Hooray for 2.0!
Posted by: Dignan
Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:05
Great job, empeg gang! Congrats on getting this software out the door!
My one remaining question is, does this signify a formal end to work on the empeg project? If so, 'tis a sad and joyful day indeed.
Posted by: Ezekiel
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:07
Yeehaa! I can't wait to d/l and try it tonight when I get home. Thanks guys. YOU ROCK!
-Zeke
Posted by: TigerJimmy
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:09
I seem to recall another software release last year on April 1...
Posted by: BartDG
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:12
Yes, that's what I thought too at first, but this is the real thing!!!
It's installing on my Empeg as I type this...
So excited !!!!
Posted by: skibum
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:16
yippie. just got to wait for a new hijack now
Posted by: Chimaera
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:18
Noooo!!!! It is just so unfair
Edited to show the picture
Posted by: antbankz
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:20
Awesome guys!! I had a feeling something was going to be released today after the empeg guys pulling our leg last year.
Posted by: leftyfb
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:23
hm, in reading through the release notes, I almost don't want this to be the real release. All this hype about the great new features that were supposed to be in 2.0 final, but i'm not seeing anything really. Am I just missing something or have I been misreading posts about new features expected in this new release?
OR is this just another April fools joke like that year? ( I hope so)
Posted by: BartDG
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:24
yippie. just got to wait for a new hijack now
I hope this update Hijack version comes quickly, cause now my lighted buttons aren't lit anymore.
But I'm sure Mark will post it soon!
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:26
All this hype about the great new features that were supposed to be in 2.0 final, but i'm not seeing anything really.
No one ever promised or even suggested that 2.0 final would have great new features. Version 3 probably will.
Posted by: jarob10
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:28
including cross fade maybe ?
Posted by: Chuck
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:29
I was thinking the same thing. Read the release notes twice to make sure it was real.
A thank you to everyone on the team!
Posted by: rob
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:34
does this signify a formal end to work on the empeg project
I HOPE it marks the end of development on the v2 branch (subject to any major bugs!). That means we can concentrate on making a public v3 beta release, which you guys are going to like
So, far from the end!
Rob
Posted by: rob
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:36
We switched to InstallShield 9. We also got this message in our testing with older versions of Windows, but if you install the service packs it's fine.
Rob
Posted by: rob
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:37
All this hype about the great new features that were supposed to be in 2.0 final
You're thinking of 3.0-beta1. The idea for 2.0 is to fix (most of) the bugs so we can get on with releasing unstable but FUN versions from the trunk.
Rob
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:39
The current Hijack version is completely up to date for v2.00 final.
-ml
Posted by: Chimaera
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:39
That's what I figured, only I am at work at the moment, so Emplode installs will have to wait until I get home. The b13 upgrader worked fine in putting the image on the player though
Thanks for all the hard work guys, and I am already checking announcments again for the 3.00beta releases
Posted by: svferris
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:44
That means we can concentrate on making a public v3 beta release, which you guys are going to like
[whine] When's 3.0 going to be ready? [/whine]
Posted by: skibum
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:45
assumed it might be as you were on the alpha program. You might want to update your page to reflect this.
Thanks
Posted by: BartDG
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:45
Rob,
the release notes make mention of a BPM calculator showing it's results in the Track Details screen.
But I can't seem to be able to find it.
All I can see is : Track, Artist, Source, Genre, Plays, Last played, marked, file size, codec and format.
Where's the BPM counter?
Is is this the april fool you've included?
Posted by: Daria
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:47
Go away for lunch, return to find this.
Well, at least something good is happening today...
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:48
Sigh. I'm at work with no Windows machine to speak of. I managed to scrounge a null-modem cable for my Solaris machine to find that the source to upgclient isn't available. Can anyone tell me if there's any known way to upgrade under Solaris? A little bit of tweaking appears to have gotten download.c to compile.
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:53
You could use any earlier version of the upgclient, such as the one for v2beta13 (still on their website, under "beta" software).
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:58
I don't see any source for upgclient for any version of the software, unless it's well hidden inside emptool, in which case I'm likely to be screwed anyway, as it relies on both Linux and a little-endian CPU.
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 13:59
Oh.. and right you are. Bummer.
Posted by: eliceo
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 14:29
I couldnt find bpm either, but the empeg feels much more responsive, especially visuals.
just found it, you have to long press info
Posted by: rob
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 14:36
Where's the BPM counter?
Well it SHOULD be there. It may not display anything until it has calculated the BPM, which requires one complete play through of the track from start to finish.
Rob
Posted by: BartDG
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 14:38
just found it, you have to long press info
Yes, long pressing info shows the track details screen, but I can't see a BPM counter there?
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 14:40
source for upgclient
Come on! Someone!?! Anyone?!? Bueller?
Surely there's nothing proprietary in the upgrader.
Posted by: peter
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 14:53
Surely there's nothing proprietary in the upgrader.
We've never released the source of upgclient. To me, this looks like an oversight, but we can't, unfortunately, go handing stuff out during Chapter 11 no matter how little "intellectual property" (gah!) is in it. An enterprising coder armed with the emptool sources, a SerialConnection object from lib/protocol/connection.h, and an Upgrader object from lib/protocol/upgrader.h might easily duplicate it, though.
Peter
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 14:54
Phooey!
Well, that doesn't really help me in the next hour or two until I get home, I suppose.
If only I'd asked a couple of weeks ago.
Posted by: BartDG
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:00
Well it SHOULD be there. It may not display anything until it has calculated the BPM, which requires one complete play through of the track from start to finish.
Aaaaaaah! Now I've found it! It indeed required a complete play though of the track. It then gets inserted in the Track details menu.
Thanks Rob!
Posted by: peter
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:09
All this hype about the great new features that were supposed to be in 2.0 final, but i'm not seeing anything really.
Try using 1.03 for a day and then say that!
The hype of which you speak is presumably mainly the hype
before the car-player was discontinued? All car-player work since September 2001 has essentially been done in our spare time -- I hope I'm not sounding old-fashioned when I say that, at least as far as I'm concerned, it was a
matter of honour not to strand the community on version 1.03, with its various shortcomings. Without official support or scheduling, there were many things we wanted to bring you in 2.0 which we could not. There are even some, hopefully not too irritating, remaining minor bugs in 2.0; such is not the Empeg Way, but under the circumstances making a release sooner rather than later seemed sensible. We all hope that there will be 3.x for the car-player. But the future of Empeg, let alone the car-player, depends on a favourable outcome to Sonicblue's asset sales adventure; we can make no guarantees. Not even Greg Ballard could.
I for one am grateful to Sonicblue for even
permitting the skunkworks development of 2.0 (or for turning a blind eye, whichever they did). Other companies might not have been so understanding. Subsequent owners of Empeg might not be so understanding. That is why we needed to release 2.0 now, despite its obvious lack of Vorbis support, cross-fading, automatic self-EQ or voice recognition.
Had Sonicblue lived, we should have had a car-player to tell which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.
Peter
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:22
Posted by: genixia
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:37
/me wonders if I'm merely duplicating something they've already done in the 3.0 trunks
Posted by: rob
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:43
Auto EQ is a personal project of John G, nobody is working on VR right now. What project are you referring to?
Rob
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:46
What project are you referring to?
Genixia is working on auto-EQ, too. Surely you've seen his threads on the topic?
Posted by: rob
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:49
I mostly only get time to read General and of course the occassional Iraq thread when I need to relax.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:50
/me wonders if I'm merely duplicating something they've already done in the 3.0 trunks
Even if you are (and I may be stepping outside of NDA to say this, but this is the first I've heard of auto-EQ in reference to the 3.0 trunk), 3.0 is pretty far off, so I think there would be significant benefit to having a 2.0 auto-EQ feature right now.
