Moments ago, I hit the website and ordered one of those newfangled "empeg" thingies.

[leaping with excitement]

I figured that the only people who would understand my excitement over it would be all of you, so I wanted to share the experience.

What can I expect from the Empeg folks in the way of confirmations and recepits and such? (Its really only been, oh, 10 minutes since I placed the order and I am already looking for responses! . Hehehe... )

But I would like to say that a few threads out here did get me off the fence and order one. This forum's vast knowledge and experience (and friendliness) all add value to the empeg.

I look forward to wracking the FAQ's and bugging everyone with questions, but not as much as I look forward to a FedEx guy on my doorstep!

(Oh yeah, and if I don't like the empeg, I'll bill all of you out here... heheheh )

-Germ

Greetings!

Congratulations!!! One recommendation I (and many others on the board) have is to go through your MP3 files / tags. Make certain your tags are filled out correctly, completely, etc. Now is a good time to check everything before you load them in. It will make searching and navigating your empeg much easier later on.

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

I've noticed that... but thankfully its a project I have already completed! The only ones I haven't adjusted are the misc. music files I've collected here and there. You can be sure that I'll be revisiting them all tonight anyway, just to be sure!

Regarding confirmations from Empeg:

Usually, you get an automated order confirmation from the web page. I'm not sure if you will get a shipment confirmation right away or not, as those are manual. Some folks have reported receiving their players before seeing a shipment confirmation.

Regarding tags:

Make sure to resolve differences between V1 and V2 tags using the latest version of MP3 Tag studio or a similar product. Check out the FAQ entries here on the BBS on the subject of tags.

Enjoy your new toy, and welcome to the BBS!

___________
Tony Fabris

Welcome! You will definitely enjoy your new gadget!

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

On Confirmations...
Yup - I did get the automated confirmation via the web site. Its just that ordering one was just way too easy for all the tough fence-sitting I did beforehand. (that and I am just very excitable over it all)

On tags...
Most (if not all) of my tags are V1. I will touch bases again on the FAQ's, but I think my tags are all in order. Lets just hope my papers are in order for customs!

Most (if not all) of my tags are V1.

The problem comes when you've got a V2 tag hiding in the file that you don't know about. Emplode will find it and use it over the V1 tag, even if it's wrong or incomplete.

MP3Trim will strip V2 tags from a file just by doing a save-as. The latest MP3 Tag studio will let you reconcile V1 and V2 tags in batches (or strip V2 tags) with some pretty advanced filtering options.

___________
Tony Fabris

Or you could just do away with V1 tags altogether since the info they provide is only a subset of V2 tags.

I don't like my song/album titles cropped and I'm fooling myself into thinking that not outputting both V1 and V2 will save me some disk space over a large database.

-D

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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

With all that in mind I think I am going to go through and convert all my id3v1's to v2.... I was using a program called MPTagger to do the dirty work, but I'll take a look at the other program mentioned here for a more automated approach.

Now the debate is - Professional installation of Empeg + Amp or "personal" installation. ... I know I can handle the Empeg itself... its the amp I am afraid of.

I've made a patch to grip 2.95 so that it can pass id3 info to the encoder program.

Using one of the latest beta of lame I can now output v2 tags only without any extra operation by any tag program.

I should be posting this patch on the grip sourceforge site 'real-soon-now'

Then again you might prefer to use another program...

-D

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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

Now the debate is - Professional installation of Empeg + Amp or "personal" installation. ... I know I can handle the Empeg itself... its the amp I am afraid of.

If you're comfortable with removing trim panels and upholstery to run the wires to the trunk, and if you think you can get a power wire through the firewall safely, and you don't have any problem screwing a connector to the car battery, then you could probably do it yourself. But if any of that sounds like it's out of your league, then hire a pro.

Here's a good hint: If, by installing it yourself, you plan to twist wires together and cover them with electrical tape, then it's time to hire a pro who will solder and shrink-wrap all the connections properly.

