I was sorry to read your comments on Linux.com relating to the car player. I thought we were responsive throughout the process, despite the transfer of responsibilities that were taking place within the company at the time.

The car player is of completely standard dimensions - in fact it is the only fully DIN and ISO compliant in-dash hard disk player that I know of. I've heard of some vehicle models - mostly US Toyota vehicles - which have a closed down head apperture for security reasons. Of course these are not compatible with any DIN pull-out stereos whatsoever, and there's nothing we can do about that. The player fits into the vast majority of cars with no dash rework at all.

I'm not sure how you were "suckered" into purchasing a 36Gb model, but if any empeg representative has misled you or utilised inappropriate sales techniques please send me the details - we have no room for such people within empeg or SONICblue.

We sell a model that large (in fact it is now 40Gb - with 60Gb expected soon) because we sell a LOT of them, around 20% of our total sales I believe. Many of our clients have huge music collections - you have to be serious about music to consider investing so much in your car hifi system! I'm not sure what to make of your T1 comment.. is all of your music pirated? The idea is to encode your own music collection, but if you prefer to download from Napster then I would certainly guess that a broadband net connection would be useful. Of course the quality of encoding that you'll get will be highly variable, not to mention the moral and legal implications. Maybe you download free music from MP3.com, and again, broadband would be useful. I'm not sure how any of this is our problem though - it's like complaining to Sony because you can't fill your 200 CD jukebox!

With regard to the Linux software, as I explained previously we wrote a command line utility because thats what we - as Linux enthusiasts - decided would be most useful. Others have written GUI front ends, and even a completely new Java GUI sync tool (check out geek.empeg.com); we thought we were doing a pretty good thing opening up the protocols and source for emptool. I told you about the graphical Java tool back in November, did you not get good results from it?

I would also point out that we have implemented hundreds of features over the last two years as a result of customer suggestions. You have stated that you hate the available software, but I've searched our mail archives and I can't find any detailed reasons or suggestions for improvement.

I'm sorry you had problems setting up DHCP - maybe you would have found it easier to use a fixed IP or USB, which has been supported in the Linux downloader for as long as Linux has had USB drivers.

Regards

Rob
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Rob Voisey, SONICblue, Inc
e: [email protected] t: +44 1223 576 123 f: +44 1223 576 124