And since it's a personal project of John G's, perhaps you two could correspond and compare notes.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:56
I mostly only get time to read General and of course the occassional Iraq thread when I need to relax.
Heh. I guess we have differing ideas about relaxation.
In any case, the thread with the acorn of Genixia's auto-EQ project lies
here. I suspect that John G's project may have started because of the information that Genixia published there (something similar to "I'll show this to the EQ people" was said in that thread...
).
Posted by: rob
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 15:58
this is the first I've heard of auto-EQ in reference to the 3.0 trunk
I think John may have only come up with the design at the pub last night, and even then most of the evening was taken up with deciding who would play what instrument in the empeg band. When I left empeg towers this evening he seemed to be making a lot of progress, but it's probably a bit of an advantage to be the co-designer of the player filter graph. It makes a lot more sense to slot this kind of thing into the filter network than trying to hack at 2.0.
I'm sure he'd love to touch base with Genixia on this.
Rob
Posted by: genixia
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 16:13
Don't worry, I'm going to continue...
Auto-EQ from hijack/userland is a long way off anyway. For now, I'm aiming to get to the point where we can automatically measure and log the response for offline analysis.
There's 3 hurdles after that point before we get to full auto-eq;
1) Crunching the response numbers to obtain the required EQ to flatten it. Not an easy task within itself.
2) Changing those numbers into EQ coefficients. Unfortunately the DSP programming manual doesn't contain the algorithms used to do this - it simply refers to a DOS utility that doesn't appear to be freely and easily available. We know that the empeg guys have essentially duplicated this utility within the player application, so either they reverse-engineered it, or were given the algorithm. Either way, they're probably bound by NDA from telling me. (Although I could hope!)
3) Finding out where in the scratch partition to store the coefficients. We've been warned that this is subject to change.
Actually, that's made me pause for thought. I wonder if the scratch storage really contains the DSP coefficients, or the 'raw' EQ data in 'human' form (ie f, Q and dB). If the latter, then that would make life significantly easier wrt point 2.
Posted by: genixia
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 16:15
I'm sure he'd love to touch base with Genixia on this.
Well, he knows where to find me
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 16:37
1) Crunching the response numbers to obtain the required EQ to flatten it. Not an easy task within itself. 2) Changing those numbers into EQ coefficients.
I agree that would be tricky. I think I even commented on it, in a previous discussion on this topic. Basically, I showed a screen output from SpectraLAB that looked like a stock market graph. How the heck could a simple algorithm decide the best way to flatten that with only ten bands of EQ?
You know what I'd be happy to see? Something do-able without having to implement complex AI to create EQ coefficients?
Continuous sweeping up and down sine waves output by the DSP, with the screen showing a continuously-updated third-octave analyzer graph of the monitored aux-in using the ratshack microphone.
I sit in the car wearing earplugs and fiddle with the EQ settings as it does this. That way, I choose how to flatten it, but the player has all the features which allow me to do this without dragging the RTA gear out to the car.
Since it's possible to edit the player's EQ by just the numbers along the top of the screen, the third-octave graph could continuously overlay the bottom 3/4 of the screen and not really have much of an ill effect on my ability to tweak the EQ.
Posted by: cwillenbrock
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 17:21
I cannot express the depth of joy I now have at not having the silly little plays counter on my track details screen. That alone has made my month.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 17:26
And you can still see it in Details view, too, if you really need to see it.
I really like the 2.0 final software, it's been really stable for me in the RC stages leading up to this. I think this is a great release and I'm quite happy with it.
Posted by: rtundo
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 17:52
Thanks for the great upgrade. One question, I was wondering if the ability to turn off number of plays option (something like plays = 0) was included in this version? Also I wanted to express my gratitude for keeping the upgrades alive as long as you have.
Posted by: BleachLPB
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 17:54
And even though its been mentioned many times... what timing with April 1. The first place I went when I hopped on the bbs a minute ago was the "Announcements" section just to see if there were any strange announcements.