If you end up doing it yourself, look at the FAQ entry here on the BBS titled "What are the most common installation problems?".

___________
Tony Fabris

In reply to:

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If, by installing it yourself, you plan to twist wires together and cover them with electrical tape, then it's time to hire a pro who will solder and shrink-wrap all the connections properly.

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What's wrong with that?! [evilgrin]
Yeah, point most definately taken. While I am sure I could do it, I would run out of patience well before it was in and functional. I'll leave it to a "pro"...

I may be asking a rather lame question, but how good are the national chain stores at installing things? As it stands now, the small shops in my area (Rhode Island) are pretty well booked up for about a month. I am toying with the idea of taking it to a C.City or a Best Buy. Does anyone have any horror stories from there and I should be shot for even considering them? Or are they, in general, ok?

Did it ever occur to you there may be a reason while the small custom shops are booked, and the major chains have open bays? :)

#080000512 green 12GB

I took my 2000 Isuzu rodeo to 'The Good Guys' and the installer there told me that if he disconnected my battery the ignition computer would lock up and my car would be have to be towed from their place.

After checking with Isuzu that turned out to be total and utter BS so that scared me off GG a little bit.

I ended up getting it installed at Circuit City and it took them 3 times to properly ground the amp and the player to the same point.

The good thing is, they have a warranty for as long as you own your car so I just kept bringing it back until they got it right (which they still haven't totally got right, although it's very close now).

They tried to blame the pops on the empeg so I ended up printing posts from Tony Fabris and Rob Schofield and showed them (yes Tony, I did also print the FAQ ).

All in all in my epxerience they seem ok with everyday stuff but come a bit short with high end players like the empeg.

-D

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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

Personally I would wire it myself with ducktape and bailing wire before letting CC or GG touch my car.

-Mike

ps Yes, I did wire mine myself, partially because I don't trust most of those little shops either.

I found my installer to be excellent. Of course, it was also a non-chain store.

I wouldn't want to get it done at either of those places either. And add to that list Best Buy.

Hmm, GG, CC, BB...is there a pattern? Well I was perfectly happy with Sound Solutions, so SS isn't bad

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

Well, Scott (the guy that does my installs) works at Circuit City, and i can tell you he is more knowledgeable than people i've talked to at smaller high end shops. I think it's like everything else... it depends on the person installing, not the chain or shop. I've read just as many bad stories on this BBS about small install shops not knowing what they hell they were doing as i have about chain stores, and it's silly to draw a conclusion about all chains based on a few stories of people not knowing what was up. If so i'd draw the same conclusion about small install shops. The best bet is to talk to other people who've had work done at a specific shop or by a specific person and get their take on it. I can say that i know for sure that Good Guys crimp their wires instead of soldering, and from what Scott has told me it's not standard either way at Circuit City, it pretty much depends on the Manager of the Road Shop (which is what Circuit City calls their install shops...they are actually seperate entities)...so there is that to look at. I'm sure if you ask specifically for them to solder and shrinkwrap, they'd do it, and if not walk out. Sooo...to summarize, it's been my experience that you can get a great install at a chain type store to save $, just get references and ask a ton of questions. You can usually tell with that gut feeling you get if they are trying to be slick and act like they know what they are talking about. If they don't know what a ground loop is or how to fix it, go elsewhere.


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

I have only one thing to say about Circuit City:

These are the people that invented DIVX. Avoid them at all costs, if only for that reason alone.

___________
Tony Fabris

Yeah I did too during the DivX thing but now that they've come to their sense, I say give them a chance.

-D

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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

That's cool, I'll give you that. The main reasons I went with these guys were:

1) They seemed to be the only ones open when I was calling from work. Do these guys open at noon or what?

2) They gave me the most reasonalble price.

3) The guy I talked to was incredibly helpful. I told him what I needed and the kind of car I drove (not many people put systems in their minivans - the sub placement can be tricky). He even suggested that I drop by the store sometime and he'd come out and look over the vehicle...which I did...and he did...for about 15 minutes! He made several helpful suggestions, most of which we went with.

