new Empeg?

Posted by: haffi

new Empeg? - 07/07/2007 21:52

Has anyone found anything that today is and "up to date empeg" meaning,
New hardware and something that can do the same thing as our beloved empeg, but
Has newer hardware(gb ethernet, wifi ? Sata drivers ? more mem and such ? )
What are the current ppl that designed empeg using today ? Are they not building something more cool ?

Posted by: schofiel

Re: new Empeg? - 08/07/2007 04:58

Yup they are....

Posted by: peter

Re: new Empeg? - 08/07/2007 11:43

Quote:
What are the current ppl that designed empeg using today ? Are they not building something more cool ?

Former Empeg employees are today spread across many different companies: some at Sigmatel, some at Numark, two at Roku, two at Apple, and so on. The most recently-released, and probably the final, product in direct descent from the Empeg is the Trekstor Vibez portable MP3 player: that was our H4, our swan-song, our this-is-what-you-could-have-won.

A Squeezebox, or maybe a Roku Soundbridge, is a better purchase now than a Rio Receiver, and the equal of the car-player Receiver Edition.

Several companies (though, sadly, not us) now produce devices which effectively supersede the Rio Central.

The Trekstor Vibez supersedes all the Rio hard-drive portables, and many companies including Apple and Creative have superseded the Rio flash-based portables.

But the car-player... aaah, the car-player. Seven years later there is still no other product in that form factor that can do what I do with mine: turn up to parties with 150+Gbytes of FLAC music in a small cloth bag, and demand only mains power and a line-input to access it all, with a remote-control and a remotely-readable display. As an actual car stereo, I don't even know now whether it has any equals, although for a while now it's at least had competitors -- it didn't even have those for some years. So while it would be nice to think some or all of the car-player team might one day "build something more cool" than the car-player, I wouldn't be surprised if none of us ever did.

Peter

Posted by: FireFox31

Re: new Empeg? - 08/07/2007 13:57

Seven year old? Or nine year old? I thought the MK1 "worked on the first try" back in 1998?

Posted by: peter

Re: new Empeg? - 08/07/2007 14:39

Quote:
Seven year old? Or nine year old? I thought the MK1 "worked on the first try" back in 1998?

Well, true. But I was thinking of the Mark 2, which mine is, and some of whose features -- Ethernet, particularly -- I can't do without.

Peter

Posted by: brax

Re: new Empeg? - 15/07/2007 01:25

Several years ago around the time the Empeg had been out for a year or two, SSI Neo had a hard drive based radio and mp3 player that they were looking to release. Not sure why but it was never released. Now it had no where near the functions as the Empeg from what I remember, it was basically just a radio and a hard drive based mp3 player that was in a 1 1/2 din chassis. I believe that it did have a CD slot though from what I recall. It did not have an advanced EQ like the Empeg does or the open type interface to be able to add software hacks.

Someone here may remember it better then I. They decided to release the Neo Jukebox and run with it. I had emailed them about the radio/mp3 when I came across it about when it was to be released because it was going to be half the cost of the Empeg. They said that it was still in the development stage and it never made it to market.

I doubt seriously that there will ever be anything like the Empeg, a radio/ hard drive mp3 player/EQ/hackable all in one unit. I know that some of the "big" companies have come out with their hard drive mp3/radio players (I believe that Pioneer had one) they were close in price to the Empeg. I think the Empeg has some better "features for the money" and the others are not able to be played at home and limited on drive size.

Posted by: brax

Re: new Empeg? - 15/07/2007 10:39

I knew a little surfing would find an old link

SSI Neo 5100

Posted by: haffi

Re: new Empeg? - 15/07/2007 21:03

aye I had NEO 35
before I bought my empeg since I did not want to stash out the 1000$ it cost at that time. However it was just normail disk with a small bios software running on it with just play ability and it really did not to any justice to being a good player... I sold it and was very happy.

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 13/08/2007 13:52

Quote:
The most recently-released, and probably the final, product in direct descent from the Empeg is the Trekstor Vibez portable MP3 player: that was our H4, our swan-song, our this-is-what-you-could-have-won.

This just made me very very sad.

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: new Empeg? - 18/10/2007 01:59

Quote:
Quote:
The most recently-released, and probably the final, product in direct descent from the Empeg is the Trekstor Vibez portable MP3 player: that was our H4, our swan-song, our this-is-what-you-could-have-won.

This just made me very very sad.

Worse, I just had to go buy one

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 26/10/2007 16:45

Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
The most recently-released, and probably the final, product in direct descent from the Empeg is the Trekstor Vibez portable MP3 player: that was our H4, our swan-song, our this-is-what-you-could-have-won.

This just made me very very sad.

Worse, I just had to go buy one

So, how are you liking it?

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: new Empeg? - 06/11/2007 23:50

Quote:
So, how are you liking it?

