Diamond Rio had a one way street and that only produced more desire for them to have a two way street. Diamond did not release it and neither will Empeg. So if you want the ability, either hang out till someone puts together an all in one "unEmplode" or write it yourself.

I am one of those people who would like it, but probably not use the feature that often.

I recall Hugo promised us a means to backup playlists, but not tunes (I am not sure whether it included EQ presets etc); the restore utility was supposed to be able to find tunes on backup medium (say, CDR) even if original directory structure was not maintained. (That way, we just backup tunes from PC when ripped, and bacup the playlist structure separately, from the empeg.) What happened to that?

As to filetaxi (I used laptop for that previously), I think ftp does the job nicely, without exposing empeg to legal risks too much. Finally, is it rather simple to transfer both tunes and info files (*1 fids) using ftp, then rename them and fill ID3 tags using a fairly simple script. So, even ability to transfer tunes back is there.

Anyway, I would really like to see the promised 'backup everything but tunes' feature sooner rather than later.

Cheers!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

I wish Palm Pilots did that, that's for sure. Every time I lose the contents of my pilot due to a failure, I lose *all* the third party programs and it's quite an ordeal to restore it all.

What Palm OS are you running? I believe 3.1 or possibly 3.3 added backup of all programs and data, to elliminate the need of manually doing it or using BackUp Buddy. I know for sure 3.5 does, but that ROM still seems to be in developer hands only, or new Palm owners.

Well tony, i can assure you, that there are actually idiots sitting in this forum ( big red light blinking right over my head ) that bought their Mk1 without even thinking of the pervert situation that they cannot get back their mp3 files ( their *own* property ) from the empeg, not talking about wasting free space and not beeing able to use it as a mobile file exchange unit.

( Okay some smart*ss will say "but empeg said so right from the start" ...
I am not sure about this and i really don't care, that's why i wrote "idiots" in the first sentence, and not "honestly annoyed and betrayed customers" )

So let me tell you what i did ( not beeing as smart as most of the writers here ):
I ripped my whole CD collection years before to mp3's, at a time when i was not knowing about 'ID3 Tags', it was really *long* ago, when encoding 5 minutes took about 10-15 minutes ...
So when filling the empeg, i edited *every single file* of my collection, and gave it a proper ID3 Tag

( again, a smart*ass could say: "why did'nt you rip it again, this time with a CDDB enabled ripper ??".
Simple: using cut/copy/paste it took my 10 seconds to fill out one ID3 tags, ripping with my machine from pre-Mk1 days took about 1/4 th playing time, so typically 1 minutes, so my method was 6 times faster )

And i only had about 500 MByte space on my HD, so it was -> copying 500 MByte mp3 from my archival CD-R to the HD, editing the tags and transfering it to my Mk1, 8 times in total, because i started out with a 4 GByte Mk1.

And my mistake was to not even have a doubt about the "still to come" copy-back feature ( see "idiot" or "annoyed and betrayed customer" in the first section, depending on however the promise from empeg was at that early time ), so i didn't make a new CD'R copy at that time, because i believed in that feature to come.

So that is how things can go, and besides the fact that i believe that it would be nice to use the empeg as a mobile file storage device ( oh how i hate to bring my notebook if i already have a full capable but crippled device in my car ) i really would like to have a backup of my fully tagged files.


Nils

Not that it matters, but since i made my "early & untagged" mp3 archive, about 170 CD's have been stolen from me ( my car was robbed 12 times until now, so 20 CD's were stolen in total, and then there was one occasion where i lost 50 DAT Tapes containing approx 130 hours (150 CD's) of my most beloved music, from the *very* early times when i made my transition from CD to DAT, and i happened to park my car 30 minutes when transporting my full collection to my new flat, still suffering from this as many of those CD's are not available any more )

Newbie here (and just ordered my Empeg) ...

I think this whole copyprotection-thing is pretty stupid. I understand the legal implications concerned, if the guys@empeg should offer direct downloading of files off the device.

But the backing up of the device is not stupid. Why should I put my entire collection of MP3s on a duplicate disc, and back it up from there?

I don't keep a local copy of all the files on my server. The copy goes to a tape.

