One thing that hasn't really been alluded to is the future of our little board here. While I'm sure we'll all be perfectly willing to talk about our players, the fact remains that we really are going to have less to talk about in regards to them. In the next few months we'll be talking about v2 plenty, and depending on what happens with the VR, that might keep us going longer. We'll also have the newbies snatching up the left over players that will post questions.

But to me it looks like 6-8 months from now we won't have a whole lot besides 3rd party projects to discuss.

What do you guys think? I really want to keep talking, and hope we have plenty to talk about. This is my most frequented board now and I like coming here and reading the stuff posted by folk who know what they're talking about (even if I don't ).

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

Greetings!

I have become so attached to my empeg that I just did what you posted here. I just ordered the smallest unit available, and I will put it on the closet shelf. Just in case my production unit gets broken in the future. While I know that support will be available for the software, and there will be a limited time for hardware support, I know that it will not go on forever.

I have been thinking about getting another unit for a while, more to tinker with and to have in case I damaged my current one / needed to send it in for repair. This announcement pushed me to action.

Meanwhile, I am sad to hear about the layoffs, and I hope that everything works out for those who were hit. Also, I am glad that most of the empeg folks are doing well, and having fun on other projects while still working on the RioCar.

I don't suppose you have an extra hard drive cable laying around...

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)

Hugo, let me first said that I feel very lucky to have stumbled two years ago (I don't remember how) on a web site operated by a certain bunch of British nuts.

I think that Sonic|blue made less-than-halfhearted effort at marketing Rio - no, empeg car. Selling through one not so good car-audio chain covering a handfull of US states can hardly be called having a retail channel. Experience with US online sales would be laughable if it were not sad. All possible totally avoidable delays are unforgivable. Where were ads, reviews in geekish magazines, those little items in 'gadgets you must have' in Playboy and similar magazines for self-deluding men spending more that their actual disposable income is? No, if SB honchos say the empeg niche is very small and already saturated, they are lying to themselves.

Several questions (you have already answered to one - that you will make every reasonable effort to keep our precious cache of empegs working):

- Is further empeg car software development unique to our toys, of (hopefully) there exists a common codebase with some other products? If the former is the case, I am quite pessimistic about post-V2.0 future...

- You said SB cannot make an aftermarket product as polished as, say, Sony. You also said that the future is not in aftermarket but integrated audio. Which way (if any) will SB go: license empeg car technology to some aftermarket manufacturer, or to car manufacturers (or their OEM suppliers)? If the later, a car manufacturer, or will we ba able to buy the product(s) in variety of new (and not only American) cars?

- How much dumbed-down will eventual new products be? Will you have any say in it?

TIA for any answer you might be able to squeeze past NDAs and such...

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

I think that Sonic|blue made less-than-halfhearted effort at marketing Rio

You may think so, but I couldn't possibly comment..

Is further empeg car software development unique to our toys, of (hopefully) there exists a common codebase with some other products

The codebase is common to all products that we develop within the Audio Software Applications team (as we're now called). The Rio Receiver, for example, runs the same code with some alternate build options. We have recently completed (to RC stage) a large project which has, as a side effect, brought about many improvements to the forthcoming Car 2.0 code. That project is entirely unrelated to the automotive market. So, even without specific automotive developments the car player can benefit - but in fact automotive developments are very much at the forefront of our plans right now.

Which way (if any) will SB go: license empeg car technology to some aftermarket manufacturer, or to car manufacturers (or their OEM suppliers)?

Both. We have been working with the world's largest automotive ancilliaries manufacturer for over two years, and more recently have entered into serious discussions with major auto manufacturers and after market car audio brands. In general we can't discuss these projects, but existing Rio Car owners are likely to benefit from them in a number of ways, as well as future customers who will have the opportunity to use our technology via more mainstream routes.

How much dumbed-down will eventual new products be? Will you have any say in it?

Hmm, maybe we should use the term consumer friendly

We are able to offer OEM clients a broad range of modular products. We can and will advise on which features are suited to particular markets, but at the end of the day the product specification is in the hands of the customer. One would assume that they in turn will be influenced by the characteristics of their target audience.

Rob

After some thought, I have finally been able to formulate a response to this news.

Firstly I have to say that I'm disapointed with SB. I don't think they backed their new riocar as much as they could have. MY impression is that they had already created these other mobile units and that was going to be the main focus or their campaign. There certainly weren't, as was pointed out, the units being shipped to the major mover and shaker magazines to promote the player. There wasn't the advertising in car audio magazines and on web sites. How does a product that until now has only been available via internet ordering break into these markets that have been dominated by 'traditional' marketing strategies? It HAS to used those stratagies as well.
There is not a single manufacturer of mainstream car audio equipment that is worth it's salt, without a decent website. So where was the SB promotion of the riocar advertising?

