I don't seem to be spending the sort of time loving my empeg like I should lately (all my leisure time recently is spent playing =Eve=), as a result I'm a little sketchy on what 3.0a has to offer.

I see it's got ogg and flac support along with cross-fading (sweet ). I think tuner freq searching works as well which is very welcome too.

Is there a feature list anywhere that I can use to bone-up on what's new?

THAT'S IT !

YEAH!

Thank you for the solution! Why i'm the only one with this problem ?

We all had it set already? (I know I did)

Actually there are other considerations. How big is your database for instance?

I finally was able to get everything to work. It appears that jemplode was acting up on my desktop, so from my laptop I was able to connect to 3.0a3 on the empeg.

Popped some OGG on and listened.

I think OGG has a much higher usage of the CPU as it kinda freaks out with visuals, but it sounds damn good!

Question. Does crossfading work with ogg?

Question. Does crossfading work with ogg?

I suspect not, at least for fading in. I don't have any ogg, but I'm not able to fade into wma files. Someone else reported this same issue with oggs, so my feeling is that fading in only works with mp3s. My wmas fade out fine though (if an mp3 is next).

1,5 MB (1577285 Bytes).

Is it to much ? =:-|

I have a suggestion but I've read somewhere to be silent and not to tell.
Well, but I want :-).
Why is the RDS-bottomline inversed? Looks not nearly as good as in version 2 where it simply isn't inversed.

Is it possible to control it via hijack? Want my old style back without downgrading ;-).

Thanks a lot for V3!
Rolf

Crossfading and pitchbend were great fun but, alas, I am going back until a more stable version comes out. I have problems with skipping, refusing to play certain tracks, slowness in both the menus and responding to button pushes, and crashes of both Emplode and the player. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you putting it out and having a chance play with it, but the bleeding edge is a bit too painful for my taste.

Anyone able to get beeps to work? Doesn't work for me in analog or digital.

Stu

Anyone able to get beeps to work? Doesn't work for me in analog or digital.

Known "feature" of v3a3.

Hmm, maybe I'm the minority, but so far I'm having relatively few problems with the alpha.

Of course, my database and song collection is a tad smaller than some I've seen posted here, I'm running about 3500 songs (mostly MP3's with about a thousand OGG's).

Only real problem I've noticed is a very slight sluggishness on the button presses, and a weird interaction with hijack. With Hijack installed and restore visuals set to on, it boots up and drops me into the menu instead of restoring the visuals (like it's getting a short down button press instead of a long hold). I'm going to tweak with the button delay settings a bit and see if this fixes it, but that's really the only real problem I've had. Zero crashes, zero skipping, no playback problems.

I'm going to be taking an 1800 or so mile trip in a few weeks (I'm moving from the bay area to just outside Kansas City to go back to school for a journalism degree, callling it quits as an engineer) and I'll get some serious time cycling through it then, will see if I have any major issues after that major stress test but so far it's relatively stable for me.

Empeg alpha code is stabler than microsoft release code at least

-- Gary F.

Hmm, maybe I'm the minority, but so far I'm having relatively few problems with the alpha

I'm with you, it just stops dead from time to time - mainly on Otis Redding tracks, for some reason! It no longer handles MP2's , which is a real problem to me, as I like to load 7 or 8 hours of radio programmes a week, it's a bind having to re-process them to 3's. But it really doesn't give me much grief.

Agreed, not many problems so far beyond hanging up on the few ccr tracks from emusic that were only 128kbps. .. but then again I only have about 6gigs of tunes loaded so far.

128mbps

What would I ever do without this BBS, the Otis Redding's were amongst a number of CD's that were the first I ever ripped, long before EAC and, of course, they're at 128 - problem solved!

Aarrgh...So am I to assume that 128Kbs is the "magic" number (or rather non-magic) at which the V3 code staarts puking? About 90% of my current collection is 128... I just started re-ripping to 256Kbs.

I just installed V3a3 last night, loaded up about 1600 MP3's overnight and popped it in the dash this am. None of the mp3s show up (or playlists).... Are people experiencing the need to re-synch a lot?

I used the latest jemplode to do the load, as it seemed to work better than the emplode that shipps with v3 (it barfs at reading database every time).

Experiences?

Jeff

None of the mp3s show up (or playlists)..

Yes, I had the same problem but it was easily solved by creating a new soup playlist "Artist/Album" under the "All Music" folder.

It seems that the actual files are just under the "empegcar" heading and are not at all used as a playlist. I had to create a soup "Artist/Album" playlist under "empegcar" -> "All Music" in order to get the "Artist/Album" stuff to show up on the empeg. Now, whenever I drag and drop the new files I drop them on the "Artist/Album" folder under "empegcar" --> "All Music"

I hope that makes sense.

Hmm, maybe I'm the minority, but so far I'm having relatively few problems with the alpha.

Other than the non-mp3 cross fading problem and a bit of sluggishness, I'm not having any problems so far. I do have some 128 encoded mp3s, but haven't had any difficulties with those either.

