I just got back from CES in Las Vegas and thought I'd put a few snapshots up so that everyone can see what things looked like. At the bottom of the page you'll also find a link to scans of the Rio brochures I picked up.

http://www.justified.com/rio

I finally got to meet Rob briefly, which was very nice. Still nothing new on the tuner, though... =(

-Oscar

Oooo... notice in the manuals the reference to it having 16Mb...

Any chance of an upgrade...? j/k *grin*

Well with the conversion of the product, I guess it's a good thing empeg-car was never melded into the faceplate afterall. A sticker on the top is much easier to change then a 1000 run of a faceplate.

hahah heheheh.. My empeg says EMPEG on the top unlike the RIO... hahah eheheh

Great! You sure were quick getting those photos online!

Any word on if the Rio Home Reciever can currently work with the empeg? Or is that a future feature?....

If there was a version of the Rio Home with Toslink optical connectors, I'd buy it in a heartbeat and get rid of my 200 disc changer.... (If it also came with a remote that displayed track info..)

Rob said that serving the Receiver is a function of the empeg software. It's in the current 1.1 build, but he's not sure if it'll be released to the public (it's not an advertised feature).

It looks like they are planning on advertising the feature because it is in the diagram on the wall in one of those pics...

The more I think about it though, it just makes more sense to plug the empeg directly into the home stereo...

I think I speak for many Empeg owners when I say...
I want a stack of those brochures to hand out!



___________
Tony Fabris

Me too!!! And what happened to those empeg tshirts that were going to be available soon months ago?


Sean

Empeg 12 gig green 080000078

Nice to see 'Powered by empeg' and empeg boot logo in Rio-branded brochures. It won't be easy for average consumer to sort out: empeg, Rio, Diamond and SonicBlue in the same sentence :-)

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Ah, but the beautiful thing about the Reciever is that you can have it in a seperate location from your empeg and/or your stereo...AND it can be playing different content than your empeg is playing.

Just got back from CES myself. Was glad to see the nice display that empeg/Rio showcased (thanks for the pics oscar).

It was nice to finally meet Rob and Hugo... very nice people. I must have spent at least an hour talking to Rob about the new software releases and empeg in general. Hope I didn't talk your ear off Rob!

Since my brother is highly respected in the industry (mobile electronics), I was able to attend a number of private parties for some major manufacturers (Eclipse, Kicker, Blaupunkt) and magazines (Mobile Electronics Magazine)... and the buzz was MP3 and empeg. At the Mobile Electronics Magazine (www.me-mag.com) dinner, I was chatting with a high-profile freelance writer for many magazines (Mobile Electronics Magazine, Car Stereo Review, etc.) and he had the pleasure of reviewing an empeg for CSR. His feedback was really positive and said he can't wait to review new releases of the software.

I was happy to see that major players in the audio industry acknowlege empeg as a professional product.


Craig Elliott
elliott@g-cnet.com

The Rio version will have 16Mb of RAM for production reasons (i.e. the chips are available!). This will have minimal impact on the player software, which will continue to run on 12Mb players (and 8Mb Mk.1's for that matter!) albeit with less cache.

Rob

Thanks to everyone who visited the booth - we enjoyed the show very much.

Rob

Anyone noticed this?

Rob, have you talked to them about it while you were out there?

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Yes , I noticed, and think it is MOSTLY important for the empeg (or Rio Car Player, as you like) to have mp3pro capacity as soon as possible

I've not checked, but it *sounds like* they have improved the encoder - ie, there are *no changes* required for playback. Much like Dolby S encoding, which is decoded by the dolby B decoder.

...which would mean it's already supported. Microsoft have done this with WMP8, which has an improved encoder to give CD quality at 64k and near CD quality at 48k (or so they claim). See the windowsmedia developer site for more info. They claim playback compatibility with their existing codec (for audio, at least).

Hugo

As far as I understand their statement, You will be able to play the new format on existing decoders, but with reduced quality,
ie 64Kbit on old decoders sound like 64Kbit and 64Kbit on new decoders sound like 128Kbit

Frank van Gestel

I find that interesting as it's not as if there are "spare" bits in the bitstream as-is. I suspect it is just an improved encoder - these have been improving all the time anyway, so maybe they've just come up with a breakthrough.

