Greetings!

Was I sleeping and miss the launch? I just checked out the sites, and found interesting data on the RioCar. Including a 60MB model... Hmm... I wonder if it is time to upgrade???

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

Cute, they've linked a photo of the remote control prototype, with Hugo's Stun/Kill button.

http://store.s3.com/v2.0-img/operations/diamulti/site/images/Rio_Car_Remote_RGB.jpg

___________
Tony Fabris

Oh, and you'll notice that if you go to place an order, it says "Out of stock".

___________
Tony Fabris

Greetings!

I saw the image, but missed the stun/kill option!!! Nice!!!

Pity the unit is out of stock at the moment, and there are no accessories to be had in the store. Rob, does this mean we can order the new remotes???

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

I saw the image, but missed the stun/kill option!!! Nice!!!

That was just on the prototype, mind you, production remotes won't have that. It was just a little joke Hugo threw in during preproduction.

___________
Tony Fabris

That was just on the prototype, mind you, production remotes won't have that.

Pity. That really should be there on the final.

I also noticed a June 2001 date for the tuner. (No, I am not going to rehash that...)

No pricing data for the other size drives. Is the site just being loaded now? Maybe all of the detail (multiple color choices, disk capacities, etc.) are on their way up?

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

Additional: OK, some of the information is there, but very few photos. Very little pricing data. The empeg site has much more information on it. I hope they expand this out a bit.

Edited by pgrzelak on 26/02/01 07:37 PM.

I think it's also time for the software 1.1 release, isn't it? Now, if the player is available from the rio site the new software can't be far away! :-)

Greetings!

Especially when on the empeg site, the beta software area from the support page has been emptied... It used to hold the 1.02 betas. Perhaps timed with the launch of the Rio/SB site, but...

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

As seen on the RioCar shopping page...

Rio Car Audio Contents
{snip}
* CD-ROM with necessary software
* The latest Al Green music composition album including "Let's get it on in my car baby!"

Al Green? {chuckle}

----- - ---- - --- - -- -- - - - - - - - - -
greggerm 09000991

Haha I love how we're reverse-engineering release dates based on all this evidence that's mysteriously appearing. I hope it's true because I am drooling with anticipation for the 1.1 release. And also drooling over the prospect of 30GB drive availability.

-Tony
MkII #554

The site shows 10, 20, 30, and 60GB models, and 12GB for sale now. I'm guessing empeg has lots of blue 12GB ones laying around, and thats whats being sold now, with the future 10/20/30/60 to be sold soon.

The question will be what ones have 1 drive and what has 2.

This release was also picked up by News.com -- it's linked from their homepage as I write this:

"Rio parks digital audio in cars"

______________
Empeg Mk. 2 #626, 18Gb blue | Kenwood KMD-X92. 2000 VW Passat wagon.

This release was also picked up by News.com

Ah. I was wondering how my friend had heard about it. His voicemail message seemed rather excited... "Dude, it comes with a 60 gigabyte hard drive!".

Yawn.

___________
Tony Fabris

I just heard this same snippet "from the same folks that brought you the Rio Player....comes with 60GB hard drive" on CNN Headline News while lanking here in my hotel room. Maybe that's where he got it. Good place for the press release to land - CCNHN only repeats like every 4.5 minutes!

Jim

Yeah, it would be nice press... if they had players to ship.

___________
Tony Fabris

All Rio players are Issue 9 (Mk.2A) units fresh off the production line. There is an initial batch of 12GB units because the sourcing worked out that way, but the line will then stabilise at 10, 20, 30 and 60. We go up to 30GB with a single drive.

Rob

Rio Car Players are in the US right now, it shouldn't take long to get them to the estore. It looks like the Rio marketing machine is already pressing ahead full steam on this one - they have some nice events lined up.

It took a while, but it looks like we're finally going to get a good number of these things out into the world

Rob

1.1 has already been released to the Alpha team, who have come up with a few dozen bugs to keep us occupied over the next couple of weeks Once everything is stable we'll put out a public beta.

We'll also have 1.1-Alpha at the Woodside meet to preview the new features.

Rob

There's not much point keeping the beta's when the consumer release has been out and stable for a few months.

Rob

Greetings!

Does this mean that there will be a liquidation sale of Empeg branded players??? Just kidding...

One thought, though. I really like the stun/kill option on the remote. I know that it was only on the prototype, but if those would be available (even the one or two auctioned off to the highest bidder), I think there might be a market for them.

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

There were only six Stun/Kill remotes and they're spoken for

Rob

The new remotes are all packaged with new players, however we have several hundred "extras" on order in anticipation of owners wishing to upgrade. They should be in stock within a couple of weeks.

Rob

Oh, cool! So when you say "hot off the production line"... where are these being manufactured? Same old place, or somewhere in the US?

And another follow-up question...

Are these shipping with 1.02? I didn't think 1.02 was completely rio-branded yet. Do they just not care as long as the splash screen says Rio?

___________
Tony Fabris

Woah... I just received my 40GB Empeg today (got held up in customs). Talk about bad timing, it looks like the 60GB Rio version would only be $50 more according to News.com. : (

I guess now I just have to hope for decent upgrade pricing... hint...hint...

-James

So.... if I buy an empeg, and let's say Rio comes out wiht a big software update or something important that I want, can I just download it onto the empeg... are there any differences between the two units that would prevent me from installing any functionality or anything of the rio in the future? Any reasons to get a Rio Car over the empeg?

if I buy an empeg, and let's say Rio comes out wiht a big software update or something important that I want, can I just download it onto the empeg

Yes, the Rio Car and the Empeg are essentially the same hardware, there are no differences as far as the software is concerned. There will only be one software update which works for both products. The Rio car will have more RAM and some minor changes to the supporting circuitry, but nothing that will affect the way the software is installed.

There is a separate download for the Empeg Mark 1, but that's the original (old) version of the Empeg, and it's unrelated to the Rio Car. The Empeg Mark 2 and the Rio Car are the same thing.

In fact, software-wise, the only thing that differentiates the two products is four bytes of flash RAM in the custom bootup logo area, and you can change those bytes with my logo editor, swapping the Rio logo and the Empeg logo back and forth at will.

Your question is a very good one, and since the Rio announcement, I expect a lot more people will be asking it. I'm going to write up a FAQ entry on this subject, even though you're the first to ask it.

___________
Tony Fabris

Well, how about PC software?

I suppose there's no chance of an 'empeg' branded remote? Not that it matters, I've been using a Kenwood branded one for about a year and a half!!

Geoff
---- -------
Got one of the first Mark 2 empegs...

It's all the same, it's the same product and the same company. The only reason there are empeg branded players still on sale is because we have a few left, and some people don't want to wait. Once the Rio store starts shipping we'll take our stock offline.

Rob

In reply to:

---

The only reason there are empeg branded players still on sale is because we have a few left, and some people don't want to wait.

---

...Sorta like me. I know its kinda lame, but I wanted to be sure I got myself an "Empeg" and not a "Rio Car". Even though they are the same exact hardware, I just wanted to be in on an "original" product. Looks as though I got in just under the wire!

Keep up the great work...
-gg

(BTW - My installation on Saturday went quite well. The Empeg sounds great in the car!)

----- - ---- - --- - -- -- - - - - - - - - -
greggerm 09000991