But judging from comments - I can't wait to hook up my player and install the new software!
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 17:55
One question, I was wondering if the ability to turn off number of plays option (something like plays = 0) was included in this version?
Why don't you try it and see? Hint: Poke around the Player Configuration dialog box...
Posted by: rtundo
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 17:59
I would but I don't have my empeg with me
. It'll have to wait until tomorrow.
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 18:57
Or heck, they might even do [be]better, and code an ethernet-based upgrade client..
Cheers!
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 19:02
You know what I'd be happy to see? Something do-able without having to implement complex AI to create EQ coefficients?
IIRC: no AI required.. just some straightforward linear programming..
Cheers!
I'm loving these bug fixes! Some I've never even bothered to complain about (like when auto-sorting a list the playlists would get mixed with the tracks and how inserting a track would make the player un-pause)! Thank you, thank you!
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 19:19
Thanks Rob, Peter, Toby, err.. uhm.. damn.. I so dislike my memory at times..
Cheers
Any idea on Jemplode? Will it still work?
Posted by: Gleep
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 19:32
"I cannot express the depth of joy I now have at not having the silly little plays counter on my track details screen. That alone has made my month. "
How do you turn on/off the play counter?
In emplode... "Configure Player" I think.
I just noticed how 2.00 final emplode is less than 1/2 the size of Beta 13 (when zipped). Is that because of the installer?
Posted by: rtundo
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 19:37
Posted by: Gleep
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 19:44
Found it!
thanks!
Posted by: Daria
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 20:44
Well it SHOULD be there. It may not display anything until it has calculated the BPM, which requires one complete play through of the track from start to finish.
I thought it was being calculated before, but I let the track play again, used the back button twice to go back to it, and got no BPM. I should try again now.
Posted by: Daria
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 20:50
Actually, that's made me pause for thought. I wonder if the scratch storage really contains the DSP coefficients, or the 'raw' EQ data in 'human' form (ie f, Q and dB). If the latter, then that would make life significantly easier wrt point 2.
I deciphered most of that, if you can find the thread.
Posted by: Daria
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 20:51
And of course now it works. Hey, all the better.
Posted by: genixia
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 22:37
Where is the number of plays stored? (technical)
Somehow I missed that interpretation the first time around. So part 2 is significantly easier. We can literally write calculated EQs straight into the dynamic data partition and the player will then know about them.
I don't suppose you found any strings corresponding to the EQ preset names? It'd be useful to be able to change that too.
So that just leaves the tricky part of analysing the response and calculating what is needed to correct it.
(And the actual implementation...)
Posted by: mrfixit
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 01/04/2003 22:44
Wow... I am away from my computer for one day and out pops v2.0
Posted by: mac
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 02/04/2003 02:45
In reply to:
I just noticed how 2.00 final emplode is less than 1/2 the size of Beta 13 (when zipped). Is that because of the installer?
That's because it doesn't include the MSI Engine any more. Installshield 8 (which is what we've started using - despite Rob's best efforts to invent an Installshield 9) has a feature to automatically download the engine if it is required.
Posted by: Shonky
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 02/04/2003 04:27
So umm Mark is 321 right for the latest Hijack? It seems the Hijack site has gone slightly backwards in time.
v321 is the latest described hijack but 324 exists if you change the link... or did you not want 324 available to everyone? If so, can someone delete my post if I don't get back to the board in time.
Have you seen this thread?
In reply to:
despite Rob's best efforts to invent an Installshield 9
LOL
Posted by: ShadowMan
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 02/04/2003 06:20
And poor thinfourth2 still has 2 and a half months to spend on a boat.
