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The Empeg (admittedly car only) came out around that time, perhaps even slightly before.

http://www.empeg.com/
http://www.riocar.org/

I STILL have one in my car, use it every single day. Interface is far better for in-car use than any ipod or clone I've ever used. Newer stereos are finally getting "OK" ipod interfaces, but the empeg still blows them all away. Mine came with 10Gig, and cost - gulp - $1500. It now has 160GB (1 120GB and one 40GB laptop drive).

Gotta love technology.

Let me first state that I run both Windows and MAC OS machines at home and one of my all time favorite devices is the Empeg Car Stereo. But I make a living by writing software for the Windows platform.

I believe that the single biggest drawback with Windows 2000, Windows XP and I'm sure Windows Vista is that they are all written with legacy support. This makes the operating system extremely bloated and pretty unstable when using any older hardware or any type of 16 bit application.
I believe that if Microsoft were to offer two versions of Vista, one with ZERO legacy support that it would be a far superior product and would be WAY more stable than anything that will eventually make it to the shelves.

How very 1999.

Yes, it's here. It's still in alpha. Last update was July of 2005

The empeg/Rio Car player is a Linux-based, HDD pullout car stereo (I've had one for years and love it). Although the product was discontinued in 2003, there are still units available on eBay and user-supported sites like riocar.org. According to the FAQ on riocar.org, there is a 3.0 beta version of the software that added .ogg support. I don't know if it's easy to find the image for the beta, but the folks in the user community are very helpful and can probably help you find it.

Prior Art

I own an Empeg. It's now several years old, but at the time, was the best tech out there for putting MP3s into a car. In fact it's still nothing to shake a stick at.

But the empeg folks sold their outfit to rio and started working there. That was pretty much the end of the empeg. It was never really marketed by Rio, and the price never came down much. Rio pretty much let it die. It should have been a really popular product.

The Empeg URL is still up, but the company's long gone (wonder where Hugo went).

Empeg did just that: build a formal DIN sized Linux system that had as main aim playing MP3s. The platform was basically overengineered (well done ;-) so it should have had plenty spare capacity to add features or, alternatively, maybe time for a hardware upgrade to bring it out again. It worked, and I was personally quite sad to see it go.

If anything, THAT's the kind of stuff I'd like to see in kit form ;-).

If you can find one of these, get one. It comes out of your car and plugs in as a mass storage device(not 802.11b). They were linux based IIRC and sonicblue bought them if I'm not mistaken and they stopped making them and made "Rio Car" which is also not anywhere to be found new.

This looks awesome too though.

Chris

It's available from the Empeg BBS

You can skip directly to the Software

I recommend using the latest releaes of JEmplode with it. There's an updated Emplode in the alpha firmware package, but it's rather flakey and JEmplode seems to be quite a bit stabler (and runs on Linux).

-- Gary F.

Are you not worried about this?

Car Support to be Discontinued, 01-May-2003.

Great for you that your device now has Ogg support, but I don't think I'd buy a new one (or a used one from ebay) if the support is discontinued.

Nothing to see here folks. As of the recent Alpha Release v3.0 my 60 Gb Empeg Car Player now supports Ogg Vorbis format.

Nothing to see here folks. As of the recent Alpha Release v3.0 my 60 Gb Empeg Car Player now supports Ogg Vorbis format.

This product is developed by the folks at empeg. I've been using a car player they built (now discontinued) that was marketed by sonic blue (Incidentally, I got the 60GB version for just over $400 when Sonic Blue was cleaning out their inventory!).

I haven't played with a whole lot of digital audio players, but the player software in the Rio Car (Player software 2.0) is simply awesome. The Karma will be using the next version (3.0 -- then us Rio Car owners should get it too!). With 2.0, everything is organized how you expect it to be. Playlist management is easy, yet highly customizable. Playlists organization allows nesting (I think this is pretty common) and allows files or playlists to reside in multiple places, so when I rip the new Plumb album, I create a playlist at "Rock\Plumb\Beautiful Lumps of Coal" and also "New Albums\Plumb\Beautiful Lumps of Coal", but of course there is only one copy of the audio on the drive(s).

