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Diamond's MP3 Move

You knew Diamond was looking at MP3s like no one else. Now it's ready to move beyond the PC audio market and into gamers' hands.

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Gamers already know about MP3, a popular digital audio format that allows CD-quality digital audio to play on one's PC. Now, video and audio card maker Diamond Multimedia is throwing its muscle behind the format - which is bound to make some people happy and others quite upset.

Sure, there's a touch of controversy with people taking CD tracks off popular music CDs and giving them to friends - and some recording companies have gone so far as to call the technology illegal. The truth, however, is that technologies like the recordable cassette and Sony's MiniDisc haven't made any significant dents in the recording industry's profits. But up until now, no major software or hardware company has released anything commercially available for encoding or decoding MP3s.

When Diamond Multimedia recently released a special MP3 software suite allowing users to create their own MP3 files - for use with its upcoming Monster Sound MX300 - we knew Diamond had grander things in store for audiophiles. Last week, the company tipped its hat when it came by the GameSpot offices to show us what it had in store.

On Monday, Diamond announced its new Rio PMP300, a small device that will play up to 60 minutes of high-quality music without a single moving part. If you want to listen to audio books, the device can play up to 16 hours of voice audio. The Rio may be the Second Coming of the Walkman era of audio - with some distinct advantages over products like the MiniDisc and portable CD players.

First, since the music is stored in 32MB of flash memory the Rio has no moving parts. Without moving parts, the tiny Rio can play for about 12 hours on a single alkaline AA battery - or up to 36 hours on a lithium battery. If you're a sports fanatic and like tunes to accompany your workouts - and hate skipping CDs or tapes - the Rio will never skip because there are no moving parts. Diamond thinks sports buffs will love this fact about the Rio and even talked about making a handlebar attachment for the device.

Second, since MP3 is a popular standard on the Internet; you won't have to worry about special file formats or other problems. Even Microsoft has added limited support in the latest Media Player (available on Microsoft's web site), which allows MP3 playback.

Third, the software bundle included with the device has all the tools you'll ever need to listen to and create your own MP3s. MusicMatch and Xing's Jukebox encode CD files to MP3 format. This lets you create your own albums of MP3 music and then downloads the files from your PC to the Rio with an included cable that plugs into your parallel port. If you're new to MP3s, Diamond has included over 200 songs ready to download. If you don't like the tracks on the CDs you can either make your own MP3s from your own private CD collection or head on over to one of the popular MP3 sites.

If you want to listen to more than just 60 minutes of music, the Rio has a flash media port that will allow you to slip in another 16 or 32MB of flash memory. Diamond will be selling flash cards on its site at US$49.95 for 16MB and $99.95 for the 32MB version.

Diamond has also made some connections on the way while developing the Rio. Popular MP3 sites including MP3.com and GoodNoise. And gamers were shown to have the highest potential for buying the Rio after the company conducted a survey on GameSpot. The survey showed that over 50 percent of gamers downloaded and listened to digital music files. Gamers and other Internet users have also been making more and more of their purchases online too. Sites like Amazon.com, CDnow, and Music Boulevard are selling CDs at a record pace, so the time for introducing MP3s to the mainstream public has never been better. And selling MP3s could bring down music prices since no one needs to burn a single CD. You'd be able to download an entire new album the second it's released without looking all over town for the CD or having to pay shipping charges.

When Diamond came by the GameSpot office to show off the Rio, our first reaction was to its size. At first glance it looks like a large pager with a pair of headphones. At only 3.5x 2.5x5/8 inches, it's hard to believe that it can do all that Diamond says, but it can. Playback quality sounds just like a CD. The interface on the device is simple to understand with sound effect options like jazz, classic, and rock. We passed it around the office for a few minutes, and everyone who listened to it loved the sound quality.

So when can you check one out? The company will be shipping the product to retailers sometime in October. It has an MSRP of US$199.95.

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