I didn't get a chance to test it last night. The Karma has now migrated to Boston for the week w/ SWMBO. I should be able to try things out next weekend.

-Zeke

I just got my Karma for Christmas, and I stumbled onto this board by accident. Then I found this thread. jEmplode's soups are so wonderful that they make me weepy. On the other hand, I'm not sure if jEmplode is doing anyhting other than reading from and occasionally locking up my Karma.

Right now it might be trying to fit 40G of mp3s into a 20G Karma, or maybe it is just indexing my workstation's mp3s. The ways of jEmplode are inscrutible, but if I can finally ditch iTunes for even smarter smart playlists it will be absolutely worth it. Right now I have xsltproc parsing iTunes's xml Propertylist to make a "real XML file" which is then run through xsltproc AGAIN and finally tweaked with perl, all so I can get my songs ratings out of iTunes and onto my Karma.

Nevermind. I should go to sleep.

...I stumbled onto this board by accident...
...The ways of jEmplode are inscrutible...

Fortunately, you have stumbled into the right place. Very rarely with consumer products can you chat with the developers / designers / etc. on line and give real feedback / ask questions and sometimes even get answers... Edit: Even if the answers are sometimes slightly biased...

...and occasionally locking up my Karma...

Did you upgrade to the latest firmware on the Karma?

It's worth noting that while you can create a "smart playlist" on the device, it won't continue to update after your first sync because a known bug (well -- it's not really a bug since you were never really intended to be able to do this, but whatever you want to call it -- a known limitation maybe?) w/ the Karma. However, once the bug is fixed, it will magically start updating. I've been tossing ideas around with another person working on Karma libs and there's actually a good idea that's come out about how to work around that, so I may sneak that in.

Keep in mind too that these new jEmplodes themselves are beta, and Karma support within jEmplode is even more beta than that -- you're basically getting access through jEmplode to things that the Karma was never really meant to be letting you do.

Aside from that huge disclaimer, though ....... I would definitely make sure you have the latest Karma firmware if you're having problems with lockups.

ms

I just uploaded a new version of jEmplode to the site that has a workaround for supporting dynamic soups on the Karma. Temporarily, don't cancel your transfers if you have soups (well, you can cancel them, but eventually let them complete) because you will lose your soups' soupiness otherwise ... I didn't have time to fix it before leaving for work this morning, but basically it doesn't write the file with the soup information until the very end of the sync.

ms

I honestly had no idea about the level of community when I recommended to my mother that she buy the Karma for her husband. (He is a FLAC fan) How fortunate for me that he didn't think he would use it. Instead I got totally spoiled. I'm not arguing.

I'm curious to know how the development team from empeg relates to the current group - is there still a group based in Cambridge? It seems as though some of the development carried over as the company/division/technology was sold - how much carried over? Who is who?

What have I missed by never scraping together the cash for a car unit?

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Did you upgrade to the latest firmware on the Karma?

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I was so eager to fool with jEmplode that did not bump up to 1.41. I wasn't trying to report a bug, just relate a general user experience.

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It's worth noting that while you can create a "smart playlist" on the device, it won't continue to update after your first sync

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Argh. Dang it, I was hoping that this fell into the "undocumented feature" category. "Smart playlist" is the Apple term - if "soup" is the empeg/Rio term I would be happy using that.

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Karma support within jEmplode is even more beta

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I don't mind a little duct-tape and baling wire.

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I would definitely make sure you have the latest Karma firmware if you're having problems with lockups.

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Will do! I just found out about the US release yesterday, so I hadn't gotten around to it yet. Yesterday was a real voyage of discovery...

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I just uploaded a new version of jEmplode to the site that has a workaround for supporting dynamic soups on the Karma.

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Excellent! Thank you! I will upgrade tonight, after I do the firmware.

I'm curious as to what functionality is carried over to the Karma, and what functionality was there for the empeg in the first place. Is there documentation beyond the faq? jEmplode seems to have a very different structure from RMM. (I haven't tried RMML - should I?)

