a 10gig, Rio Car, No 030102578

after nearly three years of wanting, i Finally managed to buy one, normally i'd not have the spare cash handy, or would get outbid at the last minute, but this time i've gone done it!

ok, a question or two.. I've received the player, the remote, original manuals and disc,

what else do i need?
i know i need a mains adaptor to run it while connected to the pc, also an ethernet cable, anything else? a dock for when connected to the pc?

the other prob i have... i've over 25gig of mp3 (and other) files on hte pc, so would clearly need to upgrade the hdd, i know it's a laptop drive, but which type?

I'm also aware that i need to download a few prog's to ensure i'm using the latest software (i think the firmware is up to date though), i'll go look for these in a moment.

i guess i'm basically asking "where do i go from here?" !! i have a fairly basic understanding of how the empeg works, and have baffled myself til my heat was content in the FAQ's, so i just need to get the basics sorted.

oh yeah,
Hello everybody, nice to finally have a reason to say hello!

Hugh

it might also be worth noting that i have a modern pc running XP pro, and have so serial ports (printer ports?) as everythig is usb2, with the exception of the monitors, phono, din, jack, etc.

thanks in advance.
HUgh

Have a read of the FAQ - linked at the top. Tony has spent many hours updating and adding to it. Almost everything you ask is there:

e.g. type of disk:
http://www.riocar.org/modules.php?op=mod...;faqent=111#111

and a very detailed guide on how to install it:
http://www.riocar.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Drive_Upgrade&file=index

You'll also want to pick up a usb to serial adapter. You could conceivably get by without it if you were handy with Linux and used Mark's ethernet upgrader. Even then, I think you'd have to borrow a computer with a serial port to install a Hijack kernel before you could upgrade over ethernet.

crikey, all sound rather confusing!

i've no linux experience at all.

i'll stop by the pc shop later to see if i can pick up a cable,

ah, hang on, is the serial cable the 9 pin plug? i have one of those!

do i need anything else to be able to upload etc, once i have the software of course?

thanks for the quick answers.
Hugh

Welcome to the empeg world, Hugh!

Welcome to the empeg world!

A few useful links that relate directly to your questions:

I don't have a serial port on my PC. Is the serial port required?

Where can I get a spare AC power supply for my player?

How do I upgrade the firmware on the player, and will it erase my music files?

What is the Hijack Kernel?

Tony, supporting new users would just be impossible without your FAQ.

Thanks. Of course, the FAQ would have been impossible without this BBS and the great people on it. Really, the FAQ was written by this BBS, I just read the tablets out of the hat.

thank you all,

i've read, and re-read, all the relevent FAQ'a, and then some, info overload at present i think as i can't take in any more tonight!

I'm sure that once i get to grips with the basics, the rest should follow, though being a non invasive pc owner i'm a little out of my depth right now! i can pull apart and rebult things ok, just never been into all the fine detail stuff, time to start learning!

thanks again for the welcome.

Hugh

ps, i should have added,
the seller explained to me that the player has a later firmware than the original which is on the disc supplied, does this suggest i'll not need to upgrade for now?

and a simple one, that i just can't grasp.. somewhere in those FAQ's were a few weblinks,

1)which software should i install on my pc for sending the music over etc, there are a number of downloads, which frankly confuse me!

2), which prog would you recommend for use with XP pro, for ripping disks and converting to proper mp3,

3), i read a lot about tagging, many of my mp3 tracks ( a loan from a pal ;]) are alreadt tagged, but is there a specific way to do this?

sorry for all the additional Q's.

Emplode version 2.00 final.




There are a million of them, and you can use any one you want. Because this question comes up a lot, I think we were recommending "Exact Audio Copy", or EAC last I checked. But that's not a hard recommendation. Use whatever you like, as long as the output is MP3.

(For example, you can use iTunes to rip music, and it works fine, but by default it doesn't output to MP3. By default, it outputs to apple's AAC format. So you have to dig into its configuration screens to make it rip MP3s.)



Yes, the important thing to remember is to GET THE TAGS TOTALLY RIGHT BEFORE YOU SEND THE SONGS TO THE EMPEG PLAYER. Details here.

Most ripper packages will tag your files automatically by querying the CDDB. But the CDDB has a lot of typos and a lot of incorrect or missing information. For example, because the empeg displays the year, and allows you to search by year, you might want to make sure that the "YEAR" field is filled out, even though that field got left blank because it was blank in the CDDB.

Another example is if there's a few different ways to spell an artist name, you might want to edit the tags so that they are homogeneous. For instance, if one album is tagged with the artist "Vixy & Tony" and another album is tagged with the artist "Vixy and Tony", they will show up as two different artists in the search. You might want to correct that.

Also make sure the file names are good and that they sequentially number the songs with the tracknumber in the file name. That way, when you upload them to your empeg player, albums will play in the correct order. (Most programs do this automatically by default.)