Subject: i'm Off
Poster: thinfourth2
Date: 20/02/03 03:51 PM
Oh well time to go back to work Flying to singapore tomorrow
So see you guys in four months time Hopefully will be back in time for the fun at amerfoort
Oh yeah and if empeg towers follows the norm then they should be realeasing the next update round about the time i leave
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 02/04/2003 07:43
If this works I guess we owe Roger some beer
I already sent him one when he said he fixed it. I suppose I'm a little more trusting than you.
Which is not to say that you shouldn't send him one on your own!
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 02/04/2003 08:06
In reply to:
Hint: Poke around the Player Configuration dialog box...
You mean there's a new JEmplode?
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 02/04/2003 08:17
It appears that it puts ``play_count=0'' in the [display] section of config.ini.
Posted by: mlord
Hijack v324 -- Get it! - 02/04/2003 08:42
Hijack v322,v323, and the latest v324 all now "exist" again. Had a minor synchronization issue between multiple machines while I was releasing Hijack versions "on the road" last weekend.
v324 is the latest, and is recommended for everybody.
-ml
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 02/04/2003 09:53
Thanks, Bitt. (I subsequently found the same elsewhere in this thread)
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 02/04/2003 10:05
I was looking forward to the much-heralded tuner AF improvements. But on my daily drive to work, where normally the tuner re-tunes 3 or 4 times on the way, it didn't re-tune at all, instead just attenuating when the signal level drops to 1 or 2 bars.
The AF indicator light came on as normal (in Radio info), but switching to the AF Debugging info-mode just displayed a "No AF information at present" for the entire (20 minutes) journey. What is going wrong?
Posted by: crazymelki
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 02/04/2003 10:41
Hello tms13,
I had the same here. Is this maybe country dependent?
bye
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 02/04/2003 11:00
I'm in the UK, where the Empeg boys do their testing (in fact, very near to Empeg Towers), so I expected it to work here.
This has turned into the all-use 2.00 Final thread...
Q: Have database rebuilds gotten faster? Sure looks like it..
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 03/04/2003 03:05
Today, before setting off, I changed frequency down 0.1MHz and back again. The AF Debugging display changed to "Insufficient AF information; WAIT" - and stayed like that for the entire journey. Again, no retuning - it doesn't even fall-back to the 2.0b13 method when the signal gets low. Still not quite what I was looking forward to...
Also, muting the player or switching to MP3 doesn't seem to help - I thought that might give the radio more opportunity to sample the AFs, but it doesn't make any difference AFAICT.
Posted by: prolux
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 03/04/2003 08:20
What station are you listening to?
Local stations don't broadcast alternative frequencies in the RDS data - So what you're seeing is expected behaviour for a station like Q103.
Try Radio 1, or another national station. In programming and testing I used Radio 1 and Radio 4, both broadcast about 10 alternative frequencies. In the Cambridge area tune to 98.5 and the AF list should populate within a few seconds (providing your antenna is up to scratch).
Toby
Posted by: leftyfb
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 03/04/2003 08:47
I wish we got Radio 1 over here in the U.S.
Posted by: rob
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 03/04/2003 08:48
I wish we got Radio 1 over here in the U.S
You're better off without it. There's only so much tuneless hip hop any sane person can take.
Posted by: Roger
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 03/04/2003 09:18
There's only so much tuneless hip hop any sane person can take.
These days it's all Garage and R&B, rather than classic (even tuneless) hip hop. IMNSHO, Garage sucks almost as badly as jungle.
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 03/04/2003 11:05
I've been trying BBC Radio 4; AF switching worked fine on 2.0b13 as I said - 3 or 4 changes between 94.5 and 93.5 in my 20-minute commute. More testing on my way home tonight, I think.
Edit: I'm running Hijack (235), so won't report this as a bug until I've tried it without, just in case.
Posted by: prolux
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 04/04/2003 09:51
Okay Toby, please let me know your results.
I've just put hijack on my 2.0 player to see if that changes anything (can't think why it would)
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 04/04/2003 12:11
I'll leave it until next week to test sans Hijack, as I can't live without some of Hijack's features over the weekend... Needless to say, I got no further than the WAIT screen last night on Radio 1 and this morning on R4. Presumably, this WAIT message means the player has the full list of frequencies, but hasn't got around to sampling their strengths; is that correct?