4) another large factor was that he had installed a Mk 1. At the time, this was rare. I am willing to bet that no installer in the Nothern Virginia area has installed a Mk 1 other than this guy. At least that's how it appears on the registry.
He wasn't completely familiar with how it all worked, but he knew how to install it, and he was very impressed with the product (something you might not get from some installers, as we've discussed before).

I am exceedingly happy with my installation. They stuck an amp under the driver's seat and built me a sub box to replace the center console. It was very good. Check it out in the install forum.

So I agree. Do your research. Just because there's a CC,BB, or GG nearby doesn't mean it's the best option. I ended up driving about 30 minutes to get to mine. It was worth it.

**just to mention it again, because they did such a great job, Sound Solutions in Chantilly, VA**

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

DIVX - Oh how that word makes my blood boil. But I'll save my harsh words for the salesperson I always torment at the local CC, who told me once upon a time "DIVX will never go away! Its a great product!" {puke}

Anyway, I just wanted to mention that my search for a shop has come to a close. I'll be borrowing the services of a couple of friends, who have enough experience for me to be comfortable with, and we'll spend an afternoon setting it all up. That way I get to actually see whats being done, learn something about it, and I can actually contribute. Nevermind save some $$.

Thanks to all who commented and gave advice - Its a waiting game for me now!
-Germ

These are the people that invented DIVX.

OK, I'm not afraid to look stupid. (Don't tell anyone else, though...) What's a DIVX?

tanstaafl.

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

Here's an article from ZDNet about it's death... but basically it was a system that worked like this. You'd buy a DVD disk for about the cost of a rental. You had two days in which you could watch it an unlimited number of times, and after that you would have to pay a fee to watch it each subsequent time or it wouldn't play. As you can imagine the Studios were VERy behind this product.... i'm sure others can give a better view of it...


|| loren.cox || 080000446 ||

i'm sure others can give a better view of it...

I could, but the bbs admin would recend my subscription.

I had nothing against Divx it's self. The idea was nice. But the implementation was horrible. They never really got this into rental stores. And studios were considering releasing only on Divx. Beyond that, the idea of renting a movie, and buying it if you liked it was definitly nice. No scratched disk issues, and no returns. (Although a rental place could allow returns, and credit your account a bit if you did). I also didn't like how it tied it's self to the player. Smart cards could have been used instead, allowing a person to move the disk and card to another player to watch.

Oh well, it's dead now, no need to worry about it anymore

no returns

Which is why rental stores hated it - apparently they make most of their money off late fees...

Another big problem with it was that it essentially reported home about anything you watch - privacy freaks went banana over this.

Oh well, it's dead now, no need to worry about it anymore

True. Instead, we can worry about the DVD CSS mess which doesn't look good at all.

Borislav

OK, I'm not afraid to look stupid. (Don't tell anyone else, though...) What's a DIVX?

Oh, Doug. So innocent. So uncorrupted. Are you sure you want to hear the whole sordid story?

Well, at least you can hear the story and know that it has a happy ending: DIVX died a nice, clean death. But it's still important to remember the bad, evil things in history so that we're not doomed to repeat them. Despite the horrors of the Holocaust, it is our duty to future generations not to forget it. So it is with DIVX.

DIVX was the brainchild of Circuit City, teamed up with another company (whose name I forget, but was essentially a team of lawyers and other assorted moneygrubbers).

It came out when DVD was still in its infancy. It utilized the same technology as DVD, but had a difference: The playback devices were coded to deliver the movies on a pay-per-view basis. You'd hook up a DIVX player to the telephone line in the same way that you hook up a satellite decoder box.

The idea was to replace the current system that rental stores use. You never had to bring the disc back. Since the discs can be manufactured for next to nothing, they wanted to find a way to give away the discs, but charge for the "eyeball time".