I feel that SB acquired empeg principally to invest in the brains at empeg, not capitalise in the empeg car product. While I'm elated that most of the empeg team is still with SB, I'm annoyed that SB didn't do more to enhance, market and promote the riocar. Rob, you said that the riocar is several years ahead of it's time. Why the hell didn't SB capitalise on that? Years ahead. So now they're going to orphan a world leading product in order to come back to the level of the other manufaturers?
Why are they taking so many steps back after such an enourmous run forward?

I truly think that SB, unintentionally or otherwise, let empeg down by not allocating resources to their latest acquisition. Unforgivable production delays, shipping problems, etc etc. If they needed it to succeed, the company manager would have been crashing through doors to fix the problems.

I hope that the software support continues as promised. At this time I'm inclined to want that in writing, not from Rob or Hugo because I would follow them to the ends of the earth, but from the Rio product line manager or accountant who is in charge of funding these now 'sideline' projects.

I'm so glad that V2 is so close to production, but I'm aprehensive about further development beyound that. I'd be in for the $100 levy to fund the research and production of the VR project. hmm, $100 from 1000 people, invested wisely for the next few years could provide quite a good foundation for this project.

I hope that the empeg will be the 'test bed' for upcomeing OEM projects which Rio develops. This way we will see continued developments of our own investments.

hmm, I've said about enough for now.

Murray
Go-Wit-Da-Fro

I think that Sonic|blue made less-than-halfhearted effort at marketing Rio

You may think so, but I couldn't possibly comment..

You didn't try very hard to convince me otherwise . I'll take that as a loud enough comment.

I hope that your other rather optimistic predictions will pan out.


Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

I really don't hink SB gave it much of a chance either, hardly anyone knows about to be sure & some people I know had never heard of Rio! The ads aren't there which as McDonalds proved, advertising is directly proportionate to sales. Hell SB didn't even have the empeg a year before bailing on it.

#695-Mk2/8 colors-12Gig w/Tuner- awaits v2.x & Voice Recog.

Its most dissapointing when i read geeky magazines to find a rave review on the Neo 35 or some other relatively pants car mp3 player.
Obviusly i dont know the full story of the lack of marketing at SB, but i guess they figured if people want an empeg, they will buy one, rather than we want people to want one. Bastards.

I, like most people on this board, take it as an ego boost: When my friends go "whats that" and i explain what it is and how mainstream it will be, they are in awe. But now general people who havnt used it properly before will just think its [censored].
I think most people on this board take the discontinuing of the empeg/riocar slightly personaly..

Lets do something before it is 2 late. Review the article on this page . So at least in Holland potential buyers might be persuaded!

huub 080000135

Now that you're not trying to market this product anymore, do you think we can have some type of backup software built in?
There really isn't a concern of an injuction being imposed by the RIAA.
The product will remain a toy for hackers.

I'm utterly astounded that someone (who isn't employed by empeg) hasn't written a functional backup utility by now!

I tried once, but I have a Mk1 and the parts of the C++ source were missing for USB. So I didn't get very far.

Despite people requesting the missing code at the time, it only appeared yesterday...

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

Little do you know ....

I suppose it is because those with the ability to write this sort of thing are also the sorts to have installed something like ftp (server or client) which allows you to backup the empeg anyway...

It's one of those situations where it hasn't been a big enough itch to scratch for those that can scratch it...

you could write one and release it under an alias (unless rob is one and we have been decieved all this time then you could use your real name :-) )

32Gig MK2 In 2001 VW Golf TDI

Are you implicitely stating that someone who IS employed by empeg has? I would bet that's the case!
So, would that someone leak the code, or am I asking too much? If I am, no problem, I understand completely. But I just wanted to try :)

Taym
_________________________
MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923

So, would that someone leak the code

No, I don't believe he would .


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

So, would that someone leak the code, or am I asking too much?

You're implying that code needs to be leaked. It doesn't.

All the necessary code to write a backup utility is available. Proper examination of the public-domain emptool sources will reveal the necessary things you need to write a backup program.

There may not be a backup/restore utility in emptool, but the pieces are there, watiing to be used. Somebody please write one, OK?

And while you're at it, please put file-taxi capability into it, too, so we can have a catch-all utility for all empeg file transfers.

___________
Tony Fabris