Is jEmplode designed to sync a subset of one's collection to a portable device, or is it intended to sync every file or directory at which it is pointed? Can I specify via a soup what stays on my Karma?

Is there a rating tag already? Does editing the advanced properties of a song and adding a rating tag mean that tag will be permanently associated with that song, or is that metadata only within jEmplode and/or the device? Does that feature work with the Karma? Would at least the app remember that information for soup purposes?

If you haven't guessed, getting ratings and soups to work seamlessly is fairly important to me. I'm sure you understand that when one gets over a certain number of songs it becomes difficult to find what you're looking for, especially when you aren't sure what you're looking for. In iTunes I had a playlist of my top rated songs which I hadn't listened to in two weeks, which is really nice for unattended listening.

Anyway, thanks again for the quick responses. This is pretty darn cool.

I'm curious to know how the development team from empeg relates to the current group - is there still a group based in Cambridge? It seems as though some of the development carried over as the company/division/technology was sold - how much carried over? Who is who?

Empeg has more or less stayed put while the tides of change washed over the Americans. Rio's firmware development team for the Karma, Cali/Chiba, Nitrus/Eigen, and S series is the Empeg development team. (There was another firmware development team at Rio Tigard in Oregon, who did the Riot and 600/800, but they're not around any more.)

Every new feature in the car-player v3 technology previews, is there because it was written for Karma and we could build the car-player firmware from the same sources without too much effort.

Peter

I'm curious to know how the development team from empeg relates to the current group - is there still a group based in Cambridge? It seems as though some of the development carried over as the company/division/technology was sold - how much carried over? Who is who?

In addition to what Peter just said, there are some other historical tidbits about the Car player and the team here and here.

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I'm curious to know how the development team from empeg relates to the current group

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Empeg developers = Karma developers. Well, except for a notable turnover or two. Basically everyone you see on Riovolution also worked on the Empeg.

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What have I missed by never scraping together the cash for a car unit?

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This community and a kick ass car mp3 player.

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Argh. Dang it, I was hoping that this fell into the "undocumented feature" category. "

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I'm guessing by the end of your post you realized that this is fixed and is now an undocumented feature But then just about everything in jEmplode is undocumented

A Soup Playlist is the term for a playlist that is a dynamic view onto the big blob (or soup) tunes on your device. It is pretty much equivalent to Smart Playlists, but at least with jEmplode, you can do some cooler stuff

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I'm curious as to what functionality is carried over to the Karma, and what functionality was there for the empeg in the first place

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jEmplode has been around for a couple years and it was the basis of Rio Music Manager Lite. The core backend is shared between the two (that is, the way that the tunes, playlists, searching, soups, etc is represented bahind the scenes is the same). RMML has a more user-friendly UI (and less powerful). RMML added background syncing (with the sync queue -- that third tab in jEmplode -- that's an upstream feature from RMML), internationalization support (though it's not fully integrated into jEmplode yet, it's in the wings), a lot more testing, performance improvements, and better support on the Mac. I'm sure there are some other things as well that I can't think of, but those are the main ones I think. As far as what RMML /doesn't/ have, it doesn't have explicit support for nested playlists, it doesn't have the advanced search, doesn't have advanced properties, logo editor, animation editor (which can't be used on karma anyway, though), and a bunch of other random things that show up in a program that's been developed for years.

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Is there documentation beyond the faq?

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Sorry ... The best docs are searching for topics on the forum. There's never been a jEmplode documentation project, and it would bore me to death, so there probably never will be.

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jEmplode seems to have a very different structure from RMM. (I haven't tried RMML - should I?)

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I don't know that you should necessarily use RMML if you're happy with RMM, though in some ways it is more similar to jEmplode.

The primary difference is that jEmplode/RMML don't maintain a local database of music. It's entire reason for being is managing the music on your player, not on your hard drive. So it's not like you see all your music and then sync them to the player like RMM. Instead, you drag the music you want on your device from your file browser and drop them onto jEmplode. It does things like duplicate checking, etc, but it's fairly limited in its ability to truly synchronize music (since it has no local datastore to sync /against/).

