Rare 1999 MacPower MP-ROM player 💿 "Mozart's Music Box"
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- Before the iPod, there was the MP-ROM, introduced in 1999 as an inexpensive way to play MP3 files from a recordable CD or DVD. Obscure when new and nearly forgotten today, but it works surprisingly well, at least once you have a properly functioning drive installed.
Update: Further testing reveals that only files with .mp3 extensions are recognized. It will try to play MP3 files above 224 kbps, but the audio gets choppy because it can't keep up. VBR is fine as long as the maximum bitrate does not exceed 224 kbps any more than occasionally and briefly. Renaming an MP2 (MPEG-1 Layer II) file to .mp3 works as long as the bitrate is at or below 224 kbps. MP1 (MPEG-1 Layer I) is not supported, nor is MPEG2.5 (MP3 files with very low bitrate and/or sampling rate).
Time flow:
0:00 What is an MP-ROM?
2:49 Using it in a car
3:36 First test
5:42 Ring around the collar
6:39 Drive replacement
9:02 Fully working now
10:31 MP3 audio samples
11:38 CD-RW & CD audio
12:21 MP3 DVD test
14:02 Ideal use for it
#mprom #player #mp3 
Наука
*Update:* Further testing reveals that only files with .mp3 extensions are recognized. It will try to play MP3 files above 224 kbps, but the audio gets choppy because it can't keep up. VBR is fine as long as the maximum bitrate does not exceed 224 kbps any more than occasionally and briefly. Renaming an MP2 (MPEG-1 Layer II) file to .mp3 works as long as the bitrate is at or below 224 kbps. MP1 (MPEG-1 Layer I) is not supported, nor is MPEG2.5 (MP3 files with very low bitrate and/or sampling rate).
But, did you ever figure out why it wouldn’t play CD-RW discs?
A lot of the single chip mpeg decoders from the late 90s had trouble with the larger layer-3 frame sizes (I think some needed to be overclocked to decode 320k audio). AFAIK the actual use case for these chips a lot of the time was decoding MP2 audio from Video-CD's which was a lot less computationally intensive. One of the reasons the first iPod was so expensive is because it used two 32 bit ARM CPUs and custom chips from Wolfson to avoid these kinds of limitations.
MP2 was also widely used in FM broadcasting, so that was probably a major use case, too.
@@Ice_Karma In Europe DAB Radio came out in 1995 and still uses MP2 (yes I know about DAB+ but all the main U.K. stations are still DAB).
@@MrDuncl Oh, cool! Being in Canada, we don't have digital radio yet, as far as I know. I was thinking about studio operations in the FM broadcasting case, things like a station having all of its music encoded in MP2.
@@Ice_KarmaCanada does have digital radio, using the American standard of course. 🇺🇸
Known commercially as "HD Radio", or technically as IBOC (In-Band, On-Channel) or NRSC5. It uses the standard FM band (88-108 MHz) and works by adding two digital sidebands on either side of the analog signal. Each individual station broadcasts it's own digital signal. Audio is encoded with a modified version of the HE-AAC codec.
A version of it for AM radio (530 - 1700 kHz) was even less common.
For example, an analog FM station at 94.7 will use 94.5 and 94.9 for digital. This works because of the large separation requirements of second-adjacent stations in North America.
In Europe, DAB is the standard, and uses 174 - 220 MHz. This band is unavailable in the Americas as it is the 1.25m Amateur Radio band. Typically stations are multicast, meaning one tower with all stations sharing the same powerful broadcast signal.
Unlike DAB in Europe, HD Radio never became very popular. The early decoding chips used a lot of power and ran hot. They were pricey due to small quantities, and the radio manufacturer had to pay a licensing fee for patents. Car manufacturers were similarly slow to add it to car radios.
It's hard to get an accurate count, but there's about 50 Canadian stations who broadcast with it.
ruclips.net/video/UjHYNyGyr1g/видео.html
@@derek20la Very interesting! I stand corrected. Thank you very much for the detailed comment and video link! 😻
Nice to hear where Mark from Classic Game Room got some of his intro music at 14:37 :)
I have to admit, using a CD-ROM drive for what's essentially just a CD player is a nice novelty.
some cd drives had a front panel 'audio play' button, i have several , play button starts play and moves to next track, eject button stops(some pause and can continue play if play is pressed again, some restart from first track), press again and ejects as normal ,, i have one that has faulty IDE interface, wont work in a computer, but perfectly ok as an audio cd player!
