Hello! I registered for an empeg car .. Well, probably sometime last summer, and I knew it would be awhile. Can't remember my reg# so I just emailed empeg to see if they can check for me. I actually ended up getting a new car in that time period, so now I've got a 1993 VW Corrado SLC... (killer car, btw ;) Right now I have a blaupunkt head unit in it. No room for another player, so unfortunately I'll have to ditch the blau, but it's no big -- I already have my front speakers hooked up to an amp, with the amp on the back of my sub box.. I'll just buy a 4chan to replace it, and run wires 2 feet to the rear speakers and I'll be good to go. I've got a couple of questions:

* First of all, is there a dimming lead? My blaupunkt deck dims when I dim the dash illumination.. it also dims a bit just from having the headlights on. Cool. Also, I have a Fuba powered antenna.. Is there a separate antenna power lead (so my antenna only gets power when it's on the FM mode, if I buy an FM module) or is this just integrated into the amp turn-on lead?

* Now, my REAL question -- Does anybody have numerous pictures of the empeg's display? I'll be getting an MK2, but I assume the display itself is the same. I'm curious as to how the menu system (I assume there is one) allows you to select tracks.. one at a time, or many, or playlists, or what? How do the controls work (looks like the MK2 has similar controls as the 1, except with the rotary knob..)? What kind of displays can you use while playing music, etc etc. I'm interested in seeing all the cool stuff you can do with it, and how it really works. I guess any links to pictures or info in the player (other than the empeg website, seen all of those ;) would be helpful.

* For the Empeg guys -- How will the controls differ on the new system with the knob? Will the new system have voice activated controls (I seem to recall hearing this).. how would they work? Like, "play ," or what? Any idea what the new remote will look like?

I think stuff like that would be useful on the empeg website.. people who are excited about a product want to get all the info they can about it.

thanks!

- reid

I won't dive into a full answer now because I have a shepherds pie to bake, but I will mention that the new web site (online during April) has a much more comprehensive walk-through of the product. I think it'll answer all your questions.

Rob

Well, Rob, seeing as how you're not up to the task at the moment, I guess I'll have to fill in.


First of all, is there a dimming lead?

I know that the Mark2 will have the capability of dimming its display. I don't know whether that'll be controllable by a dimmer lead or not. If not, then the control will be in the software. Seems logical that it would have a dimmer lead, though. I think this question might have been answered elsewhere on the BBS, so if anyone wants to jump in and verify this, that'd be nice.


Also, I have a Fuba powered antenna.. Is there a separate antenna power lead (so my antenna only gets power when it's on the FM mode, if I buy an FM module) or is this just integrated into the amp turn-on lead?

Well, the Mark 1 only had an amp turn-on lead, not an antenna lead, and that's what I used to power the Fuba antenna on my VW GTI. It worked fine.


Now, my REAL question -- Does anybody have numerous pictures of the empeg's display?

If you don't mind the download, there's a great movie right here. Note that there are some "dot crawl" artifacts in the video that are caused by either the video equipment or the compression (not sure which). The actual Empeg display is very steady and solid, without those artifacts. Otherwise, the video is a pretty accurate representation of the unit's display. It doesn't show much of the menuing system, but you do get to see some of it.


I'm curious as to how the menu system (I assume there is one) allows you to select tracks.. one at a time, or many, or playlists, or what?

All of the above, and a lot more. It's heirarchical, incredibly flexible, and surprsingly easy to use and understand. You create a "tree" of playlists on the PC, then send those playlists to the Empeg along with the song files. From the Empeg's "Playlists" menu, you can choose to play any branch of that tree. Everything from the main root level all the way down to an individual song. For instance, if you hit the "play" icon at the highest level of the tree, it'll play every song on the Empeg. If you drill down to your "Rush" playlist, it'll play all the Rush songs. If you drill down to your "Moving Pictures" playlist, it'll play just that album. And if you keep drilling down to an individual song, you could specifically choose to play "YYZ".

