As always, I'll answer this from my personal perspective. I'm sure you would prefer I was frank and honest than feed you some marketing line..

But - look what happened. Basically, no major change in the software since then.

Actually there have been so many changes we have not been able to release them bit-by-bit as we did with previous beta releases. Emplode has been re-written from scratch, the protocol has been updated, wendy filters written, smart shuffle written, tune stats implemented, new remote control support, completely new CODEC's including WMA, emplode searching from queries or UI, major enhancements to existing visuals and dozens of new ones, and a lot more stuff I've forgotten.

To accommodate such far reaching changes - especially the CODEC and protocol changes - we had to split the source tree. Therefore you can't get ANY of the new stuff until it's ALL ready.

A dozen alpha-testers (all of them active on this BBS) will be getting 1.1 within the next few days. When they're happy that we've found all the bugs, everyone gets it. Most of the features apply equally to Mk.1 and Mk.2 players. There will be no charge for the upgrade, even though we have an associated cost with the new CODEC's.

At least a dozen people on here were at Amersfoort in October, and saw many of these new features for themselves. We will also be at the California meet, showing an almost-public release. With a bit of luck we'll be able to show a tuner as well.

I guess the guys were too buisy sorting out the contractual issues and getting their package set right.

We have commercial people and lawyers for that sort of thing. Of our eight full time in-house programmers, only one was involved in acquisition negotiations.

I bet we will never see the tuner module for the version 2

Here's the AM/FM prototype that we built in October:



..and here's the schematic for the production prototype:



I'd take a picture of the unit itself but it's in Germany. It'll be sent to our manufacturing contractor in about a week, and then it's their job to them to get some built as soon as possible.

I'm sorry the tuner has taken so long, not least because I want to listen to the radio when I'm driving!

2. I bet, we will never see VR for version 2

Now that I have recently become responsible for managing software development at empeg, I will chase up the developers of this software (it's not in-house) and obtain some more realistic targets than their initial dates. We'll get 1.1 behind us first, though.

we will get offered again a discount on the new version 3 which will might come (or not) out one day

I hope there will be a Mk.3 in the future (and Mk.4, 5 and 6 for that matter), but currently we are set up to manufacture the Mk.2 in volume. All of our products build from a common code base (even the Receiver runs some car player code) and so previous platforms automatically get new features so long as they have the hardware to utilise it.

Linux! Who the hell needs linux on a car radio, other than geeks and people who think they need the cool-fsctor

You don't seem to realise that Linux isn't on there for your benefit - sure that's a nice side-effect - but it's there for OUR benefit. Every product we're developing for SONICblue to date (there are a number of them) runs Linux. Even the Receiver with 4Mb of RAM, 74Mhz processor and $299 price tag runs Linux. If you don't know why that's an advantage for us then fine - as a consumer why should you know, and why should you care?

I'm very fine with a chips decoding MP3, I can't see a difference wether this is done by a chip or a software

You're very short-sighted then. Even good portable players have software CODEC's now - and consumers are right to demand this. Why would we use a hardware decoder when an inexpensive ARM CPU has plenty of power to do it in software? You even get a CODEC for free with the Cirrus ARM.

I'm sure M$ made up a nice package for you guys to support WMA, not to mention the free lunches and stuff

I'm not sure what planet you're on, but Microsoft have never bought me lunch and we PAY THEM to use WMA. Why do we do so? Because soon a LOT of music will be retailed online and a large proportion of that will be in WMA format. The other reason (less applicable to the car player perhaps) is that low bitrate WMA's sound a LOT better than the equivalent MP3 versions. Microsoft may not be flavour of the month for many of our clients, but WMA isn't a bad format by any standards.

What I'm saying is, it just doesn't pay off to invest much effort in e.g. developing a tuner module for this handful of empegs out there

1) Soon there will be several thousand Mk.2's and I don't want those people after our blood!
2) The effort isn't all that great - the delays have been down to other factors. We've had a working AM/FM tuner since October.

I guess we will see a major hardware redesign which will e.g. result in an internal tuner

Umm.. you do know that we moved AWAY from an internal tuner (Mk.1) don't you? You can't do AM inside the case, and you can't upgrade to new formats. Oh, did I mention that our tuner bus is compatible with XM receiver protocols?

When empeg folks say this and that can't be done cause of this and that reason (RF, whatever) that doesn't mean other designers couldn't do it

Ah, you have been listening! But missing the point totally. Check out the inventory for the Clarion AutoPC sometime (you can view it at Crutchfield's online catalogue). Pay particular attention to the EXTERNAL components that come with the package. I guess Clarion must be as incompetent as us.

ANY other company would have been sued to death if they would treat their customers like that. But - here, we all look like stupid sheeps ignoring the kick in the butt

Could it possibly be that the majority of our customers recognise that this happens sometimes - even with much larger companies than empeg - but that the other features of the product have made the inconvenience tolerable? Yes, it's a lousy situation, which I'm sick of and embarrassed about. That doesn't mean we've lied to you, and it doesn't mean that our enthusiastic clients are sheep (stupid or otherwise).

One thing that can be said for most owners on this BBS is that they put their name behind their comments; they don't create a new account from which to post a flame.

Rob