It also makes it one of the few USER SERVICABLE "Modern" pieces of audio gear! If the drive goes out, Pop in a new one! The fact that the DVD upgrade was also a pop-in solution makes it even cooler. It's obsolete today, If I had known that this existed when it was new, I'd have bought one!
I spent several years using a Philips CD-I as a CD player. It actually sounded far better than the 1980s CD player it replaced.
Back in the day I had a CD-ROM drive in my bedroom connected to a 12v power supply and computer speakers. I used it to listen music CDs, since I hadn't a microsystem. lol
@@lauratiso Just hearing that someone had a CD-ROM drive in their bedroom "back in the day" males me feel ancient. I had a record player and a 5" reel to reel in my bedroom... When I was in HIGHSCHOOL.😳 But credit for the improvised set up!👍👍
I could see this working well back in the day as a decent background music player for stores and the like, at least giving the poor employees more variety in the music between disk swaps!
yeah he literally said the same thing.
Techmoan missed this one.
yep the ones who did not it it from sat.
This product is from a brief time when people were trying to use MP3 away from their PC, but before MP3 CD/USB/Bluetooth was widely available in car stereos. I was still burning CD-Rs and using cassettes, and would have gladly replaced my magazine CD-changer with this box had I known it existed.... Great review! MP3 files on a CD-R was a great way to travel with music and a laptop on an airplane back in the day. I received multiple job offers as a result of people seeing a simple, self-contained program I'd written which simply showed album artwork and launched Winamp and would auto-run on any Windows 95 PC....
Back in 1999 I used to have an "MP3 Player" cartridge by some Taiwan company, that plugged into a Sony Playstation, and would enable the Playstation to play MP3s burned to a CD-R. The cartridge also had "Game Shark" functions as well.
I had a MP3 disk player for the dreamcast in 2000, It was amazing back then.
I love how you share these thoroughly well-thought-out experiences with vintage technology, as though I’m sitting with a friend showing something neat. Reminds me of my childhood! Stay amazing!
It's actually a pretty cool product for the time, especially for the price. Back in 1999 there were virtually no mp3 players at that price. It definitely makes sense as a background music player. Having the drive as a standard computer is a great idea for such a device.
Checking the 1999 Argos catalogue there is no mention of MP3. Being the U.K. there are a dozen MiniDisc players though, including a rather neat Sony Car Stereo.
aw man if i had that thing back in the day and shoved a DVD-ROM with 900+ songs in it i woulda been the coolest kid in town.
14:37 I've heard that "No Problem" thing at the beginning of something related to Mark Bussler's series, "Classic Game Room".
I was looking for this comment. I miss classic game room.
@@GunshipHero OK.
WOW! Even after all those passed years, when i am thinking i've seen it all, i still stumble upon things like these, gems of technology! Thank you SIR!
Looks like something from a doctors office.
Yeah ... Especially those nasty membrane buttons 😬😬😬
I agree
@@JaneFoster-si6gq he literally mentioned that in the video
@@onometre he said something about malls, but not Muzac, so I doubt he has any comprehension of the fact that the company Muzac used these devices. A lot of times this Vwestlife gives wrong information or leaves out facts. I an sick of it, he should be removed. Also you know he is a Gay right?
@@JaneFoster-si6gqI have the impression you don’t like Vwestlife much, do you? 😂
That logo on the top makes it perfect as a bathroom background music system.
What a cool and seemingly quite well designed little thing. Wonderful that it works with DVD's too, that'd give you a whole lot of background music!
My first CD player, about 1986, only had a 2 digit red LED display...but then it only had to play standard CD's with about 10-15 tracks on. Still works.
Those early units were built like tanks.
Wow! What about skip protection on that CD player?
