What is new in 3.0?
Posted by: dewdman42
What is new in 3.0? - 02/06/2007 22:23
is there an FAQ or anything anywhere that lists some of the new features in the 3.x firmware that is new from the 2.x version? Same thing also with the 3.x emplode.??
Just trying to decide if I wanna mess around with the alpha software. I will if there is a cool enough improvement, even if its dodgy. but it depends on what is new.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 03/06/2007 04:57
There are release notes for the alpha software, but not a FAQ. You should be able to find the release notes in the same place you download the alpha software (I think).
The big feature that alpha 3.0 offers is playback of OGG and FLAC files. If you don't need to play those kinds of files, the "alpha" part of alpha 3.0 makes it something you don't want to just install on a whim.
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 03/06/2007 05:09
Yea I saw the release notes, but I couldn't find anything that lists what is new since 2.0.. each of the 3.x releasses explains some of the bug fixes, etc within the 3.x range....
Anyway, if OGG and FLAC are mainly the only real difference and there is nothing else, then I am perfectly happy with 2.01 once I get it working again. thanks!
Posted by: Gleep
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 03/06/2007 11:49
3.0 has crossfade and gapless playback
Posted by: mlord
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 03/06/2007 12:46
Quote:
3.0 has crossfade and gapless playback
Yup, those two features are huge!
Under the hood, it has a mostly new/improved sound processing pipeline,
which some of us think makes a very audible difference in sound quality.
But that conclusion has not been verified with double-blind testing.
Cheers
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 03/06/2007 15:08
Oh really. Ok, now I'm convinced to try it.. ha ha. thanks.
Posted by: FireFox31
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 03/06/2007 18:48
Doesn't every version have gapless playback?
On one gapless album which I created myself, the typical tiny gap stands out horribly. Probably because I chose bad places for the gaps. No, there are no gaps in the audio, as I cut up a 70 min WAV file; unless EAC/lame added some.
Are you saying 3.0 has reduced that tiny gap between tracks even further?
Posted by: Gleep
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 03/06/2007 22:39
Quote:
Doesn't every version have gapless playback?
No version prior to 3 had gapless playback. MP3 format doesn't even support gapless playback but the Empeg people made it work anyway. As I understand it, MP3's are created using frames and each frame is 26ms long. So unless a track is exactly a multiple of 26ms long there will be a gap. Version 3 software looks at the last frame and starting at the point in the frame where the volume drops to zero removes the rest of that frame and jumps immediately to the 1st frame of the next track there by removing the gap. Ogg Vorbis has built in support for gapless playback but I would recommend that you stick with MP3 on the Empeg.
Posted by: peter
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 04/06/2007 06:33
Quote:
Doesn't every version have gapless playback?
On one gapless album which I created myself, the typical tiny gap stands out horribly. Probably because I chose bad places for the gaps. No, there are no gaps in the audio, as I cut up a 70 min WAV file; unless EAC/lame added some.
Prior to v3, the only way to get gapless playback was to use "lame --nogap" and encode all the WAV files of an album in one invocation of Lame. AFAIK no GUI-based rippers could do that.
In v3, the firmware pays attention to the Lame "info header", which is added to all MP3s by modern versions of Lame (and to VBR tracks even by oldish versions). It also has heuristic silence-trimming, for non-Lame MP3s and for WMA.
Peter
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 04/06/2007 12:35
Quote:
MP3's are created using frames and each frame is 26ms long. So unless a track is exactly a multiple of 26ms long there will be a gap.
And that's not the worst of it. Even if the start and end points of your track *would* fall exactly on frame boundaries, the encoders (for the most part) don't begin the audio data at the very beginning of the frame. There seems to be some random amount of encoder spool-up time in the first couple of audio frames, causing a bit of silence to play back after the 00:00.00 mark of a track.
The exception to this was later versions of LAME, when using special encoding parameters, as was mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
Posted by: FireFox31
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 04/06/2007 23:05
Wow, version 1 and 2 always sounded pretty darn gapless to me. I seem to remember the explanation as "the cache is so agressive that it prepares the next FEW songs for instant playback, incase you skip forward or back."
But 3 is even better? Amazing.
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 01:57
Hmm, Well I loaded up the latest 3.0 firmware. Some interesting wierdness. First of all, everytime I power on the empeg it takes several minutes to build the the music database before I can play anything. Is that normal for everyone?
