RioPort Releases Audio Manager Software for MP3 Devices

Computergram International, August 31, 1999

RioPort Inc, the software subsidiary of Diamond Multimedia Inc, has now released the final version of its RioPort Audio Manager,a competitor to RealNetworks Inc's RealJukebox. The software comes from OneStep LLC, a company acquired earlier this month by S3 Inc, currently also in the process of acquiring RioPort's parent company Diamond Multimedia Inc.

Audio Manager is for finding, organizing, downloading and playback of digital audio files in either MP3 or Microsoft Windows Media Audio formats. It's free for consumers in a version limited to 50 tracks of encoding, $9.95 for an unlimited version, or $4.95 for owners of Diamond's MP3 Rio players. Diamond will bundle the software with every Rio PMP 500 personal music player from the middle of next month. The software is also part of Diamond's OEM agreements for Rio MP3 players from Compaq Computer Corp and MTV Networks Online (CI No 3,724).

The software is compatible with Microsoft Corp's Media Device Manager API, which Microsoft is beginning to push as a potential standard for portable music devices. Using the API, Audio Manager can encode and manage both MP3 and Windows Media Audio format files.