(moved this reply from ForSale to here to avoid jacking the thread)

Bitt: "Actually, the one thing that makes it not perfect to me is the VFD. There are much better display technologies for in-car. And that's not at all interesting to discuss."

Bitt, I'm curious. What better in-car displays are there than a bright, ultra-fast refreshing, infinite (?) viewing angle VFD? Sure, it's fragile and single color (excluding shades), but is LCD better? Don't LCD's have slower refresh times (causing ghosting and blurryness, etc), finite viewing angle, and just look "flat" and "dull"? Some have color, but aren't they pricey right now?

Is there another display technology besides LCD for in-car display? I'm curious so I can put it on my list of required specs for my "next" in-dash MP3 player. Thanks.

All of the stereos I've ever had in my dash all used VFDs, except for one LCD based one that didn't survive its first winter here in Canada.

(Well, okay, my first two cars had sliders and light bulbs rather than nifty electronic displays, but they hardly count here).

-ml

There is organic EL used in some displays now and OLED is coming soon.

Stu

That's mostly what I was thinking of, but I'm pretty sure that technology didn't even exist when the empeg was developed. It's still pretty new. However, even if a better technology didn't exist, the VFD is bad enough in bright sunlight to prevent the empeg from being perfect.

Hugo has mentioned once that, when they were developing the Empeg, they had been looking into using organic-EL display screens. But at that time that screen technology was still in it's infancy stages. It was considered not stable enough and the decision was made to use VFD's instead.

Something that doesn't completely wash out in angled sunlight would be nice...

-brendan

Is it the Blue Filter on my VFD? I find I can read it ok in sunlight (or at least the slight shade of the car) but when I put on my Sunglasses I can't read a thing, not a thing (they are not blueblockers, hehehe) I find myself lifting my sunnies often to make player changes, anyone have a best color filter that improves the readability of the VFD in Daylight? I might change colors just for that reason, Gazz, Alice Springs.

The only thing better in sunlight is a light smoke or clear. Anything else is darker because the VFD is naturally cyan in color.

when I put on my Sunglasses I can't read a thing, not a thing (they are not blueblockers, hehehe)

Even though not Blueblockers, it depends on the color of the lenses. I use the blue lense, and with a pair of sunglasses with a reddish/brown tint I can hardly see anything on the display even in shadow. But with a pair with bluish tint I have no problem seeing it even in fair to strong light.

/Michael

Wow!, ok, so sunglasses can make a big difference

Can you see me taking the Empeg into a shop to test various sunglasses.

Unfortunately, yes Empeg owners seem capable of anything!

pca

I wonder if the AR coating on the lens might also be polarizing, and if it is, if it might be polarizing in a direction orthogonal to the polarization of your sunglasses.

Of course, it's probably more likely that it's just the color being filtered out.

I don't think it's polarizing - my blue sunglasses are polarizing and yes, I've rotated them in front of the player with the stock blue AR coated lens, and didn't note any difference depending on orientation.

/Michael

I'm not sure what version of the player you have, or which versions this problem occurred in, but my display was very dim when I got my player. I had to return it to have the display fixed and when I got it back I had absolutely no problems reading the display at any time of day.

I think one problem is that since the empeg is so rare, some people may have this problem and have nothing to compare their display to, so they can't tell if it's normal or not.

Again, this might just be an early-on problem. My player was in the first "batch" of Mk2s, so I don't know if the problem occured again.

skiiers wear orange/red/brown sunglasses/goggles becuase they block lots of blue light and thus increase contrast on the slopes. Those lenses will block most of the light coming from a blue display, making it mostly unreadable.

Blue lenses, however, let blue light through, and would be ideal for reading a blue display.