Secondly, when I try to use the new emplode with it, emplode coughs up an error almost immediately while trying to read the database from the Empeg.
Hmm, guess I'll go back to 2.01 unless anyone has any ideas. I like the oval lines around the menus...didn't listen to the audio to see if it really has better decoding quality...will jsut stick with 2.01 I guess...
Posted by: mtempsch
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 05:52
Quote:
First of all, everytime I power on the empeg it takes several minutes to build the the music database before I can play anything. Is that normal for everyone?
No
Quote:
Secondly, when I try to use the new emplode with it, emplode coughs up an error almost immediately while trying to read the database from the Empeg.
Sounds like your DB got hosed somehow - on each start the player now has to read all the fids off disk and build the DB in memory. But since the drives are mounted read-only it can't write the resulting DB to disk - thus hving to do it all over again on the next boot and it still being hosed as emplode tries to get it...
Here's the FAQ on the issue, with instructions on how to fix it. Do read the linked entries as well!
Posted by: mlord
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 11:55
Quote:
Hmm, Well I loaded up the latest 3.0 firmware. Some interesting wierdness. First of all, everytime I power on the empeg it takes several minutes to build the the music database before I can play anything. Is that normal for everyone?
Secondly, when I try to use the new emplode with it, emplode coughs up an error almost immediately while trying to read the database from the Empeg.
That should all be in the FAQ somewhere. V3 software requires a very specific version of Emplode (forgot which). And the V3 software has it's own, separate, database format and database3 file (which can coexist with the V2 database file).
Since you only installed the software, there is no database3 file, so it creates a temporary one at each boot (disks are read-only, so it doesn't save it permanently).
If you just connect via serial, and then hit <control^C> (and wait..) you should get a shell ("command") prompt. At which you can do this to build a permanent database:
rwm
player
# wait for database build to happen / finish
<control^C>
rom
exit
That sequence (above) is also in the FAQ.. somewhere.. 
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 14:50
Quote:
Hmm, Well I loaded up the latest 3.0 firmware. Some interesting wierdness.
Bound to happen when you use ALPHA software. 
Quote:
First of all, everytime I power on the empeg it takes several minutes to build the the music database before I can play anything. Is that normal for everyone?
YES. I got that error every single time I tried going from 2.0 to 3.0.
Do the databases fix from the FAQ (Linked in one of the replies above).
Quote:
Secondly, when I try to use the new emplode with it, emplode coughs up an error almost immediately while trying to read the database from the Empeg.
This will likely get fixed when you do the databases fix. Even if you go back to 2.0, you're going to need to do that database fix.
In my case, even after doing that fix, I had a problem in 3.0 where after a few synchs, all my playlists would get scrambled and a bunch of songs got orphaned. That's why I've stuck with 2.0 since then. But your playlists might not be as large or as convoluted as mine, so that bug might not bite you.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 15:01
Quote:
Wow, version 1 and 2 always sounded pretty darn gapless to me.
Version 2 would play two adjacent songs right up against each other as best it could. The instant one song was done playing, the next one would start playing. That's probably your definition of gapless.
But to truly play "Dark Side of the Moon" (the ultimate litmus test for gapless playback), that's not enough. To play *truly* gapless (no "blips" when playing Dark Side of the Moon) requires that the software work around the limitations of the MP3 format, and it must deliberately dovetail the "holes" at the beginning and end of each MP3 file, and perhaps even do a tiny bit of crossfading. I'm not sure exactly how 3.0 handles this task, but I know they worked on it. (One of the empeg team explained it elsewhere on this BBS, anyone got a link?)
As far as I know, the empeg is the only player that even *tries* to handle it. Well, the only one that tries to handle it on-the-fly. The ipod does it these days, but it only does it via some special trickery on the server-side in iTunes, it doesn't try to do it on-the-fly. Anyone else know of any other gapless players these days?
Posted by: peter
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 15:11
Quote:
Anyone else know of any other gapless players these days?
Squeezebox, apparently. And a few others, including anything you can stick Rockbox on.
