For those of you wondering how the display and remote work in a convertible,.. I can help. They don't. Out here in sunny California (US), the sun shines so bright in the daytime that the display and remote on the Rio player are pretty much useless in direct sunlight. You are sure to get a fair amount of direct sunlight right on the face of the unit when riding with the top down. Even with the remote inches from the faceplate,.. you'd be lucky to get 50% of your button presses to go through.

Everyday when riding home in my
convertible, I get to deal with this bummer,.. as the sun is over my shoulder the entire 1 hour ride home.

I am considering doing two things to allieviate this.

1.) Build some sort of "visor" to protect the display from the hardcore glare of the direct sunlight.

and

2.) Add another IR sensor on the serial line that is located somewhere where direct sunlight can't shine but I can still aim the remote to.

Does anyone have any pointers to get me started on the addition of another IR dongle. I actually do have an extra IRMan hanging around. Anyone every got one of those hooked up to a Rio?

Thanks, Aaron.

[stop the technology madness]

Dude, don't feel bad, the display is useless in az in teh same situation, with my sunroof closed and my non tinted windows. It isn't just convertibles... az sun just drowns the display. I went outside without my sunglasses yesterday and had to pay the price of a migraine.. i HATE the sun, make it go away :)

I am considering doing two things to allieviate this.

Have you considered a third option... if you could reverse the direction of rotation of the earth, then the sun would rise in the West and set in the East, and thus would not be at your back when going to and from work.

I think maybe Tony could arrange this for you...

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Yes this is definitely one for the faq. Where are the directions for this?

Sean

It's been a good while since any post has made me laugh out loud like this one did.
Thank you sir.

As for the problem....
It might be possible to solder in a replacement high output IR LED in the remote to assist with better transmissions. There are many instances where if you do some good research, one can find a IR High Output LED with the same power (current)\voltage\wavelength\more efficient requirements that match closely enough to be a direct replacement for the existing LED.
It’s as simple as... More Luminance = better range.
Unless of course the sun is confusing the Empegs IR receiver and preventing the electronics\software to decode the incoming remotes IR signals against the suns unorganized rays.
I have beefed up more than one or two home TV remotes in my time. But then again, I'm an LED freak... kind of a hobby…. Or a sickness, depend’s on how you look at it.


12Gb MKII 080000516 Blue

Thank you sir.

And thank you for your kind response.

Do you think that the remote discussed here might solve the problem? It is a much larger remote powered by a pair of AAA Alkaline batteries instead of the tiny little watch battery in the standard remote, so possibly (no guarantee) the LED output is brighter as well?

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

the battery in the credit card remote is 3 volts so I don't think it would matter the 2 AAA will just last longer

but it shouldn't be too hard to find out go buy one and if it doesn't work return it

why not just build the adaptor for the serial port (or get a tuner when that comes out) and use one of those sony stalk remotes

Hey, I've reversed the rotation of the Earth many times. You guys just don't know that I did it. Didn't you see the Superman movie? Reversing the Earth's rotation reverses time, so you have no recollection of it.

_________________
Christopher Reeve

And you wonder how I can keep up on all the BBS posts.

___________
Tony Fabris

Email me ([email protected]) with your address; we have some spare IR filter material (looks black, is transparent to IR). If you put a bit of this on the back of your display filter (the blue/green/amber/red stuff) in front of the IR sensor it may help it not get swamped by ambient light.

This used to be fitted to mk1s, but the mk2 sensor has an integrated filter. This might help though.

Hugo

It is possible that a particular Remote may or may not have a brighter output IR LED. The only way to tell would be to obtain some visible IR material. Radio shack used to sell a card that you could point any remote at and it would glow depending on the output of the remote in question. One of those would allow you to determine brightness. Some old camcorders or digital cameras or night vision equipment should also allow you to look at the output of your remotes to determine the brightest one. I would also take up Hugo's offer for some IR material, as that would certainly help as well.

12Gb MKII 080000516 Blue

I'm surprised you're even looking at the display when you're topless.... or when you're driving, even.

As for the IR - well hell, select a longer playlist before you start driving!

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

I had the smae problem, but came up with an adequate solution. I simply took the face off with an allen rench, and removed the color facing (mine was red making it TOTALLY unusable in any daylight). The display in its native state is a happy blueish color, and is MUCH easier to see in the sunlight, and I have had an order of magnitude better reception when using the remote...

just fyi.