Wish I could tell you. Backordered at Amazon until later this month.

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 07/11/2007 10:59

Quote:
Quote:
So, how are you liking it?

Wish I could tell you. Backordered at Amazon until later this month.

Uh oh. With Cornice out of business, I wonder where they're getting their 12 GB drives. If the answer is, nobody, you're 12 GB HDD vibez may turn into an 8 GB flash vibez.

^ This is pure conjecture, of course.

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: new Empeg? - 15/11/2007 00:00

Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
So, how are you liking it?

Wish I could tell you. Backordered at Amazon until later this month.

Uh oh. With Cornice out of business, I wonder where they're getting their 12 GB drives. If the answer is, nobody, you're 12 GB HDD vibez may turn into an 8 GB flash vibez.

^ This is pure conjecture, of course.

Well I got a shipment notice today. Supposed to be here on the 21st.

Posted by: schofiel

Re: new Empeg? - 15/11/2007 16:30

I've just bought one recently, with the FM tuner. I have to say, damn nice bit of kit, actually. Reminds me a lot of the Karma, but this is in colour! Great fun. Have already loaded about 5G onto it and I am really enjoying it.

If they can improve the availability and also that of the accessories (specifically the remote and the pedestal/stereo connector) then it would be just perfect.

Shame there's no-one left to carry on the development

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 15/11/2007 16:35

Quote:

If they can improve the availability and also that of the accessories (specifically the remote and the pedestal/stereo connector) then it would be just perfect.

Shame there's no-one left to carry on the development

Isn't Peter still there? Or did he jump ship as well?

On the accessories, the in-line remote works very nicely. I also highly recommend the custom vibez case made by Noreve. A near perfect fit and offers excellent protection.

Posted by: andy

Re: new Empeg? - 15/11/2007 17:25

Quote:
Quote:

If they can improve the availability and also that of the accessories (specifically the remote and the pedestal/stereo connector) then it would be just perfect.

Shame there's no-one left to carry on the development

Isn't Peter still there? Or did he jump ship as well?

Dunno, this was what Hugo had to say about it on the empeg Facebook group when I asked if everyone had left (when John Ripley left):

"Pretty much.... a shame, but there's only so much mismanagement and pointless dead-ends that people can take. There's a lesson in there somewhere... actually, there's a whole book of lessons with accompanying workbook and lecture series.

<sigh>"

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: new Empeg? - 18/11/2007 00:38

Quote:
I've just bought one recently, with the FM tuner. I have to say, damn nice bit of kit, actually. Reminds me a lot of the Karma, but this is in colour! Great fun. Have already loaded about 5G onto it and I am really enjoying it.

Mine showed up early and I have only a few songs on it, but it seems like a very well sorted bit of hardware/software and I love the size/layout. I just have to figure out what to do to manage playlists and such sans emplode.

Quote:
If they can improve the availability and also that of the accessories (specifically the remote and the pedestal/stereo connector) then it would be just perfect.

Shame there's no-one left to carry on the development

I will confess to a little treble melancholia. Just got back from seeing "No Country for Old Men" and the first song that comes up on the Vibez is Kathleen Edwards "In State" and I have to look at the Vibez menu and contemplate that there may not be a Vibez Supremo. The thought of all that code getting put in a cardboard box and tossed in a musty basement....what could have been.

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 18/11/2007 12:26

FYI, you may want to give the vibez faq over at Riovolution a read: http://www.riovolution.org/thread/523

Sadly, the vibez does not offer you a way to manage playlists independently of the Now Playing list (Menu -> Now Playing). The Now Playing list is just as powerful as the Karma's, and you can save that as a named playlist. But to edit a saved playlist, you need to load it as the Now Playling list, change what you want, then save it back.

Or, use your favorite .m3u playlist editor on your computer and copy it down.

Posted by: altman

Re: new Empeg? - 19/11/2007 03:33

Quote:
Shame there's no-one left to carry on the development

Oh but there is... Richard is now at Trekstor, and I have every reason to believe he's working on the empeg codebase still. For those who didn't know, Richard was the one behind the extras in the Carbon's "developers cut"

Hugo

Posted by: LittleBlueThing

Re: new Empeg? - 19/11/2007 09:45

Quote:
Richard is now at Trekstor, and I have every reason to believe he's working on the empeg codebase still.

Hugo

Could you please avoid saying 'empeg codebase' - I find it too emotionally distressing

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 19/11/2007 12:38

Quote:
Quote:
Shame there's no-one left to carry on the development

Oh but there is... Richard is now at Trekstor, and I have every reason to believe he's working on the empeg codebase still. For those who didn't know, Richard was the one behind the extras in the Carbon's "developers cut"

Hugo

Oh, please, please, please tell me this means a firmware update is coming! I really miss being able to edit saved playlists without interrupting what I'm listening to. (Plus the small handful of annoying bugs that need to be fixed.)