Peter
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 16:32
Guys, thanks for all the info. I have gone back to 2.01 and the music database appears to be fine, boots up in seconds as normal. So I'm not sure that original music database got hosed. If I get time next week I will try 3.0 again and use the steps mlord outlined for manually building a new database. But that will not overwrite the old 2.x one?
Also, in the FAQ you showed me, it mentions using the developer build. I was using the consumer build. Am I supposed to be using the developer build for 3.0?
Anyway, I can't get to it until next week at this point, but thanks for all the info.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 16:42
The only difference between consumer and developer builds is whether or not a shell prompt is available. You only need the developer build if:
- You need to do troubleshooting (such as manually rebuilding the database).
- You want to modify the default software or add additional software of your own (hacks and such).
Other than that, the developer build is not required, either for 3.0 or 2.0.
Posted by: JBjorgen
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 17:17
Quote:
In my case, even after doing that fix, I had a problem in 3.0 where after a few synchs, all my playlists would get scrambled and a bunch of songs got orphaned. That's why I've stuck with 2.0 since then. But your playlists might not be as large or as convoluted as mine, so that bug might not bite you.
The way to get around this is to use JEmplode only to add and remove music from the player, and to completely exit and restart JEmplode after each synch if you're planning on doing multiple synchs.
A bit of a pain, but if you follow those instructions, you can use 3.0 quite happily withough your database getting scrozzled.
Posted by: canuckInOR
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 17:49
Quote:
scrozzled.
/me learns a new word.
Posted by: drakino
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/06/2007 20:40
Quote:
So I'm not sure that original music database got hosed. If I get time next week I will try 3.0 again and use the steps mlord outlined for manually building a new database. But that will not overwrite the old 2.x one?
The problem wasn't that a database was hosed. It's that 2.0 and 3.0 use different databases. So when you upgraded to 3.0 for the first time, it didn't see a database, so it built it every time you booted. By doing the instructions above, it will make sure to not only make the new 3.0 database, but also save it to disk for future use.
By reverting back to 2.01, all you did was return to the same 2.0 database that had been there all long and works.
As far as developer builds vs consumer builds, just load the developer build. Even if you currently have no plans to use the features it offers, you might need them for working through one of the FAQ procedures or other troubleshooting situations. Better to just have it there from the start (since it doesn't harm anything, nor slow anything down) then to need to load it up everytime something might need to be troubleshot.
Posted by: webroach
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 06/06/2007 15:11
Quote:
Quote:
Anyone else know of any other gapless players these days?
Squeezebox, apparently. And a few others, including anything you can stick Rockbox on.
Peter
Err... the CENSORED?
Hey, why won't the BBS let me say CENSORED?
I mean, I have a Nitrus, too, but I still like my CENSORED... Just because Apple makes it and this is an empeg board doesn't mean they have to censor the word CENSORED.
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 06/06/2007 16:11
Only the 5G CENSORED supports gapless, to be pedantic.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 06/06/2007 17:11
Perhaps I wasn't clear about the CENSORED. It does do gapless, but only via trickery on the server side. It doesn't do it on the fly. You must specifically mark the tracks in iTunes to be gapless, and then it tags the tracks in a special way so that the player can overlap them properly without having to do any processing on the files. I don't actually know what it's doing to accomplish this, but I know that the player doesn't try to do it on the fly.
This isn't a bad solution for gapless at all; it works quite well, I'm told. I'm just saying it's not the player doing it all by itself the way the empeg 3.0 software is doing it.
Posted by: webroach
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 06/06/2007 17:27
Quote:
This isn't a bad solution for gapless at all; it works quite well, I'm told. I'm just saying it's not the player doing it all by itself the way the empeg 3.0 software is doing it.
Oh, to be sure. But yeah, it does a phenomenal job with it.
Posted by: webroach
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 06/06/2007 17:28
Quote:
Only the 5G CENSORED supports gapless, to be pedantic.
For some reason, the word "CENSORED" followed by "pedantic" almost led to me giving my laptop a tea bath...
Posted by: altman
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 06/06/2007 21:10
Really? I think the current CENSORED nano is also gapless, but that's just going from when it came out....
Hugo
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 07/06/2007 12:06
Well, I meant as far as the main line. I didn't know about the Nanos, Shuffles, etc., although it seems that the 2G Nanos are gapless. I still don't know about the Shuffle.
