Hi Everyone,

Having had a string of unsuitable cars to install the Empeg in since early 2005, I'm now doing up my '98 Mini Cooper (that's been off the road even longer than that) as a second car and will be looking to get the empeg in there ASAP!

Has much happened in the last 4 years in terms of development for the player?

It's been a long time since i last tinkered with it so I've also forgotten a lot of what can be done with the custom kernels and such, so it's a little daunting trying to wade through everything!

So, i guess what i'm asking is, if anyone is feeling generous enough with their time, could you treat me like somebody who has just discovered an empeg for the first time and wants to know the highlights of what can be done to improve it?

I'm going to need to upgrade the HD, so i'll be following the disk upgrade guide and starting with a vanilla install!

Thanks in advance

Simon

The biggest improvements since 2005 have been in the Hijack kernel, at which Mark continues to poke for incremental increases in goodness. I don't think there have been huge dramatic changes since 05, just lots of little things updated.

Hard disk sizes continue to increase, with Mark's kernels and builders now being the preferred method of disk upgrade (over the Empeg official ones) so that you can be sure your new large disk is supported. See the disk upgrade guide at riocar.org for updated instructions.

edit: With the increase in hard disk sizes, we've now reached a point where the player's limited RAM, combined with limitations on the size of the dynamic data partition, gives us trouble indexing particularly large music collections. Some tools have been implemented to help people around this problem.

Some people are using compactflash-based and SSD-based storage instead of hard disks.

There was a display extender project a while back, and those who bought them can now mount the 'peg in the trunk and run the display and front panel up to the cockpit. Solves that "unsuitable car" problem you mentioned.

V3 Alpha never got finished, so if you want stable player software, stick with 2.0 final.

One of my favorite hacks for the player is Emphatic, which lets you customize the display and also scroll lyrics in synch with the music on the display.

You can run a fairly advanced web server on the player from which you can browse and stream your music collection when it's plugged into your home LAN.

Hugo works for Apple now, working on hardware board-level stuff on the iPhone. Go figure.

This BBS continues to be a strong source of interesting conversations and great tech help, feel free to cruise the off topic forum.

I'll be happy to chip in any answers that I can get to before Tony, but I admit that'll probably never happen.

It certainly wouldn't be a bad idea to hit up the FAQ with any questions you have, as Tony has continued to add bits and pieces to it over the years to keep it up to date.

You may want to get your buttons lit (kit here) and then get some colored buttons for it.

There's been surprisingly little change to the FAQ since 2005.

Tony thanks for writing this...

This is a great review for me, as i've been out of the loop for a few years. Looks like all i'm missing to catch up is some updates to hijack.

My wife and I still use our empegs in our cars to this day. Its nice to be able to switch them around if we take different cars.