I do have some 128 encoded mp3s, but haven't had any difficulties with those either.

hmmm.... after listening to about 4 (somewhere around there anyway) 128kbps files IN A ROW I first get drop outs and a couple seconds later the player is no longer responsive. Of course I only noticed this when those were the only files loaded on the player so take it for what it's worth.

The player app is getting killed because the empeg is low on memory

ok, I'm having very similar issues, basically, everytime it boots it builds the database, reboots, and repeats. Looking through hyperterm it's having memory issues. I tried installing hijack, adding the reservecache line in my config.ini... but none of these steps seem to help the problem. I went ahead and put 2.0 back on it... but I'd really like to play with the alpha, any ideas?

OK, so here's what i'm getting, I put hijack and the alpha back on and this is what I'm seeing through hyperterm....

VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 602:empeg-car 3.00-alpha3 2003/07/02.
! tunedb_disk.cpp :1182:Database size mismatch error.
LAC construct 0x400de008
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: killing process player
buffermem : 331776
page_cache_size : 428
nr_free_pages : 32
num_physpages : 4096
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...

and it just keeps scrolling that....

On the screen it just says starting user poll thread...

Jerz,
I have found at least a few songs that I got from EMUsic of CCR that will fail on the empeg with even v2.0. I have not checked them on the computer, well actually I downloaded so many I do not even remember which ones are busted...

Sean in NC

I have found at least a few songs that I got from EMUsic of CCR that will fail on the empeg with even v2.0.

Interesting.... but, when I reboot the empeg these tunes will play. I don't really see anything "failing" it's just the empeg no longer is responsive. So my problem with these particular tunes happens only when multiple 128kbps ccr tunes are played in a row. Individually, I don't seem to have that problem unless I play about four or so more in a row. I'll experiment a little more later.

This thread has been discussing things like what bitrates the 3.0 software will play and such.

Please note the following:

1. The 3.0 codebase has been heavily tweaked since that carplayer release. Most of the things you're reporting were also hapening to the Karma, and they fixed them before Karma shipped. So this is mostly going to magically get fixed when Cambridge can get around to another 3.0 carplayer build from the latest code tree.

2. Before you assume that a given bit rate is the problem, PLEASE CHECK THE FILES to make sure they don't have bad frames and such. Use the tools linked from the FAQ for this. The Karma was having a bug where it would stop playing on a corrupted MP3 frame sometimes. This bug was fixed on Karma before it shipped. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the reason for many of the problems reported in this thread, especially since the files in question were downloads.

3. It's known that there will be problems in that version of the codebase with nonstandard sample-rates (not bitrates, SAMPLE rates, i.e., something other than 44.1khz stereo 16 bit). I believe these are already fixed in the 3.0 source tree because we reported it on Karma.

4. It's known that there will be problems with low bit rate files (like lower than 96). Again, reported and I believe fixed on Karma.

Hmm... I'll have to check this out. I had imported the whole backup (I installed a new drive, and am trying A3 at the same time). I just dragged all my folders (artist / album / songs) into the "playlists" folder in Jemplode.

It synched, and I ran with it. I'll have to try re-synching it tonight and see what happens.

It that doesnt work, Ill try the soup view thing. Might do that anyway... Have to look up more about soups..

Ohyeah, the 10 or so songs that were already on the drive (bought used from an empegger) play and show up fine... Just none of the new stuff...

Crossfade is COOL... That alone makes it worth it to me...
Thanks!

Make shure the syntax is correct for ReserveCache=32.

[starup]
ReserveCache=32

I was having the same problem, and this fixed it, Also your log seem to have a problem with the database (size mismatch) folow the procedure to erase your old database, database3, playlists and tags from drive0/var. and let the player recreate them.

Make shure the syntax is correct for ReserveCache=32.

[starup]
ReserveCache=32

In that case, you might want to spell "startup" correctly.

Is this going to be another release for beer issue ?

But i imagine that giving empeg towers free beer could be more counter productive than constructive

No, 128 isn't a "magic number".

I have about 3500 songs loaded, about 2400 of them are 128 KBps MP3's (ok, probably 5% of those are between 128 and 192) and the rest are quality 5 (approx 160 KBps) VBR encoded Ogg's. Probably 99% of them I ripped myself, and everything I rip is diligently checked for frame errors, etc and reripped if necessary.

I am *NOT* having issues with the alpha. I have very clean MP3's, and in fact am in the process of slowly reripping everything to quality level 5 ogg's (I'd rip them higher, but I drive an SUV and road noise cancels out any improvements over QL 5 that I could possibly see).

Please don't run off assuming that 128 KBps MP3's are causing the barfs, because they aren't. What I would question is the relative quality of your MP3's, such as are there framing errors in them, etc. Are they self ripped or are they downloaded? Check each of your problem files for errors, and I'd be willing to bet a frozen dairy confection that you'll start seeing a pattern there.

-- Gary F.

Also your log seem to have a problem with the database

Yeah... I did all those procedures, it's only showing that because the only way I can get the thing to start, to edit the config.ini, is to unplug one of the drives and start it again... then it recreates the database with only one drive...

do you mean [startup]? If so thats exactly how I had it... yup tried just about everything I can think of...