Hello everyone,
Stopped by Best Buy last night and picked up a Rio Karma. Since
from-the-trenches reviews seem scarce, I thought I might post some
thoughts.
The short story: I'm probably returning it, will be buying a
different portable player. The software doesn't work, and I don't think
I wanna screw with it.
The long story: It looks cool, is tiny, convenient, sounds
pretty good, and has a cool docking station. It claims to have software
for GNU/Linux (well, any platform with Java capabilities). It has some
neat features - 10/100 Ethernet and a RioDJ that generates playlists on
the fly for you (Most/least listened to songs, Sounds of a decade,
Favorites, random, etc).
I connected it to my home network, and its DHCP was unable to
get an IP address. This looks like it might be a problem with the last
port on my switch - I'm not sure. I did eventually get it networking.
Downloaded the latest Rio Music Manager Lite Java program and
loaded it up with a fresh JRE 1.4.2 installation. Nothing worked. It
could connect to the Rio, but uploading songs was a total failure - got
a bunch of JVM errors. Tried MP3s and Oggs, no dice either way.
Since the RMML software isn't free, I couldn't fix it myself.
So,
a music player that doesn't accept downloads is pretty useless! I've
heard the wire protocol is pretty easy to reverse engineer. If I had
the time to do this I actually might - there are enough cool features to
definitely make it worth someone's time. But as it stands now, it's a
pretty lost cause if you just want it to work.
Ross
--
Ross Vandegrift
ross@willow.seitz.com
A Pope has a Water Cannon. It is a Water Cannon.
He fires Holy-Water from it. It is a Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses it. It is a Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He Blesses the Hell out of it. It is a Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He has it pierced. It is a Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
He makes it official. It is a Canon Holey Wholly Holy Holy-Water Cannon.
Batman and Robin arrive. He shoots them.
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Hi Ross, As an alternative you might consider the iRiver iHP-120. I'm listening to Ogg Vorbis files on it right now. It acts as a standard USB 2.0 harddisk, which makes it VERY useful. As it doesn't require any special software, this means it works great (and will continue to do so) under any OS that supports USB mass storage. It can use a database if you want, for which there is a little GPL piece of software to generate it. It is an amazing little player with a great feature-set and fine sound quality. If you need any more info, just let me know. Ah, hardware support for Ogg Vorbis is now finally a reality :-D Cheers, Michiel <p>On Mon, 2003-11-10 at 14:32, Ross Vandegrift wrote:> Hello everyone, > > Stopped by Best Buy last night and picked up a Rio Karma. Since > from-the-trenches reviews seem scarce, I thought I might post some > thoughts. > > The short story: I'm probably returning it, will be buying a > different portable player. The software doesn't work, and I don't think > I wanna screw with it. > > The long story: It looks cool, is tiny, convenient, sounds > pretty good, and has a cool docking station. It claims to have software > for GNU/Linux (well, any platform with Java capabilities). It has some > neat features - 10/100 Ethernet and a RioDJ that generates playlists on > the fly for you (Most/least listened to songs, Sounds of a decade, > Favorites, random, etc). > > I connected it to my home network, and its DHCP was unable to > get an IP address. This looks like it might be a problem with the last > port on my switch - I'm not sure. I did eventually get it networking. > > Downloaded the latest Rio Music Manager Lite Java program and > loaded it up with a fresh JRE 1.4.2 installation. Nothing worked. It > could connect to the Rio, but uploading songs was a total failure - got > a bunch of JVM errors. Tried MP3s and Oggs, no dice either way. > > Since the RMML software isn't free, I couldn't fix it myself. So, > a music player that doesn't accept downloads is pretty useless! I've > heard the wire protocol is pretty easy to reverse engineer. If I had > the time to do this I actually might - there are enough cool features to > definitely make it worth someone's time. But as it stands now, it's a > pretty lost cause if you just want it to work. > > Ross-- Michiel Toneman <michiel@kopz.org> -- Bibit Global Payment Services Regulierenring 10 3981 LB Bunnik The Netherlands T: +31 (0)30 65 95 168 F: +31 (0)30 65 64 464 http://www.bibit.com/ --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'vorbis-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
Hello Michiel, Note: Sorry if you guys receive this several times, I don't know why but it's getting filtered all the time by Mayordomo. :? Thanks for the heads-up on the forum, I hadn't noticed it. I've been reading through it and I did find out some useful stuff. I still have a couple of questions, if you don't mind. How does the iHP-120 handle concatenated oggs? Any problems with that? Also, what exactly does the remote show when you're playing a song? Artist and Title tags? Do they pan so you can read the whole thing or do they get cut off? How well can you control the player through the remote? Thanks in advance for your help. As you've probably noticed, I really study the products before buying. That's because I'm a poor student, so when I but something I better be sure I'm going to like it. :) Thanks, Alex <p>--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'vorbis-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.