We just had the company party here at LucasArts, and the president of the company announced everyone will leave here today with a PS2 in hand for the company holiday gift.

So THAT'S where they all went!

A pox upon thy family.

___________
Tony Fabris

Yeah, that's what i was thinking!! I can't believe they pulled it off with the shortage and all, but i'm sure the higher ups have some fairly large contacts at Sony. I think it's around 500 people or so here that are getting em?! Not to shabby. I'm guessing they pre-ordered em really early in the year.


|| loren.cox
|| 080000446

I can't believe they pulled it off with the shortage and all

Take a look on ebay if you want a surprise. Just from curiousity I looked yesterday, and there were more than 6,300 Sony Playstation 2's being auctioned. The greedy types with minimum bids in the $500 range were not getting any bids. Most seemed to be selling in the $400-$550 range. I saw one incredible auction for a set of four brand new playstations, starting bid $2,000, and the lunatics had bid the price up to $14,100 with three days still to go.

As for pulling the audio off of a DVD disc... it can be done. Tony Fabris knows how to do it. And I can just about promise you he will never try it again! I guess the process is, shall we say, fraught with unexpected problems and difficulties and requires some special software and a lot of time and very sincere effort. (He very kindly extracted the audio from my Cats DVD for me so I could put it in my empeg.)

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

I don't think loren was asking about extracting audio from a DVD. I think he was talking about playing the Playstation2 simultaneously with the car stereo.

For that, he needs a mixer. That's something rarely needed for car audio, so I don't know where to find such an animal. I know you can get line mixers in musical equipment catalogs, but I don't know if they're appropriate for car audio applications.

Anyone have any experience mixing two audio signals in a car? Or is it as simple as using a Y-splitter cable backwards?

___________
Tony Fabris

Hmmm, the empeg guys have mentioned that the empeg may be able to do sampling of the aux inputs. Not at a high enough bit rate for music, but maybe good enough for something like this?

-Mike

Alrighty, the LCD and a brand spankin' new alarm are in...

http://www.skivvies.com/car/

Another 6pm to 3am install job. What's left to be done:

1. Install the inverter and playstation, with an on/off switch between the inverter and battery (still researching if this is necessary, some inverters say they turn themselves off....)

2. Install the MBQuart Components up front. Easy.

The alarm install was way more involved than i'd ever thought. I learned a whole shiteload about relays and the electrical system overall...simple stuff slapped together to make a big complicated mess. Scott removed the old factory alarm, which was an incredible nest of T connections, and simplified it with some relays. Now it does all sorts of fancy crap from my remote. I opted to not install the remote start, since i KNOW i'd forget oneday and start it up in gear since it's a standard.

We decided to not reinstall the Sony CD head unit as planned, as we'd have to do some major console cutting to fit it and the LCD. So i just settled with getting the Tuner for the empeg when it comes out. I can wait...though traffic reports would be nice.

We hooked the playstation up (as you can see in the pictures), and have the audio going through the AUX in of the empeg, and holy crap does it sound good. One oddity though... (maybe a bug), When i selected AUX from the front panel of the empeg, we got nothing, no sound at all...which scared the crap out of me. We rechecked the wiring and it was all right, and still nothing. So it occured to me to hit the input selection buttons on the remote, and when i hit Tuner, BAM there it was.... Anyone know what's up with that?


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

First: wow! That install looks excellent. Very impressive.

Second: "I opted to not install the remote start, since i KNOW i'd forget oneday and start it up in gear since it's a standard. "

I know that some alarm companies make an interlock that uses an optical sensor to see if your shift lever is in neutral before engaging the starter circutitry. I believe this option is in the $100 range. My wife has a starter, and that thing is great.

Thanks for the pictures. Excellent.

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

I had this a long time ago with (I think) something like B12; you can actually "Pause" the AUX input. Did you try pressing the PLAY button twice?

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Didn't try that... Will do as soon as the inverter is in and there's something to pause =]. Thanks for the tip!


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

In reply to:

---

I opted to not install the remote start, since i KNOW i'd forget oneday and start it up in gear since it's a standard

---

Why on earth would you need a starter in the mild climate of San Fran? (And yes the optical sensors for that are 'bout $100) They do work well, because it is rather funny to watch a pickup truck start, then start to roll off down the street through a fence, and high-center itself on a broken fence post! (Not my truck!)
The remote door locks I can see would be beneficial for those really rainy days.

Nice install by the way! If I am ever in San Fran I will have to stop by and have a boo!

Now for the control pad buttons in the steering wheel for Gran Tourismo....

Smoker_Man
#080000449 MkII - 36Gb Blue

Exactly, it's not needed at all, just cool little add on feature...though it does get damn cold in SF, just no where near cold enough to need a remote start. Bah.

Definitely stop by if you in the bay area, i still have yet to meet another empeger... which reminds me... we need to do that get together soon..

and yes, steering wheel mounted Dual Shocks....hmmm...now that's an idea! hahah.


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

In reply to:

---

steering wheel mounted Dual Shocks....

---

To controll the James Bond-esque toys for those road rage days!

Smoker_Man
#080000449 MkII - 36Gb Blue

Seems like I cannot edit my previous post.

About the North American (Western US/Canada) Empeg meet.
Someplace centrally located would probably best, however, I am sure a lot of poeple would fly in rather then spend 4 days driving. Also, I cannot forsee any immediate reason to take my car to California.

Although, I am sure poeple are using this media to schedule and meet with other fellow Empegers(Empegans, Empegians?) when they are "in the neighbourhood".

Perhaps we should take a poll for North Americans to participate?
I will create in in the General Forum.


Smoker_Man
#080000449 MkII - 36Gb Blue

Someplace centrally located would probably best, however, I am sure a lot of poeple would fly in rather then spend 4 days driving. Also, I cannot forsee any immediate reason to take my car to California.

If you fly then how are you going to show off your install? Defeats the point if you ask me...

Borislav