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#227881 - 20/07/2004 00:45 Various wishes
newguy1
enthusiast

Registered: 26/01/2002
Posts: 278
Loc: Massachusetts,USA
I'd like to be able to queue up some tracks/songs while listening to the radio.

Also would like to utilize the time alignment feature in hijack for the radio.
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MIKE 80Gb RIO

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#227882 - 20/07/2004 01:57 Re: Various wishes [Re: newguy1]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Quote:
I'd like to be able to queue up some tracks/songs while listening to the radio.

I seem to recall that early early betas did this simply because of omission. It was strange selecting songs from a playlist and then having nothing happen. So (again, if I recall correctly), it was specifically and deliberately changed so that you couldn't work with MP3s when the radio was on. From a user interface standpoint, it's much more logical to do it the way it currently does it. If you could queue MP3s from the radio interface, people would be confused and come in here asking why they didn't play. In other words, "This is by design", so I wouldn't expect to see it changed any time soon.

Why do you even need to do this anyway? How critical is it to listen to radio tunes while selecting MP3 tunes? Why not just listen to MP3 tunes while selecting other MP3 tunes?

However, if you have a computer hooked up via ethernet or serial, you can do this by sending the appropriate commands. The serial and ethernet commands to enqueue tunes work when the radio is on.

Another thing you could do is install two stereos, a CD player and the empeg, having the empeg feed the Aux-in of the CD player. Then you can do whatever you want on the empeg while the other stereo plays.

Quote:
Also would like to utilize the time alignment feature in hijack for the radio.

Can't be done as far as I know. The time alignment feature is done to the uncompressed wave audio data bits before being sent to the DSP. The radio signal doesn't get turned into malleable data before going to the audio circuits, there's nowhere it can get its mitts on those bits. So that won't be happening unless you personally implement it in hardware someplace.
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Tony Fabris

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#227883 - 20/07/2004 02:40 Re: Various wishes [Re: tfabris]
Shonky
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/01/2002
Posts: 2009
Loc: Brisbane, Australia
Quote:
Quote:
Also would like to utilize the time alignment feature in hijack for the radio.

Can't be done as far as I know. The time alignment feature is done to the uncompressed wave audio data bits before being sent to the DSP. The radio signal doesn't get turned into malleable data before going to the audio circuits, there's nowhere it can get its mitts on those bits. So that won't be happening unless you personally implement it in hardware someplace.

Correct. I originally wrote the time alignment stuff (although I think Mark rewrote the majority of it) and the player software never actually sees the radio waveform. It's all in the DSP. However, I'm not 100% sure on how the visuals get done for radio. At the very least when the radio is selected, the main player CPU can't delay one of the channels. Sorry.
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Christian
#40104192 120Gb (no longer in my E36 M3, won't fit the E46 M3)

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#227884 - 20/07/2004 03:27 Re: Various wishes [Re: Shonky]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
The visuals for the all the analog modes are achieved by sampling the inputs with the CS4231A. The SAA7705H is still responsible for the audible path.

Although rumors have it that there is an additional source now which I guess might come from the CS4231A. In principle it would be possible to sample the radio via the CS4231A and pump the samples back out through the SAA7705H. In practice, the sample rate is differerent and limited, so it would be difficult to implement and result in lessor quality radio. Not only that but quite a bit of kernel code makes decisions based upon which of the 4 SAA inputs is in use, so you could expect stuff to break.

Not going to happen.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#227885 - 20/07/2004 08:05 Re: Various wishes [Re: tfabris]
Geoff
enthusiast

Registered: 21/08/1999
Posts: 381
Loc: Northern Ireland
Quote:
Why do you even need to do this anyway? How critical is it to listen to radio tunes while selecting MP3 tunes? Why not just listen to MP3 tunes while selecting other MP3 tunes?

Oh, I know the answer to this one...
My parents were in my car one day, and my dad was asking about the empeg since I'd been raving about it for ages. It was set on radio at the time, so I wanted to change to the player and demo the visuals etc. Of course, the last track I had been listening to was Metallica's cover of "So What" by the Anti-Nowhere League! Just about the least parent-friendly track on my empeg!!
There was a moment's embarrassed silence while I figured out what to do. For some reason that I have never been able to fathom, mute doesn't work in radio mode on my Mk1, so I had to turn the volume right down, change to player mode, select a track, and turn the volume back up...
That is the one time I can remember that I really wished I could still queue up an mp3 while listening to the radio
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Geoff
---- -------
Mk1 Blue - was 4GB, now 16GB
Mk2 Red - was 12GB, now 60GB

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#227886 - 20/07/2004 09:21 Re: Various wishes [Re: tfabris]
newguy1
enthusiast

Registered: 26/01/2002
Posts: 278
Loc: Massachusetts,USA
Quote:
Why do you even need to do this anyway? How critical is it to listen to radio tunes while selecting MP3 tunes? Why not just listen to MP3 tunes while selecting other MP3 tunes?


Why do you even need to do this anyway?(have an Empeg)How critical is it to be able to access 6000 songs?Why not just listen to 1 CD while selecting other Cd's.


If I'm listening to whatever is on the radio(tunes or talk show or sports etc)and I think of some songs I haven't heard in a while(or any songs I have on the player) and would like to listen to them after that program is done.
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MIKE 80Gb RIO

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#227887 - 20/07/2004 13:01 Re: Various wishes [Re: tfabris]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Quote:
radio stuff
I'd like to take this opportunity, once again, to point out why I think the empeg software is wrong in its handling of the radio.

