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To: wogger who wrote (3958)	1/11/1999 12:26:00 AM
From: Jaakko Hyvtti	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4679

On the other hand, if you can use a lower bitrate for the mp3 files, you get more music stuffed in. I have been using the Fraunhofer-IIS L3ENC/Linux V2.72 to produce 56000 bits/s files, and with 48MB of flash (32MB internal + 16MB card) the Rio can hold about 2 hours of music. That encoder is designed to perform well on low bitrates - and my wife says she could not hear the difference with the headphones. Of course this only applies to you if you do not download the music but strip it off cd's, as most files on the Internet and which you exchange with your friends will be 128000-256000 bits/s for cd quality, which you need in good listening conditions, like your living-room. But while biking to work along the other traffic, even 56000 is overkill.

To: wogger who wrote (3958)	1/11/1999 9:47:00 PM
From: jelrod3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4679

My son is a savvy software developer with a company called Goodnoise in the Bay area. I sent him your post for comment, and here is what he says: "at 56k it takes about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes to download 1 megabyte of data. the average mp3 song takes up 1 megabyes per minute. therefore an hour of mp3 encoded music should take ~ 120 minutes at 56k. still a long time but not 10 hours. of course 56k modems RARELY get true 56k speeds. even if they connect that high, 1/3 of the packets are wasted on retransmitting corrupted data at least. That is why ISDN is so much better. It is digital and not analog. a 56k ISDN line will actually see much better transfer rates than a 56k analog modem line. feel free to forward this to the list. most people really do not understand how all this stuff works. As to the rio, it is actually limited to something like 4GB memory with the expansion card technology it is using. i doubt you will ever see that much offered but i expect 128 to 256 meg ram cards in the next year and half. that is 2 to 4 hours of music... right now they are lame and only offer a 16 meg card which is useless. The scene is about to heat up though with 2 or 3 other companies releasing competing players. should drive the prices down and the features up! I love this industry!" My impression from talking with him is that he is high on the Rio, and of course believes that MP3 will prevail big time as the internet becomes a way of life for us all....the internet stocks that are getting the hype today with their phenomenal prices are telling us all something: The Net is the dawn of a revolution in how we communicate, get info, and how we will get our entertainment. He reminds me how I pooh-poohed the IBM and the Apple PC when they came out. Boy, did I miss the boat that time around.