Now, my example was for playlists organized by artist/album. But you don't have to create the playlists that way. You could, for example, create playlists based on mood (I have a "High Energy" and a "Low Key" playlist), or based on the favorite songs of friends and family members. It's totally up to you.

All of the above can be done either in normal play mode (everything in sequence), or in shuffle play mode (with the chosen playlist and its sub-playlists shuffled like a deck of cards).

You can also, if desired, assign your own PIN numbers to your playlists, and punch the PINs into the remote control instead of drilling down through the menus.

And that's just the playlist functions. There are other ways to get to the music you want. It's possible, with just a couple of simple button-presses on the remote, to perform searches based on artist, song title, album name, genre, or year. And in the same menus where you perform those searches, you can either narrow your search by keying in letters from the numeric pad, or if you wanted, you could use the arrow keys to scroll up and down the list. It sounds complicated when I describe it, but it's actually incredibly easy and simple.


How do the controls work (looks like the MK2 has similar controls as the 1, except with the rotary knob..)?

Well, I think the user interface for the Mark 2 hasn't been finalized yet, so there's no real answer to that question. Based on the way that the Mark 1 works, I'd say that they'll come up with a very good system for selecting stuff that is very easy to understand and use.

But to answer your question more specifically, I'll tell you how the Mark 1 currently works:

When you're in the menu system, the four buttons are the menu navigation keys. The top button goes "up" in the menu tree, the bottom button confirms the current option, and the left/right buttons select and scroll through the various options.

When you're outside the menu system, the top button is pause, the left and right buttons are track selection, and the bottom button enters the menu system. The buttons do double-duty in this mode: Holding the top button turns off the power, and holding the left-right buttons will adjust the volume. That's definitely going to change on the Mark 2, since there will be a real volume knob. Hugo seemed to indicate that holding the left and right buttons would become FF/REW on the Mark 2 units, but beyond that, I'm sure they're still working on the design and haven't finalized it yet.


What kind of displays can you use while playing music, etc etc.

You'll get to see some of that in the video, but here's the current breakdown. You can choose one of four information screens:

1) Track details. Shows song title, Artist, Album, Year, and the elapsed time. Also shows how far along the playlist you are in a [number/number] format. For instance, if there are 500 items in the playlist, and you're on the 20th song, it will have [20 / 500] on the screen next to the elapsed time.

2) Now and Next. This is brand new with version 10 of the software. Shows the current song title, plus the next several songs coming up in the current playlist. Also has elapsed time and the [20 / 500] thing.

3) One-line info. Scrolls the Artist:Song Title information across the bottom of the screen with the elapsed time in the corner. Above the line of text, the remainder of the screen shows the Prolux Visuals.

4) Information off. The full screen shows nothing but the Prolux Visuals.

There are something like 20 different visuals to choose from, and you'll get to see all of those in the video.


How will the controls differ on the new system with the knob? Will the new system have voice activated controls (I seem to recall hearing this).. how would they work? Like, "play ," or what?

That's probably not set in stone yet either. But you will have some basic hard-coded commands available to you like play and pause, and you'll also be able to "voice tag" your playlists, so, much like the PIN function I described above, you can call up a playlist by saying a keyword.


Any idea what the new remote will look like?

Unfortunately, it's going to look just like the current Kenwood credit-card remote. From what I understand, they weren't able to work out a new remote in time for the Mark 2.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

I think this was answered too, but I have a question about shuffling mode. Does it remember which songs it's played allready? For example, if you have songs 1 through 20, and it plays 13 and 7, will you proceed to go through all the others without repeating 13 and 7 and any others it plays until the shuffled playlist runs out of songs?

Geez I did a bad job of asking that. Do you know what I mean?

Yes, it remembers what it played and won't play them again (even if you power off during the playlist).

However, if the same song features in multiple playlists enclosed by the one you pick for random play, you can currently get the same song more than once (ie, if it appears twice in the tree that you play randomly, you'll get it twice). This is a bug which will be fixed before the 1.0 release.