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Can I specify via a soup what stays on my Karma?

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Not really .. Soups aren't sync profiles, rather they are dynamic playlists. So a soup will show you a filtered view of whatever music you have on your device, but they aren't currently used to control /what/ music goes onto the device. So if you have a "artist = James Taylor" search soup, all of your James Taylor songs that you put on your device will appear in that soup. Note that soups are entirely done on the client, not on the Karma. So if you stop using jEmplode, they will no longer update ... It's just some magic that is done when you add tunes through jEmplode.

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Is there a rating tag already? Does editing the advanced properties of a song

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There is not a rating tag currently, though I've had plans to add one on the Empeg for my own evil purposes for a while now. /Normally/ you would be able to just use advanced properties to add a rating tag yourself, but unfortunately the same bug that caused me to have to do that workaround for soups affects your proposed rating tag. Basically any tag that is outside of what the Karma "knows" about will be saved on the device, but won't be read back off. So it will appear to disappear. When the bug is fixed that data will start coming back off, though, but it's obviously a low priority fix (it only affects people doing things that are unsanctioned by Rio). I could technically extend my soup fix to support arbitrary additional tags, though without too much pain. I may do that, actually. Same deal though, it would only work in jEmplode, not in RMM (though it would in RMML since they share the same codebase).

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In iTunes I had a playlist of my top rated songs which I hadn't listened to in two weeks, which is really nice for unattended listening.

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I agree ... I'd love to do this on the Karma and Empeg someday.

ms

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I'm guessing by the end of your post you realized that this is fixed and is now an undocumented feature But then just about everything in jEmplode is undocumented

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But wait, it isn't really fixed, but you put in a workaround, right?

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Sorry ... The best docs are searching for topics on the forum. There's never been a jEmplode documentation project, and it would bore me to death, so there probably never will be.

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Truly understandable. Then again, sometimes I like writing docs. Usually I don't.

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I don't know that you should necessarily use RMML if you're happy with RMM, though in some ways it is more similar to jEmplode.

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Well, I'm sort of happy. I can delete playlists from my Karma and then drag in my nightly iTunes playlist builds and Karma picks up the relevant files. However, I want delicious and flavorful soup. When the blurbs said "dynamic playlists" I crossed my fingers and hoped for soups (although at the time I didn't know it was soup that I wanted), but I was let down.

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The primary difference is that jEmplode/RMML don't maintain a local database of music. It's entire reason for being is managing the music on your player, not on your hard drive.

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Ah ha! So the real answer is that jEmplode really cannot and will not do it all - it won't keep track of a large master collection and parcel out cool music to my teeny tiny Karma as needed.

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Not really .. Soups aren't sync profiles, rather they are dynamic playlists.

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I've been trying to decide what, exactly, I want to request as features. Sync profiles are apparently something that should go on my list somewhere. What will I do with that list? Perhaps I will post it somewhere.

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Note that soups are entirely done on the client, not on the Karma. So if you stop using jEmplode, they will no longer update ... It's just some magic that is done when you add tunes through jEmplode.

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That doesn't worry me since one can't edit tags on the Karma itself.

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I could technically extend my soup fix to support arbitrary additional tags, though without too much pain. I may do that, actually. Same deal though, it would only work in jEmplode, not in RMM (though it would in RMML since they share the same codebase).

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I'm curious to know what is going on under the hood there, but I can wait to build up a little more context.


Oh yeah, I have had better luck syncing with jEmplode since I installed a different jvm from the one that came bundled with the installer. I upgraded my firmware, too, but that didn't seem to help as much. In any case I was still able to lock my Karma in transfer mode a few times. My Karma does not seem to like custom tags or Wendy flags.

I think that I did correctly sync a nested playlist, and it was still there when I ran jEmplode again. I think.

Sorry for rambling on and on. It's a new toy- I'm still excited.