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The Rio PMP300 is one of the first portable consumer
MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
digital audio players, and the first commercially successful one. Produced by Diamond Multimedia, it was introduced September 15, 1998 as the first in the "Rio" series of digital audio players, and it shipped later that year.


Features

Roughly the dimensions of a deck of cards (3.5 inches by 2.5 inches and 0.625 inches thick), the Rio is black, and features an LCD screen and a circular pad with control buttons. The device has controls for skipping tracks forwards or backwards, repeat, random play and four preset equalizer settings. The LCD displays the track number being played and the track play time. It can play MP2 and
MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
format audio files, and has support for a variety of bitrates, including MP3 variable-bitrate (VBR) support. It shipped with 32 MB of internal memory and has a
SmartMedia SmartMedia is an obsolete flash memory card standard owned by Toshiba, with capacities ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB. The format mostly saw application in the early 2000s in digital cameras and audio production. SmartMedia memory cards a ...
slot, allowing users to add additional memory. It is powered by a single AA battery, which provides between 8 and 12 hours of playback time. Connection to a personal computer is through the computer's parallel port, with a proprietary connector on the Rio's edge. The Rio retailed for US $200 with the ability to hold around 30 minutes of music at a bitrate of 128 kbit/s. An upgraded version was later released, which is colored translucent green and equipped with a larger 64 MB internal memory, at a cost of $250. The Rio also spawned one of the first Digital Music service providers (ASP or SaaS Cloud Service),
RioPort RioPort, Inc. was created in 1999 as a spin-out from the Rio (digital audio players) group of Diamond Multimedia. RioPort was formed to create an Internet service for consumers to acquire legal digital music to play on their computers and MP3 playe ...
. RioPort was the first digital music service to license secure, single-track commercial downloads from major record labels. The Rio PMP300 was supplied with a copy of the "Music Match" software for managing the user's MP3 library. A selection of folk/country/blues MP3s were also provided, the metadata for which was in a Music Match specific format rather than as ID3 tags.


Design flaws

The Rio PMP300 suffered from a few design flaws. The battery compartment door flap is notorious for breaking. The battery cover is difficult to repair due to the stress caused by the spring-loaded battery compartment and the fragile plastic used for the door clips. The metal hinge used to hold the compartment to the base of the unit would put strain on the plastic casing, causing cracks around the SmartMedia slot. The silver colored coating on the main central control button in the original 32 MB unit would often peel and flake off with use. The control disc would commonly fall off.


Legal disputes

On October 8, 1998, the Recording Industry Association of America, filed suit and asked for a
temporary restraining order An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in p ...
to prevent the sale of the Rio player in the Central District Court of California, claiming the player violated the 1992
Audio Home Recording Act The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA) amended the United States copyright law by adding Chapter 10, "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media". The act enabled the release of recordable digital formats such as Sony and Philips' Digital Audi ...
. See '' RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia''. Judge Andrea Collins issued the temporary order on October 16, but required the RIAA to post a $500,000 bond that would be used to compensate Diamond for damages incurred in the delay if Diamond eventually prevailed in court. Diamond then announced that it would temporarily delay shipment of the Rio. On October 26, Judge Collins denied the RIAA's application. On appeal, the
Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...
held that the Rio's
space shifting Space shifting (or spaceshifting), also known as place shifting (or placeshifting), allows media, such as music or films, which are stored on one device, to be accessed from another place through another device. Space shifting is frequently done thr ...
was
fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...
and not a copyright infringement. After the lawsuit ended, Diamond sold 200,000 players.


Software support

Diamond no longer provides support for the Rio, and the last version of Microsoft Windows to work with Diamond's Rio software was Windows 98. Independently produced freeware programs such as "Dreaming of Brazil" or "RIOsitude" can still be used to upload audio files to the player. Similarly, limited Linux command-line based support for the Rio is provided by the "rioutils" package.


Rivals

Market rivals of the Diamond Rio included the original
RCA Lyra Lyra is a series of MP3 and portable media players (PMP). Initially it was developed and sold by Indianapolis-based Thomson Consumer Electronics Inc., a part of Thomson Multimedia, from 1999 under its RCA brand in the United States and under the T ...
and the
Creative Nomad The NOMAD was a range of digital audio players designed and sold by Creative Technology Limited, and later discontinued in 2004. Subsequent players now fall exclusively under the MuVo and ZEN brands. The NOMAD series consisted of two distinct br ...
.https://mobile-review.com/mp3/articles/rio.shtml


See also

*
Eiger Labs MPMan F10 The MPMan music player, manufactured by the South Korean company SaeHan Information Systems, debuted in Asia in March 1998, and was the first mass-produced portable solid state digital audio player. The internal flash memory could be expanded, b ...
– the first portable MP3 player


References


External links


A review of Rio PMP300
at ''The Adrenaline Vault''
Original Rio PMP300 product page
from Archive.org, mentioning two of the first digital music services: Goodnoise and MP3.com
Original Rio PMP300 MP3 Music Sampler disc
from Archive.org, containing the selection of songs included with the player {{DEFAULTSORT:Rio Pmp300 Audiovisual introductions in 1998 Digital audio players