Lame question, but are there any consequences to hacking your DMS / Keg?

[BioBob]

Just out of curiousity, does hacking your DMS mean anything else like dont ever do another authorized firmware update again on your keg (which should be pretty self explanitory NOT to do), or dont update Music Manager, etc.?  Basically, is there any loss of functionality to put in a 120 gig hd (since the 127 limit is still a little iffy...)

[VorTechS]

Doing an 'authorised' firmware update with have little consequence to your box if you don't have any plugins installed. 

If you do have plugins then you'll need to hack some files around to make them work, and maintain AAC playback [if you use aac encoded files].

This is set to change with the new DMS tools which I'm putting (what are hopefully) the finishing touches to, as you'll be able to create a new DMS with the authorised firmware and the relevant hacks in place.

[BioBob]

Naa, dont have any plugins installed, they are freaking annoying!  Oh the joyness of having Microsoft Sam announce the playlist you are on.  NOT!  Well, unless they had some sexy sounding Aussie announcer like my Garmin GPS does...  She sounds hoooooot!  (JK!)  Does M$ even offer any other voice prompts other than M$ Sam or Mary?

At any rate, I plan on cloning my DMS tomorrow after a few less beers and without being pestered every damn two seconds.  I have a 120 gig WD HD that Im planning on replacing my 10 gig with, so Im below the 127 gig limit I've read about.  One thing Im slightly concerned is that if I manage everything using PhatNoise software (non hacked), is it going to at least report my free space accurately?  And yes Im considering also that PN doesnt take into acct any other files I may have on the PHTDTA drive that arent music files (I know they dont get calculated in their db if they arent relevant to the DMS)...  Basically if I have 110 gigs free, I can still put music on?  Silly concern I know but hey, Im sure others might ask also...

By the way, looking forward to the new software.  I know how hard you have to work to accomplish something that seems absolutely trivial to most people...

[VorTechS]

Interestingly MS have left all the voice work for 3rd parties to deal with, although the Vista voices are a little better than their predecessors.  So you aren't going to get any voices from MS but there are, I'm sure, plenty of other vendors releasing voices.

There are some potential pitfalls with using PN Media/Music manager with a custom DMS.

In my tests with the new [not yet released] tools, I couldn't get Music Manager 2.30 or Media Manager 3.92 to actually recognise the DMS at all.

However, there were no such problems with PhatHack Media Manager - although I have yet to do any work with Free Space calculations, which should be relatively trivial.

At this point I'm hoping someone can jump in and tell you which version of PN MM will actually work with a custom DMS, as I'm not concerning myself with it seeing as I'm getting to the point where PhatHack MM will soon be writing the DMS content.

By the way, looking forward to the new software.  I know how hard you have to work to accomplish something that seems absolutely trivial to most people...

Well, when I've been writing it's certainly seems relatively trivial
The hardest part, as strange as it may seem, has been building the media player.
the parts that I would have considered to be less trivial [Ripping from CDs and transcoding the audio files] were done really quickly!

Anyway, I look forward to actually having my DMS managed by something that I know can be fixed - as I'm sure everyone else does!

It's just a shame the audio libraries I used aren't x64 compliant yet - everything else definately is, as I've written it to be!

[judb]

I can use 3.95 just fine with my 160 gig DMS, but in order to do so I had to "seed" the DMS by copying a small amount of music to it from PMM 1.85.  After doing that the DMS runs great in 2.30 and 3.95.

[VorTechS]

There's a 3.95?  When'd that happen?

[Anton]

another consequence... you might grow horns.


Jud,  that is interesting I will have to try seeding my DMS.