There are plenty of "wouldn't it be cool if..." features like: multiple insert modes (Insert, append, enqueue) while queueing up music, multiple (customizable) randomizer algorithms (Least recently played, Least often played, Newest additions, Just plain random), plenty of shortcuts (Navigate 5 playlists down to find some album and queue it up... re-enter playlists and hold the button down; it re-navigates the 5 playlists so you can choose one of its siblings), 10-band parametric EQ, "Wendy" filters (filter all gangsta rap from the playlists when your girlfriend is in the car), Bookmarks (Store your current queue of music/audiobooks to one of three "bookmark" positions, play something else when your friends are in the car on Friday night, then jump back to exactly where you were within your original music/audiobook queue), and a bunch of nifty visuals.

Then, install Mark Lord's Hijack kernel, install Debian (if you want) and other apps that use Hijack, you get stuff like telnet access, ftp access, khttpd for web-based streaming (over ethernet) of .m3u/.mp3s, text-to-speech audio clocks, pacman, compression (not the space-saving kind... the audio level adjusting kind), and a bunch of other user-developed stuff.

The designers are regular posters on the bulletin board. You may have noticed a couple of them posting in this thread.

You should have seen what I used to have: the same TV and receiver and an old Thinkpad running XMMS with a patch cable going from the headphone jack to the aux speaker-in on the receiver. We didn't save video; we had to remember when to be home. :-)

I haven't tried Tivo personally. With the money I spent I could have, I'm sure, but hey, I'm a project kinda guy.

Yeah, I hear ya. I'm the same way. Problem is, I have more projects than I can reasonably be expected to finish in my lifetime. It was time to cut down. And the wife wanted a PVR-type thing. So TiVo it was.

I think I failed to mention that I painted it gloss black with silver metallic highlights. crappy paint job, but oh well.

Well now you're talking. :-)

I had this idea for using one of those Shuttle XPC form factor mini PCs as the basis for an entertainment center, and then Alienware came out with one. It runs XP Media Center Edition, which is a deal breaker in and of itself (never mind the cost; those XPC cases are like $150 so I have no idea how they can get away with selling their low-end unit for $1,700). It's just as well since my wife would have niether waited for me to get off my ass and build something or wanted me to spend the money for an Alienware box.

Another idea I had for a project was an in-dash audio player that would stream MP3s to my truck's stereo. It would be based on a Linux PC (the guts out of a laptop), aand have 802.11b connectivity. I was going to write scripts that would detect when the truck was in range of my home network and then rsync all the music files it didn't have and go on standby. I was going to use an old palm pilot as the display/remote. Then I saw that these guys made a unit called an Empeg that did almost exactly what I wanted. I shelved my projet and decided to buy an Empeg. Except the soon-to-be-released Wersion 2 was going to have a PCMCIA slot (which meant an Orinoco card could slide right in there) so I waited. Then SONICblue, those no-talent assmonkeys, bought Empeg out and killed the in-dash unit. I've since given away the laptop which was the basis for my original idea.

I don't know what the moral of those two stories is. Carpe Diem? Scratch your itches? Do what makes you happy? Dunno...

-B

Is anyone else hoping that they bring the Empeg back to life? I bought the Mark IIa when SonicBlue shut down production for a mere 300 bucks and I can say that it's the greatest MP3 player on the planet. Its been several years since the player was released and there's still an active community that builds all kinds of crazy software for the stereo (partly due to the fact that it runs linux).

later,
ajay

PS. And OGG support is coming soon!

i guess that should be empeg, eh?

i've got an empeg in my car, and while it hasn't been exposed to extreme heat, it's dealt with winter in northern vermont (where it gets, like, really cold) and i've never had a problem with it.

I hope I never run into this guy in heavy traffic

I imagine just pressing play or changing the volume on that thing would be a challange while driving. Let alone trying to pick a new album.

empeg and similar designs have put much more thought into making something that is actually usable in a car, rather than just something that looks cool.