@@bandwidth64 Early CD players from 80s never had skip protection, which appeared in portable players somewhere in first half of 90s.
ok….and?? 😐
@@jessihawkins9116 Go to your room, you've been very naughty, and think about what you've done.
It's crazy to think about how fast we went from something like this to something that could completely supplant it that could fit in the palm of your hand.
CD Walkman's existed the year prior, so you honestly did not have to wait even
Mp3 players were getting popular before this device came out anyway, and is one of the reasons this video is far more interesting because the product is obscure. The Rio PMP300 was a big success
@@Space_Reptile That could play MP3 cds?
Heck, smaller than that. The components for playing music can easily fit inside ear buds, so they occupy essentially no space at all.
@@cavauro Those early MP3 players were not even remotely comparable to this device at all, though. With their terrible storage size of 32 MB, they could hardly store even a music album unless it was at a dismal 64 Kbp rate. And cost 370 bucks adjusted for inflation...
Hah! Around that time (early 2000s) I purchased a slimline PC with a Pentium 200 in it, added an inverter, and mounted it in the trunk. It ran winamp, and with a character LCD and some buttons, located in the passenger compartment, connected by a very long cable to the PC in the trunk, I had MP3s playing in my car.
Yes, we WERE that desperate to have MP3s in the car. This device would have been a godsend for me.
That last track at the end of the video is a bit of a blast from the past. Anyone else remember Classic Game Room?
Thank you! I immediately remembered and knew the song, but wouldn't have come up with where I heard it before. CGR was a fun channel!
That is the first thing I thought of when I heard that track. I went and looked up the CGR video for Red Faction Guerrilla video game and it was the same song. That video has lived on both my PSPs for about 14 years so I know the song.
Yes, I used watch Classic Game Room all the time. I once heard that guy on one of the episodes say, "Getting old rocks." And hearing that in my early 30s didn't sound so cool at all. But thinking about that now, he probably meant it as a joke. I could not tell you what game he was playing.
@@jimmymelendez1836 I liked that DVC PRO deck he used to record all the gameplay. It had great video quality. Wish I could get one.
That’s pretty cool that the DVD drive upgrade worked without a hitch!
You never fail to bring new content, and even with rare products that the vast majority of us have never seen before ^^
Thank you for such big and amazing efforts ♥ ♥ ♥
So cool to watch a video about it, thank you! I was lucky to acquire one of these devices (even the same one from the video) and I find the idea behind it really cool.
14:36 Ahhhh I could feel the setting sun on my face and taste the cocktails. Thank you for another great video.
I remember this, I put one in my car back in the days. Thanks for uploading!
6:59: It looks like the player is actually a double speed DVD-ROM drive. I believe it's the same device that also came with the DXr2 MPEG2 decoder card.
That drive is definitely worth restoring, since, in theory at least, it can dump the contents of CD-i discs. I owned one of these that became defective after a while and would only read CD(-ROM)s and CD-i discs, but no DVDs.
8:38 doh! The old audio output connector not connected trick!
A bit weird but nice too. Never seen one before. You always seem to find this kind of interesting objects. That's why I love you channel 😊
Techmoan would love a background music player like this lol.
It would have to come with A BGM library and some obscure custom encoding that only that device can play.
The up and down buttons are the volume control.
That could make sense! I was thinking the 'fast forward', or back, could be a function that only worked via the remote? Perhaps this is also the case for the folders. Perhaps only the 'simple' controls are on the device and anything more is on the remote? Who can say for sure.
I guess its randomly skipping between tracks as you have it set to shuffle
Nice stuff. I love this sort of late 90s tech.
It is bouncing around to random tracks because you have the shuffle mode turned on. You can see the amber led on the left. I wouldn't be surprised if that disables the folder navigation as well.
It won't navigate through the folders even with shuffle mode turned off.
Might have folder file name requirements that you did not know to name them. Cool device just the same
@@bichelaThis could well be the case. I had a cd walkman (not sony but some knock off) that only accepted incremental numbers as folder names and ignored anything else. It also messed up if you left out a number in the sequence by ignoring everything from that point onwards. Very sloppy firmware coding but it was cheap(ish).