But I will test, and if I can reproduce it, then I'll post in Bug Reports.
The real thing I want to check without Hijack is whether it's my IR translations that have broken frequency seeks for me (worked fine in previous beta, but I upgraded Hijack 298 to 235 at the same time).
Posted by: prolux
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 07/04/2003 06:00
Regarding the 'WAIT' message:
There are three states the AF debugger screen can be in, and each state relates to the number of frequencies in the alternate frequency list or the range of strength readings.
DORMANT - This state is achieved by there being no alternative frequencies in the list. The message associated with this state is "No AF information currently avilable"
WAITING - This state is achieved by the range of strength readings from the freqencies in the list equaling zero (i.e. strongest reading - weakest reading = 0). The message associated with this state is "Insufficient AF information available, WAIT".
ACTIVE - This state is achieved by both other states not being satisfied - i.e. the AF list has some alternate frequencies in it, and the range of signal strength readings is not zero.
Note that the WAITING state can be achieved by two possible scenarios: If there is only one frequency in the AF list then the range of signal strength readings will be zero - If there are multiple frequencies in the AF list, but they all have the same signal strength (perhaps the initialisation value of zero) then the range will also be zero.
So one of two things is going on with your player - either the signal strength measurements are not happening, or always returning the same value, or the AF list is not getting populated properly. I think the former is the more likely problem.
Posted by: andym
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 07/04/2003 11:49
Silly question, how do you enable the debug mode?
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 04:21
Thanks for the detailed description, Toby. (Are the dev-info and/or FAQ gnomes gathering this?)
I managed to try the tuner without Hijack last night; the good (and bad!) news is that it worked beatifully, going from Dormant into Active within a couple of seconds, and doing everything it should.
Sometimes after changing to a different preset, or on power-up, it remains stuck in Dormant, and I have to change the frequency one notch and back again for it to work. Perhaps there's a subtle race condition - is the AF code getting the frequencies too quickly, before it's reset itself?
I'm surprised that reverting to the stock kernel made a difference (I haven't entirely ruled out coincidence, but it's looking suspicious. I do want to be certain before emabarking on the heresy of suggesting HJ's not perfect, though!) I'm now running the oldest Hijack I have (v221) in the hope that we can identify what's upsetting it.
Posted by: boxer
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 04:27
Silly question, how do you enable the debug mode
>Info>AF Debugger
Somebody's got to come up with "De bugger don't work right", sooner or later, so I might as well do it now!
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 06:51
No doubt about it -- Hijack has bugs. But I've hidden them so cleverly that you aren't supposed to be able to notice them.. my tuner behaves very nicely, but then, we don't have RDS around here.
Cheers
Posted by: prolux
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 10:48
Okay, I've finally tested with HiJack and am getting the same results as Toby.
I've modified the AF debugger visual slightly so that in the WAITING state it also displays the number of frequencies in the AF list, and the signal strength (you will remember that this state is achieved by the range of signal strength readings equalling zero, so only need to display the one value).
The AF list is populating itself fine, I got a population of 10 alternate frequencies after just a few seconds of radio 1 (98.5) - However, all the signal strength readings seem to be returning zero.
This is intruiging since the standard full screen radio info mode seems to display a sensible value for the signal strength of the current station. A rather roundabout route is used by the code which retunes the radio for a fraction of a second during gaps in the audio and measures the signal strength, so it could be something there.
I'm currently investigating further and trying to determine what differs if HiJack is present. No disrespect to ML intended, but I think that due to lack of RDS in his country he will find this one very difficult to debug.
Toby
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 10:55
Toby - did you use mlord's test Hijack (v329+s) for this?
