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Home | Technology | Gadgets And Gizmos

The First MP3 Player

By: Thomas Pretty

The first MP3 player was released in 1998; it was named the Saehan MPMan and was originally marketed in Asia and was then re branded as the Eiger Labs MPMan in the USA and Europe. However there is a common misconception that it was the Diamond Rio PMP300 that was the first device, the argument however is somewhat pedantic though as both devices were released within a few months of each other.

The reason so many people believe the Rio device was the inaugural MP3 player is due to the fact that its release was met by huge disdain from the music industry and a furore over publishing and copyright laws. The RIAA or Recording Industry Association of America is a body made up of record labels and it was this association that were the first to take Rio to court over issues with recording rights and copyright infringements.

The reason they singled to Rio rather than Saehan was predominantly due to geographical reasons. Rio was based in America and Saehan in Korea, hence it was far easier for RIAA to take Rio through the American courts rather than deal with the Korean legal system.

The bid to sue Rio however was unsuccessful and the company were able to continue producing their device. In fact the lawsuit did more harm than good for the RIAA who inadvertently gave Rio a great deal of free publicity and hence raised their profile. Eiger Labs could have done with the same publicity but lost out during the early years of MP3 player marketing.

Up until this point the MP3 player had been predominantly constructed as a Flash based device. This changed however and it was not long until the first hard drive players, such as the IPod became available. Compaq Systems were the first to realize the benefits of the hard drive system, boffins from Compaq's laptop division started to experiment with the hard drives in computers, shrinking them so that they could be portable whilst storing music.

The use of hard drives rather than Flash meant that the MP3 player could hold far more data, from a paltry 32 MB to 6 GB. This was a colossal shift in storage capacity and meant that the MP3 player was now a true option for those who wanted to carry around large amounts of music without the inconvenience of lugging around CD's, tapes or Mini disc's.

Compaq however missed a trick and instead of pouring their efforts into marketing a hard drive MP3 player gave the production rights to a Koran company instead. This company did not put much time into the project and hence the device stagnated. Once HP had bought out Compaq they once again missed the opportunity to produce the hard drive player, in one of the most contentious decisions of all time they chose to give Apple the technology, giving them the right to produce the device.

The rest is how they say history; Apple IPods went from strength to strength and are now the most popular form of high capacity MP3 device on the market. That has not stopped other leading manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony and Panasonic all producing their own devices, nor has it stopped budget electronic companies producing players. Today the MP3 player is the portable music device of choice, it has revolutionized how we listen and travel with music.

Article Source: http://bytepowered.org/articles

Technology expert Thomas Pretty studies the arguments surrounding the first MP3 player and how it has become the portable media device of choice today.

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