Just saw this thing for the first time today and thought some of you might be interested.

I'll keep my empeg but this actually doesn't look too bad for the price.
removable
expandable memory up to 80GB
search capablilty
direct encoding to mp3 from radio, line in, etc.
voice memo recording

Nothing quite as classy as a wired remote display.

Doesn't look too terrible nice to know there's something out there in case someone wants to trade their Canon 10D for my empeg...(hey be honest everything has a price.. even the empeg)

Here's the real website for this thing:
http://www.perceptiondigital.com/products/audio/car_jukebox/

I think I'll pass.

Tough call.

Which do I love more... my Canon 10D or EMPEG... Canon 10D or EMPEG.. Canon 10D or EMPEG.

I think I like my EMPEG more, but will not part with my Camera either though.

After looking at their site, another nice feature it has that the empeg doesn't is the ability create and save playlists on the player itself. Also the ability to delete playlists or folders from the unit itself.
But now that I think about it, that would require the drive to be mounted read/write. So lets do a little math here...

read/write + 3.5 inch drive + pothole = buying a new drive

Well, you know, there's not much difference between read/write and read-only as long as the disk is spun up. The empeg could keep newly defined playlists in memory until it needed to access the disk for normal operations and do it during that time, mounting rw instead of ro just for that instance. It should also have an indication that it needs to flush until it does, but since the user requested that it store something, the user should know. It should also have a menu option to manually flush. It should also probably try to flush when the ignition is cut, as that probably means the car isn't moving. It ought to not turn off the display immediately in that case, but show something like ``Writing -- Please Wait'' until it's done, at which point it'd cut off.

I don't think that would be too difficult.

Then again, you can save bookmarks as is. It'd be nice if they were accessible via emplode for premanent storage, though. That'd be a nice feature. Probably more useful, too, as trying to enter a name for the playlist and organize it in the car would probably be more trouble (and danger) than its worth.

The empeg could keep newly defined playlists in memory until it needed to access the disk for normal operations and do it during that time, mounting rw instead of ro just for that instance.

Me thinks about taking a trip to the wish list.

And also just because you are the "grammar police"...

premanent storage

anybody else see anything wrong here

..or we could just switch to a journalled file system.

Oh, wait, we are going to!

Rob

anybody else see anything wrong here

Not really. The term "storage" does not have an implied duration.

When you store a gallon of milk in your refrigerator, do you assume that it is going to be there forever? Sometimes (most times, actually) storage is temporary.

tanstaafl.

I think that he meant the typo, Doug.

Uhmm.... He knew that, he was just trying to be funny... yeah, that's it.

I dont see what the big deal is for someone who already owns an empeg.... but check this out... i just thought of this... correct me if i'm wrong (that's directed to the guys that made this thing)

The part that i dont like is the ability to "encode from your head unit" becuase its gotta do it via the Analog cable... that means that you're going to get crappy encodings of mp3s. You might get line noise from the engine, but you wont get as good of a mp3 if you were to "rip" it on your pc. Its like making an mp3 my recording via your line in on your pc. Thoes mp3s sound pretty lously IMHO. THEN on top of that, you're stuck with a copy of your friend's CD that you just "encoded" in your collection, in a crappy quality. Now, you're building a crappy mp3 collection, to then trade with people online, or via P2P, and now you're spreading crappy encodings of mp3s! ARGGG!!

This is the lazy way out of doing it RIGHT! ... which would be with a CD rom/Audio CD player in the dash, that will RIP digitally from the CD! That's how it should be done!

Dont get me started about the voice memo thing.... i'm sure that will sound like crap once you roll down the window and then leave a voice memo, "dont forget milk on the way home!"

It has usb also. You could still use your computer to rip and encode the music then load it onto the player through usb. It would be nice to be able to record the radio though. And radio already sounds like crap anyways so it wouldn't matter if it was a bad encoding. That way, you would have your favorite radio programs on the player, along with quality mp3's

I agree, and that's why it's not much different from the empeg. But It would be cool if the empeg could record off the radio. I wonder how many people would really use that feature.

This is the lazy way out of doing it RIGHT! ... which would be with a CD rom/Audio CD player in the dash, that will RIP digitally from the CD! That's how it should be done!

There are a few products on the market that do this already, and at least one that I wish were on the market. (Click here for photo)