This sounds like very very good news.

Posted by: peter

Re: new Empeg? - 20/11/2007 11:52

Quote:
Isn't Peter still there? Or did he jump ship as well?

I jumped ship the other week. There's no-one left at Sigmatel now who was ever an employee of Empeg Limited; not even anyone who was in 2003's Chapter 11 photo. The final remaining person there ever to have worked on the car-player is Dave, who did a lot of work (including all the tuner stuff) for the skunkworks v3 alphas.

Peter

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 20/11/2007 12:30

Quote:
Quote:
Isn't Peter still there? Or did he jump ship as well?

I jumped ship the other week. There's no-one left at Sigmatel now who was ever an employee of Empeg Limited; not even anyone who was in 2003's Chapter 11 photo. The final remaining person there ever to have worked on the car-player is Dave, who did a lot of work (including all the tuner stuff) for the skunkworks v3 alphas.

Peter

Hopefully on to greener pastures? Best of luck with the new job.

On a related note: Can you tell us if an updated vibez firmware actually was in the works or not? I don't trust anything the guys over in TrekStor's tech support group tell me.

Thx.

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 21/11/2007 15:54

Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Isn't Peter still there? Or did he jump ship as well?

I jumped ship the other week. There's no-one left at Sigmatel now who was ever an employee of Empeg Limited; not even anyone who was in 2003's Chapter 11 photo. The final remaining person there ever to have worked on the car-player is Dave, who did a lot of work (including all the tuner stuff) for the skunkworks v3 alphas.

Peter

Hopefully on to greener pastures? Best of luck with the new job.

On a related note: Can you tell us if an updated vibez firmware actually was in the works or not? I don't trust anything the guys over in TrekStor's tech support group tell me.

Thx.

Looks like my question has been answered on a certain other board.

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: altman

Re: new Empeg? - 21/11/2007 21:49

Which other board, btw? I have to say I have no idea whether new firmware would appear for the Vibez or not, I was just saying that it's at least in the realms of possibility given who works there

Hugo

Posted by: andy

Re: new Empeg? - 21/11/2007 22:01

http://www.riovolution.org/thread/794

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 22/11/2007 00:17

Quote:
http://www.riovolution.org/thread/794

AgentM fell of the face of the Earth, but the Riovolution lives on.

BTW: Great work on v1.11 so far. My eternal gratitude to everyone involved. I got so spoiled by the Karma that no other portable on the market could make me as happy as this.

Posted by: jimhogan

The Trekstor Parrot - 22/11/2007 16:33

Well, after about 3 hours of use, it is making a repetitive hard drive clicking noise and won't allow me to load music. Then it disappears as a device.

I am getting the feeling that it is an ex-Vibez.

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 22/11/2007 23:02

Quote:
Well, after about 3 hours of use, it is making a repetitive hard drive clicking noise and won't allow me to load music. Then it disappears as a device.

I am getting the feeling that it is an ex-Vibez.

I may be American, but I actually got the Monty Python reference.

That sucks, dude. Definitely RMA it. I've had mine since March with no such problems. Hell, a month ago, it took a double bounce from the top of a treadmill, onto the moving belt which then flung it 10 feet onto the gym floor; and it hasn't missed a beat.

Then, when you get the replacement, throw the v1.11 Beta on it asap.

Posted by: altman

Re: new Empeg? - 23/11/2007 19:12

Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
So, how are you liking it?

Wish I could tell you. Backordered at Amazon until later this month.

Uh oh. With Cornice out of business, I wonder where they're getting their 12 GB drives. If the answer is, nobody, you're 12 GB HDD vibez may turn into an 8 GB flash vibez.

^ This is pure conjecture, of course.

Obviously the flash would be nice (and in the same size as that drive you could get 32GB nowadays I suspect), but Hitachi make identical drives to the ones Cornice did - in fact, Cornice licensed the form factor & connector from Hitachi - so Trekstor could just use Hitachi drives instead.

ISTR Hitachi were at 8GB and were going to jump up again, but that's old info (more than a year) so maybe 1" drives have now been eaten by flash capacities... it's all very well being able to pack a motor, heads, etc into a 1" drive, but when you're comparing actual disk real estate to the "support mechanics" of a drive, you can see that 1" technology is going to fall victim to flash first... then 1.8", then 2.5" etc.

Hugo

Posted by: peter

Re: new Empeg? - 23/11/2007 20:25

Quote:
Looks like my question has been answered on a certain other board. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't thank me, I had nothing to do with it. I don't know for certain, but I suspect that the new Riovolution member "Defector" would be a better point-of-contact for either praise or complaints...

Peter

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: new Empeg? - 23/11/2007 22:32

Quote:
Quote:
Looks like my question has been answered on a certain other board. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't thank me, I had nothing to do with it. I don't know for certain, but I suspect that the new Riovolution member "Defector" would be a better point-of-contact for either praise or complaints...

