No particular theme or order here, just some stuff that's popped into my head

1) Can I get a spare remote anywhere should I lose mine (yes I know the Rio shop is closed, and no I don't want the Kenwood). I'm screwed, aren't I?

2) What is the requirement for a track to increment the played or skipped counter? Also, I saw the skipped counter but now can't find it.... where'd I see that?

3) I once saw a scrolling Synchronise icon on my player during a synch, but now it doesn't show it.... just an observation....

4) Can you cut off blocks from mp3 files at the beginning or end, or is it the sort of compression scheme that would require recompression for that? If not, any simple apps to do this with?

5) Is there some super boffin trick to show the Artist as well as the Title in the show current and next info view? I'd find that real handy! Likewise, can you do this for some playlists (without including the artist in the title)?

6) How do the neon lenses work? I thought they just had a bevelled edge and refracted/reflected the VFD display, however I'm sure I've seen a photo with a blue face and red neon.

7) I've noticed sometimes the Swap button (on the remote) does nothing. You then give it a second press and it works fine from there, until you jump to the next song, and then again it will sometimes not work the first press. Is this a known bug?

Thanks for your replies, oh mighty Empeg masters

Ben

I'll reply to the ones I may know the answer to:

2) For "played", that it has been playing for more than 5 seconds. For "skipped", I assume that it's less than 5 seconds.

3) I belive this only appears when your player is awake, displaying stuff on the screen. When it's asleep the icon doesn't show.

4) Other than that it may screw up your ID3 tags (v1 at the front of the file, v2 at the end, IIRC), yes, you can remove blocks safely. Tony Fabris has a utility to do just that on his website, at http://www.oro.net/~tfabris/gapkill.htm.

Well, that's the best I can do...

Bryan.

1. The FAQ describes the possibilities for third-party remotes. It's a big FAQ, but every word is worth its weight in gold.
2. Played counter goes up when 5 seconds of a track is played. It annoys me that my player thinks that short tracks of less than 5 seconds have never been played The skipped counter is never incremented in the current version of the player - that functionality is planned for future releases.
3. You get the wandering "Synchronizing" text when the display is on, and not when the player is asleep.
4. I don't recommend cutting blocks off either end of an MP3 stream, as data for a sound sample can come from other blocks (the so-called "bit reservoir"). If you turned off the bit reservoir when encoding (again, not recommended), you shouldn't have problems. It's best to do such trimming with the source material before encoding.
5. There's no easy way to have Artist in the Now & Next info mode. It has been requested, but currently your only option is to include identifying information in the song title, I'm afraid. Same goes for playlist menus.
6. Don't know.
7. Don't know - I don't often use Swap.

I don't recommend cutting blocks off either end of an MP3 stream, as data for a sound sample can come from other blocks (the so-called "bit reservoir"). If you turned off the bit reservoir when encoding (again, not recommended), you shouldn't have problems. It's best to do such trimming with the source material before encoding.


But if you still want to, Tony Fabris has written a nifty tool called
GapKiller.

/Michael

6) How do the neon lenses work? I thought they just had a bevelled edge and refracted/reflected the VFD display, however I'm sure I've seen a photo with a blue face and red neon.

They simply have the edge from where the material had to be thinned down to fit behind the fascia - the areas that you actually see are thicker than the parts behind the black fascia.

Could you have seen a player with a blue face and red lighted buttons? IIRC there is such a picture about somewhere, probably from Tony Fabris...
The lighted button hack also improves the effect of the neon lense.

/Michael

In reply to your fourth question, "MP3 Trim" will trim MP3s without recompression, I think.

Stu

but every word is worth its weight in gold.

Wow, thanks, but then how come I haven't...

...wait a minute...

The words on the screen don't weigh anything. Aw, shit, I chose the wrong distribution medium. Should have done it on stone tablets.

Blipman, some of these questions were answered in this thread already, I'll try to clarify a bit and offer my own personal opinions for each.

1) Can I get a spare remote anywhere should I lose mine (yes I know the Rio shop is closed, and no I don't want the Kenwood). I'm screwed, aren't I?

Correct, there are no distribution channels for the Rio remote, unless you get lucky and someone has an extra on Ebay (unlikely anyone would sell just the remote though). The Kenwood unit is not that bad, don't knock it. A comparison of the features of the units can be found here, and a detailed chart of all the buttons is here.

2) What is the requirement for a track to increment the played or skipped counter? Also, I saw the skipped counter but now can't find it.... where'd I see that?

Already explained in the thread. Played=5 seconds. Skipped=Not implemented yet. There is a bug in the current software which causes a shorter-than-5-second track to never be marked as played. Such as test tracks and some of the TMBG "fingertips" tracks.

