Mac OS 8,9 use

Thought I would share a little info, since the posts I found were out of date.

1) Jemplode does not work with a 'real' Mac (ie running Mac OS 7,8,9). Apparently it requires a new version of Java that is not available.

2) Virtual PC works well.

I hooked the RioCar up to an old (PR200) PC my neighbor gave me to start with, but gave up on the POS. I have not tried running the software updates over the serial cable with the Mac yet or tried to use the limited USB support in VPC 2.x, I have my Empeg hooked up to my home ethernet network.

I fire up SoundJam MP and let it rip and burn the tracks for an album and have it do the CDDB lookup. It does a great job on my G3/350 getting about 8x rip and 2.5x-3x for encode. I set SJ for Best VBR with a 128k floor and the files end up averaging 150-170Kb/s.

Then I have to enter the year by hand (select all, get info, enter year, click OK) - don't know why but SJ is not good at remembering the year data.

Then convert the ID data. (Select all, convert ID tags, select a version [I have been using the latest, 2.4 I think], OK).

Then I make sure the TCP/IP control panel is set for my local network. IP-10.1.1.2, 255.255.255.0 netmask. Close control panel (ctrl-K lets you change config quick & easily in TCP/IP control panel) before starting VPC.

Then I fire up VPC (Virtual PC). I am using 2.1.3. It has the network options setup to match the Mac (10.1.1.2, etc).

For some reason Empeg causes an error when loading songs from the directory on the mac loaded via the Folder sharing thing in VPC, so I copy the songs from the regular place on the mac to a temp folder in the C: drive. This goes pretty quick. Then I can fire up EMPEG, create the playlist for the album, and add all the songs. Sync it. Quit VPC.


[Has anybody got Epeg under VPC to read the files directly from the shared folder. Will loading Win 98 on VPC fix this?]

I won't recommend running Mac OS X, because it isn't going to be very satisfying on a G3 at any speed. But, just to let you know, people run do run it, even on slightly upgraded 8600 and 9600's (and similar Umax and PComputing machines).

A "real" Mac does not run any version of OS 8 any more. A "real" Mac won't even run an OS 7.x installer. If you are at all serious about running OS 7, I suggest you pick up a 6100 or maybe even a Centris or Quadra and go to town.

On a Beige or B&W G3, you should be running a minimum of OS 9.1. OS 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 have their problems, but they should be able to be overcome. They also come with OpenGL 1.2.2 in case you want to run anything 3D (accelerated).

Isn't there a Java installation somewhere you can put on your machine? I'll see if I can remember to look into this when I get to work. If I have the chance I'll try downloading and firing up JEmplode as well.

You know how you chose those comments for the P200 you were given? I say the same thing when I have to use anything other than a G4.

Bruno

I use 8.6. It works well.

9.0 may or may not break my cheap USB modem and costs $$$ and doesn't seem to run any more apps I care about or make my machine go faster (though I guess I get a copy of iTunes, whoop de do when you have Sound Jam). I may upgrade some day. I doubt I will go with X on this machine due to the pain of installation and the upgrades needed (IDE card, printer, ink carts, some new software, still a G3, etc)

My Centris is still at 7.5.5 though (mostly sits unplugged).

At least my S900/G3 will rip a CD reliably and encodes about 6+ times faster than the PC.

I sent in a message to Jemplode help and they reported back that I need Java SDK 1.2 (soon 1.3) or later and MRJ 2.2.5 is only Java 1.1.8. I tried downloang the appropriate pieces that add a little back functionallity, and it got farther before I got an error. Apples position is use X if you want a current version of Java.

Hmm, I was able to run JEmplode on 9.1.2. I can't remember what the MRJ version is, but I haven't done anything special other than install the OS and whatever updates Apple sent my way.

I also don't remember the version of JEmplode. It's possible that it was older, but if you want to stay at 1.03 on your player, it might work.

Then I have to enter the year by hand (select all, get info, enter year, click OK) - don't know why but SJ is not good at remembering the year data.

Because the year isn't an available field in the CDDB. Newer versions of the CDDB have a field for the year, but it's not filled in very frequently.

Did you manage to track down Swing 1.1.1 version for JDK 1.1? I'm curious where you get an error? I've actually tried to stay away from 1.2 API's as much as possible even though we don't officially support 1.1 anymore ... I don't know about the MP3 ID3 parser, though ..... Let me know what error you get... If you haven't gotten swing yet, you can find it on java.sun.com/products/jfc (I think)

Mike

The new version (b11?) now works on my Mac. Yeah! No need for VPC. And it works pretty well.

For this to work I go into the TCP/IP control panel and set it for local ethernet, exit. Then run jemplode.

The only bugs I got: For the genre I get (17) instead of 'Rock'. The year shows up as -1 if I don't fill it it (this may be intentional).

How do you reorder the songs. I had to rerip a song and it shows up last (5th entry, '4' instead of third entry) - is the track x of y data part of the ID2.3 data?

You can reorder with the Move Up, Move Down options (either right click, hit the up/down arrows on the button bar, or it's probably under the Edit menu too). Also, you can sort by a particular column, then click on Set Playlist Order... to make the playlist in the order of the current sort.

Mike

I think the numerical genres are an iTunes problem. For some reason, they chose to use numbers and an internal lookup table.

Any way to compensate for this in jemplode? (translate genres automatically?)

Armin

Just FYI, ID3v2 allows the use of numbers within parentheses to refer to the ID3v1 genre IDs. It's supposed to then follow it with a text description, but that's not required. Anyway, that's what iTunes appears to be doing.

SoundJam (which iTunes is based on) lets you pick the version of ID3 tags to use. 2.3 works, except the genre shows up as a number (works fine in empeg on VPC) 2.2 doesn't work at all (no info read in Jemplode) 1.1 works fine 1.0 - I didn't test