Note that this is completely unofficial -- I'm mostly going from memory here.

I'll bet it has the same UI.

Firstly, the menus are vertical, not horizontal. The interface is otherwise similar. It's been simplified, though.

The format of the database is entirely different. It's optimised for querying large databases with a small memory footprint, where the disk is spun up.

You can select music by playlist (only one level deep, though), and by genre, artist and album. Once you've selected a genre, artist or album, you're prompted with a list of the tracks, or you can select all matching items. In this respect, it's slightly better than the empeg-car.

It's got searching similar to the car player.

It's got no visuals - the screen's not quick enough. It does have several different info layouts (which are stored on the server in binary files).

It's got simple bass/treble controls - there's no parametric EQ.

What I'd like to see is the Receiver automatically find a connected Empeg (even if it's plugged into the host PC via USB) and pull its database and stream the songs from it. That would rock. I don't know if it'll do that or not, but wouldn't that be cool?

It would require writing some custom server software, either on the Empeg (if it's a mk2), or as a proxy, to forward the requests over the USB (for the mk1). Don't think that I haven't thought about it -- remember - I don't have to reverse-engineer the Rio Receiver protocol .

What sort of performance hit, if any, will be noticed on the serving PC side?

It's generally minimal. Streaming the music uses almost no CPU (on my P3/850). Queries usually take somewhere between 20 and 30 percent CPU (they're done server-side).

But like Tony says, don't try competing in a Quake tournament - it's likely to make your music chop up .





Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg