September 23rd, 1999

[11:15 AM] Rio's Selection Of SoundJam MP Brings Mac Compatibility To Portable MP3 Player Casady & Green have announced that their SoundJam MP MP3 player/encoder application has been chosen by RioPort Inc. as the software "heart" for the new Rio 500. The Diamond Rio was among the first portable MP3 players, helping popularize the CD quality, compressed music format. However, early versions lacked Macintosh support. The Rio 500 will be Macintosh compatible. According to Casady & Green: SoundJam MP allows you to encode music quickly into high quality MP3 files turning your computer into a stereo component. SoundJam MP handles a variety of formats including MP3, CDs, AIFF, WAV and QuickTime. SoundJam MP compresses your music collection to a fraction of its size while maintaining near CD quality. SoundJam MP has been optimized for the Power Mac G4 with Velocity Engine making it the fastest MP3 encoder on the market. Version 1.1 features support for the new Rio 500, improved ID3 tag support, customized Genre category capability, new plug-ins and more! SoundJam MP is available in the retail chain for US$49.95. You can find more information on SoundJam MP, or the Rio 500, at their companies' web sites. The Mac Observer Spin: The release of a Macintosh friendly version of the popular Rio MP3 player is long overdue. Teaming with an industry powerhouse like Casady & Green practically guarantees the success of this product, and moves to secure the Macintosh's presence in the exploding MP3 market. Casady & Green