I'm wondering if it could be timing-related? I know the tuner has to sample within a very small time window, so is there something Hijack could be doing that interferes with the sampling? You (Toby) might be able to test that theory with a longer sampling time (though it would probably be unpleasant to hear, it may tell us something).
Otherwise, all I can think of is memory usage; I'm not sure that would make a difference, but I suppose it's possible...
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 11:07
Mmm... thanks for trying this, Toby.
The biggest difference is that Hijack is based on a newer kernel than the stock empeg.. I wonder if a driver didn't "port" perfectly?
Cheers
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 11:14
Are the dev-info and/or FAQ gnomes gathering this?
I dunno. I thought a screen named "debugger" would be a temporary thing, and I don't like to FAQ-document temporary stuff if I can avoid it...
Posted by: mcomb
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 11:31
The biggest difference is that Hijack is based on a newer kernel than the stock empeg.. I wonder if a driver didn't "port" perfectly?
I wouldn't be shocked or amazed if something didn't port properly. There was a lot of stuff that I had to patch in by hand when doing the upgrade to 2.2.17. At least it is easy to test, if it works with HJ 299 and breaks in 300 it pretty much has to be the kernel upgrade. So can anybody confirm or deny the problem occurs with hijack < 300?
-Mike
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 11:49
Okay, I'm testing v221 tonight (the oldest I have), since others have tried v329+s.
Posted by: AndrewT
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 13:54
Just tried HJ v285 and it's the same as v329+s WRT AF.
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 14:38
Okay, so the trigger has been there a while..
Here's a special Hijack kernel, with all of the tuner serial intercept code removed, just in case something's getting chewed up by that stuff. Or maybe delayed too long or something.
http://rtr.ca/v329+t.zImage
Again, this is for mk2/mk2a only.
Cheers
Posted by: AndrewT
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 15:10
v329+t works fine for me in AF mode!
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 15:14
Good. You're the only one to grab the binary from my server thus far, so I'll wait a day for more folks to see and grab it.
If all goes equally well for others, I'll do a little hack job on my tuner hacks.
Cheers
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 15:21
Ugh.. I just had a closer look at the code.. bad, very bad. Definitely guilty. I'll see if I can fix it. Gimmeasec..
Posted by: AndrewT
Re: Hooray! But why has RDS AF stopped working? - 08/04/2003 15:29
Thanks, that sounds really promising (especially given that you don't have RDS available to test this on).
Posted by: mlord
Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 08/04/2003 16:08
Mmm.. the BBS was inaccessible here for a while, but back now.
I've uploaded Hijack v330 to the Hijack site. Give it a try and let me know if it fixes the RDS issues.
If not, then turn on [hijack] trace_tuner=1 and capture a startup trace for me.
Thanks
Posted by: tman
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 08/04/2003 17:47
Before AF wouldn't work at all but with v330 it works fine now.
- Trevor
Posted by: AndrewT
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 01:35
Woohoo, AF worked this morning with v330 installed!
Posted by: prolux
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 02:49
That has fixed the problem.
At least the AF debugger info mode now does what was intended.
Would be interested to hear any feedback from stalk users - I am finding stalk response time extremely variable under 2.0, don't think this is a hijack related issue. Sometimes the stalk response time is perfectly acceptable, at other times it can take up to five seconds to respond to a stalk command, at other times it doesn't respond at all.
Toby
Posted by: boxer
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 02:54
I've uploaded Hijack v330 to the Hijack site
Sorry, it's a bit difficult to try and follow the same subject on two threads, I'll try this tonight.
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 04:09
v300 works for me.
I'm a little concerned by the loss of fake_tuner (remember, I needed this to avoid the tuner "disappearing" as I start the car following about 5 seconds of engine heater) - do we know if it's absolutely incompatible, or are you trying to narrow it down to choose between two causes?
Posted by: prolux
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 04:23
What's the tuner disappearing thing?
Does this relate to power lost due to the car starting?