You would feed the parent company your credit card, and every time your kid wanted to watch "Free Willy" again, cha-ching, another $2.50 gets deducted. (Or whatever the charge was going to be.)

And all that money was going to flow through the hands of the CC people. Sure, the movie companies got their share, but not after CC was done chewing off their chunk of it. And, of course, they SAID that it was going to help the rental chains by preventing losses from unreturned movies. But the truth was that they wanted to take the business away from the current rental chains and keep it all to themselves.

It gets worse. DIVX movies were all pressed as "Pan-And-Scan" discs, not wide screen. And DIVX players cost more than DVD players. Although Circuit City tried to hide the DIVX player prices by bumping up the regular DVD player prices to match.

The funny thing is, even if DIVX had taken off, the whole DeCSS debacle proved that its pay-per-view key protection wouldn't have lasted long against the hackers. Or, like the region-removal hacks on current DVD players, a simple hardware hack could probably have allowed unlimited plays anway. So they still would have lost revenue to pirates.

Fortunately, nearly everyone recognized DIVX for the scam it was, and sales of DIVX players were dismal. CC eventually dropped the whole thing at a huge loss.

And we all lived happily ever after.

___________
Tony Fabris

In reply to:

---

You would feed the parent company your credit card, and every time your kid wanted to watch "Free Willy" again, cha-ching, another $2.50 gets deducted. (Or whatever the charge was going to be.)

---

Or you could pay $19.95ish to unlock the movie forever. And everytime you paid, you got a timelimit, not specificially pay-per-view. The thing that did make me mad was the fact that Disney was thinking about only releasing DIVX movies, and not DVD's. It wouldn't have been $2.50 a pop, but the fact that the movies would only be out on a format playable in one machine was bad.

I disliked Divx for certain reasons. Many people against it had this notion you always had to pay each time to see your movies though. That probably helped the downfall, so I guess that rumor was useful.

In reply to:

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Or you could pay $19.95ish to unlock the movie forever.

---

But as you pointed out, that $19.95ish would only give you the right to play that movie on your player, not your friends or neighbors. So even though you purchased the movie, you'd still get whacked if you brought it to a friends house to watch.

Here's my take on the technical details of the failed format...

You purchased a DIVX disc at your local and convienient Circuit S***ty store for about $5.00. From the moment you first played the disc, a 48 hour timer is started. You can watch it as much as you want for 48-hours. Once that timer expires, the disc is no longer free. At that point, if you put the disc in for another viewing, the player essentially charges you $2.50ish, and unlocks the disc for another 48-hours. So it didn't charge you for EVERY viewing, but it did hit you for 48-hour viewing blocks.

On top of all that, there was the DIVX "Silver" option. This allowed you to pay a flat fee and have unlimited viewing rights to that movie... the catch is - only on YOUR DIVX box. Nobody elses. If you travelled to grandma's to watch one of your movies, she'd get smacked with a $2.50 charge.

The other option that never saw the light was the DIVX Gold disc.... this option was a freely playable disc on all DIVX players... no extra charges. This tier was never sold, and a pricepoint was never set for it. It wasn't without fault, though. Although it could be played on all players with out a fee, it could NOT play on a standard DVD player. It had to be a DIVX player. And considering the prices hadn't been announced for them, I can only imagine they'd be more than the DVD prices we are seeing now.

The major problem, besides information security and wasting your own personal shelf space (or landfill space) with what amounts to someone elses rental selection, was that the studios were 100% behind it. DVD's as we know it today would be non-existant, and all of the control would be flowing to the execs at CC and the studios. Who's to say that, in 5 years, they wouldn't raise the rates on things?I wanted to retain "control" over the movies I purchased, so I was vehamently (sp) opposed to the format, and would go into CC and sabotage the salespersons efforts. (heheh)

Talking about an off-topic run!

Ok - back to work...
-Greg

Ok - no more work for me...
Guess what arrived and is sitting next to me on my desk....

