when I showed them how to make the mp3, they said it was too much effort/too hard

Too right! This is about the fifth time I've linked to this post, but what can I say? I'm kinda proud of it, I think it's one of my better efforts.

As for the big boys jumping in with players of their own... it isn't the hardware that makes the empeg player what it is -- it's the software. When Sonic Blue bought the empeg company, it wasn't because they wanted that nifty little car player; they wanted (and got) the best music management software writing team in the world, and from what I've seen nobody's caught up with them yet.

tanstaafl.