Hugo

from the register :

MP3 Pro is sufficiently compatible with the existing MP3 - aka
MPEG 1 Audio Layer 3 - to allow MP3 decoders to play back files
encoded using the new technology, though they won't benefit from
the extra level of compression.

from consumer electronics :

Content encoded in mp3PRO can be played back in a traditional MP3 player but without the quality enhancement.


You're right, it seems impossible to get a quality improvement in output with the same sequence of zeros and ones as input.
Especially the first statement I think is very doubtful. How can it not benefit from compression when the same file is used on both decoders?
They're gonna launch it in 80 days or so; guess we will have to wait and see...

Frank van Gestel

So are we going to call this thing the "Rio empeg" ?? Is the name empeg going to stay at all?

This entire thred is very interesting. I'm excited to see what this year brings us.

-CHiP

My Thought:

I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging for all the early empeg owners out there, but this is a funny thought I had:

You know, a year ago, when I had my new amps installed for my new empeg, the owner of this car audio shop was quick to show me his new head unit, some kind of flip open color touch screen LCD - I was not impressed. It was just still a FM radio and CD changer.

Then I showed him my empeg, and he seemed to not really care, or maybe he didn’t understand it. He kept asking, “how do you fit the CD’s in there?” and “Oh, the CD’s are in the dash?” So then when I told him the price, he was like, “oh forget that!” And even some of employees who where suppose to be really “up with the times” seemed to have a similar reaction. Some thought it was just “cool” but I really don’t think they truly understood what they were looking at. I tried my best to explain it. And they just justified their own head unit with, “I can burn my own CD’s at home anyway.”

So now, I can totally see those same guys are checking out this empeg at the Rio Booth (hypothetically, of course) and scratching their heads as they say to each other “dude, this is a cool idea! I want this for my car now!” Maybe I thought this because when I saw the Rio sticker on the empeg, and I imagined a TV ad for the empeg. Well, you know how people can be. They‘ll say, “oh, did you see that thing on TV?” and then automatically, because it was on TV, everyone’s talking about it, it says Rio on it, and the buzz word “mp3” is thrown in there too, they’ll have to have it. But will they really appreciate it like us early owners, the ones that stuck with empeg from the beginning?

Wow, its seems that the empeg is WAY AHEAD of its time! I’m glad I have mine…worth every penny.


-CHiP

They are probably doing something like was done for MPEG-2 multi-channel in which a backward-compatible bitstream is attained by using the ancillary data stream (already present in the bitstream format) to encode the extra quality information.

-v

The product will be called the "Rio Car" followed by a model identifier. Although some at Rio were keen to include the "empeg" name in the product title, we didn't feel that "Rio Empeg" was very meaningful. That was the name of our company not the product, and has little significance to future clients who haven't previously heard of empeg.

Some manner of empeg branding is likely to remain on the packaging and user guide, identifying the origin of the product to those in the know.

Rob

I wonder, in 2 years when Rio empeg is in everyones car, and as common as the car CD player, (maybe something like that) will our little cummunity of "first owners" be forgoten by all? :( (i love this little cumunity...when are we going to have a north east USA meet?)

-CHiP

When you organise one??

I did, no real effort, but lots of fun (and I got a free tee shirt from Rob!)

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

How did you know who to invite? DId you get a list from empeg? Or did you just use this message board? Where did you have one?

-CHiP

I just posted a message here on a general forum; enough people answered to make me think it was interesting to do (I've done this before with car club meetings), and Rob then allowed me to post in the Announcements forum, and backed me up by mailing everyone in the sales database in Europe.

I made a few signs and prepared a few bits for the day. The event itself was just held in the carpark of a local hotel - they provided the coffee (and seats when it rained) and we had a few little competitions for prizes. Rob and Roger came along and handed out tee-shirts; we all got to see an early preview of V1.1. Finally, we all tanked off for a chinese and a few beers.

In all, a thoroughly enjoyable day (shame about the weather) and I shall be organising another, more ambitious one at the end of March when the temperature climbs above the current -6 C we're getting at the moment. Look out for driving tests and local sponsorship from a car audio place down the road, with a "Master Blaster" competition!

Try it! You don't have to be too ambitious, and if it's a success you can do another one. You may even surprise yourself at how easy and fun it is!

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

I shall be organising another, more ambitious one at the end of March

Oooh, careful, there are a lot of empeg birthday parties around the end of March and I would hate to miss out on a valid expense trip (err, I mean an opportunity to support our clients! Well, it was a lot of fun as well)

Rob

Ok, thanks, but what is "Master Blaster" competition?

-CHiP