I think I should read the directions and plug this bad boy in.

Let the meyhem begin!
greg

Instead, we can worry about the DVD CSS mess which doesn't look good at all

Sigh... am I the only person on the planet who doesn't have a DVD player? What is a "DVD CSS"?

Just as an aside, somewhat related to this off-topic discussion... anybody who hasn't done so owes it to himself to investigate TiVo. Think of it as an empeg for your TV set. Once you have TiVo, you never watch television anymore -- you watch TiVo. Just imagine -- every time you turn it on, you aren't limited by the vagaries and whims of the local TV schedule. Instead, you always have 30 hours of programming that you like on tap, ready to play at the touch of a remote. The TiVo learns what you like based on what you initially tell it to record, and then automatically records similar programming.

It works astonishingly well.

So what is a "DVD CSS"?

tanstaafl.

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

CSS is the encryption used on DVD's. DeCSS was written to get around that encryption, (allows copying and free playing) and now the Motion Picture industry is having a fit.

I think that's pretty much it in a nutshell. I'm sure someone else can give more specifics.

Bill B.
Mk.2 SN 080000183 - 38 GB / Green

CSS is the encryption method used to protect DVDs and prevent people from copying them.

Unfortunately for the DVD consortium, CSS was cracked and a program called DeCSS was released to enable you to de-scramble the DVD content (in effect enabling people to copy movies off DVDs and distribute them on the net).

The movie industry got all pissed off and started suing web sites posting DeCSS or even links to the source code. A big trial is ongoing involving the 2600 website and the movie industry. One side says it's illegal to post links to the code, the other side says code is like speech and should be free (as in freedom).

Anyway, that's the short version.

I'll second the Tivo plug, it rules and makes you wonder how you ever lived without it before.

-D


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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

I really like the hardware of tivo/replay recorders, but... I just can't get over the big brother aspects of it. To get the real value of it you have to hook it up to the phone and someone at a remote site gets to keep detailed records fo everything you watch. If they were a subscription process and only updates of tvguide info were being handed out, without sending my viewing choices back to a server... I might go for that.

Glenn

The Dishplayer from Dish Networks does Tivoish stuff as well and requires no phone line. The DirecTv Tivo may be the same way...

SonicBlue recently bought ReplayTV, the main competitor to Tivo. I'd love to see a "built with empeg technology" sticker on a future ReplayTV unit... :-)

The Dishplayer from Dish Networks does Tivoish stuff as well and requires no phone line. The DirecTv Tivo may be the same way...

I heard a rumour that there are small dish systems now, that can talk two ways. Why would a phone line be needed?

Glenn

DirectTivo gets their channel lineups through the satelite, no phone line needed for the Tivo stuff.

DirectTV is NOT bi-directional. That's why they are having so many problems with people hacking their own cards (until recently anyway but that's another story).

Normal tivo needs regular updates for all your channel lineups and sometimes software updates, a phoneline IS needed since as of now they don't transmit data through your cable or TV programs.

And just to clear something up: Tivo DOES NOT send any information back to anybody.

Tivo is now just about as hacked by people as the empeg is and any attempt on their part to sneak this in would be discovered very quickly. It works the same way as Windows Update which, for example, can determine what updates you need without sending any info to Microsoft.

The people behind Tivo are very cool BTW and understand they have more to loose than to gain by trying to pull something like this. Ultimate TV on the other hand hasn't made clear what their plans are in this area.

-D


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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

Thanks for clearing that up. Will you forgive me for being skeptical, given the abuses of spam and banner ads.

Glenn

Wow, both of my favorite gadgets have converged on one BBS!

TiVo RULES. Just one thing... Dids mentioned that a phone line is needed for software updates, and it is also needed for 2 TiVo features... 1) TiVolution Magazine and 2) Network Showcases...

In case anyone was wondering...

I can't watch live TV, EVER anymore. In fact, if there's something on that I want to see, I'll let TiVo "tape" it for long enough so that I can use the FF to go through the commercials quickly.

