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S3/Diamond Rio 600 Review

Rio Audio Manager

November 12, 2001

Along with the Rio 600 device, comes a USB cable and a CD containing the Rio Audio Manager software. The purpose of this package is to rip tracks from an audio CD, and encode them in either MP3 or WMA format. They can then be copied over to the Rio.
As mentioned, a USB cable connecst the Rio to the computer. The original Rio 300 used a parallel interface, but luckily the Rio 600--like the Rio 500--uses the USB interface, around 6 times faster than a parallel connection.

Once launched into the Rio Audio Manager, the five main functions of the program are easily discernable. Five large buttons display them: make a playlist, copy to device, write audio CD, read a cd and finally a button to connect to the RioPort website.

The make a playlist menu allows creation of a playlist from audio tracks currently in the database or by pulling tracks off an audio CD. This is a useful menu for organising the music into playlists, which, as a musical database grows, becomes more of a necessity.

To send music to the Rio the Copy to Device menu is needed, under which music can be selected from the database by entire playlists or just individual tracks. On the right hand side of the screen the current track is displayed, along with a useful meter showing memory in use. This also displays how much memory the current selection for copying will take up, a useful feature.

To further the all-encompassing audio features of the Rio Audio Manager there is also an option to allow audio tracks to be written to a CD. Quite useful for building a compilation CD from favourite tracks. Not exactly a required feature, but one the audio-fanatics out there will appreciate.

To copy and encode CDs into the audio database, the read a CD menu is used. This option copies tracks from a CD and encodes them into whichever format is selected. As the Rio 600 makes use of track names, it’s a good idea to name all the tracks on any CD to be copied. Thankfully this menu includes a tie-in with the Internet's CDDB (Compact Disc Database), so generally the painful job of naming each and every track on a CD is taken out of your hands.

The final menu option uses the built-in browser to launch into the RioPort website. From here various artists and track are available for download. Along with the music on offer, there is also a selection of spoken audio files, such as comedy, news and even some on personal development. According to Diamond, various upgrades to the firmware in the Rio will be published on this website, such as upgrades to the Rio 600 codec, enabling audio formats like AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) from Dolby.

Previous: « Rio 600 Overview - Continued Next: Audio Compression Explained »

Skip To Page
1 Introduction
2 Rio 600 Overview
3 Rio 600 Overview - Continued
• 4 Rio Audio Manager
5 Audio Compression Explained
6 Audio Compression Explained - Continued
7 WMA Vs. MP3
8 WMA Vs. MP3 - 2
9 WMA Vs. MP3 -3
10 Conclusion

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