Some points - as others have mentioned, mp3 encoding does not get rid of the face - it is still spooky.

And one of the standard visualisation effects on the empeg shows it beautifully.

What's even weirder is it doesn't sound too nasty, musically. Every time I've tried to draw pics in the waveform it's sounded harsh and metallic.

Although the Empeg (now known as Rio Car) isn't Intel-based, it runs on a decently powered StrongARM CPU, and includes a nice screen as well. Runs Linux, and I believe is somewhat hackable.

Since they've stopped production, they're selling off the last ones really cheap - $399 for 60GB version. If you want a nice, hackable in-car computer to hack around with you might want to snap one of these up before they're all gone.

You can indeed connect multiple receivers to the same server. The guys that designed the software and hardware (empeg, the same people that designed the empeg car MP3 player) installed 64 of them in a hotel.

Definitely the Rio Car. It's by far the best car MP3 player you can get. And since it was recently discontinued, they dropped the price dramatically on the player. You can now get a 10GB version for only $699. Compare that to the $1499 for a 6GB when it first came out. What's great about the product is that even though it's discontinued, the software is open source, so people are continuing to update and hack the software.

Definitely the Rio Car. It's by far the best car MP3 player you can get. And since it was recently discontinued, they dropped the price dramatically on the player. You can now get a 10GB version for only $699. Compare that to the $1499 for a 6GB when it first came out. What's great about the product is that even though it's discontinued, the software is open source, so people are continuing to update and hack the software.

The Empeg has solved this rather efficiently.

And yet, both are still an easy match for the Empeg with it's unparalleled hackability and features.

Otherwise, my $400 is going into a nice car MP3 player. If you hurry, you can pick up an empeg player. But you'll need a bit more than $400.

From geek.empeg.com - "A key design feature is that the car player uses software CODEC's and as such is not tied in to any particular format. Version 1.1 of the player includes both Microsoft WMA and raw WAV support. We also have the option to introduce AAC if the demand arises. The car player, even the Mk.1 version, is not a product that is expected to become obsolete any time soon!"

Hmm, maybe one should think first, and speak later..

"These are the same Rio people that bought up the EMPEG car mp3 player."

No that was a British company called EMPEG, Rio's innovation was writing a cheque and buying them up.

I've seen people with an EMPEG and AirPort base station in their car window... obviouly great for zapping new tunes to your car.

I mean, sure, it's geeky and all, and it uses a piece of old hardware, but I think this is a lot cooler

Empeg, as it started out in a homebrew fashion, is far more interesting device. Seems that Diamond has purchased that though, as it's now the RioCar.

• E-Mpeg
• MP3 Car (okay they are home made, but that's more fun isn't it?)
• Mega Car (probably out of your price range! I recall this car being worth $300,000)
• I know of others but I'd have to go find them some of which are from big name audio companies.

You mean like empeg?

It ain't cheap. And it ain't portable.

But I got an 18 gig one ... An Empeg player

If you haven't already, go check out the empeg. It's superior in just about every way. It even runs linux!

The $1199 price for the Empeg is justified by the components, the build quality and the added-value you get from your CD collection. Think about it -- with a 40 Gb upper limit, you can MP3 encode *all* of your collection (and your S.O.'s as well), and play tracks which normally never get heard. Most people with 6xCD changers listen to the same six CDs for weeks before changing, and tend to skip over albums which contain only one or two "good" tracks. With the Empeg, you can choose to sequence _only_ the good tracks, and with the random option, you hear parts of your collection that you'd never normally choose. This represents an economic value-added to your existing CD investments, because you're increasing your utilization by reducing opportunity costs.

Furthermore, I can download free upgrades for my Empeg (firmware and PC loader) anytime. Now that they've been bought by the company that makes the RIO, you can bet that the economies of large-scale manufacturing and improved access to the components market will bring the price down, while adding neat new features. Look for a top model to come out next year for less than $999.

Disclaimer: I have no inside knowledge about the Empeg -- I'm just a satisfied customer.

