Hey people I'm trying to put together a hack to make the central work with the dell rebadged receivers (DRR).

According to another thread on this BBS, all that needs to happen is I have to change an id in the /empeg/bin/player file and, poof it works with the DRRs. To that end, I set up the old packet sniffer, and figured out that the DRR is broadcasting this id:
DB1-F053-11d3-BF72-0050DA689B30

Does anyone know the ID that is broadcast by the older, non-rebadged receivers? If we get that information, this becomes a simple search and replace with a hex editor.

If you want to sniff it, it's a UDP request on port 21075 of the format:
--------
upnp:u**UnReg**DB1-F053-11d3-BF72-0050DA689B30
00:90:00:11:40:76
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Thanks much!!!

referenced link:
http://rioreceiver.comms.net/php/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Technical&Number=2575&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1

Actually, the proper thing to get a Central working with the rebadged Dells, is to simply have Rio publicly release the last software update to the Centrals.

It contains not only support for the Dell units, but also contains the bugfix for the problem where the Central reboots sometimes when in "multiple CD record mode".

Right now, only the beta testers have this version. Cambridge folks: Please please please get Rio to release this publicly. Please please please. And also an official place for 1.04. PLEASE?!?!?!

I agree, the "proper thing" is to have Rio release the updated software.

That said, I'm not holding my breath for any software releases. SB has discontinued the central, and thus have no pressing economic reason to support it. 1.04 has been talked about on this BBS for nearly a year now. If they intended to support their users and release 1.04, they would have.

It's too bad since I have close to 10 SB products, and not releasing this fix reflects badly upon the SonicBlue brand.
I'm going to be in the market soon to get one of those 40g players, and I'm not sure their current level of support is good enough to justify their price premium (the karma is priced high) in the market.

Ok, I went pretty far afield in that one. The bottom line is that I'd rather hack it than hope for a fix that doesn't seem like it's coming.

not releasing this fix reflects badly upon the SonicBlue brand.

And the fact that SBLU ran out of cash and went bankrupt doesn't?

Realistically, Sonicblue doesn't exist any more. I don't know the terms of D&M's purchase of Rio, but it's possible that support for discontinued products (effectively a liability) wasn't included.

Having said that, the Rio Central is still listed in the support section of http://www.rioaudio.com/

So, get on the horn to Rio support and harrass them.

But don't bother worrying about Sonicblue's brand image. Sonicblue doesn't exist any more.

Cambridge folks: Please please please get Rio to release this publicly.

Grovelling to the Cambridge folks is not gonna work. Rob is fully aware of how much demand there is for the new Rio Central firmware. The problem is that when we last tried to release it, QA threw it back at us, because it "broke" portable transfer. It didn't -- the code in that area hadn't changed -- but QA had better testing this time.

The problem is getting QA to authorise the release. This either means finding the time to fix the problems (which presumably were already there) with portable transfer, or by bullying QA until they let it out the door.

You'll need to persuade the powers-that-be that there is customer demand for this. This means harrassing customer services, who'll harrass the marketing department, who'll talk to engineering, and then maybe time will be allocated for the guys to work on it.

But appealing directly to Rob probably isn't going to work -- he doesn't have enough spare resource (time or people) to do anything about it without explicit authorisation, no matter how much he might want to.

Maybe the thought of adding Karma support to the Central might be enough to persuade the powers-that-be that it's worth another Central refresh. Who knows?

But appealing directly to Rob probably isn't going to work -- he doesn't have enough spare resource (time or people) to do anything about it without explicit authorisation, no matter how much he might want to.

Dunno, appealing directly to Rob seemed to work last night at the BBQ.

He said that when he got back from vacation, he'd see what he could do about posting the Receiver 1.04 software and the last build of the Central software (the one that got thrown back at you). Even if those things won't appear at the official Rio support site, he said he'd figure out a way to make them available for download from empeg.com unofficially or something.

We're not talking about making new builds or anything... nothing that would require work on the part of the Cambridge folks. We're just talking about posting a build of the software that's already been built for a long time now, and just isn't available on the net anywhere (yet).

appealing directly to Rob seemed to work last night at the BBQ

OK. Add "in person" as an exception to my statement .

a way to make them available for download from empeg.com unofficially or something.

This would be the important part, unless he can harrass QA enough to let it out of the door.

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>>not releasing this fix reflects badly upon the SonicBlue brand.
And the fact that SBLU ran out of cash and went bankrupt doesn't?
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Touche! While what you say is 100% true, d&m did think the brand was worth enough to take a risk and buy them out of bankrupcy. I'd say their current strategy is to take Rio back to their core compentency - high-end portable players. It's a good strategy, and one that will probably make the company saleable in a few years. That said, the mp3 market is becoming increasingly commoditized, and at the end, the only way D&M will command a premium price for the company is if they can get consumers to pay a premium price for their goods - Rio must be a solid brand. That's my 2c.

------[quote from TFabris]----
He said that when he got back from vacation, he'd see what he could do about posting the Receiver 1.04 software and the last build of the Central software (the one that got thrown back at you). Even if those things won't appear at the official Rio support site, he said he'd figure out a way to make them available for download from empeg.com unofficially or something.
------[end quote]------

Wow, that would be great. Supported, unsupported, given to me in a paper bag in a dark alleyway, all fine with me. Thanks!!!

d&m did think the brand was worth enough to take a risk

No. D&M decided that the "Rio" brand was worth enough to take a risk. The "SonicBlue" brand wasn't picked up in auction. It was sucked dry of assets (namely Rio and ReplayTV -- GoVideo were sold earlier) and left to decompose as an empty husk at the side of the road.

I'd say their current strategy is to take Rio back to their core compentency - high-end portable players

Totally agree. Rio's core competency is (and was) portable MP3 players. The S-Series (and the newer portables) have done a great deal to reinforce this position in the marketplace. Sonicblue's core competency seems to have been coming up with great ideas and then failing to give them the marketing and development committment needed to make a success of them (cf Rio Central, Rio Receiver).

One thing worth noting is that it's unlikely (in the short term) that D&M will move Rio back into the home MP3 space (i.e. a Rio Central-like product), because they've already got plenty of brand recognition (albeit not MP3, IIRC) in the home space with the Denon and Marantz brands. Moreover, they have got (extremely pretentious IMO) high-end home MP3 coverage in the form of Escient.

None of these have anything to do with Rio, per se. When I left Rio last month, there was little or no cross over between the DNNA brands (Rio, ReplayTV, Escient), let alone between the parent D&M groups (DNNA, Denon, Marantz). This may change, but probably not soon.

I should clarify my previous post. When I talk about "Rio's core competency", I'm referring to the whole of Rio. The guys in Cambridge can do more or less anything they put their minds to.

Moreover, the problem with Sonicblue doesn't seem to have carried over to the new company. I'm sure if the new Rio decided to bring out a Rio Receiver 2 or a Rio Central 2, it'd be superb.

It's just that the market is probably not quite there yet, and one of D&M's goals when it bought Rio was to make money.

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D&M decided that the "Rio" brand was worth enough to take a risk. The "SonicBlue" brand wasn't picked up in auction.
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Ok, I agree with that then. I didn't realize that "sonicblue" was sold seperately from "rio".

So, I guess we might have some new rio central software soon.

In the meantime, does anyone know the code that the non-rebadged receivers broadcast?

Thanks again!

Hello!

I know, I'm probably being impatient, but has anyone heard anything on the unoffical release of the 1.04 software?

Thanks!!!