Empeg: "Flash" the info bar when changing tracks

Today I downloaded and installed a great visualization plug-in for WinAmp called Geiss (http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~geiss/geiss.html). It did something pretty nifty: As each new song started, it flashed the song information on top of the visualization for a couple seconds. Then the information faded out and blended with the visualization.

This would be PERFECT for the Empeg car. I prefer to leave the unit with just the visualizations up and running for the most part. The only time I want to see the info bar is at the start of a new track. When a song starts out really quitely, I often find myself fumbling for the remote so that I can see what the song will be. If it automatically flashed the info bar at the start of a new song, then I could leave it in vis-only mode all the time, and not have to do this.

You could have the info bar fade out slowly over a period of five seconds or so, using the few shades of gray available in the display's palette.

The user interface would only require a minor change. When you are selecting "Information" from the system menu, it could simply toggle between On, Off, and Flash. When cycling through these options with the remote, you could indicate "Flash" mode by making it appear and fade much more quickly.

Whaddya think, "Mac"?

We've always wanted to do this. The way visualisations work is likely to change in the near future to support quick changing between information and visuals. A popup information window is going to be one of the options.

Fading it out could be difficult. It is more likely to just disappear to start with and maybe scroll off in the future.

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Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)

What about like some of the Sony CD players does. The title scroll from right to left really fast in the begining and once when it hits the left then scroll off the display slowly.

eric

That sounds cool. Pretty easy to code, too.

Hey, Mike, while you're at it... when it scrolls the info on and off, could it scroll all of the song info? Not just the artist and title, but the album and year, too?

Boy, we sure are inventing a lot of work for you on this list. The scary thing is that you guys actually READ it and listen to the suggestions. :-)