If you don't yet have a TiVo, get one.

- Jon

I heard a rumour that there are small dish systems now, that can talk two ways. Why would a phone line be needed?

That rumor is true, it's called StarBand, and it's an internet service. But the normal dishs can't transmit anything back. My DishPlayer has never called home for a single thing, since I also order all PPV via the net. And even if I had a dish that could transmit, the Dishplayer dosen't know how, as well as the DishPlayer would never be hooked to the transmitter, that goes to the modem.

Unfortunately for the DVD consortium, CSS was cracked and a program called DeCSS was released to enable you to de-scramble the DVD content (in effect enabling people to copy movies off DVDs and distribute them on the net).

DeCSS does not enable you to copy and distribute movies - you can just as easily distribute the scrambled digital content. What it does enable you to do is to write an unlicensed DVD player. If DeCSS is judged illegal it's highly unlikely that there'll ever be a free software DVD player (in either the "free beer" or the "free speech" sense).

Read http://www.cssfaq.org/ for more on this, it's a great page.

Borislav

DeCSS does not enable you to copy and distribute movies - you can just as easily distribute the scrambled digital content. What it does enable you to do is to write an unlicensed DVD player.

Not quite accurate. Although you could write an unlicensed DVD player with DeCSS technology, it also also allows you to copy and distribute movies. In addition, it allows you to circumvent the region-encoding of a given DVD.

What it allows is for the movies to be decoded into unencrypted video files onto your PC's hard disk. From there, you can either distribute them in their unencrypted form, or you can downconvert them into a smaller, internet-friendly video format such as .ASF or .MPG. Generally, those are the things you see distributed on the 'net- the smaller files downconverted from a DeCSS-enabled DVD rip.

Another thing you can create from these unencrypted video files is Video CDs, which is really what the copyright holders were so pissed about. Since Video CDs are popular in asian markets, DeCSS allows for pirates to easily create VCDs of freshly-released DVDs for distribution in those markets. And since this skips the region-lock code, too, then the companies can't easily do the regional price-fixing that the region-locking was supposed to help them do.

___________
Tony Fabris

Not quite accurate.

I see your points and while I don't completely agree with them I'd like to defer to the information in the link I posted, as well as the MPAA FAQ and the DVD CCA FAQ linked from there - let people make up their own minds.

...which is really what the copyright holders were so pissed about.

What I'm pissed off about is that software DVD players for Linux will suffer because of this. I believe that open source produces better software, we can't enjoy it in this case. The commercial players have been slow in coming and even when they finally appear they'll always lag behind since the Linux share of the desktop market is still tiny.



When I first came to the US after three years in the UK I was very amused by people exclaiming loudly "I'm so pissed!" (meaning angry, irritated in the US and drunk in the UK). That's worn off by now but I can still entertain myself by using British spelling with my US friends and vice-versa. Actually, the best way I've found to annoy both camps at the same time is to claim that rugby and American football are pretty much the same thing. (baseball and cricket works too)

Anyway, back on topic. Yeah, right.

Borislav

What I'm pissed off about is that software DVD players for Linux will suffer because of this. I believe that open source produces better software, we can't enjoy it in this case.

Which was the whole point of DeCSS in the first place, as I recall: To allow for the creation of an open-source DVD player which could run on Linux.

The problem is the side effect was to crack the copy protection. Not that it was terribly effective copy protection to begin with (it didn't prevent copying, as you pointed out, it only prevented playback on anything but a licensed player which could decode the encrypted stream).


___________
Tony Fabris

I didn't mean that DeCSS was created to copy DVDs, just that it does allow it which is what the MPAA is annoyed about.

I also don't want to imply that I agree with the MPAA, I was just stating facts. (Linux DVD driver -> GOOD!)

An like Tony said, the state of things is DeCSS DOES allow you to copy DVDs amongst other things.

-D


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