Rio Carbon
Encyclopedia
Rio (digital audio players)
Rio was the brand name of a line of digital audio players, best known for producing the "Diamond Rio" model that was the impetus for a lawsuit in 1998 by the Recording Industry Association of America...
from 2004 to 2005. It was similar in size, capacity, and cost with Apple's iPod Mini which debuted earlier the same year. This was Rio's second player to use a miniature hard disk for storage, after the Rio Nitrus, which was first to market with a 1.5 GB drive in late 2003.
The initial Carbon was silver with a 5 GB drive and retailed US $249.99, same as the iPod Mini with 4 GB. An off-white version called the Carbon Pearl was next, with a 5GB drive at first and then a 6 GB drive later as the price of Microdrives fell. This was followed by the 2.5 GB ce2100 (black) and ce2110 (light green) which offered reduced features and cost. An 8 GB model with a colour screen was planned, code-named Avalon, but was never produced due to the demise of Rio in August 2005.
History
The Carbon was announced on August 2, 2004.The first 500 Carbons were produced as a Limited Edition with a unique serial number (1-500) that was laser engraved into the polished steel (back) side of the player.
Rio officially exited the portable music player market in August 2005 and is no longer providing firmware updates for the players. The last officially released version of the firmware (1.95) supports subscription-based PlaysForSure licenses, and PlayForSure purchased licenses.
A previously unreleased version of Rio Carbon firmware, called "The Developer's Cut", was released in January 2006 by enthusiasts, and offers several new and updated features. http://damage.wordpress.com/2006/08/19/splash-damage-rio-carbon-developers-cut/
Features
The Carbon features a microphone and a bidirectional wheel, which is used for scrolling and adjusting volume, along with a 5-way navigation pad. It is small in size (82 x 61 x 13 millimeters) and weigh 3.2 ounceOunce
The ounce is a unit of mass with several definitions, the most commonly used of which are equal to approximately 28 grams. The ounce is used in a number of different systems, including various systems of mass that form part of the imperial and United States customary systems...
s, and is powered by a non-removable rechargeable lithium ion battery that has up to 20 hours of playback time.
The wheel is notched. Either the 5-way navigation pad or the scroll wheel and the menu button can be used independently to navigate through menus or they can be used together. The two have different behaviors, and are therefore complementary, not redundant. Since the wheel is used for navigation as well as volume control, one must leave the menu to adjust the volume.
The Carbon can play MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
and WMA
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
audio files as well as Audible.com
Audible.com
Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers....
audio book
Audio book
An audiobook or audio book is a recording of a text being read. It is not necessarily an exact audio version of a book or magazine.Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the...
files. It is Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Macintosh compatible, since it is usable as a USB mass storage device
USB mass storage device class
The USB mass storage device class, otherwise known as USB MSC or UMS, is a protocol that allows a Universal Serial Bus device to become accessible to a host computing device, to enable file transfers between the two...
. It is also PlaysForSure
Microsoft PlaysForSure
Starting in 2004, Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, DRM support, UI responsiveness, device...
compatible.
Other features include:
- 5 GB of storage on a 1" microdriveMicrodriveMicrodrive is a brand name for a miniature, 1-inch hard disk designed to fit in a CompactFlash Type II slot. The release of similar drives by other makers has led to them often being referred to as 'microdrives'...
- 5-band equalizerEqualizerEqualizer or equaliser may refer to:*Equalization, the process of adjusting the strength of certain frequencies within a signal*An equalization filter for used audio and similar signals...
with several presets - Built-in microphone for voice recording
- USB mass storage device compatible, allowing for simple drag-and-dropDrag-and-dropIn computer graphical user interfaces, drag-and-drop is the action of selecting a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object...
ping of files - Built-in rechargeable battery offers up to 20 hours music playback
- Charge from the USB port or the included power adapter
- Windows and Mac compatible (the player itself is Linux compatible as well, but not the included software)
- Includes Rio Music Manager software to manage the digital music library
- Can carry non-audio files like a USB flash driveUSB flash driveA flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
Included software
Included with the purchase of the Rio Carbon and Rio Karma is Rio Music Manager, which can be used to transfer music to the Carbon. It only allows transfer of music files that are totally compatible with the player.Carbonising
The Carbon, at the time of its release, had the unique distinction of costing less than one of its own components, its hard disk drive. This distinction led to an activity known by the slang term "carbonising," whereby customers purchase a Rio Carbon, only to dismantle it and sell the disk drive for a net profitNet profit
Net profit or net revenue is a measure of the profitability of a venture after accounting for all costs. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 91 percent responded that they found the "net profit" metric very useful...
.