TrekStor Vibez

The TrekStor Vibez is a microdrive digital audio player released on November 15, 2006. It is currently available in 8 GB and 12 GB capacities.

Flash versions of the Vibez player with 4 and 8 GB capacity were announced in 2007, but did not materialize for a while. A 16-gigabyte Vibez with flash memory was reviewed by German computer magazine c't in early July 2008. ^[1] The cancellation of the flash-based units has been confirmed by Trekstor in e-mail messages to customers. ^[2]

Features

The Vibez's chipset, the SigmaTel 3600 SoC, natively supports almost all features originally included in the Rio Karma (with the exception of the Karma's networking features), as well as some new and/or improved features, including:

• Gapless playback and 5sec. cross-fading for all supported codecs, including WMA DRM.
• Custom five-band parametric equalizer with savable presets.
• True on-the-fly playlisting.
• DJ mode (formerly known as "Rio DJ")
• Line-in recording (.WAV format)
• Voice recording (.WAV format)
• MSC/MTP modes (no software dependency)
• ID3 tag and file tree browsing
• Pitch bend (50% +/-)
• Codecs supported: MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, WMA-DRM9, WMA-DRM10 (Janus)
• Album art (embedded supported in MP3 and WMA only)
• Replaceable battery.
• Optional radio tuner. (sold separately)
• Pressing both [Select]+[Power] locks buttons.

Unofficial beta firmware containing additional features is available from Riovolution.org. Most features are available in English only and include:

• Ability to rate song on the device, play by rating and song rating extraction (MP3 and WMA)
• Extra visuals
• Text file viewer
• Sudoku game
• Picture Jumble game
• Spoken word filter
• User background picture cycling
• Accidental power on protection
• Startup volume limiter
• last.fm playback logging
• Advanced configuration menu
• Ability to update playlists
• Playlist creation and editing independent to currently playing music (a.k.a. "Karma Playlists")
• Ability to seek to an exact timecode
• Ability to play back a random album/artist/etc
• Embedded album art for FLAC
• Playback history
• Cue file support (embedded cue information supported for WMA and FLAC)

External links

• TrekStor Vibez product page.
• TrekStor Vibez user manual.
• Riovolution.org a forum for owners and fans of Rio products and the TrekStor vibez.
• TrekStor vibez FAQ at Riovolution.org

References

1. ^ c't 16/2008, p. 136
2. ^ Riovolution forum post quoting an e-mail from Trektstor support