Smart Playlists?

MaximumPC is running an article on building a in car MP3 player based on a 1U rackmountable computer. There is a couple parts of it that I found rather interesting. He is planning on implementing smart playlists based off a database. The neat part of this is that he can create a U2 playlist which basically contains all files by the band U2. As he adds music to the player the ID3 tags will be indexed and added to the database. Next time
he selects the U2 playlist it will include any new songs by the band.

The other neat things was an automatic ranking system where the player would lower the ranking if you fast forwarded through a song, raise it if you played it twice or specifically selected it. It would then use this ranking to determine how often that song came up during random play.

I was curious if the Empeg has either of these features or if anything like this is planned? If I recal correctly Hugo had the ability to create a playlist based on year or artist on his original automotive MP3 player, but I don't think I have ever seen this mentioned in the specs for the production unit.

Just curious,
Mike

The ranking concept is interesting, but it would be the first feature I'd disable if it were on the Empeg.

As it stands right now, the Empeg repeats too many songs already because it doesn't de-dupe the flattened playlists before shuffling them. And Hugo said he didn't think it shuffled hard enough and was planning on implementing a more vigorous shuffling algorithm (any word on either of these, Hugo?).

Also, there are certain times that I skip songs because I'm not in the mood for them, even though I really like the songs. It depends on the style of song and my mood, more than my "vote" of how good I think the song is.

And since I'm a musician, I often repeat a song over and over again if I'm learning how to play it on the guitar. Sometimes I have to learn songs I don't like as much. So such songs might get an artificially high ranking.

So ranking songs in that way would just make the shuffling even less random, and might cause songs to get an invalid ranking. It's an idea that sounds good on paper, but would produce undesired effects in real life.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

However, I do like the idea of adding new songs and automatically updating a playlist. how are playlists created on the empeg. I'm sorry, I just don't know much about that stuff, not owning one and all...

The empeg is capable (and has been for some time) of building playlists on the fly, based upon Artist, Genre, Album, Title or Year. When you upload a track it is placed into one or more playlists of your own design, and the ID3 tags are read to prefill the track information fields. You can then access your music by navigating your own playlist structure, or by specifying the artist and so forth.

Analysis of your personal play patterns is something that has been on our to-do list since the start. I think it was even discussed in one of the early newsletters. The idea was that you would be able to instruct the empeg to play, for example, tracks that you haven't heard in the last two months, or to play your most listened to tracks. I guess this functionality will be bolted onto the existing search system but there's no ETA right now.

Rob

I think from about beta9a the empeg has been collecting stats on what you listen to and what you skip - it's just they're not displayed anywhere yet :)

As for the "auto playlist" function - this is there already with the artist search facility.

Hugo

However, I do like the idea of adding new songs and automatically updating a playlist. how are playlists created on the empeg. I'm sorry, I just don't know much about that stuff, not owning one and all...

This talk about "automatically updating a playlist" is a non-issue with the Empeg. The way you organize the playlists on the unit is so simple that you don't need any special automatic system. It's very powerful and flexible, but also very simple to use.

On the Empeg (in the Emplode software), playlists appear just like Windows folders. There is a virtual "directory structure", with "Empeg-Car" at the top (representing everything in the unit), and as many subdirectories (playlists) as you like. When you add a new song to the unit, you do so by dragging the file from the Windows explorer and dropping it onto the desired playlist.

Creating new playlists in Emplode is just as easy as creating new folders in Windows. If I remember correctly, you can even drag a whole folder from Windows onto Emplode and it will automatically create a playlist for you with the name of that folder. Although I've never done it that way, so I'm not sure.

When you copy songs between different playlists within the Emplode software, it doesn't make a duplicate of the song file, it just adds another entry to the playlist. That way you don't take up extra disk space by having a song in more than one playlist.

The playlists are fully hierarchical, just like Windows folders. If you play a playlist that has several sub-playlists, it will play all of the songs in all of the sub-playlists.

There is one special playlist called "unattached items". Songs in this list are simply files that don't exist in any other playlist. If, for example, you get a system crash during a big upload, the portion of the files that were uploaded before the crash will appear in that folder, and you can move them to the proper playlists without having to upload them again.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

thanks, that clears alot up! now I'll know what everyone is talking about!

Well, maybe if they set it up so that you can skip during the first 5 to 10 seconds, it won't register as one that you don't like because your not in the mood. IF you listen past 30 seconds, then skip, then it would register.

But hey, whatever works, we're all different. I think i would like that feature.


-CHiP

I cant tell you how many times I want to set up a complete random list of songs on the fly while on the road. I wish there was some way, like in the search menu, where you can append a song to a temp. list by just crusing throught the playlist and selcting a song, or songs, and then to append it. I hope this function will be put in soon.
-Jordan

Of course, if you have quite a few songs, you might not want to do that while driving :)

I still think I would be a fan of auto updating lists. I don't do windoze so when I get a player it sounds like the software available to me may initially be somewhat limited. The ability to haphazardly add songs to the empeg and then play all songs by x artist or from y genre sounds great because it means I will have to do minimal list maintenance. Fortunately it sounds like the Empeg crew has already covered this. If I can do something like play all songs by x band via voice recognition I will be in geek-toy heaven.

Thanks for the info everyone!

-Mike

p.s. So when are we going to get the source for the unix playlist/upload tools and the transfer specs? I want to have something to play with while waiting for my number to come up! Hey that brings up another point, I need an "Empeg emulator" for development :-)

I seem to remember that the algorithm currently in the empeg disregards skips in something like the first 10% of the song and notes skipping in the 10-30% region. Or something. John implemented this bit so he'll know for sure :)

Hugo

I can just see the shock headline on /. :

In-car MP3 player tracks user preferences - Doubleclick say "It's not us!!"



Geoff
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Reg No. 554, s/n 00064 - It's mine I tell you.... all mine :)