12:48 - "Strut" by Sheena Easton
12:54 - "Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer" by Kenny Rogers & Kim Carnes
12:57 - "Sailing" by Christopher Cross
To be honest, I could probably listen to that MP3 DVD all day long.
Actually that's not "Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer" it's Willie Nelson's version of "Always On My Mind" :)
12:59 Shalamar - Dancing in the Sheets
13:01 Kool & The Gang - Victory
Another possibility is that the degrading rubber part in the disc clamp is no longer holding the disc in the correct position, and staying mostly, but not always, within the ability of the laser assembly to compensate. And I'm not surprised it won't read CD-RW discs if it's a 1997 vintage, as they were only introduced that year. I bought a couple CD-ROM drives in 1998 and 1999 that wouldn't read them, and the car stereo I bought in 2000 not only wouldn't play CD-RW discs, it was picky about the CD-R discs it would play, too. ❤
Ahhh I love finding out about obscure electronics that slipped under my nose growing up this is what I crave
This is actually nice implementation of old way of getting free cd-player by using old plain cd drive with player controls and old at case
Thanks for the video, Kevin.
Awesome review, amazing to look at these "unseen devices" that have always been in our backgrounds without us noticing.
I'm 100% sure you can't use the folder feature because you had the player on "shuffle" for the whole video! You didn't even test the "mode" button! Just change it and I'm sure it'll work. Also why was skipping tracks randomly when it had read errors instead of going to the next track.
It won't navigate through the folders even with shuffle mode turned off.
@@vwestlife Oh, I was certain, bummer. Awesome find anyway.
For me it looks better with the black drive in it.
Its very a neat machine indeed and of course being rare make it more cool nice find Kevin. Have a nice day . This thing had space for hours minutes and seconds...
So, to sum up, that is a bloody good MP3 player you have ended up with 900 tracks! Excellent.
You get some really cool stuff Dude.
When it showed the thing was a discontinued product I saw listed a DigitalDoc 3 and I remember those as I had one in the computer. It was a fan speed and temperature monitor, I still have the thing sitting in an old computer system.
Wonderful find! I can see a mulleted guy in Malibu driving an IROC Z with this thing under the seat, thrilled at having 600 mp3s cycling in his car...
Great find, Kevin! I had totally never seen one before.
I love how IDEAL this thing is for Background Music, it could've been used at a KMART, with Tower Sound & Communications creating CUSTOM MP3 Retail CDS, with EVEN MORE hour's of Background Music (At Least 4 hours) to replace the 90 minute cassette loops KMART USED to play in the late 80s and early 90s!! Even if you were also a retail store owner who owns one of these machines, you could've also put in a subscription for MUZAK or AEI, and they would ALSO distribute you CUSTOM MP3 Discs MONTHLY, or WEEKLY, however you put a check to however long you wanted your BGM distributed, and then when the time your usage period for each disc expires, you send it back in the mail, and then you pay MONTHLY for distribution of more BGM MP3 discs (just like how Seeburg used to do it with their 1000 Background Music System, except through a pack of multiple Discs/Records). I heard about KMART BGM Tapes through a video of a guy that has a MASSIVE COLLECTION of them: ruclips.net/video/8t5TYw2bkOk/видео.html
There was a BGM company doing that with CD-I payers.
@@MrDuncl What company was that? I’m curious
@@dennisthebrony2022 Look up CD-BGM I think it was one of the many CD formats and the CD-I players could do it natively. I just found "Hundreds of CD-BGM titles were made by Philips alone. CD-BGM discs were not offered for sale, they could only be 'rented' by professional users from selected Philips partners." The same article mentions Sanyo.
Nowadays, you still can buy IDE CD/DVD-ROM controller kit base on 8951/52(8051/52) microcontroller with LCD module and remote control.
The second I saw this, I thought of the Muzak Encompass XD/CM, built for Muzak by Westport Research. That platform replaced the stalwart that was the Plextor CD-I platform in the early 2000’s. Part of me wonders if the reason this was discontinued was because Muzak owns the patent on the long-form disc-based background music player, and rather than fight over the technology, MacPower discontinued the MP-ROM. You’re probably familiar with the XD/CM platform. This is functionally the same thing without the proprietary firmware that prevents regular CD’s and MP3’s from being played.
