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New portable MP3 player from RCA
deicide wrote in to send us
a link to MP3.com and this story about
RCA's new MP3 Player. Its
called 'Lyra', and it is nice looking, and while it only holds
32 megs, it accepts external storage of up to 340 megs.
You are right. The RCA brand is now owned by Thomson Multimedia of France.
Even the first review of this product states that the plugins allow you to bypass the various music encryption/encoding schemes. How long will it be before the plugins are reverse-engineered and you can load an open-source module that allows you to play any format you please? Not long, I'll bet.
And as for the cry of privacy invasion, this product bears no resemblance to the DIVX nightmare -- with DIVX, the device uses your phone to report your activities & preferences to a central controlling authority. It won't operate unless it's connected. With a Lyra-like device, you have to opt-in to a scheme like this (loading and using a decoding module that requires an online transaction with some authority), and there's less opportunity for any funny business (transaction recording that's unauthorized by you) because the device is physically disconnected (no built-in modem or network connection lying in wait).
Personally, I like the hardware, and I especially like the idea that I will soon be able to use it with open-source software modules that put my privacy fears to rest.
I think not...(*poof*)
Only two questions for the hardware geeks out there - can this new portable have it's memory upgraded, and if so - what's the type of memory it takes?
Second question - how long until somebody creates an interface for exchanging data between mp3 players? I'd like to hook a Rio up to a Lyra (or whatever), and exchange data with it. Feasible?
--
Well, I meant actual MPGE-1 Layer 4, not the stupid MP4. But the same goes for it, ACC, Microsoft's audio code, RealAudio, etc.
The rate at which memory prices fall is going to be a LOT faster than the rate at which compression algorithms get better. MP4 will be at best twice as good at compressing music as MP3 (and you can only compress things so far before you have no information left), but portable storage prices are going to drop much more than that, especially with the portable MP3 players and digital cameras driving demand. AMD announced earlier that by next year they'll have Flash RAM at $1/MB and IBM has those itsy-bitsy hard-drives we all want. Adding more processing power isn't going to bring as much of an advantage as adding more storage.
Greetings,
When I bought my Rio, people laughed, and said, 'Wait for real products, like Compact Flash cards, and hard drives, and CD-ROMs!'
My response then was, 'Without a market, nobody serious is GOING to make a real product.'
RCA is quoted here as saying that the Rio proved a market, and that's why they are going ahead and making it.
I still listen to my Rio, but I'm very aware that it's technology is not what it could have been.
You have to vote with your money in order to get the business world to wake up and listen, and I give major props to all who did.
MP3 isn't just a pirate music format, and that's something that major corporations are recognizing now, BECAUSE of people who put their money where their hopes were.
Huzzah to RCA, definitely, for making a real product, but just as many huzzahs to everyone who bought a Rio in order to help build a new market!
Cyberfox!
p.s. I have over 96MB of CompactFlash cards already, because I have a digital camera. The zero-memory issue is non-existent for me, as I'll just drop one of my 40MB CF card into it until I get a microdrive. I'll buy a Lyra as soon as it hits the shelves.
"From a product planning standpoint we had to
we've looked out there to see what's going on withDiamond's player and others and it became clear to us that there were at least the beginnings of a market. As participants in audio hardware for the past 40-50 years, this is a read we didn't want to miss and one that we
actually felt we could lead to a certain extent."
It's intresting to note that its seem like many of the corporate decision makers are taking the leap of faith into this market. They, in some senses, are blindly following the "hype" more then prattical business research. I would hope this will lead to a large market of mp3 players, if only to reduce their cost.
I for one like the idea of holding 340+ megs of mp3, especially because still its only an option, that you can still get more or less storage depending on how much $ your willing to spend.
Choices are good.
I have a blue and white G3 Mac and my only choice in data xfer is USB (unless there's a Firewire mp3 player that I've missed). However, USB is faster than standard serial, and half the Wintel computers here at work have USB ports, so it's not as if there isn't infrastructure in place to use a USB-equipped MP3 player.
Nothing else, just venting.