There's a possibility that the new display board could be offered as an upgrade, however the dimmer wouldn't work so the only gain would be the rotary control and slightly nicer looking front panel.

There's no expansion connector on the Mk.1 - there are pads on the PCB for additional RAM chips but these are surface mount and I doubt we could offer realistically priced upgrades. It would take at least an hour for a very skilled technician to fit the chips, not including stripping, rebuilding and testing the player.

We haven't exhausted all possibilities with the on-board radio - as Hugo mentioned in another post, there is still some more softwaree tweaking that could improve reception.

It wouldn't surprise me if, around the time that existing owners are offered discount Mk. 2 players, the second hand value of the originals is still high enough to cover most of that cost (maybe all of it). We'll still have several thousand people in the queue with a long-ish wait ahead of them.

Rob

the dimmer would be no loss - the additional useability of the rotary knob to control the UI would be the thing I am interested in. OK, here's one customer already interested!

I still would be interested in a memory upgrade if it was priced up. Even at GBP 100 an hour, surely this would still be a couple of hundred if the memory costs were added? I am still interested - how far can the memory be taken out to?

I am far too attached to this box to consider selling it on (this comes as a result of giving her a name - see?) so even expensive upgrades are interesting; it's just new boxes appearing that cause the problem...

Seriously, if you were to look at any ideas for small hardware upgrades made available as factory-only retrofits, in a fixed-price menu of options, I am still sure you would have takers.

I can't believe noone is asking about voice recognition! I don't care about anything else (altho more ram would be sweet), voice recognition will dramatically change the whole unit. No matter how good you make the current interface, it's still going to be a pain to access thousands of tracks with a few buttons. To be able to say what you want, and get it.. I don't care about the radio, I don't care about any twirly knobs on the front. I want to talk to my empeg :)

Will the current units be able to use voice recognition?

Kind of a moot point for me anyway, there's no way I'm going to be able to resist a new model with a discounted price :)

(I can't believe noone is asking about voice recognition! )

Probably because these things normally tend not to work :-) so people don't care (maybe). I don't, at least.

I think the MK2 is gonna be great. And i think it's good empeg is telling us about their plans. Even though the 'old' unit is not sooo old. Now i got a excuse to use one at home, and one in the car. I just have to win that lottery next Saturday. Of course i will. In my dreams...

Jo

I'm also very interested in the voice recognition - if it works reliably, this will be the most outstanding new feature.

As I'm not sure if I can afford a Mk 2, and reading about the idea of a 'Mk 1a', would you at empeg consider making a little box with a microphone and a tiny amp in it that could be plugged into the empeg's aux input? Then, with a small change in software that would allow the voice recognition software to act upon the aux input signal, we Mk 1 owners would also benefit from the newly developped features. Please!?

Daniel

So will my low number get preferential treatment (after those already owning Ver. 1 of course)?


Queue # 170 or was it 174??? Anyways I couldn't afford it then, I can now, but I think I will wait a couple more months!

Probably because these things normally tend not to work :-) so people don't care (maybe). I don't, at least.

Trainable Voice Reco works great, in general. It's much easier for a computer to examine two sound files for similarities than it is to break up the sound file into utterances(syllables) and try to figure out exactly, word for word, what the user said. I wouldn't be surprised if the MK2 Voice Reco worked perfectly for its user within a few days.
So can the microphone be retrofitted, too?

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

...I don't receive any reception w/ the antenna unplugged totally (...as in when it's in my house) but definately too much reception with the antenna amplifier...

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

In fact, the MkI can go to 16Mb (the MkII is limited to 12, for various reasons including the fact that pads on the bottom of the board caused the manufacturers problems with the flow soldering machine making shorts).

We could offer RAM upgrades, yes, but if we did it'd have to be a very ordered process (ie, so we could do them all at once as opposed to spreading it over time).

The display upgrade is a possibility - we did engineer the new display to be compatible. Wouldn't be desparately cheap though, but at least it's a possibility.

Hugo

Regarding the memory upgrade, first we would need to find a contractor willing to take it on. Then, we have to consider the reaction we'll get if we tell Mk.1 owners that it will cost them 200 quid plus shipping for an extra 4Mb of RAM! Some of you will understand the issues and go for it, but others will be very vocal in their displeasure.

I'm not sure the extra memory will be all that useful anyway - it'll give longer caching times between disk spin-ups but the main use for it on the Mk.1 is the voice recognition software, which definitely won't be available at an upgrade for older players.

Rob

Sorry, the voice recognition will definitely be a Mk.2 only feature. It uses additional hardware (an ADC and microphone preamp) that cannot be retro fitted to older players, and it will need the additional memory of the Mk.2. In addition there are licencing issues.

Rob

The voice recognition can't use AUX - this doesn't go to the CPU. In theory it could be streamed over the serial (pretty darn near 230,400bps as it needs 11025Hz mono 16 bit). It's unlikely we'll make a box to do this, but if someone else did we could most likely support it.

The voice recognition is trainable (for your playlist names) - it isn't syllable based.

Hugo
(Wanting to have a Star Trek set so he can say "Computer!" in a scottish accent and get a response)

> Probably because these things normally tend not to work :-)

We certainly hope this won't be the case :) The software that we have licenced is extremely impressive, and we are working closely with the designers of the CPU that we use to ensure that our implementation is ground breaking.