Whatever the reason this didn’t stay around, I’d love to find one!
I doubt Muzak even knew that the MP-ROM existed. Considering that the other ones I've seen have handwritten serial numbers, and this one doesn't have any serial number on it, the production total was probably very low. It was also available as a kit, in which the user could install their own CD or DVD drive.
@@vwestlife I would guess yours was one of the kits. That would explain the older drive, lack of serial number etc.
that's really cool cd player
That's one heck of a find! I had an Ipod shuffle that was made in 2001
Perhaps you burned it at a speed that was too fast? i remember mp3 headunits that were sensitive to this in the eary 00s. Would cause all kinds of weird playback problems. Love your channel!
It's more of a media incompatibility thing. I still have vintage machines with era-appropriate drives, from a 1x external SCSI drive to the high-end Plextor Premium drive, DVD, BD, etc.. Most of the early drives, before about 8x to 16x, had poor CD-R (and especially CD-RW) compatibility. Early CD-R media that was made for, e.g., 4x CD-R drives works better than later 52x-rated media, even if you burn it in a 12x drive at 1x. The new stuff is just not very reflective, and old drives weren't calibrated for that.
What are you talking about? Everything works right except CD-RWs. And if that's what you mean (rewritables) and speed was a problem, it would have been a problem with regular CD-Rs, too. Also, the incompatibility is the same across all the tested drives, so it's the firmware in the board of that device that is incompatible with rewritables.
Delightfully obscure. Great find!
This creative dvd player is a 2x dvd drive. Garbage, good you threw it out. Great video, I loved to see the device in action!
This, or something similar to it, was in one of the electronic surplus catalogs I used to get back in the early 00s. It apparently had some useful parts in it.
That bit of "Island Flavor" at the end gave me a flashback to Classic Game Room
Very interesting video, thank you!! Another device I'd like to have in my collection 😅😁😁
1:56 Seeing Polish article about some random piece of odd hardware is the last thing I would expect on this channel 😅
In short this article is about this thing looking more like prototype than actual product and polish importer which has plans to make it look more like audio equipment
Sometimes it helps to "finalize" / close the disc in case of CDRW in order for them to work if that option wasn't enabled before, although even doing that wouldn't guarantee working in some older systems drives i've learnt over the years.
Not sure if the "random" being engaged interfered with you trying to change folders too, but it's seen lit while trying to use those buttons.
Clearly a nice system for background ambient music in rooms/stores, and if the drive failed you could quickly and simply replace it with one from the old computers you had lying about for free. Personally I used to have a bare drive (along with a bare PSU that was hotwired) with play/pause and skip buttons on front living inside my locker at school, connected to a 6.5-8" something speaker - it gave us many hours of listening to Astral Projection albums on repeat. :)
It can't navigate folders even with the shuffle mode turned off.
I love the use of a standard drive! I wish more products would be made like this, makes repairing and upgrading soo much more easy!
I wonder why they did'nt plug the audio cable in ? LOL
I looks better with the black DVD drive. Great find.
This thing reminds me of the Muzak encompass player that Databits did a video on.
Foster the people good band. pumped up kicks good song. I've heard that No Problem Island Flavor song used in Classic Game room videos.
I have that same Sound Feeder FM transmitter. Don't know where it is at the moment but I got it back in 99 and still have it today. Last time I tried it it worked.
Never expected to hear the Classic Game Room theme lol
If I'd had a burner I would have absolutely loved to own one of those around the year 2000. I was downloading tons of stuff off Napster & forever running out of space on my 4GB hard drive. I didn't have a burner either though so I was left with copying all my hard won MP3s to cassettes, until my yearly student allowance advance came through and I bought an...MD recorder for $400 solving the problem of both portable digital recording & playback with one device.
This goes right into my "Retro" playlist 🔥
looks so cool!
It's interesting how they added on a stop/eject button on the unit when the drive itself has an eject button.
