I just purchased an apple ipod for my wife to use while at work. She
wanted a portable MP3 player and since I drop her off then take my empeg
into work she's left out in the cold.
So I weighed all of my options and looked at all of the portables out
there, only to discover what I already expected. The Ipod is the empeg
of portable MP3 players bar none!

I don't have a Mac at home but since I work at a university
commandeering one was a piece of cake. I apple shared out my music from
my win2K server,mounted it on the Mac and fired up itunes.

My first comment is that this thing SCREAMS!!! 3 gig in about 10 min.
Firewire is unbelievable! In this aspect it is very dissapointing that
the empeg does not have something this cool to transfer files. Actually
this is a big detriment to the entire MP3 player market.

I would be willing to cut and solder my way to adding firewire to my
empeg for these kind of transfer speeds, if it were possible. I would
probably be more likely to add/remove music from my empeg, as it is now
I need to budget time to do this just in case I get the "checking disk
integrity" 15 min delay.

I was not overly impressed with Itunes, emplode is better.

The fact that this thing is also a file taxi is VERY cool. I think that
the MP3 community has been reading this board and getting a lot of
ideas!!

There is a company who already has an alpha version that allows you to
connect it to a PC.
http://www.mediafour.com/products/xplay/
Although many people think that Steve Jobs will unveil iTunes for the PC
at MacWorld on Jan 7.

There are also several rumors about PDA like functionality being added
in future releases of the firmware.

The price ($399) is reasonable considering all that is built into this
device.

If you are looking for a portable MP3 player get the ipod!

John

I played with one at the apple store here it looked great. it's even more tempting with pc support.

the only time I cared about the upload speed was when I initially got my empeg and loaded all my cd's now I am just doing one at a time when I buy a new cd and that takes no time at all

I don't think the checking disk integrity thing has anything to do with the connection right ?

I don't think the checking disk integrity thing has anything to do with the connection right ?

Right.

The upload speed of Firewire [aka iLink, IEE1394 etc] is a big plus.

Its a real pity that the Rio HSX 109 doesn't have support for both Firewire *AND* USB2.0.

USB 2.0 has speeds similar to Firewire and is backwards compatible to USB 1.0.

Given the HSX109 is a premium piece of kit it would have thought it made sense to the designers to future proof the
HSX 109 design as 10MB/s is pretty slow these days.
All they did was put a couple of USB 1.0 ports on it to allow third party devices such as USB to 10Mb/sec Ethernet and maybe in the future USB to Firewire adaptors - when the drivers are written for the HSX109 linux version etc etc.

Heck 10MB/s in a wired network has been pretty passe for about 4 years now.

If the HSX 109 had better connectivity it could have become the 'central' mp3 respository device for ipod and Rio systems.

Thats my 2 cents. I'm keeping my eyes on the ipod as future gadget to beat the current crop of portables with flash ram.

The HSX is basically a car player in drag ;)

Well, not quite, but though its bus is slightly faster (just over 6MB/sec to/from disk with programmed IO) is still has no external DMA. When Martin & Christoph designed it, they started from the basic carplayer design. 1394 & USB2.0 are barely possible with the architecture.

The HSX however, is not aiming at the "I need 100mbit ethernet" market; it's aiming at people who don't even have a PC, to whom ease of use and functionality is more important than the number of plugs on the back of the thing.

Hugo

...and with some luck, we'll get ext3 (a journalling version of the ext2 fs that is used for the music partition) on there in a post 2.0 release, so you won't *ever* have the long disk check unless you ask for it.

Hugo

Granted, I don't have either player, but I'm more willing to buy an Archos product before the iPod. Granted, the Jukebox devices don't have firewire, but they have been file taxis since they came out, before the iPod. Plus, the new recorder (besides being able to record), can be upgraded. Amazon is selling a 20GB one for about $325-$350 IIRC. That's a more impressive file taxi to me. Plus I can use it with Windows now

I speak not of the HSX just released but the one to come after it, which I as a mere [high-end] consumer dare compute the parameters of...

Basically, I see where the HSX 109 fits market wise, but given that the Apple Ipod fits a firewire capable device in a small fag packet with a small HD, then I would have thought it possible to add something like USB2.0 at the very least to the HSX 109 design now - maybe the hardware doesn't support it fully now but in the future the software could - and thats the point, the software can't support the hardware if the hardware is not there to do it.

Maybe the current product can't match the Ipod for download speed - but putting some links into it faster than 10MBs would enable those with Ipods and a supported USB to Firewire adapter [plus software support in the HSX 109] to use their ipods from the HSX 109.

I'm not about pouring cold water on your efforts but I doubt the intended market of ipod buyers is just aimed at Apple Mac users.