You should know by now that if we do something we don't want to do it by halves!

:-)

Rob

.. yeah a startrek set would be cool...
well in fact i think you guys should make the whole voice recognition software as configurable as possible.. so users can generate their own 'user interfaces' for voice recognition (empeg responds over speakers with confirmation/wishing me a good day/asking me to repeat a command if it didnt understood etc)...

i dont think you should only make playlist names trainable... what about volume controls for example.. i like the idea of beeing able to tell my empeg to lower the volume or so...

will the recognition software be able to understand my command even though the music is playing .. ie.. subract the empeg output from the audio signal the micro receives ?

It would be VERY nice to be able to train the MKII to mute whenever it hears MY cell phone ring!

The MkII has a cellphone mute input already.

Hugo

After existing owners, products will be shipped in registration order, starting with those clients that defered the first time.

This whole process won't take as long as before - we're manufacturing 1000 units a month and we have new shipping arrangements to ensure that we can actually process and support this many orders.

Rob

My cell phone doesn't have any inputs. It is hand-held only. Can the MKII microphone be trained to mute when it hears the cadence of my phone ringing?

It's an interesting idea, but I don't know enough about the internals of the recognition engine we're using to know if it's trainable to any sound, or if it's too specialised to human voices. I know it does quite a bit of preprocessing...

Hugo

I suspect that if the MKII has a "mute" function that the VR can be programmed to run when I say "shut the h*ll up!", then it could be as easily trained to hear the warble of my handheld phone as it is to my voice.

I hope this is the case. I am anxiously awaiting my turn to buy an Empeg!

In fact, the MkI can go to 16Mb

You can put me on the list of people interested in more RAM and partial HW upgrades. I don't care about the FM reciever or voice recognigition, and even at a discount I'm not sure I'd want to swallow the cost of a second unit in 4 months. (besides, there's something cool about owning a first generation player.) More RAM would be nice for less cache thrashing on my 256kbit MP3s and a dial for quicker navigation would be stellar. Ethernet would also be nice... but my desire for that will be sated when linux USB works - I just want the speed.


--- Carl

Great. Yes, i know you do things right! Just there are some folks out there (like me) who likes to feel music, so at this point NO voice recognition will work ever :-)

Seriuosly, if that feature makes it in, please do us one favor, i have a handsfree set in my car. I would, of course, use the mic of the handfree for voice-recognition as well. So there should be like a loop-through kind of setup so i can stick the mic into the empeg and from there to the handsfree kit or vice versa. I definately don't want to have TWO mic's, sets of wires, etc, in my car.

Do you think that is/will be possible ? TA, jo

>We certainly hope this won't be the case :) The software that we have licenced >is extremely impressive, and we are working closely with the designers of the >CPU that we use to ensure that our implementation is ground breaking.

>You should know by now that if we do something we don't want to do it by halves!

But some of us have set them up to run as servers :-)

Anyone want to run a mud on their stereo?

David

Appologies if these are covered elsewhere in this thread but I am starting to get lost in it!

Will there be an easy way to get all my mp3s and playlist into a mkII without reloading it all again??

There was talk in here somewhere of US users requesting the rotary control to be on the left. I assume from this that it is planned to be on the RHS? Personally I see this as a bad move for those who drive on teh RHS (of the car not the road!) as the LHS of the unit is easier to access whilst not obscuring the display with your body.

My thoughts anyway!

Phil

I'd also personally prefer the rotary knob on the left side. You at empeg will run into a problem with the knob on the right side, which probably will sound ridiculous to you and most of the other readers. But I did software design for about 10 years for Rohde & Schwarz (signal generators, measurement equipment etc), and most of their devices have a rotary knob on the right side, and believe me, we had endless discussions... the problem occurs when you use the knob to scroll through a vertical menu or list. If the knob is on the left side, the way it'll have to work is obvious: turning it clockwise will move the cursor/marker down, turning it anti-clockwise will move it up. Now, if the knob is on the right side, exactly half of the people using it will swear the only correct and intuitive way is to have a clockwise rotation move the cursor up (because the left edge of the knob which is closest to the display moves up), while the other half are absolutely convinced that it has to be the other way round. We couldn't solve it, we ended up making it configurable after customr complaints... the only way to get around that is really to put the knob on the left side of the display.

As I said, this is going to sound ridiculous...

This seems to give credibility to the drivel I wrote - thanks ;-)

I knew there had to be a more 'technical' reason rather than the 'yer hand gets in the way' arguement I came up with.

Coherent theories can't be expected at this time of night

I posted this idea origanally, and am glad others have considered it in depth as I have.

How about it Rob,Hugo?

Well, as a british colony here in new zealand we drive on the left side of the road with RHD vehicles (fortuantly most of our cars come from japan nowdays so the indication and washer controls are on the correct side unlike the poor british).

Anyway regardless of all other considerations i think it's would be best to have the volume on the left hand side for RHD cars. With it on the left your arm just stretches straight out to adjust the knob, with it on the right hand side you have to have your arm in a half bent-avoiding the steering wheel position (in my car at least).

What about peopl like me that bought theres on Ebay. Will I be with the
owners in the que or will I have to use my que number.

Brad Graff
S/N 00247
6 Gig Green