The same will happen when I get the Empeg. And I can't see it being that hard to do, as the Empeg has both ethernet and an open operating system.

On the discussion about being able to download MP3s from the device (I interpret is as "to give them to your friends"), I can't see that stopping anyone. The MP3 comes from somewhere, and from that somewhere, you can give it to your friends. So the "protection" on the Empeg doesn't solve the piracy problem.


//Wire

as has been pointed out many many many times before, the point is not whether or not the copy protection will actually stop people from pirating mp3s. it won't. the point is, regardless of what common sense tells us, the riaa can go after empeg for such a feature. again, it shouldn't be like that but that is not the point. the point is the same one with the visuals. empeg should not have to cover their collective behinds just b/c someone may crash their car and blame it on the empeg's visuals, but due to legal issues, they have to do these things to cover themselves.

of course file transfer ability would be nice, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon. does this make sense? no. will this stop music piracy? no. should empeg be able to offer this feature? yes, but the simple fact of it is that they CANNOT. it is a stupid limitation, but it is NOT really an empeg limitation. it is a limitation of people's common sense like the riaa. it is a limitation of freedom to do what you want with your music. unfortunately, emepg has to comply with these limitations, and in doing so, pass them onto us. i am 100% sure that if it were not for groups like the riaa, empeg would have implemented this feature a long time ago.

can we please drop the whole subject. it is not empegs fault. there is no really good reason why they should have to cover themselves like this, but the fact remains that they have to. nothing they or any of us can do about it.

tony or dionysus, maybe we should put a faq entry for banned topics like this one or the visuals on startup or the open source question:)

jeremy

12 gig, green...

Empeg have made their position clear on this issue many times.

There's enough source and information out there for someone to write a backup utility in a weekend if they tried. If all you want is a plain backup, and you don't care about rebuilding filenames and paths, then it's even easier - this thing is a linux box, with ethernet, and a bunch of files need copying off. It couldn't get much easier!

Even the more complex task of navigating the database and extracting MP3 files should be attainable by a good programmer outside of empeg.

I know for a fact that a comprehensive USB backup tool can be written in a weekend (someone has done it, the code is NOT available and no I won't tell you who it was). How long will it be before one of the many talanted techie owners writes something similar and chooses to release it?

The advantage of a relatively open platform is that you don't have to rely on empeg to produce everything you want!

Rob

There's enough source and information out there for someone to write a backup utility in a weekend if they tried. If
all you want is a plain backup, and you don't care about rebuilding filenames and paths, then it's even easier - this
thing is a linux box, with ethernet, and a bunch of files need copying off. It couldn't get much easier!

I installed all my mp3s on the empeg using rsync. rsync does two-way synchronisation. If I deleted the mp3s on my pc, the next time I sync'd it would transfer them all back from the Empeg. As Rob says, this is *trivial*. A weekend to write the app, however, is a couple of orders of magnitude more the real amount of effort required.

Paul

tony or dionysus, maybe we should put a faq entry for banned topics like this one or the visuals on startup or the open source question:)

The visuals-on-startup thing is already in the FAQ. And I was thinking that this thread could be good fodder for a backup FAQ.

___________
Tony Fabris

Well my solution is keep the files on your PC. I've just bought a 20Gb hard disk for retail £150. But I'm a reseller so I didn't pay that for it.

But if you gonna spend £1K on a stereo is it not worth spending £200 to keep your ripped files????? It's cheap that DAT/DLT/ZIP etc.....

Also it means that my flat mates can listen to my tunes when I'm away ;)

Rgds

Bill

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MK II, (Blue but should be Amber) SN: 118

Also it means that my flat mates can listen to my tunes when I'm away ;)

So, do you also have a parrot and a wooden leg?

tanstaafl.

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

Like everywhere else that ships outside the UK, they're out of stock there.
That's even worse than not shipping to Alaska . . .

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

Surely it will be fine, as long as they don't listen to the same tune at the same time... =)

Jazz
(List 112, Mk2 12 gig #40. Mk1 4 gig #30. Mk3 1.6 16v)

NO, but I know a man who does ;)

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MK II, (Blue but should be Amber) SN: 118