3) I once saw a scrolling Synchronise icon on my player during a synch, but now it doesn't show it.... just an observation....

Already mentioned in the thread: Your player was in standby mode when it was being synchronized, so the screen was turned off. Detailed description of Standby Mode can be found in the FAQ here.

4) Can you cut off blocks from mp3 files at the beginning or end, or is it the sort of compression scheme that would require recompression for that? If not, any simple apps to do this with?

Yes, many apps can do this such as the aforementioned GapKiller and MP3Trim. You can also learn the MP3 header specification and do this yourself by hand in a binary file editor program. It's actually pretty easy to see where the blocks start.

Pay no attention to the warning elsewhere in this thread about the lack of frame-independence. If you're cutting the beginning and ending of songs, there's no danger as far as I can tell. All MP3 decoders I've seen handle an empty or deleted bit reservior gracefully. Once, I even spliced two "trimmed" MP3s together and it worked. Although on the 1.03 empeg decoder, I got a slight blip of static at the splice point, on the 2.0 empeg decoder, the splice point plays perfectly.

5) Is there some super boffin trick to show the Artist as well as the Title in the show current and next info view?

No. I have weaned myself off of the Now and Next view and hardly use it any more. Instead, I leave the player in "Info:Transient" mode all the time, and then when I need to see the song details, I press and hold the bottom button on the faceplate to toggle it back to "Info:Track" mode (which was the last mode I'd selected prior to Transient). This lets me occasionally check artist/album details without sacrificing the visuals and the Transient.

6) How do the neon lenses work? I thought they just had a bevelled edge and refracted/reflected the VFD display, however I'm sure I've seen a photo with a blue face and red neon.

No, you saw a photo with a RED neon face and blue lighted buttons.

It is as you described, the beveled edges of the plastic reflect whatever light is coming from under the face. In the case of players that have done the button hack, the white button LEDs that are under the faceplate will make the neon edges glow more brightly.

7) I've noticed sometimes the Swap button (on the remote) does nothing. You then give it a second press and it works fine from there, until you jump to the next song, and then again it will sometimes not work the first press. Is this a known bug?

I have not noticed this. However it might be related to this FAQ entry. Also, are you running Beta 13? It has improved the responsiveness of the controls over Beta 11 (although I think there is still some work to be done in this area).

Incidentally, you didn't say WHY you wanted to trim blocks off of your MP3s. If it's for gapless playback reasons, make sure to read this and this.

Thanks for all the replies guys....

Tony, I'm running v 2.00 b 13. Reason I want to trim ends of mp3 files is not gapless playback, there are some tracks where I just want to get off some extra bits of crap not always related to the song, or to remove the long gaps for 'secret tracks' on some CDs. They [censored] me

Ben

In reply to:

---

It's a big FAQ, but every word is worth its weight in gold.

---

...but... words..don't.. weigh. . anything.

(here trollie trollie trollie)

there are some tracks where I just want to get off some extra bits of crap not always related to the song, or to remove the long gaps for 'secret tracks' on some CDs.

Ah, yes, that will work, then.

If you can use GapKiller, or other MP3-splitting packages, you can split one of those secret-track files into three parts and discard the silent "middle" track. As long as you know the time-index markers.

Could you have seen a player with a blue face and red lighted buttons? IIRC there is such a picture about somewhere, probably from Tony Fabris...
The lighted button hack also improves the effect of the neon lense.

I actually managed to get my red neon lens to display blue text with one of Darkstorms gels. It didn't photograph well, but I did attach two pictures. I can't wait to get some lighted buttons to go with it. It is much more visible than in the pictures, but still doesn't match the dash exactly.

And a closer one.

Hey, not bad. With the buttonhack it would look even better. So I eat my words.

If you can use GapKiller, or other MP3-splitting packages, you can split one of those secret-track files into three parts and discard the silent "middle" track. As long as you know the time-index markers.

And, of course, if the file is VBR then you'll need to Vbrfix it afterwards as the header will be missing or wrong.

Peter

<off topic> ooooohhh! a blue name...quite keen. Is it just me or is that new? </off topic>

ooooohhh! a blue name...quite keen. Is it just me or is that new?

Mmm, how rare! But it's not just me, it's Roger too. This should help confuse those people who think Roger and I are the same person...

Peter

Hey! Bite me!

I don't think that you're the same person. It's just that I forget who it was that said things. If you could track my posting methods, you'd find that I'm always referencing the wrong person, especially when not replying directly to him, and then go back and fix it after I doublecheck the thread. (Sometimes, I actually refer back to XXXX and then find out who it actually was.) In this case, though, some real work probably cropped up and my check didn't occur.

Regardless, sorry.