From everything I've read, I think the mp3pro format may be something we and the empeg folks should consider, but it is certainly not a no-brainer upgrade from the regular mp3 format. This format is getting significant heat over in the boards at slashdot, but it's often difficult to tell whether that information is accurate or just a whole bunch of overzelous, "use linux and open source at all costs and for every purpose"-chanting zombies. Apparently Thomson Multimedia and the Fraunhofer Institute are positioning themselves to be able to better collect their royalties on the mp3 format in this new mp3pro format. This article at PC World says a license for the new codec will cost about $US7.50 per device for manufacturers, and I assume Sonicblue would have to pay that if they put this new format on the Rio Car. Another article (can't find it now), said that they've prepared the format to be able to easily add digital rights management at a later time. I'm guessing here, but I would bet they are planning to wait until the format becomes widespread among users and then add DRM to please the RIAA. This could limit the formats use on the internet. Finally, there is also talk on slashdot (see this post) about the quality is worse than regular mp3's and how mp3pro actually screws up the high frequencies by having to "guess" at anything above 10 Khz.