Posted by: rubennyc
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 07/06/2007 14:47
Quote:
Perhaps I wasn't clear about the CENSORED. It does do gapless, but only via trickery on the server side. It doesn't do it on the fly. You must specifically mark the tracks in iTunes to be gapless, and then it tags the tracks in a special way so that the player can overlap them properly without having to do any processing on the files. I don't actually know what it's doing to accomplish this, but I know that the player doesn't try to do it on the fly.
This isn't a bad solution for gapless at all; it works quite well, I'm told. I'm just saying it's not the player doing it all by itself the way the empeg 3.0 software is doing it.
I understood the opposite to be true. I don't own an iPod, but, AFAIK, the gapless flag in iTunes is only used to tell iTunes what tracks not to crossfade when listening to them from iTunes. Other than updating the firmware, I don't believe there are any manual steps required at all to make the iPod honor gapless transitions.
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 28/10/2007 22:06
Ok, getting ready to try v3 again. I
I understand I need to install the developer build so that I can rebuild the database via the serial port. Fine so far. One question though, I assume that if I connect with Jemplode and change the playlists, add some MP3's, remove some MP3's, etc...will I need to manual rebuild the DB every time or is the database somehow writable when doing a sync operation?
Is Jemplode or Emplode prefable for working with V3 in general?
'm mainly interested in the possibility that the sound quality may be improved, not that its bad now or anything. I've always felt the D/A on my Empeg does not sound quite as good as when I play the same MP3 on my PC(using same speakers). I felt a need to boost a bit the mid-bass and upper-mid. Might be that some of the top end is also a bit filtered. (I encode all my MP3's with lame -k).
Anyway, perhaps its the decoder in Empegv2, so its worth a try on v3. Wish me luck.
Posted by: Attack
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 28/10/2007 23:04
Quote:
Is Jemplode or Emplode prefable for working with V3 in general?
I use Jemplode to sync audio to my empeg running v3 alpha 11 Japanese Edition. I never had to rebuild the database of the empeg by hand. I just deleted all my mp3's since I use ogg and flac instead of mp3's.
Posted by: JBjorgen
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 29/10/2007 10:42
I agree that JEmplode is best for V3. Just remember to close and re-open it in between syncs if you are doing multiples and you should be good.
Posted by: peter
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 29/10/2007 10:56
Really someone should just port kernel 2.6.20 to this thing and make it do mass-storage gadget on hda4 and hdc4...
Peter
Posted by: mlord
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 29/10/2007 11:07
Quote:
Really someone should just port kernel 2.6.20 to this thing and make it do mass-storage gadget on hda4 and hdc4...
Yeah, if it were still 2002, then that's what I'd be working on now (time paradoxes permitting).
But us Linux users have ftpfs and nfs available, which provide similar (but slower) functionality, so there's less impetus for me to worry about it.
But what is still really needed is a PC-side "sync" utility that also does the database update/rebuild. Some day I just might get fed up enough to actually write one.
JEmplode was almost there, but it never got the bugs worked out before the developer disappeared.
Cheers
Posted by: schofiel
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 31/10/2007 22:27
Have you got a Mk 2 or 2A/RioCar?
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 31/10/2007 22:32
mk2
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 01/11/2007 17:56
Well I have attempted to install v3, went fine. I managed to connect with hyperterminal and rebuild the DB, so that it boots up fine. Then I tried to connect with jemplode to remove all my music and start over. This is where problems arose. First I somehow ended up with about 10MB of orphaned MP3's on there. They don't show up on the player under any playlist, but when I connect with Jemplode I see them under the ALL node. I tried to select them and delete them and resync, but it always dies about half way through the sync. I can't seem to get rid of these files or get my empeg to a clean state where I can try to add all my songs.
Is there some way using hyperterminal to completely clean out the old databases and files to start clean?
Otherwise I guess I will have to go back to 2.01 and use Emplode to setup the music I want and only after that switch back to V3.
??
Posted by: mlord
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 01/11/2007 19:14
JEmplode always seems to totally mess up my collection, so I don't even attempt to use it anymore. Just straight Emplode 2.01 for me.
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 01/11/2007 19:23
I have here Emplode v2.00 and v2.10. I don't recall seeing v2.01. Does v2.00 work with Firmware v3? I tried the newest one...version 2.10, but it crashes immediately when I try to delete one of the orphaned songs... not even trying to sync...just deleting one song from the emplode GUI.
