Rio Car (Empeg) Sounds Like History

An Anonymous Coward writes: "An unoffical announcement on the empeg BBS (home of their finatical user base) is that SONICblue's current aftermarket car linux product, the Rio Car (formerly the empeg Car Player) has been EOL'd. While it remains the most advanced car player available, there was not enough demand to keep that group profitable. It will continue to be sold through their e-stores (Non-USA and USA) until inventory is exhausted. This was/is the ultimate in car stereo for MP3 playback. Disappointing."

Comments

Price...

[dane23]

For the average user the $999 price tag is a little steep whe you compare it to an $300 AIWA mp3 cd player.

How did this happen?

[DragonPup]

For a mere cost of $1000-1900, why weren't people buying these in droves? Seriously, while cool, I'd just buy a car stereo that plays mp3 cds and burn some CDs. It's a cool idea what they did, it's just way overpriced.

-Henry

Re:How did this happen?

[mcspock]

You'd be surprised how difficult it is to deliver a product to market at a reasonable price. Consumer electronic distribution channels (which Rio was trying to use) pocket about 33% of the $1000 price tag. Additionally, Rio has to make some money off this. Then it comes down to components, and things like LCDs, hard drives, processors add up quick. Rio was probably making an OK margin on these, but it's not like they were making bank at all. The reason they were the only company with a car jukebox is because most companies have noted that it's not economically feasable yet.

Re:How did this happen?

[IronClad]

the 800 cd equivelant to and from the car, you must have some magical lightweight cd collection.

Who would do that? I have an enormous commute (90 min each way). At that rate I barely have to change an ISO MP3 CDR twice a week. And since I keep 12 or so tucked under my visor (takes 3 seconds when I do), I can go 2 months without hearing the same song twice. And who would tote them to and from the car? It's not like the media is expensive.

I pity the poor slob that has to live in his car long enough to "enjoy" a bigger selection.

Re:How did this happen?

[IronClad]

not just the subset you happen to have tediously burned to CD.
Yeah, I remember when I had an obsolete, slow CD burner. I'd still need to backup those kinds of media files, since I wouldn't trust my car to that job.

CD's self-destruct at fairly low temperature.
Last I checked, the temperature a CD-R blows at is was well above the operating temperature of most hard drives. At any rate, my CDs have stayed all summer in the Texas sun -- no problem.

The rest is up for grabs
For $1000-$2000 I would expect more bundled. A GUI; IO lines to control the car; GPS, to begin with.

it would have taken a lot of time and cost nearly as much
I think the point of mass-production should be product that is more expensive, not less, to do it yourself. And the value of what they did just doesn't justify such a premium price.

$1000+ line of players

[IronClad]

Are we really wondering why the market barfed at this?

I thought long and hard before I coughed up the mere $300 for the AIWA MP3 player. Sure, it only holds one ISO9660 disk at a time, but that's 15-18 albums, better than most changers. And I keep a stash of ISO disks under my visor, making for more than 10 GB. And it plays VBR encoded tracks at my preferred higher bitrates.

Scrolling to find a track on a HD with 4,000 tracks would a pain on the freeway too.

Downside is that the AIWA is the *ugliest* thing around; It fits in with my old pickup though.

sonic blue take over

[johnjones]

hmm suspect that they just didnt want the expense of makeing the units

lets face it as soon as they where taken over they had lots of money and no motivation to keep selling the product

they did the development on the homePNA systems so got alot of revenue through development work

but what really killed them was that ARM went out and did them an core that they could use to do MP3 and WMA decode in the RIO 800 so its mostly hardware now compared to a mostly software solution

like other things the funtionality it got moved into hardware

regards

john jones

p.s. check out the photo of taco on the BBS
p.p.s. ed I am writeing a compiler for Xscale (-;

Why do people think it is overpriced?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has laptop hard drives, completely custom electronics, real audiophile-quality sound circuitry, it's built like a tank and the software is amazing and a lesson in good interface design.

It has a *parametric* equaliser which is worth a couple of hundred dollars alone and it even has ethernet. You can even hook up a base station and make it wireless.

It costs a fortune to build and the support is top notch - they've been invaluable in helping me with a custom install, why beyond what they would be expected to do.

Why is it that when a company makes a unique, well designed and built product, at a realistic price, that people put it down?

Remember - the component cost alone is very high, and no, it isn't justa hundred dollars worth of parts. Remember that these were built in small quantities and the parts people overlook are the most expensive - the metal case, plastic front panel, the packaging.

The empeg guys never intended for it to be mass-market and appeal to 18 year olds. They built a box that lets you store your entire music collection and carry it around. This isn't competing with portable players and people using laptops.

Look beyond what *you* can afford and what *you* want. It does what it set out to do perfectly. Just because it isn't the product you'd have designed doesn't mean it isn't a good product.

Another bad idea dies

[Anonymous Coward]

It was never a good idea. Why?