If so I have a great solution for you - At least it works for me - I know this is not strictly related to this thread so sorry:
I got three UPS batteries (12v at 7Ah) and wired them in parallel, then took a relay and connected one end of the signal to my vehicle body, and the other end to one side of my battery light (This is actually the signal path back from the alternator which indicates it has started producing charge). The actual terminals of the relay just join the three UPS batteries to my vehicle main battery in parallel.
The result of this setup is that whilst my engine is not running the empeg is completely isolated from the main battery. My battery light does not go out until the engine has finished starting and I apply a little bit of revs. So I never get the audio cut out, or the annoying battery symbol whilst my starter motor is pulling all the available current - I imagine it would prevent odd behaviour from tuners due to power fluctuation too although I have never experienced this problem.
Of course, the other great thing about this setup is that I can leave the empeg in standby mode in the dash without having to worry about it draining the main battery if I leave it for extended periods - Just need to find some deep cycle UPS size batteries and the solution would be perfect.
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 06:40
I assume you meant v330 rather than v300 in your post.
I think it oughta be safe enough to put the fake_tuner stuff back in place, once all of the RDS/AF issues have been solved. For now, want the tuner path to be as simple as possible in Hijack, so that we don't waste any more of Toby's precious (and appreciated!) efforts. So for the interim, you'll have to test the RDS/AF stuff by pulling out and reinserting your player after having started the engine.
And could someone please volunteer to cable up a laptop and capture a trace with RDS/AF doing something?
[hijack]
trace_tuner=1
That'll let me know if what I fixed really fixes everything.
Thanks
Posted by: tms13
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 06:52
In reply to:
I assume you meant v330 rather than v300 in your post.
Yes, sorry for the slip.
In reply to:
I think it oughta be safe enough to put the fake_tuner stuff back in place, once all of the RDS/AF issues have been solved.
Ah, that's fine by me. I can live with waiting for the player to start before moving the key from "accessory" to "preheat" position for a short while, but not for the rest of my life!
In reply to:
And could someone please volunteer to cable up a laptop and capture a trace with RDS/AF doing something?
I'd volunteer, but I don't have a portable terminal, or a long enough serial cable. Sorry!
Posted by: 753
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 09:31
And could someone please volunteer to cable up a laptop and capture a trace with RDS/AF doing something?
Is this what you are looking for? Note that I've used a crappy, unpowered antenna while logging this data. I've had my empeg tuned to a station which transmits songtitles, and gets ~20 AF in the AF debugger.
Posted by: andygjones
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 11:34
Ive had the same problems with the stalk, as far back as i can remember with v2. Still problems in the final aswell, although it seems slightly better for me.
Ive also noticed that sometimes Vol+ doesnt respond at all in tuner mode. a few mins later and its fine again. Strange.
I once tested b13 without hijack installed and had the same problems so dont think its hijack.
Posted by: AndrewT
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 13:41
And could someone please volunteer to cable up a laptop and capture a trace with RDS/AF doing something?
Attached is a bootlog where source=radio (the radio channel did not have any RDS data).
Posted by: AndrewT
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 13:45
This tuner log was recorded starting from a non-RDS station and changing preset to an RDS station with lots of AFs.
Posted by: mlord
Re: Hijack v330 -- Tuner fixed? - 09/04/2003 15:09
>Is this what you are looking for? [tuner trace]
Yes, exactly, thanks!
I wanted to see the exact sequence for the f0 and f1 RDS switching commands, to make sure Hijack wasn't eating any of them. Looks fine, and safe.
Good!
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 10/04/2003 14:33
Everytime this thread pops up, I keep hearing in my head an old Jewish man with a head cold saying ``Hooray!''
Too much Futurama, I guess. Anyone else?
Posted by: DisOrd3R
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 12/04/2003 15:36
U got it! Hooray 4 all those that made this a reality. We thank U.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Hooray for 2.0! - 12/04/2003 15:59
"Hooray! Hooray for Zoidberg!"