Posted by: Attack
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 01/11/2007 20:03
Emplode 2.10 is needed if you want to upload ogg or flac files. Jemplode works much better for me. You can use Hyper terminal to delete all your music. Check the FAQ for instructions.
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 01/11/2007 20:10
Thanks, I've already passed my patience limit. Going back to firmware 2.01 and emplode 2.01. Thanks.
Posted by: mlord
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 01/11/2007 20:42
Quote:
I have here Emplode v2.00 and v2.10. I don't recall seeing v2.01. Does v2.00 work with Firmware v3?
Yup, no problem at all here.
Posted by: pim
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 01/11/2007 20:49
Quote:
But what is still really needed is a PC-side "sync" utility that also does the database update/rebuild.
mp3tofid?
Pim
Posted by: mlord
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 01/11/2007 21:04
Quote:
Quote:
But what is still really needed is a PC-side "sync" utility that also does the database update/rebuild.
mp3tofid?
Pim
That doesn't od the database update/rebuild.
Posted by: schofiel
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 02/11/2007 00:22
There are a couple of small caps on the Mk 2 that affect top end treble on the forward speakers in the car, and the stereo pair at home. By removing them, I have seen/heard a noticeable improvement in sound quality at HF. Also, although impossible to prove, removing them seems to reduce external interference from alternators, especially on BMWs. This is HIGHLY subjective, and impossible to prove by looking at the circuit diagrams, but - I have heard the results! YMMV.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 02/11/2007 20:28
Yup, I believe we're discussing that very thing in another thread just now.
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 04/11/2007 22:19
Ok, not a happy camp here. Ever since trying out v3, realizing it was too buggy and wasting my time just to try syncronize the darn thing..I went back v2.01 and now i can't syncronize from here either.
Someone please tell me how I can cleanly an directly with hyperterminal remove all DB and MP3 files related to both the v2 and v3 attempts to start clean.
I am trying to use firmware 2.01 and emplode 2.01. I first removed all my tracks from the HD (I hope), emplode showed me complete space available and no tracks (the v3 DB is probably still lurking in there though). When I try to add one directory of MP3's from my PC, it syncs, everything works fine. I say ok, so then I try to add all of my MP3 dirs...about 80GB's worth, I go to sync. It gets maybe 10 minutes into it and then the Empeg sponanteously restarts, the Emplode dialog has a tons of warnings and the empg is left in a state with a lot of empty playlists and not fully syncronized.
Whatever occurred while I was trying out v3 firmware has totally messed up my empeg where I can't seem to get it resyncronized again. Someone please help.\
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/11/2007 12:40
Delete /empeg/var/database, /empeg/var/tags, and /empeg/var/playlists. That's all of the cached database files. The empeg will then regenerate them on the fly every time it boots until your next sync, when it will write them to the filesystem.
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/11/2007 15:30
Thanks. Is there any way to make sure all actual MP3 files are also removed from the Empeg?
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/11/2007 15:44
Quote:
Thanks. Is there any way to make sure all actual MP3 files are also removed from the Empeg?
All MP3s, their tags, and playlists are contained in:
drive1/fids
drive0/fids
Smoke those and you're golden.
Posted by: mlord
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/11/2007 18:33
Quote:
Thanks. Is there any way to make sure all actual MP3 files are also removed from the Empeg?
Re-run the builder.
Posted by: dewdman42
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/11/2007 18:37
rerunning the builder means what exactly?
Posted by: tfabris
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/11/2007 19:17
Quote:
rerunning the builder means what exactly?
It means connecting the player with a serial cable, and double-clicking on the file with the name builder_bigdisk.upgrade, as described in the drive upgrade guide.
This will launch the upgrader and install the builder image onto the player. When the player reboots, it will wipe any connected hard disks completely, repartition and reformat them, and prepare them for a new operating system and player firmware.
After that, you'll need to run car2_v2.01_hijack.upgrade to get a fresh copy of the player firmware on there.
Posted by: pim
Re: What is new in 3.0? - 05/11/2007 23:04
Quote:
Quote:
mp3tofid?
That doesn't do the database update/rebuild.
Yes it does, though not using the tunes on the player as the source.
Pim