Pamphlet Front attached


|| loren.cox ||

Pamphlet Back attached


|| loren.cox ||

The SB site never even mentioned VR; it mentions a microphone input only.

It did mention WMA was coming soon - and it was, for suitably large values of "soon"; yes, 2.0 is late but it's rather better to release something stable than a heap of junk.

Hugo, I'm on board with all of your points. I have carefully avoided saying that VR was promised on the RioCar site. However, it was definitely said on this BBS around the time of the 1.0 software release that VR would be coming in a future release. I'm sure you were all careful not to mention any specific date for this, but the fact remains that it was said to be on the horizon. Over a year later, some of us are wondering if it will ever come, especially when I have seen hints that it might be dropped given EOL status. Due to the licensing, etc. it would seem to be difficult to do without the backing of the parent company.

I am also in favor of getting it right before you release it. In another thread I've staunchly defended the decision to delay the 2.0 beta release in favor of something more stable. But I stand by my statement that the marketing literature (e.g. but certainly not limited to the aforementioned brochure) was WAY ahead of the actual ability to release the functionality, and that is bound to cause some uproar among consumers. We paid a premium for a product that promised to have certain advantages over what else is out there, and while we did get a lot of those advantages, we're still waiting on some.

To be honest, I will still get a lot of enjoyment out of my Empeg even if VR never makes it in. Furthermore, I would have bought mine even if VR wasn't mentioned. But it certainly was a feature that got my attention, and I would be very disappointed if it turned out to be another marketing hype "whiz-bang" feature that got left on the cutting room floor.

-Tony
MkII #554

It is mention on the SB site aswell - still there at http://www.riohome.com/products/riocar-pd.htm

and says:
"In future you will be able to use voice recognition to access common functions and select music in a hands free fashion. "

This was one of the many features that persuaded me to buy my empeg. Im still completely happy without VR but it would be nice.

RioCar 10GB RGB - can never decide

Thanks

32Gig MK2 In 2001 VW Golf TDI

I'm going to call "bull" on this one...it was clear from context at the time that VR was going to be a feature included within the next few months. I don't know if I would have purchased the mk2 otherwise, as I've said before.

Fly me to the moon...

Fwiw, this problem predated the sonicblue purchase.

Fly me to the moon...

"Over 40 Stunning Visuals"

[Kirk and away team beams in]

Captain Kirk: Alright, Set your Empeg's on Maximum FunnelWeb ... We don't know what to expect here.

Bump

Just a thought. Rob said a while back that there was news coming up hinting that there might be a mk3 style product (or at least this is what we assumed) being released.

I can't help wondering whether this is yet to happen (the announcment of such a product) or if it has been put to rest with this EOL announcement.

Any thoughts?

Murray
Go-Wit-Da-Fro

There won't be a mk3 from us, no. We did have one designed, but it (obviously) didn't make it to production. Any future players will be from other OEMs.

Hugo

We did have one designed

Are you willing to share any pictures taken of it?
Am I correct thinking that 'mk3' actually stands for empeg's electronics that is going to be used by other OEMs? What I mean is this: Sony produces a monitor tube and calls it Trinitron. Then NEC produces a monitor with a Trinitron tube.... So, eventually some of the major players in car audio will produce players with mk3 electronics, right?!?!

­­______________
Edwin de Vaan

Yeah, I second that!
Don't you have a photo of the mk3 laying around that you can post? I don't need to know anything of the functions or functionality (because I know you won't say anything anyway ), but I would also like to know what the mk3 would've looked like.

Riocar 58gig (48gig + 10gig IBM travelstar) S/N : 10101747 red

Any chance of a list of features it was going to have at the stage you had designed it to...?

Kim

Please don't tell us what features were in the Mk3. It's bad enough knowing what's in player 2.0, and we actually still expect to get that one day...

--
Toby Speight - 040103385

(responding to all 3 comments)

There was no mk3 industrial design at this stage - this was one of the major costs that was unique to Rio making and selling their own player.

The unit had USB host (but no ethernet/USB slave/serial), CD slot for ripping, face-off, 4x45W amp, AM/FM tuner, bigger VFD (but smaller pixels), and was not pull-out - but the HDD was removeable and docked with USB. CPU was a 200MHz ARM9. The audio stage was basically identical, just using a slightly newer philips DSP.

...all fitted in a single-DIN unit. Tight squeeze, I can tell you! It was far less geeky than the mk2 (eg, no visuals on tuner or aux, no ethernet, etc) but we had some aggressive pricing to hit so some things had to go.

Any OEMs we're not already talking to who'd like one of these... you know where to come ;)

Hugo

...and that day is either nigh or almost nigh...

Hugo

So, less fun, more practical, and more likely to be mass-produced (and mass-bought ). Actually, not entirely unlike that anounced Pioneer unit.

What was host USB for? Additional disks?

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

Umm, whatever you wanted. 802.11, ethernet, additional storage, download to rio portables, etc.

Hugo

Those specs remind me of the specs of the announced (but not yet produced) Neo 5100 unit. It also has a cd and a removable HD, is not removable itself and has a tuner and integrated amp.
Only thing from which it would differ from the specs you mention is that the Empeg's VFD would probably be of better quality.

There's a pic of it here (third pic). There were more pics than only this one online, but I can't seem to find them. Note that the site still claims it was going to be released april 2001, but so far it hasn't shown up yet.

Riocar 58gig (48gig + 10gig IBM travelstar) S/N : 10101747 red

The 5100 was nothing like the mk3 unit (except physically - and then you'd be comparing it with the Pioneer and Sony unit too). The mk3 was networking-heavy, plus all the advanced stuff from current mk2s.

To give you an idea, the 5100 wouldn't rip or compress CDs at all; it'd play them, and you could copy mp3 files from it. It was basically a neo35 with an IDE CD-rom - there was no music management, etc.

Hugo

Gee Hugo, the 'mk3' sounds like heaven on a stick (or in a car). Are you able to indicate why SB wouldn't want to go ahead with such a unit? If empeg as a small start up company can sell a few thousand (or so) units AND do major development in UI, why didn't SB be of more help with this?

Murray
new styleee

*sob* I want one of those...

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

The announcement was that SONICblue were no longer going to attempt to establish a brand presence in the automotive space. It has nothing to do with the technology, it has to do with the market. We're still working on automotive products, but we won't be marketing them ourselves.

Rob

So what you're saying is that if the right people get interested we *could* see Mk2as and "Mk3"s with other peoples names on the front?

(list 6284, Mk1 S/N 00299 4GB blue [for sale]. Mk2 S/N 080000094 26GB blue)

I can't imagine that any more Mk.2A's will ever be made.

Rob

Yes, of course there wouldn't be any music management software on the 5100, and I have no doubt that the mk3 would've been the better product (I've owned a Neo35 so I know about how well it 'manages' the mp3's - NOT!). It's just that are first glance the pure hardware specs looked really similar. (and by this I don't mean of course that every transistor is the same)

Riocar 58gig (48gig + 10gig IBM travelstar) S/N : 10101747 red