Well, I finally got my Rio Central! I ordered it on Febuary 7th, received it on March 29th

It arrives on my doorstep with the free Rio Reciever. Unpacking, I'm very happy with the packaging and out-of-box experience.

Plug them in and they work like a charm. Ripped a new disk in about 8 min, while playing the first two tracks. Nice! Sound quality is superb, and the machine is a breeze to use. I like the games too Definitely pick up a USB keyboard, it's worth it (press Ctl-Alt-Del for a unix prompt).

Got a USB->Ethernet adapter (LinkSys 100M) which was not compatable. Returned it for another (LinkSys 100TX) which works fine.

Network setup was a snap, pinging worked, and 'search for update' worked (no update available yet). But could not contact the device with Emplode. After reading the boards, I learned that it has to be enabled in the 'emplode password' menu.

Start up emplode, drag 200+ CDs into the window and press 'sync'. Go to bed.

Wake up: Sync failed due to lost connection (or some such).
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Now, I'm stuck with this problem, and emplode can't download the database from the player either (gives same error). I've tried power-cycling. The Central has no problem viewing it's database, and I can play/surf the files with no problem, but emplode cannot access it.

Any clue?

EDIT: Moved bug to bug forum..

Well, what do ya know. Come home and try it again, everything works fine!

I did some digging on this issue, and it appears that dropping a tree onto the playlists section which contains .m3u files will cause the central to freeze (kinda) during the 'rebuilding database' phase.

After reconnecting, it says the playlists are bad, and deletes the links in them. Songs were still uploaded, and everything seems fine.

I uploaded the rest of my collection by dragging only the .mp3 files. Works great!

Another interesting note: the Rio Central will not play music while syncing, but a Rio Receiver can stream from it! Kinda strange..

--Bryan

You can turn off .m3u import under Tools|Options.

Also, I suggest that you download a copy of emplode-v2.00-beta11 from here. It works with the Rio Central, and has fixed a load of bugs since v1.5