As I use my empeg at work, and it's connected to my work PC via the serial port, I thought it would be nice to write a little controller app (windows only, sorry.. =(

So here it is..

Announcing empControl V0.01 (well, you've got to start somewhere.. =)
This little program contains Play, Pause, Next / Previous track, Fast forward and rewind buttons, and with empeg timecode support turned on, it will display track time, Artist and Song as well..

Go fetch it from
http://nrg.nu/files/empControl.zip

The design is lacking a bit, and I'm sure there are more things it could do, so comments and suggestions welcomed.. =)

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

I finally got around to unzipping empControl and feeding it the CSV, and found something odd. I enabled timecodes so I could see the song name and such, but all I get is the fid. Looking at the CSV, it counts from 16 to 1990, with no hex values. I'm running 10a and am wondering if anyone else has seen the same thing and know of a workaround.

My empeg site is:http://24.236.3.131/empeg/

I'm not running 10a at the moment, so I'll have to put it on my development machine at work and have a look... =)
Works for me with beta 10 though.. ;)
Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

I've just uploaded empControl V0.03
I've changed the fid code a bit, and added a debug option.
Sadly, it works fine here with both beta 10 and 10a, so the problem is more difficult to trace (hence the debug option)

Please have a go, and if it doesn't work, please enable debug and send me one of the timecodes.. (You'll want to pause the player with the front button first, unless you are really quick... =)
http://nrg.nu/files/empControl.zip

Thanks

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

I downloaded the newest version and have the same problem. The debug displayed @@ #59e0 0:01:48** like it should, and the program displayed Fid: 59e instead of the title of the track. Two things I can think the problem is here:

1. Your program is not doing the necessary HEX -> DEC conversion, in this example 1438. FID 1438 in the CSV was the correct song.

2. Emplode is supposed to be exporting the FIDS as the origional HEX numbers, but in my case is exporting the FIDS in decimal number format.

I reinstalled Beta 10a's emplode to see if the newer one I was sent was the reason, but I found the same thing. I never have looked into how the CSV works, so I don't know what problem above is the true one. If it's with emplode, it's a bug to be reported to empeg. If it's a problem with your program Jazz, it should be an easy fix. I don't know how Win2000 could factor into this, but that seemed to show a bug in Beta 10a emplode that didn't show up in 98, so who knows.

My empeg site is:http://24.236.3.131/empeg/

empControl loads the Artist, Title and FID into memory, converting the fid from an integer to a hex in the process.
So at this point I suspect the loader is croaking at something in the csv..

If anyone else has tried this, and has a problem, could you get in touch.. =)

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

I've located the problem, and it's with the csv, or at least the way the csv is exported..

My csv files starts with
"fid","type","length","PIN","title","options","artist"
(Which is the part of the line empControl looks for when loading an emplode CSV file)

However the file Drakino sent me starts
"fid","type","comment","length","title","artist"

So it looks like the columns are only exported if at least 1 row has a value.. (Probably a sensible way to reduce the amount of wasted space.. =) Naughty me for assuming the columns were in a fixed order..

I've fixed the loader (which should cope with the columns in any order), and a new version is available which should work.. =)
http://nrg.nu/files/empControl.zip

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

Cool. Good catch. Nifty program.

Now, if only Emma could output the track titles on her serial port, you could do without the need for the CSV database synchronization. The setup of the software would become much simpler at that point and wouldn't need extra intervention from the user whenever the playlists changed.

Hugo, any chance of that ever happening?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Hi Jazz,

Cool! It works! Well almost. Up until this release the empControl controls didn't do anything on my computer (I'm running NT4). The conection was good 'cause I would get a message in the debug window when I pushed start and stop on the player - the messages from the PC to the empeg player timed out however.

Now all the buttons work fine, but the song name and time aren't displayed.

Anyway, keep up the good work :-) Now I just have to write a program to do the same thing on my Mac over USB ....

Derek
(List 6284, S/N 00299, 4 gig blue)

I hope if they do this they will either keep emitting the fids as well, or make it configurable. If you are trying to control the unit via the serial port the unique track id is far more useful than the track title...

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

I suppose when the specs are released it should be possible to pull the track titles back (emplode does it after all.. =)
What would be nice is if the config file stuff could be set via emplode (or if fid export could be turned on via another ascii code)

Once I get the main stuff working, I'll make the interface more flashy.. =)

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

This one works just like it should (well as good as a program can work with a bad serial cable). Glad the CSV helped.

Some suggestions for future versions:

1. An Always on top option
2. Other display options for the song title and such, possibly a non scrolling option here as one.
3. An option to sit in the system tray.

Those are the ones I figure would be somewhat easy to implement soon. Down the road, a version that can see the empeg MK2 via ethernet would be rather useful.

And just being another curious programmer, what did you use to make it, language and IDE wise?

My empeg site is:http://24.236.3.131/empeg/

Yeah, those sound like easy features to implement.. I'll have a go shortly.. =)

It's currently written in Delphi, mainly because that's what I use at work.

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

Cool Beans... Delphi sure rocks... what version do you use?
Any chance I could aquire the source of your proggy?

Greets
Marcel

Sure, I'll make it available sometime next week (It's on my work computer)

It's written in Delphi 3.

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

Great... I am using Delphi 4 and 5 now... and I WISH
I had a cross compiler for ARM linux :)

I still have some problems getting your software to work...
for some reason, the config.ini doesn't exist in the
location you specified and somehow I have to realize that
I have been away from UNIX boxes for quite a while... I
can't remember all those nifty commands anymore...

Any hint how I can create that file from scratch?
I also can't remember how to make the filesystem
read/write... DAMN, I'm getting old :(

Greets
Marcel

Ok, as long as you have the developer image installed, get a shell, type rwm (an empeg shortcut to read write the music partition, where the config file is)
cd to the /empeg/var/ directory
Then either use vi to edit config.ini and add the lines, or type

echo "[output]" > config.ini (creates a new file)
echo "timecodes=1" >> config.ini (appends to the file)

then exit, and the player will mount the partitions read only again

I've not tried that exactly, (you might need to type rw to mount the main partiton read write, but I'm not sure), however it should be enough to be getting on with... =)

I might add an option to automate that, providing the developer image is installed...
Actually, that's not a bad idea, config.ini editor anyone... =)

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

emplode will deal with options in the config.ini file before we get to full release - that was the idea originally.

Hugo

I noticed that fast forward and rewind don't work. Is this a problem that you have as well? I tried your program because I noticed mine wasn't working - sure enough, same thing. I already posted in the bug reports section, but I haven't had much luck so far.

I wanted to know if you have the same experience so I'll know if it's just a problem with my Empeg. (BTW, I am not listening to a VBR encoded file)

Part of the problem here, is that the buttons I use don't have an autorepeat option.
As soon as I get my development environment set up again, I'll have a look (I recently moved jobs, so had to uninstall the stuff they supplied)

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

Part of the problem here, is that the buttons I use don't have an autorepeat option.

Yes, but does it seem to you like no matter how fast you push the fast forward or rewind buttons it never goes even the slightest amount backward and you never get any farther forward than if you hadn't pressed the button? (it just makes a slight glitch sound)