Review: Rio Player 500
Company: Diamond Multimedia
E-mail: customersupport@diamondmm.com
Price: $269.95
Requirements: Macintosh with USB support, Mac OS 8.6 or later (might not work with all 3rd party USB cards, but works with iMac, B&W G3, and G4s); PC with Windows 98 and USB (for audible.com support)
The MP3 music format is very enticing to many computer users, but it might not be as enticing to those who don’t want to be chained to their computer or laptop in order to be able to listen to music. The solution: a hardware MP3 player. While there are a handful of these around, so far only two are compatible with the Mac. One is the MPlayer 3 from the German company Pontis; for more information take a look at MacNN’s review. The other (and better one in my opinion) is Diamond Multimedia’s Rio Player 500.
The advantages of hardware MP3 players compared to other alternatives are subtle but important. The first one is size. MP3 players are plain tiny compared to CD players or Walkmans. The Rio 500 is smaller than the palm of my (admittedly large) hand, a handy attribute for a portable device.
The second advantage of MP3 players is their shock-resistance. Unlike CD players and other sound reproduction devices, MP3 players have no moving parts. They operate entirely electronically. This means you can shake a Rio Player as much as you want and playback will not be disturbed a bit—but that doesn’t mean you can drop it on the floor!
Some will argue that MiniDisc players have better sound quality, and they do. However, I cannot hear a big difference. The simplicity of MP3 players and their tight integration with your computer heavily outweigh this small sound quality difference for me.
The Rio has 64 MB of built-in memory, enough for about one hour of standard-quality music. You can expand its memory using its SmartMedia slot (using either 16 or 32 MB media). Be aware that once the SmartMedia card has been formatted for use in the Rio, it might be hard to convert it for use in a digital camera. The Rio 500 only uses a single AA battery as its power source, and Diamond claims it features 13 hours of continuous playback on 1 battery. While I have never used the Rio 500 for 13 hours in a row, I can tell you that the total usage time on a single battery is more than 13 hours. Note that battery performance depends on factors such as temperature and whether you are using a memory expansion card, so your mileage may vary.
The Rio 500 comes with pretty nice headphones and a ‘carry case,’ though I found it to be rather useless. I guess Diamond wants to be able to sell its leather case accessory. Other accessories—not all available at this point—include a remote headphone control (so you can access some functions without having to pull the player out of your pocket), a car stereo adapter (to hook up the player to your car stereo via the cassette input like some CD players do), and more. The included sample music is not very good, by my personal standards.
On the Wintel side the player comes with its own software for playback, encoding, ‘spoken audio’ support, and uploading songs to the player. For the Mac, a light version of SoundJam MP is included. If you already own the full version of SoundJam MP and have updated it to the recent version, it will work with the Rio 500 as well.
Once you install the Rio USB drivers on your computer, uploading music to the player is pretty easy. All you do is plug the player into an empty USB port with the included cable, start SoundJam MP, open the Rio 500 window, and drag MP3 files onto it. SoundJam MP will upload the files in the background, and you can add more files to the queue while it is uploading. The upload is pretty speedy too, taking just a few minutes to fill up the memory of the Rio 500. A nice feature about the Rio 500 is the ability to create ‘folders’ in the player’s memory. You could have a folder for your favorite Britney Spear’s songs and one for your favorite classical music. The Rio 500 lets you switch between folders using a simple hardware interface, giving you the choice to play a single song, all songs in a particular folder, or all songs in memory.
The player’s hardware interface is wonderfully designed. All functions can be accessed with very few controls. One button acts as both start and pause, one button is the stop button, two buttons take care of fast forward and backward if you keep them depressed. If you just quickly press them once, they jump back and forth between songs. On the left side is a bookmark button, that allows you to save a bookmark of the position in the current song for later recalling. On the top are the headphone out, the extra memory slot, and the power on/off/hold slider. In hold mode, the Rio doesn’t react to input, which is nice if you carry it around in a bag where you might press a key by accident. On the right are the USB port, the browse button, and the multi button.
Most functions are controlled using the latter two buttons. With the browse button you can switch between song view, folder view, and bookmark view. You use the multi button to scroll up and down to the song/folder/bookmark/function that you want, and then press the multi button down to play the song, open the folder, jump to the bookmark, or execute the function. Pressing the multi button by itself brings up a menu that lets you chose between settings for repeat modes, shuffle play, the equalizer, and backlighting. The software that drives the player is in a flash ROM, so it can be updated for new functions.
The most prominent feature on the front of the player is the LCD display, which features two lines of text output and an extra line with status icons. The display shows the name of the current song being played (from the file name of the uploaded MP3 file), the song and folder numbers, and the playing time of the song. The status line indicates battery charge, repeat modes, and other functions.
Unlike the Mac version, the Windows version of the Rio’s software supports ‘spoken audio’ from audible.com. These are basically audio files of text (books and magazines are available) that can be bought from the audible.com Web site and downloaded into the player. You can download a book and have it read to you through the player.