Maybe the original factory drive didn’t have an eject button. The promotional pictures show it in an entirely different enclosure, so it’s possible a different drive would have been fitted to production models. I’ve never seen a CD drive without an eject button, but they may exist for embedded applications such as this.
Really nice find, and I remember when my brother got a JVC MP3 CD player for his truck in the early 00's, and he really thought he was something, but then a few years later just for 20 bucks I was carrying around a generic 2GB stick Mp3 player powered by a single AA that lasted all day, how fast technology moves lol!
Good review 😎👍🏼
14:38 hey, it's that track used by Mark in Classic Game Room intro! damn, that was a small wave of sad nostalgia
14:37 oh so THATS where that song is from!
14:37 Classic Game Room music!
Whoa, Classic Game Room flashback there at the end.
it's so cute and 'quirky' in functionality that you might as well love it!
That’s pretty damn cool I must say 🧐
10:32 love that little country sample! Nice Steel guitar. :)
You had the shuffle mode on (notice the little light on the left side of the display, it's pretty faint). That's why it was skipping tracks. Honestly for the time though, this would have been a nice unit to have with your stereo setup.
14:37 Aahhh man.... RIP Classic Game Room!
That square IC right in the center is an MPEG decoder MAS3507D by Micronas Intermetall
With the black DVD player it looks like a prop from a futuristic sci-fi movie from the 60s or 70s.
You just gotta love those late 90's early 00's odd pieces of technology.
For a company with Mac in the name, at least for the time, you’d think there’d be an option to connect it up to a computer. Or have another model with additional connections on the back if you want an external CD drive. Still though, seems to work well as it is and the option to upgrade/swap the drive to also support DVDs is a nice bonus!
I remember getting a head unit that supported mp3 cd in 2004. It was so much better than dealing with cds.
The outro music is the same as classic game room used all those years ago. Nice bit of nostalgia
I had one of these back in the day! It didn’t have that case though. Just the drive bay sized player. I put it and a cdrom in my 1988 Ford Taurus connected to 12v power with a hand wired adapter and a cassette adapter for audio.
Very cool! Reminds me of my Rio Volt MP3 CD Player (2000s era device). i played Hundreds of songs of 1 DISC on the way to high-school. damn im old!
That is really cool. I wish they sold something like this now.
What an unusual little relic.
As this device was recommend for use as more modern successor to the old Tape-based background music players, I can understand why the skipped the song title display in favor of a simple numeric track number display. Same goes for the lack of a fast forward/rewind function.
good stuff!
You are the Sherlock Holmes of retro hardware subscribed
14:37 Oh boy, time for ClassicGameRoom!
Sure it's goofy for today, But for 1999, The ability to shuffle (I only use shuffle mode when I'm driving so the limited display is no big deal to me) over 100 tracks on 1 CD in a car would have wild. I had a full sized 1989 Cadillac Brougham, I would have found a way to attach it under the dash! And that it's a drop in upgrade to DVD-ROM is cool too! I was one of the handful of Americans who had MiniDisc in my car then, so at least my "mixtapes" were already digital.
That last song you played made me think of Classic Game Room.
14:43 Classic Game Room HD used this song for the intro to one of their videos
Now you have to try a Blu Ray Drive 😛
Thank you very much for the review 👍
Came to the comments just to say this. They definitely made IDE Blu-Ray drives, and if they made any that support BDXL, you could theoretically throw 125 GB of MP3s at this thing.
@@sheik124 Thank's for the info 😀
awesome
That top 100 from 1980-88 DVD is actually a great idea. Using a double layer disc could cover the entire decade.
Talk about being desperate for music, my buddy would bring a laptop computer with an external hard drive full of MP3s for long drives. They were connected to an AC inverter in my truck. If we stopped for gas or food, I'd have to wait for my buddy to safely remove the drive from Windows before I turned off the engine so as to potentially not corrupt the hard drive. Not sure that was a step up from the 10-CD changer and four cartridges I had in my previous vehicle.
I mean, back in the day, being able to fit 200-1000 tracks or 20-40 redbook CDs into a shell the size of 2 CD rom drives was a huge feature. (or being able to burn a napster cd)
Hard to remember the time when we had a need for things like this, but it happened