And a post-script for audiophiles -- the Empeg has some great options for shaping the sound. Here's a quote from their home page:

On the audio side, a Philips in-car DSP deals with the DAC and provides digital loudness, bass, treble, balance and fader for the four outputs. It also gives a 20 band fully parametric equaliser which can be arranged as stereo 10-band or quad 5-band. The final stage is provided by Burr Brown pre-amps.
--
Paul Gillingwater

Despite the coolness factor of running Linux in your car stereo, I simply can't imagine spending $1,199 for an Empeg. It seems like a tremendous waste of money to me, and I'm just not in the habit of throwing away money like that...

I'm much more interested in the Aiwa CDC-MP3 system. It's only $299, and can play CD-Rs, CD-RWs and standard CD's, including MP3s. And it's $900 less than the Empeg...

• The emptool, which is used for synchronization, has been open sourced with the GNU Public License.
• The new player has Serial RS232, USB and Ethernet connections, which makes it real easy to link to. I even have the DB9 in my car, in case I want to hook it up to my laptop or GPS.
• It runs Linux, and is extensible, so you can write your own projects.
• The Staff are very helpful and friendly, and have built a strong community of users through their mailing lists and BBS.
• The company was just bought by Sonic Blue (formerly S3) and will therefore join the RIO family of products.
• My model has 10 Gb of a laptop-spec hard drive, (resistant to vibration/impact) which means hundreds of hours of my favourite music, nicely organized into categories or just at random.
• The head unit is removeable within 1 second, and can then be used (with the remote control) as a useful component in a standard home HiFi system, and as a great anti-theft option.
• Warranty works -- I dropped my unit, breaking the display (great graphic visualizations BTW!) and they fixed it and returned it within a few days.

• The emptool, which is used for synchronization, has been open sourced with the GNU Public License.
• The new player has Serial RS232, USB and Ethernet connections, which makes it real easy to link to. I even have the DB9 in my car, in case I want to hook it up to my laptop or GPS.
• It runs Linux, and is extensible, so you can write your own projects.
• The Staff are very helpful and friendly, and have built a strong community of users through their mailing lists and BBS.
• The company was just bought by Sonic Blue (formerly S3) and will therefore join the RIO family of products.
• My model has 10 Gb of a laptop-spec hard drive, (resistant to vibration/impact) which means hundreds of hours of my favourite music, nicely organized into categories or just at random.
• The head unit is removeable within 1 second, and can then be used (with the remote control) as a useful component in a standard home HiFi system, and as a great anti-theft option.
• Warranty works -- I dropped my unit, breaking the display (great graphic visualizations BTW!) and they fixed it and returned it within a few days.

• The emptool, which is used for synchronization, has been open sourced with the GNU Public License.
• The new player has Serial RS232, USB and Ethernet connections, which makes it real easy to link to. I even have the DB9 in my car, in case I want to hook it up to my laptop or GPS.
• It runs Linux, and is extensible, so you can write your own projects.
• The Staff are very helpful and friendly, and have built a strong community of users through their mailing lists and BBS.
• The company was just bought by Sonic Blue (formerly S3) and will therefore join the RIO family of products.
• My model has 10 Gb of a laptop-spec hard drive, (resistant to vibration/impact) which means hundreds of hours of my favourite music, nicely organized into categories or just at random.
• The head unit is removeable within 1 second, and can then be used (with the remote control) as a useful component in a standard home HiFi system, and as a great anti-theft option.
• Warranty works -- I dropped my unit, breaking the display (great graphic visualizations BTW!) and they fixed it and returned it within a few days.

• The emptool, which is used for synchronization, has been open sourced with the GNU Public License.
• The new player has Serial RS232, USB and Ethernet connections, which makes it real easy to link to. I even have the DB9 in my car, in case I want to hook it up to my laptop or GPS.
• It runs Linux, and is extensible, so you can write your own projects.
• The Staff are very helpful and friendly, and have built a strong community of users through their mailing lists and BBS.
• The company was just bought by Sonic Blue (formerly S3) and will therefore join the RIO family of products.
• My model has 10 Gb of a laptop-spec hard drive, (resistant to vibration/impact) which means hundreds of hours of my favourite music, nicely organized into categories or just at random.
• The head unit is removeable within 1 second, and can then be used (with the remote control) as a useful component in a standard home HiFi system, and as a great anti-theft option.
• Warranty works -- I dropped my unit, breaking the display (great graphic visualizations BTW!) and they fixed it and returned it within a few days.