The whole idea of the empeg turned how one listened to pre-recorded music in the car on its ear. Yet the radio does its best to mimic any old car radio. Presets shouldn't be set in banks. That's a limitation that was defined by having a limited set of buttons to press. Now we have a virtually unlimited number of buttons. They should be set up the same way as playlists are in the mp3 player: in a menu. If a user wanted them all available on one level, fine. If he wanted multiple "banks" for some reason, fine. If he wanted to separate them out by PTY, fine. However he wanted is the point. Obviously, one of the ideas behind playlists on the mp3 side is that multiple selections are played linearly. I'm not suggesting that you do that. Just have them laid out in the same manner. You could also have it do scans in the background for strong stations and have them automatically programmed into a special list, using the frequency and RDS info if available for names. This would be good for travelling in the US (not sure if it makes sense elsewhere).

In fact, I don't see that there's any reason that the radio should be so separate from the mp3 player portion of the software. Why not let mp3 playlists and radio stations exist in the same menu structure? You'd have to deal with what happened when a radio station was selected in a mass playing (probably just ignore it), but I think that it would have been doable. The big problem with this idea is that you'd have to deal with still having a separate mode so that people could tune manually. I don't have a good answer there.

Anyway, rant over.
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Bitt Faulk

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#227888 - 20/07/2004 13:25 Re: Various wishes [Re: wfaulk]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Quote:
Presets shouldn't be set in banks. That's a limitation that was defined by having a limited set of buttons to press.

I always thought it was a feature, aimed at users in places such as the UK where most of the stations are national, but on different frequencies in different areas. So when you've crossed the Pennines, you change bank and now you've got BBC Radio 1 back on preset 1, BBC Radio 2 on preset 2, and so on, even though they're on different frequencies than they were before. But I agree about the better integration with MP3 mode.

Peter

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#227889 - 20/07/2004 13:44 Re: Various wishes [Re: peter]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Hmm. That hadn't occurred to me at all since we don't have that concept in the US. (Even though the same three companies own like 95% of the radio stations, they do manage to at least not have all of their stations playing the exact same thing. At least not at the same moment.)
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Bitt Faulk

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#227890 - 20/07/2004 14:25 Re: Various wishes [Re: wfaulk]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
No, you didn't understand what Peter was saying. He wasn't suggesting that BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 would be playing the same thing!

Radio is very different between the USA and most of Europe. In the USA most channels are broadcast with a gazillion Watts from one transmitter only. If you're in the reception area, great, if not. tough.

In the UK, many channels are broadcast nationally from many transmitters with less power. So when you travel west from Sheffield and cross the Pennines, and you lose reception from the Pontop Pike transmitter, you should pick up reception from a transmitter on the western side of the Pennines (Sanfield). Obviously reception isn't a yes/no affair - there is a zone that you will receive both signals.
If those two transmitters broadcast on the sam frequency then this would be a problem. Even if the two transmitters are frequency- and phase- locked together, as soon as you move the receiver the Doppler Effect comes into play, raising the perceived frequency of the transmitter that you are travelling toward and lowering the other. This results in 'beating' where the reception fades in and out rapidly.

To get around this, different transmitters broadcast the same program on different frequencies, so when reception from the Pentop Poke transmitter deterioates too much, you try the frequency of the Sanfield transmitter to see if the reception is better. (This is one of the things that RDS does automatically.)

So the bank concept probably originated in being able to keep two sets of frequencies for each channel, and easily being able to switch between them to change which transmitters you were listening to.

HTH.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#227891 - 20/07/2004 14:33 Re: Various wishes [Re: genixia]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
No. I understood that completely. Thanks for the reiteration, though.
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Bitt Faulk

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#227892 - 20/07/2004 14:51 Re: Various wishes [Re: wfaulk]
Micman2b
addict

Registered: 27/12/2001
Posts: 441
Loc: Central, NC, USA
When driving to Atlanta from Raleigh a few months back I listened to three rock clear channel stations playing the same hourly song list exactly one hour apart. It was strange to listen to a raleigh staton for an hour, lose signal, find charlotte station playing the same set list, lose channel, listen to a atlanta station playing same list, I switched to 'clear channel' country instead...

No I had no empeg with me and I did not have my karma yet.


Sean in NC

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#227893 - 20/07/2004 15:08 Re: Various wishes [Re: wfaulk]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
Doh, I misinterpreted your post. There goes another 10 minutes that I'll never get back.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#227894 - 21/07/2004 00:36 Re: Various wishes [Re: Shonky]
newguy1
enthusiast

Registered: 26/01/2002
Posts: 278
Loc: Massachusetts,USA
Another wish I'd like for the time alignment is ......
Instead of delaying the whole frequency spectrum have it broken into 2 groups.
For instance from 80 to 3000 Hz for mids and 3000 up for tweeters.
I have tweeters in the dash and mids down low in the doors so the distance from the left tweeter to my ears and the right tweeter and my ears is different than the left mids and my ears and the right mids and my ears.
If I set up the delay so the mids sound correct the tweeters sound off and visa versa.

see the crude attachment for example


Attachments
226883-head.jpg (150 downloads)

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MIKE 80Gb RIO

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#227895 - 21/07/2004 00:46 Re: Various wishes [Re: newguy1]
genixia
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
Yeah, that would be useful. although it would be _incredibly_ hard if not impossible to implement. The existing delay simply (!) delays all the samples which is computationally cheap. To split different frequencies would require that the kernel implement a software crossover, which would be computationally expensive.

Align on your tweeters as high frequency is far more directional. You might want to notch the bass up to account for the phase error from the mids.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962 sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.

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#227896 - 21/07/2004 00:58 Re: Various wishes [Re: tfabris]
newguy1
enthusiast

Registered: 26/01/2002
Posts: 278
Loc: Massachusetts,USA
Quote:
I seem to recall that early early betas did this simply because of omission
Tony (or anyone) do you know which betas did this and if it's available so I could try it out?
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MIKE 80Gb RIO

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