The only two things that keep me from giving the Rio 500 an Excellent rating are the high price and the lack of Mac support for audible.com spoken audio. It comes in three colors: metallic grey (sometimes referred to as silver), translucent purple, and translucent teal.
Features |
|
• • •
This issue contains other MP3-related articles. For more information about the MP3 format and other ways to make it portable check out the art department. To find out how to get MP3 files, take a look at the N2MP3 review and the Web sites.
Copyright ©1999 Daniel Chvatik,
dchvatik@atpm.com. Reviewing in ATPM
is open to anyone. If you're interested, write to us at
reviews@atpm.com.
Reader Comments (123)
I bought one because I thought it might, but the square-ish side on the cable is too big to fit into the Rio 500.
Rich
However, if your granddaughter has a collection of her own CDs, converts her favorite songs to MP3s, downloads them into her Rio, and uses them for herself, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In addition, their firmware section implicitly states that you should not try to downgrade the firmware.
One other thing, do you have to have a Mac to upgrade the Firmware?
The Rio software really sucks, though--even the 3rd version that they released. It kept cutting out on MP3 uploads. While looking at the unit, I thought it would make a good car MP3 player since its display is backlit and its small etc. If only you could somehow get more room for MP3s.
E-mail me if you have had this thought and found some info in the internet about it.
Just use a 10gb iPod instead! You'll have lots of room for songs that way.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Vince
Rob
Regarding the strange turn-off behavior, your Rio is probably broken. A firmware update might fix it, but I doubt it. And no, you don't need a Mac to update the firmware. You should find the necessary software and instructions at www.riohome.com.
I hope you find this helpful.
As for using the Rio as a storage device, Riositude works well to transfer both MP3s and data, but bear in mind that the Rio uses a proprietary format, so you'll be able read the card on another Rio, you won't be able to read it using a Smartmedia reader.
The cable is also proprietary, and only available from SonicBlue.
Cheers!
Check out Rio's webpage, click on "support," then "Rio," then "legacy Rio products," then "Rio 500 PC." Under "firmware" there's a restoration programm "Rio 500 recover utility," that should fix the problem, which is a persistent gray screen (or black screen) or checkerboard.
This likely happened while trying to transfer MP3s when the battery went dead. Hope this helps.
Second, does anyone know the name or what kind of cable it is?
Third, does the transfer software work on an iBook? Where can I download this software?
Fourth, does the player have problems if I use it below 40 degrees C? I know, it's too cold. I think there aren't problems at high altitudes, right?
Thanks for the help.
By the way, it's never been dropped and I can't send it back to Rio to get fixed because, amazingly, it stopped working about 2 days after the warranty ran out (built in obscelescence perhaps?)
Check to make sure you have the hardware showing up in device manager (and of course that the drivers are installed). After downloading the recovery program, it didn't initially work until I rebooted and I made sure the driver was installed.
How can I tell what firmware I have before updating it?
Should I update to 2.16 or 2.15? I want to purchase a flash card. I was looking at buying a smart media 64mb, but now I have seen people being able to use 128mb cards. I might change my mind.
How successful are you with using 128mb flash cards?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Quote: Bill Zen July 13, 2002 - 20:10 EST
What brand of flash card are you using? You say it needs to be formatted first. How do you do that? I would like some answers.
Cheers!
You format the media using the software that you are using to transfer files to the player. The software that comes with the unit typically stinks, so check out some of the things available at RioWorld.
You can see what version of firmware you have by selecting "Status" from the menu on the player itself. Upgrading the firmware is easy (provided you have the right operating system available. See the RioWorld site again for firmware updates.
I'm going to try buying a 128mb card and try it in my player (which is currently at 2.15).
The last time I tried to transfer songs, it showed the infamous grey screen and became completely inoperable.
I downloaded the firmware recovery program and made sure I had the latest USB drivers, but it didn't work. It came tantalizingly close, though. The recover software accesses the device, says it's updating the firmware, and then, when it reboots the device, it goes back to the grey screen. So close, yet so far.
I contacted customer support at SonicBlue and they were, well, to say the least, weren't very helpful.
So, I'm just about to give up and throw this thing out. But I saw there was this group here and thought I would volley one last attempt at seeking help. Has anyone else experienced similar trouble and found a way out of it? I realize this is a long, long shot, but any help would be appreciated.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Dave
Does this problem have a solution? I lost 20MB!!!
Micha
Be warned!!! My Rio 500 is dead. By mistake, I started to upload a file on a low battery. My Rio screen went blank, never to return again!!! I tried everything: phoned SonicBlue support, but they are not interested. I guess they are having enough problems keeping there company afloat (big cash burn!!). They need to fix the customer support side if they want to be around in the longer term. I am looking for a new MP3 player but will not touch the Rio 800 as the shops I have asked say that they have so many returns that they refuse to stock it now. Has anyone had the same or a different experience? Has anyone gotten ahold of the new Rio 900?