Hugo

This is a bug which will be fixed before the 1.0 release.

I'm really glad to hear you say that, Hugo. It was a pet peeve of mine.


Dignan17, in case Hugo's answer confused you at all, I thought I could clarify a little more on how the shuffle play mode works for the Mark 1. Since Hugo has said the playlist functions will be getting some behavior changes before 1.0, this might not be the case forever. But since you asked, I wanted to make sure you were absolutely clear on how it functioned.

The shuffle play mode in the Empeg shuffles the playlist like a deck of cards. Each entry in the playlist is like a card in the deck. So if no two cards in the deck are the same, then there won't be any repeats in the list. And it doesn't just shuffle the tracks willy-nilly, it literally creates a list of file ID's in memory, shuffles those, and saves that shuffled list. So you can traverse the shuffled list- for instance, you can go back and forth through that shuffled list and see the same song order. This even counts across power-downs and pull-outs. For instance, if I am listening to a shuffled playlist in the car, then I pull it out of the car and plug it in at my desk, it will pick up that same shuffled playlist right where I left off.

This method is very elegant, but it has a couple of disadvantages:

1) If you are playing the root of your playlist "tree", you probably have some songs that are copied into more than one playlist. For instance, on my Empeg, I have all the songs individually in artist/album trees. But I also have separate "mood" or "test" or "demo" playlists, too. So if I choose to play the entire Empeg (the main "root" of the playlist tree), that's like having a deck of cards where some of the cards are the same. Since I do this often, I get repeats rather often. But like Hugo said, that'll be fixed by the time the Mark2's ship: They'll simply de-dupe the flattened playlist before shuffling it.

2) It only performs the shuffling function when you select a new playlist. This is different than the behavior of consumer CD players. For instance, on a consumer CD player, when you turn on shuffle, the next track will definitely be a random track. Or when you turn off shuffle, the next track will definitely be the next song on the CD. The Empeg works a little differently. It uses the "shuffle" option as a parameter for playlist selection, rather than a function that initiates on its own. You can turn shuffle on and off all you like, and it won't change the current-running playlist. The only time it's taken into account is when you choose a new playlist (or choose the same playlist again). Only then does it reshuffle or unshuffle.

I don't know if the behavior of #2 will change or not (perhaps Hugo can fill us in?).

If they wanted to make the shuffle button behave like a consumer CD player (i.e., it instantly shuffles or unshuffles when you hit it), there's some odd behaviors that they'd need to account for, and it's not an easy choice to make.

For example, let's say that I'm listening to the entire Empeg, shuffled. I have some songs in multiple branches of the tree. I have a "Pink Floyd" playlist, with the "Wish You Were Here" album as a sub-playlist of that branch. But I also have a few songs from that album copied into other "mood" playlists that I've made. For instance, I have the first section of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" in my "Low Key" playlist.

Let's say that the first "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" section was playing. And as the song neared its end, I could "feel" the song "Welcome to the Machine" coming up. I decided that I wanted to hear the rest of that album unshuffled, so I turn off shuffle play. I expect it to roll directly into "Welcome to the Machine", because that's what a consumer CD player would do in that situation.

But the Empeg doesn't know which copy of "Shine On" it should continue after. What if the copy of "Shine On" it was playing was the one from the "Low Key" playlist, and not the one from the album playlist? Then the next song wouldn't be "Welcome to the Machine", it'd probably be a Pat Metheny tune or something. Not what I expected.

So, since the files on the Empeg are organized in a more complicated way than the songs on a CD player, it makes the behavior harder to code. If they wanted the shuffle function to behave like a consumer CD player, they'd need to do some serious coding work to make it decide where in the playlist it should drop you after an unshuffle.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

So basically it shuffles like Winamp does. Thanks, that's all I needed to know.

I have another playlist question, is it possible to make playlists on the go?