There is a big potential market out there for the first company that can provide a seamless product set that lets the end user aka the consumer convert the music on their CDs to their Rio, ipod [or similar] devices [and eventually in-car as well] without needing a PC OR a Mac in the loop to rip and store the mp3s.

Of course, it may well be that Rio are working on a similar product.
FWIW the 2 ipod features I like that set it apart from the also-rans out there:

1. It recharges itself while connected via Firewire [yay no wall warts or power packs etc].

2. Can download music really quickly - to a large filestore [in this case small hard disk]. This way I can grab the music I want to listen to now and replace it later when I'm in a hurry when I need some different music, without needing to wait half and hour or more to upload the music.

Any portable device with those features is half way there to a killer product IMHO.

The missing piece that allows the Ipod to work without a MAc or PC, is of course a HSX 109 type device and thats where I think the current HSX 109 product design is lacking.

[its not just about locking Rio portable buyers into a Rio branded Pc-less mp3 ripping & storage device], its about growing the whole mp3 market in general and that means allowing other portables and devices like the Rio Receiver to connect to and use the HSX109 as a central hub for music playback.

Hmm, a HSX 109 in every home is not quite as catchy as Bill Gates cry but could be quite lucrative for Sonicblue if they did pull it off.

However I have to say that I think the HSX 109 in its current form, as ground breaking as it is, is I think a little too narrowly focused [and perhaps overpriced] in its intended market.

I hope I'm wrong and this things sells well, [or well enough] so that the is a HSX 110 or whatever the G2/Next Generation model will be called. Because that product may well be the one that takes the market by storm.

Of course our friends at MS may have done this already with the Xbox by this time next year so who knows.

And I think SB are up against the likes of the Xbox in terms of price and performance for in-home mp3 devices.

Maybe its time to say "yes" a Xbox platform [running linux not embedded NT or whatever it runs now] with SB [aka empeg team developed] software on it would make a powerful conbination - the Xbox is cheap mass produced hardware engine with USB, a CDrom drive and connectivity, the SB software provides the smarts to make the Xbox the place to store and process your mp3s.

SB recently announced that their long awaited hard disk portable will launch at CES, so that could also be worth checking out.

Rob

If the HSX-109 is a "car player in drag," would this SonicBlue hard-disk portable happen to be a car player on a serious diet?

I speak not of the HSX just released but the one to come after it, which I as a mere [high-end] consumer dare compute the parameters of...

The Ipod might be able to impress the ears off of an audiophile, but only the HSX-109 could convince him to go to a concert afterwards.

I'll be watching this space with interest then.

Have any of the empeg team been involved with it in any shape or form?

I assume its HSX-109 compatible right?

We didn't develop any of the software, but it is much more advanced than the flash portables.

The HSX-109 ships with 600/800/Nike compatibility, and a software update will add compatibility with the new portable around the time it (the portable) starts to ship.

Rob

What portable? have you guys been busier than we thought is there something else under wraps

Umm.. read the thread!

Rob

I did just after i posted it

but is it going to have empeg software as i have a rio600 and it is no as nice are your software.

No, we had nothing to do with the software. It's a lot more advanced than the Rio 600 though.

Rob

Hi.

Speaking of the HSX-109, I do have two questions (with more following depending on the answers):[ol][li]Is there a (more or less convenient) way for third party developers to start hacking on the HSX?[/li][li]Will there be a second version of the HSX with Ethernet instead of HPNA?[/li][/ol]

cu,
sven

It's as easy to develop for as the car player - perhaps easier in some ways, as you can plug in a USB keyboard and get a console up on the LCD screen.

I believe Tony got DisplayServer working on his - at least partially.

No feature sets are tied down for a second version - it's going to depend a lot on feedback on the first one! HPNA is there as the cheapest and easiest way to create a network of Receivers (for those who don't already have a home network). USB Master is there to accommodate Ethernet and anything else we might want to support in future. There's nothing stopping you building your own kernel for other USB network interfaces (e.g. wireless) as and when they find their way into 2.4.

Rob

I believe Tony got DisplayServer working on his - at least partially.

Nope, never tried that. What I did get working was EmpegTaxi. It was really tough trying to explain to Jazzwire things like "You know, it would be really useful to me if I could customize how it sends string x to the player, and what text it looks for when searching for string y..." without telling him what I was using it for. Fortunately, he was very nice and threw in those customizations anyway.

Then, somewhere along the road to to Release Candidate stage for the HSX, something about the USB timing got changed and EmpegTaxi quit working. Packets got lost on the way down the USB cable. But that was several versions ago and I haven't tried it since.