Micha
If anybody finds an aftermarket source for the cables for a more reasonable price, please let us know! $25 for a USB cable for an aging MP3 player is not an attractive price.
The specs for 256mb Smartmedia cards were released last year and some places do advertise the product, but I've never seen one and I don't know if it would work in the Rio. They mention a "minor change" in the specifications over the 128mb card, so I would be wary.
I should also reiterate Steve's warning about not uploading with a low battery. This happened to me, the firmware fix supplied by Sonicblue didn't work (same grey screen afterwards) and I ended up having to send the thing back for a replacement.
Pros: No moving parts! It will take 128MB SmartMedia cards (max.) giving you a total of 192MB--more than three hours of music at 126kbps. It is powered by a single AA type battery. A pack of four rechargables and a charger should keep you going for about 5-7 days! Rio's software is adequate--a simple drag and drop file manager. Upgrade the software to version 2.15 and 128MB 3.3V cards will work, and you can still go up to 2.16 if something goes wrong (downgrading can screw up the unit).
Things to consider on your next purchase: I have checked and I think the only unit that is better than this (IMHO) is the MPIO DMG and DMB+, but they are expensive. Don't bother with units that use AAA batteries. They don't last long enough and most of the units have internal batteries and can't be used while they are charging. Maybe you should just stay close to a plug! Memory is expensive and real disks, micro disks, etc. or moving parts eat the power in your unit and have a skip factor. Any unit that doesn't come with 64MB or can't be upgraded to more than that can stay on the shelf with the other junk!
Check out RioWorld for updates. Sonic does not support the Rio 500 because it has different internal memory than the later versions. This means that any new updates will not work for the Rio 500.
Can someone please tell me, in the item description, what the (EOL) stands for? Thanks.
Here's the eBay link.
The multi button (the volume control, the button used to scroll through menus, etc.) doesn't function properly. I can only use it to scroll up (volume up, scrolling up in menus), but not scroll down. This is not a firmware issue. It's more or less an issue about the player itself (as it is quite old). I absolutely need to scroll down, seeing as I can't turn the volume down now.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. If I have to buy another player, I probably will, but I want to see if any alternative solutions are possible.
Is there an internal system battery that may have died? If so, can it be replaced and brought back to life?
The ULTIMATE SOLUTION (at least for me) was to take it all the way back to firmware 1.04 to be able to use it again and then subsequently bring it to 2.12, which works well on my machine.
Look at this FTP directory for a listing of old firmware releases.
I'm having the same problem! Please help!
It has instructions on how to open your Rio500 and also modify it, if your really keen.
I used the instructions to help me open and fix my dead Rio500. The unit was full of grit and was humming, intermittently stopping and locking up. So, I opened it up and cleaned it with a toothbrush and spirits (alcohol). Now it is happy again :-)
Also try this RioWorld page for extra goodies.
Mine messed up the top button doesn't start up the player any more. I had the problem before and sent in the Rio for a new one, but now, since they're out of business, I'm gonna take the home-cooked method and I'd like to have a guide (preferrably in English, but pictures are even better). I've got the screws off but I have no clue where to go. Thanks.
Thanks.
I try to take care of the thing, but I've had it long enough that when it does finally go the way of the dinos, I'll be very content with the vast usage and good times it brought me (awwww, I love the little freaky thing). I hope this might help someone else out there.
I've had my Rio500 for about 3 1/2 years and the only problems I've had are sound coming out lower on the left side (cured if I press down hard on a certain part), the screen not appearing when turned on (cured by re-inserting the battery, putting a new battery in, or just smacking the dang thing), and problems with the bit rate shown and time of the song (cured by re-encoding the MP3).
It's still a pleasure to use, especially during exercise. I am able to fit about 4 hours of music on the 64mb internal card and a 128mb SmartMedia card by re-encoding MP3s at the lowest possible VBR mode using the LAME MP3 Encoder (which is, without a doubt, the best MP3 encoder) ranging about 95kbps to 115kbps or so with little quality difference in comparison to 128kbps. (Possibly even higher quality than 128kbps if the source of encoding is high quality. I'm not sure.)
There is lots of great stuff on this string of messages. Thanks a bunch!
I also had the same problem as you Colin. I did not used my Rio500 for month and month.. and then I've puted a new battery in (sure the old was dead..) and then he worked, but the sound was really bad! So I hited a little the device on the back saying (w... f... grrr.. BLAM, I was sad lol)! And then he woked up again! :) I also tryed to see inside if some thing is moving or... but I can't open it with ease.. so I really take care of it now, but he it seems to be a sensible device even for a 100% flash device..
I pick-up one for free but no cable.
Thanks
Dan B.Underhill
1-650-355-2415
577 Paloma Ave.
Pacifica, Ca. 94044
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