Price: Two billion bucks for a car radio is just stupid. A few nerds will buy em but then the average consumer says "wha?!?" when they see the price. It was just too expensive. Even for car audio nuts.

Ease of use: Very silly. You had to get it out if the car to put tracks in it? Hello. Stupid and clunky way of getting the thing to work. An MP3 cd player in your car does a better job. Blank cd's are about 0.30 cents. A much better option with a very cheap media.

Why are people shocked when a bad idea dies?

The best ideas always win because people vote with money, not the OS it's based on.

Jebus

Comments on the complaints here

[Drakino]

Well, since slashdot took away my empeg BBS reading ability, I'll post here for a bit. Lets see, the complaints that I have seen so far are:

1. The cost. $1000 is too much.
Ok, you probably don't realise what that $1000 gets you. It allows you to listen to your entire music collection whenever you want with a few button presses. (The interface is very slick and easy to use. No need for "next next next x130 times" to get to a song). It also gets you a very hackable in dash Linux computer. Someone already has basic navigation software working on it, and others have added web servers and streaming support when it's on an ethernet connection. Oh, that last point is a good one. I can use the unit in my house, or at work as well. Thats saved me money compaired to getting a portable HDD player, or a home MP3 player. You also get awesome support. You botched a software experiment on the player, doing things way beyond playing MP3s? Well odds are, you would post to the BBS, and have the creators of the product replying to help out. And one last point, you don't have to own a CD burner and a constant source of media to get songs you like. Also, the software is upgradable. The empeg has the power to decode Mpeg4 video, so it's going to be a while before it can't decode an audio format. (Mpeg4 video is decoded decently on an iPaq, and that uses a slightly slower StrongARM)

2. It has no radio.
Check again... The Mark 1 had an integrated FM tuner, and the Mark 2 has an optional AM/FM tuner, on an interface that could be used down the road for additional formats. (XM, etc...) It's doubtful that will happen now, but only time will tell.

3. I could build it for less.
Sure, if you don't count the time needed to build a player that is useable in the house as well. Also the time needed to develop advanced software that dosen't require your complete attention.

4. No CD support.
For the rare need of a CD in the car, I just hook a portable player into the Aux in. If you want the niceness of the empeg, with a CD player, then you are going to probably pay $2000 or more, once Pioneer gets their unit out. Plus that will be locked into the dash.

5. It could get stolen easially.
Well, yes, slightly easier then most assuming your stupid enough to leave it in the car all the time. Removable face plates are no security feature. The empeg offers the best security, since you know it won't be stolen from your side.

6. It's a hassle to hook up to add music.
Not really. You connect it in house to an ethernet cable, or USB and can sync. Just a slight bit more hassle then portable players, since you also have to have power. But what portable player allows you to stream your music via ethernet? Besides, to me it's much easier then burning a ton of cds to try and match my mood.

7. It has no built in amp.
This is a legitimate complaint to some extent. But the market empeg was aiming at, most people would have their own amps anyhow.

8. It looks like crap.
Not really. The empeg actually looks like it belongs in my dash, compaired to the cheap plastic look of most car stereos. Plus, it dosen't have 15 billion tiny buttons all over the place. And when it powers up, the screen is awesome with it's size.

I have enjoyed my empeg (both Mark 1 and 2) quite a bit. It was well worth the money, and I look forward to the rest of the market catching up many years down the road. It was a geeky product, but it did everything I wanted and more.

Re:High cost, no PCMCIA

[Wee]

You have no clue what you are talking about.

I might agree that I have an outdated clue... :-) I did some research a while back, but backburnered it after life got in the way.

Many people have enabled their Empeg/Rio units to do 802.11 while in the car. I will be one of them,.. I just got my home side (with a laptop and access point) working and the Rio player in the car is next.

How do you get the empeg set up? Do you have any links to like a how-to or some such? I'll do a search, but if you've got something you can paste in from a bookmark, that would be super cool.

And as far as hackinmg together your own linux computer for the car,.. good f'n luck. I tried it is a lot easier than it sounds,.. dealing with power supplies, custom on/off delay circuits, filesystem woas and the like are a major pain in the ass.

Hmmmm. It does sound like there are issues I hadn't considered. One thing I was thinking about a while ago was taking apart an old IBM laptop I have laying around and putting the bits in some form or another under the seats in my truck. At least then, I'd only need a PSU. When the car shut off, it would go to battery. That's overly simplistic, but workable maybe.

Another idea would be to hook up the SBC-based computer to direct battery power and then suspend it after a certain period of inactivity. You'd need something to make the power more regular, but it's certainly possible.

I wish I would have bought the Empeg first instead wasting so much time on trying to hack together a good looking usable system. It was a complete waste of time.

I might not really have that option now, though. Since it's allegedly been EOL'ed, we'll soon be back to where we were empeg-wise. I definitely will miss out on that display. The empeg had a wonderful gui. Maybe I'll look for an empeg. As long as you can get 802.11 shoehorned onto it, then I'm a happy camper.

Anyway, thanks for the eye-opener...

-B