Not necessarily. There were several software upgrades for the thing and I don't know which disc you have.

Just power on the player and go to its "ABOUT" menu. If it doesn't say 2.00 or 2.00 Beta 13, then you'll want to make it 2.00.

I'd recommend http://dbpoweramp.com/ for ripping and encoding to MP3. It isn't free, but it as good as the best free ripper (EAC) but much easier to use, gets better quality tag data, downloads album art and is quicker on problem disks.

A good ripper/encoder will make a good attempt at getting tag data. You just need to give them a quick check and correct any errors.

If you have the disk space, rip and encode to FLAC and MP3 (dbpoweramp can encode to both at the same time). Then you have lossless files which you can convert to any other format in the future.

wow, very precise answers! i think i'm beginning to understand it a little better now!

i think the first thing i should do is to get the software required loaded on the pc, get a power supply and boot her up, things will probably make even more sense then!

thank you guys.

HUgh

That's okay... we've helped out linux-inexperienced folks on here, before.

i bet! a couple of my old pals were well into it, modding everything, but windows suits my techy capabilities!!

Hugh

The good news is that you don't actually need to gain any Linux skills to either upgrade the firmware or upload music to the empeg.

And the bad news is, well, exactly the same!

hi again,

empeg powered and tried out today, lovely bit of kit,

the following firmware is installed, am i right in thinking this needs to be upgraded?

ver2.00, beta 11

sorry to ask again, but can someone, in one answer, tell me exactly what i need to load on the pc,

i'm guessing the big builder software, latest emplode, and ??

thanks.
Hugh

It desperately needs to be upgraded. There were a couple rather nasty bugs in Beta 11.

You need to be at 2.00 final.

After you get the thing upgraded to 2.00 final, check for this problem by looking at the config.ini file and seeing if you have a gigantic list of favorite visuals.

No disk builder needed unless you plan to upgrade the hard disks.

1. You need Emplode 2.0 installed on your PC. You need to do this before anything else.

2. Once that is installed, plug in the player via serial cable and then Upgrade the player software to 2.00. There should be an option on your start menu with Emplode called "Rio Upgrade Wizard" to do this.

3. While you've got the serial cable plugged in, I'd also recommend Tony's Logo Editor, which seems to be the easiest way to flash the kernel and has the added benefit of being able to customize your boot logo. The kernel flash will be nice because you can easily install a Hijack kernel (don't be scared...it's as easy as downloading a file, selecting it and letting the software do the rest). It will enable a lot more really handy features and even some bug fixes that are handled in kernel space.

After you've done all this, fire up emplode and put some music on it (after making sure all your tags are correct!) and enjoy!

thanks for the info,

i've got it connected up to the pc now, but i'm only able to 'find player' when the serial is plugged in, it can't find the player via usb, any reason for this?

thanks.
HUgh

thank you Tony,
i shoulda guess it'd be in the FAQ's!!

cheers.
Hugh

Hi Tony,
i've tried to follow hese instructions but have had no joy as yet,

i've done it by plugging in the usb, and then trying to tell the 'new hardware' wizard where to find the driver file, rioxdrv, but no matter where i put the file, when i tell it to look in that folder, nothing comes up. it won't even try to look in the folder, be it on the pc or on an external drive or memory stick, the only thing i can see different is that the file it tells me to look for on the usb help page, has .sys. on the end, but there is no such file in the emplode v2.00 developer files i downloaded and have installed.

have also tried it the way shown in the help page, even after clicking on update driver, and telling it a specific location to look in, it won't allow me to search the folder or install the driver.

any idea's how i can do this? i'm sure it can't be anything too difficult, can it?

tia,
Hugh, the pc numpty!

Make sure to extract the whole thing, not just the SYS file. The folder you point it to must also contain the INF file.

SYS files and INF files go in a pair together.

I'm going to add that to the FAQ entry now.

OH! I re-read your post and I think I know what's happening.

You have "hide file extensions" and "hide protected operating system files" turned on. Those are among the first things I disable when installing Windows, so I often forget that some people leave them as default.

As long as you fully extract the contents of the emplode 2.0 zip installer, and point Windows at that extracted folder, you should be OK. If you are dragging files out of the zip onesie-twosie, that's your problem.

Tony, you're the man!! thank you!

By the way, if you can figure out how to get ethernet working, it's faster than USB for talking to the empeg player (though more complicated to set up).

i have no end of problems with my wireless N set up (has to go about 100ft to the house and thru 2 walls), not sure if that makes me ok at sorting the probs with it, and all the ip No's, or a numpty for not fixing it once and for all!

Well, you don't have to go wireless. If you're connecting the computer to the empeg with a USB cable, then it must also be within reach of a short ethernet crossover cable...