Peter

Well, I'm going to thank you anyway for helping to keep the code alive post-Rio/DNNA.

Posted by: schofiel

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 03/12/2007 21:06

OK, so held a poor lad out here - where is 1.11 Beta?

Posted by: schofiel

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 03/12/2007 21:24

Shaddap, Rob.....

Posted by: rubennyc

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 04/12/2007 11:38

Quote:
OK, so held a poor lad out here - where is 1.11 Beta?

http://www.trekstor-uk.co.uk/beta/update-vibez-beta-v1.11.htm

Post any bugs & feedback in this thread on Riovolution -> http://www.riovolution.org/thread/794

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 05/12/2007 02:25

Amazon's tendency to offer "you might also like..." makes me nervous from a Big Brother perspective, so I don't order much from them. It was about the only place I found the Vibez, though.

On the upside, their RMA process was the easiest and slickest I have ever seen. I got so excited I pre-emptively bought another Vibez with 2-day shipping via "XXX'. You'll like this. I ordered on the 28th:

12/4/2007 5:34 pm Scheduled for delivery Seattle, WA
12/4/2007 6:17 am With delivery courier. Seattle, WA
12/3/2007 8:57 am With delivery courier. Seattle, WA
12/3/2007 8:46 am Arrived at XXX facility. Seattle, WA
12/1/2007 1:43 am Depart Facility Chehalis Regional Hub, WA
11/30/2007 6:56 pm In transit. Bellevue, WA
11/30/2007 5:57 pm Depart Facility Bellevue, WA
11/30/2007 9:01 am Shipment arrived at incorrect facility. Sent to correct destination. Bellevue, WA
11/30/2007 6:40 am Arrived at XXX facility. Bellevue, WA
11/29/2007 3:34 pm Depart Facility Wilmington - Clinton Field, OH
11/29/2007 10:06 am Processed at XXX Location. Wilmington - Clinton Field, OH
11/28/2007 4:59 pm Picked Up by XXX.

So, picked up on 28th and leaves Ohio on the 29th and at 7AM on the 30th it is within 10 miles of my house (Bellevue).

But that's no good. We gotta put it on a truck and send it 100 miles south to Chehalis!

And of course then we have to flood Interstate 5 between Chehalis and Seattle to totally screw things up.

Given the hardships many other people are suffering this week as their cars disappear into sinkholes and their homes slide down hillsides, I am hardly concerned about this trifle, but I find the system's decision to send it 90 miles farther away quite amusing.

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 11/12/2007 02:04

Well the RMA Trekstor got here (and another one I decided to snag). I also decided to get an FM tuner module. The FM module is either just as bad as many people have said or it is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. You decide.

I have both Vibez hooked up to my Fedora MPS Cray emulator and I am copying 10 384k ultra VBR OGG copies of _Night on Bald Mountain_ back and forth between them to stress test the itty-bitty hard drives. If they survive until next Sunday then I face the more serious issue of deciding what playlist tools to use to organize music on these. I have been fooling with Amarok. Not sure if it will work.

Posted by: altman

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 13/12/2007 00:29

Hmmm, those itty bitty hard drives are not specced for continuous operation, so I can believe that stressing them seriously could cause failures.

The typical use profile (after syncing) usually doesn't entail running for long periods of time.

Hugo

Posted by: jimhogan

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 14/12/2007 00:42

Originally Posted By: altman

Notorious purveyor of bullshit that I am, I figured you knew that I don't have an emulated Cray or 384 MP3s (would that even be in the spec?), so I haven't really been abusing the new (My Precious!) Vibez. I am interested to know what kind of duty they *can* support, though. The previous Vibez shucked off its mortal coil sometime during the effort to transfer about 5GB of music.

Posted by: altman

Re: The Trekstor Parrot - 14/12/2007 04:45

Originally Posted By: jimhogan

Originally Posted By: altman

Mmm that was definitely a bit quick. I guess a lot depends on temperature, etc, but I suspect that more than a couple of hours continuous operation would be pushing it. ISTR the assumed duty cycle was written somewhere in the datasheet, but that was rather a long time ago and I don't remember.

My vibez is still working fine, apart from the awful wheel thing they covered the sensible wheel control with. If you want to see the actual wheel that was going to be on the Rio 1.8" players, take a look at the Sansa Connect - that's the exact rio wheel, same moulds and everything. Ok, we had some LEDs added round the side to light up the play/pause, skip track, etc icons, but it's the wheel. What might have been, etc... it's a pretty good control in that form.

Hugo

Posted by: rubennyc

vibez v1.13 - 14/12/2007 15:59

v1.13 anybody? Just posted this morning.

http://www.trekstor-uk.co.uk/beta/update-vibez-beta-v1.13.htm