[carsncars]

Via DAPReview.net:

Quote:

Highlight of the day: a video-interview with Hugo Fiennes at Sigmatel, the main guy behind the Rio Karma, Chroma, Avalon, Cubic, and Opel (the last 4 of which never made it to market). We got a product demonstation of Sigmatel's reference design for a player that's just like the Rio Avalon - an 8gb MicroDrive based player which has the same body style as the Rio Carbon but has a color screen and all the features of the Rio Karma. All that and more... video playback, animated backgrounds, album art, semi-transparent menu overlays, etc. Very nice. We also learned details of the Opel - which could have been, which still could be - the ultimate DAP. More on that later.

Full coverage should be out later.

Should I grab the new GigaBeat, or wait it out for this? Either way, I could be waiting for a while...

 

[br0adband]

Wait. Obviously.

Anyone reading that, if they know what the Karma is and does and how awesome it truly is (hint: see my sig below

) would stop dead in their tracks considering the product is being created by the "Father" of the Karma and most of the Rio product line.

I'd wait. Oh, wait, I'm already waiting. Lucky for me I have this awesome Karma (did I say that already?) to listen to till the new stuff appears.

bb

 

[Oddball]

Rio's work lives?

I hope this isn't a joke...

 

[carsncars]

Nope... this is the reference model SigmaTel can use to help their developers, or to just show off their chip.

Dammit. I wish they'd just throw it together and sell it themselves.

 

[apnk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by carsncars Nope... this is the reference model SigmaTel can use to help their developers, or to just show off their chip. Dammit. I wish they'd just throw it together and sell it themselves.

Well didn't SigmaTel buy designs from Rio when they went under?

 

[gshan]

I haven't crossed my fingers in a long time.

 

[proximal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by apnk Well didn't SigmaTel buy designs from Rio when they went under?

They'd be stealing sales from their own customers by launching their own players. That doesn't happen too often (it does happen though, see: Intel, Samsung, Sony). We've been talking about the new Sigmatel stuff for a while, it looks like you'll have a lot of good products to choose from in the near future (see update on page 5 of linked thread).

 

[909]

"8gb MicroDrive based player"

Will this portable player be a hard drive player like the karma?

 

[gorman]

This is the reason while I was waiting for CES this year.
Come on Austionia, spill the beans. What do you know?

 

[Comrade Penguin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 909 "8gb MicroDrive based player" Will this portable player be a hard drive player like the karma?

Yes a microdrive is a 1 inch hard drive as used in the Carbon or iPod mini. The Karma used a 1.8 inch laptop hard drive hence the bigger capacity.

 

[n00b]

kl;sjagd;ghdaaa''dagwqweufnsadmknaam//am/f!!1111111111111!!!!!!11111111

 

[LFC_SL]

I was scared away from the Karma due to stories about reliability and build quality. But naturally very sad when I heard of the 30gb DAP planned after they went

I say we set up a trust fund

Anyone see a ad mid page? Just 1st time.

Post link for dapreview pic plz, its gone

 

[Comrade Penguin]

There is more stuff on DAP Review now.

Quote:

Besides the Avalon, Hugo gave us more details about the Opel. This was going to be a high-end, audiophile-grade player that would be the undisputed master of sound quality. It was to be the same size and design as the Cubic, but would have an seperate subsystem exlusively for high-end audio which could be switched on and off. When you wanted the best sound quality, you could flip a switch and it would activate a seperate DAC and amplifier... at 96Khz/24bit resolution. Other nifty features included 802.11b WEP/WPA, ability to stream media to other devices, and TV output. This required some kind of crazy 8-layer PCB, stacked thick with chips, pushing the price to somewhere between $ 400-500. A $ 50 dock accessory was going to have optical outputs and 3 different colored LEDs, each pulsing to different frequency ranges during playback (bass, mid, treble). Awesome stuff.

Not sure I fancy the price tag or the idea of upsampling which is always a bad idea in my book.

 

[rsabo]

It better have mass storage, and a not-sucky hard drive...the only two problems with the Karma.

 

[gorman]

I'm not registered at DAP Review, but I want to thank Austonia for the great coverage. Now I know what to wait for. Heck, I know what chipset to wait for. Let's hope the products they design around it are good...