Since empeg were bought by S3 (SONICblue) it has been announced that the empeg car player will be integrated into the Rio product line. This will fix distribution problems, and hopefully result in an expanded product line.

Rob

Most drives are already built to withstand some pretty crazy g's, both while operating and powered down. And, there are currently a lot of mp3 players available for cars, so they've either solved the damping question or realize it's not an issue. A popular example is here. An another one here.
(By the way, looks like Empeg is being aquired by S3. Yowzaaa.

Jason

"Non-freakshow"? Not sure what you mean by that. My empeg player was expensive, but is an incredibly well designed and built machine. It isn't mainstream but it isn't frankenstiens monster, either.

In the US, maybe - there seems to be a big gap between the techies (who buy computer CD-R drives and MP3 players) and everyone else (who stick with tape and the odd bought CD). Not a lot in between, so the average music fan has to go one way or the other.

In the UK, I'm constantly surprised by "normal" non-tech people who mention that they use MD. It's a great format for home recording (especially from CD, or for archiving old vinyls) and it's significantly easier to use than consumer CD-R, and even tape in many respects. Put in a MD, hit "sync rec", play the CD.

More significantly, this stuff is fairly cheap over here even in the high-street shops. Portable recorders (all you need to get started) are sold from 99ukp up, and many mini-systems over 200ukp come with a MD deck built-in. Cool products like the MXD-D3 help a lot too - it's a CD/MD deck that's well priced and can record at 4x.

What made me switch properly though was when I came to replace my car stereo. I didn't like the thought of constantly burning CDs to use in the car (or risking my bought ones in there, both from a scratching and theft point of view), hate tape and couldn't afford an empeg. So I bought a Sony MDX-C6500R and it's fantistic. Cost 160ukp (about 10 more than the CD equivalent), and I just keep a dozen or so recordings in my the door pocket, no hassle.

Maybe it's a 'net access thing (we're only just getting decent unmetered services here) so less music is downloaded and people copy from their friends instead. But I have my entire CD collection (over 200 albums) ripped to MP3 (plus about 20gig downloaded), I own a computer CD-R drive and I still found MD the best solution. Nothing else comes close to it's portability, durability and general convenience.

Data was always a non-starter - Zip/LS120 were always cheaper and quicker and a 650mb format wouldn't stand a chance against CDR/W. I just think of it as a music format, and it's likely it'll stay like that.

Maybe it'll die in the US, but despite the slow start it's thriving everywhere else. I can even buy blanks in my small local supermarket!

I believe you are probably refering to empeg. An in-dash car MP3 player that runs Linux. It uses the StrongARM processor and because it is software controlled it could be updated to run Ogg.

Too bad the price on these things are way too high!

I am suprised no one has posted this one: the car mp3 player at Empeg.com. It costs anywere from $1199 (USD) to $1949 (USD), depending on HD space. The part you guys would like, though, is that it runs LINUX!!! Not only that but you can take it out and use it as an MP3 server because it has an ethernet port (also comes with USB). You can also move it between cars and take it to parties. This is what I want when I get my drivers license. I don't know, but there seams like something nice about being able to go for nearly a month without listening to the same song. Just a suggestion,
Andrew.

The answer is obvious: a CDC-MP3 player from Aiwa. You really can't beat the price at just under $300 but you should be able to get it for about $250. It's the perfect addition to your geek-mobile or geek-mobile to be, and it costs a hell of a lot less that some other alternatives.

This is one I've been eyeing for a while - a little outside the $300-$1000 range, but still in the ballpark ($1199).

100 hours of MP3 in your dash! Empeg

It's definetly on the high end...but worth it.

Price isn't too reasonable but it gets the cool factor. The empeg