When i try to forward a VBR encoded file, the empegs seems to hold and jump, instead of doing a regular forward as it does with CBR encoded files. ie: If i start a Song and let its play till 00:03 then press forward (holding the button), the unit is shifting from 00:03 to 00:04 an back for aproximately 2-3 secs and then jumps to 00:19 (seems to vary). Running 1.01.
Is this a bug or just the way it is with VBR mp3s ?

I guess this either has been reported before, or its unchangable fact, so im not cc'ing it to bugs@empeg ...

This is a known bug and it will be fixed when 1.1 is released.

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Tony Fabris

Awh... Thanks for that comforting piece of info.

This is a known bug and it will be fixed when 1.1 is released.

Tony -- do you know whether empeg are going to implement an "accelerating Fast Forward" at the same time, that is, the longer you hold down the FF/REW button the more the rate of advance increases? I've seen this idea proposed on the bbs, but I don't recall seeing any definitive answer.

tanstaafl.

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

Tony -- do you know whether empeg are going to implement an "accelerating Fast Forward" at the same time

I think they said it already does that. Those of us that use VBR wouldn't be able to tell, though.

Do you have a large CBR file you could test it on? Wait, I think I do... Yeah, okay I just tested it and it is already in place. Sort of. I don't know if the "scale" is what you're expecting. It seems to jump from "very slow" to "fast" rather suddenly, and the fastest speed isn't super-fast. At its fastest, it seems to go through my test file at about 1 minute of song time per 1 second of FF time. If someone has a 60-minute-long MP3 file and they want to get to the halfway mark, they would need to hold down FF for about 30 seconds to get there.

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Tony Fabris

it seems to go through my test file at about 1 minute of song time per 1 second of FF time.

That's about two and a half times the speed I'm getting on a very large (112 minute) file encoded CBR at 192 KBPS. (10 minutes advance in 25.7 seconds, on average)

I'd like to see the advance rate change after each two seconds of button-hold, with the speed increasing geometrically (or is this exponentially?) starting at 2x, then cycling through 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, 64x, and topping out at 128x. (Currently it seems to top out at (on my unit, at least) about 24x.) This would place you 4:12 into a song after holding the button for 12 seconds, at which point it would then continue advancing steadily at better than two minutes per second.

Another thing that should be checked (I don't have enough CBR encoded files to find this out for myself!) is whether the trick of going to the beginning of, say, song #5 in your playlist and then holding REW will back you out of #5 and into the end of #4 where you could continue to REW. That way, if what you want to hear is near the end of a song, instead of FF through the whole song to get there, you go to the next song and then REW into the end of the previous one.

By the way... with my 112 minute song, do I have the record for the longest MP3 in an empeg?

tanstaafl.

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

That's about two and a half times the speed I'm getting on a very large (112 minute) file encoded CBR at 192 KBPS.

Ah, so it probably has something to do with file size. Mine was a 128kbps file (although the ratio doesn't match so I dunno). Probably related to the whole reason VBR FF's don't work in the first place. 1.1 has a complete engine overhaul, so all bets are off anyway, and there's no use in worrying about the current FF behavior.

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Tony Fabris

..I have a 6 hour set from Paul Van Dyk on my empeg:)
-mark

MK2: 36gb
Tivo: 90gb
CPU: 120gb
...I think drive manufacturers love me!

1.1 has ff/rew which accellerate more smoothly and end up jumping large amounts at a time - easy to get into the middle of hour-long tracks, for example.

It also has bookmarks, so you usually don't have to :)

Hugo