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New Philips eXpanium Will Use 3" CDs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the finally- dept.

SpunOne writes: "Phillips is gearing up to release their new eXpanium mp3 player. Unlike most players in the past that use proprietary storage technology, Phillips is turning to the use of those cute little 3 inch CDs that have been around forever, but never really used for much. Apparently most existing CD burners can already write to them, and the rest can do so with an adapter. Phillips even has a beta test available if you're interested in giving it a try." If you should get into the beta group (50 people), why not write up a report for us on this little device? If it only played .ogg files, I would try to pre-order from somewhere.

10 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. 29 Percent of a full CD... by Futurepower(tm) · · Score: 4, Insightful


    3 inch CDs = 185 Megabytes.

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    Bush's education improvements were
  2. So let me get this straight... by plastik55 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    These CDs are 3 inches wide, hold around 180 megabytes, cost $2 each for non-rewritable blanks, and the player will be very sensitive to skipping from external forces like any CD player.

    Whereas a MiniDisc is 2.5" wide, holds 256 MB, costs $2 each for a rewritable blank disk, the player is much less sesceptible to skipping, and uses ATRAC2, which at 256Kbps is generally regarded to be superior to mp3 at the same bit rate,

    So why bother with this mutant mp3-cd player? It won't even play my CDs.

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    1. Re:So let me get this straight... by timothy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To Rambo's (valid) points:

      1) less information / music: I've heard up to 180MB on the little ones. Still not *that* different from a MD, but a slightly larger difference than you say ...

      2) difficulty of recording: It sounds like it's really easy with the particular setup Rambo has. However, for people who use their PC as the everything-media station (and don't have such an MD rig ;)) that's sort of beside the point. For the purposes of this discussion, in deciding between these formats it seems a safer bet that someone has a PC (and has or could cheaply buy a CD-R or CD-RW drive) than a MD recorder, esp. an integrated setup with CD and MD. Someone who has and is happy with MD, though, can continue to be happy without problem though! :)

      3) That MD will not play in CD-MP3 players ... ok, there's a tautology here, true, but (so far, and in the short-term future anyhow) there are a lot more drives in the world that take CDs ... any "modern" computer, for a convenient definition of modern will probably have one. And there are several MP3 CD-playing car decks as well. Yes, there are some MD decks for cars, but Boy are they expensive so far! Sony pretty much ensured the format would be unappealing to a lot of people with the expensive, hard-to-find* media ...

      4) Expense: again, depends on what the baseline is. If someone has a computer made in the last 3 years, it probably has the oomph to make CD-Rs, CD-R drives start in the 50s of dollars right now ... but the real cost is the media anyhow.

      5) Bandwidth control: you can use very narrow bitdepths if you want / need to with MP3 / ogg -- I'd like to have audio books that last a long time without changing disks, don't need much fidelity for that. The choices on MD may be better than they used to be, but not nearly as rich as with the others ... and while it's only tangentially related to bandwidth control, the ability to put many more than 2 channels of audio is part of the .ogg idea, while with MD it's much more limited.

      timothy

      *In NYC, LA or Chicago, easy to find. In small-town America, even middle-sized-town America, you're probably looking at mail order. And your friend down the block won't have a player, unless you're the two guys in town with players ...

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  3. Hmmmm......I like the idea but...... by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 3, Insightful
    650 Meg is worth carrying the bigger player. I signed up to be considered for the beta test cuz I never have done anything like this before, and I would like to add my input. If it's free it will be even better.

    The 3 inch CD only holds about 85 megs more then a Zip disk. I can buy 50 650 Meggers for about half the price of a 3 incher, so why bother? The only thing I can think of is that they'd be nice to drop a 3 incher into a letter or card with a bunch of images on them to send it to grandparents who would like to see pics of their grandchild a bit more. While the size is nice, I don't see why they'd go that way. 2 inches is not much to save! Now if they could build a 3 inch CD player that fits into, or onto a handheld I'd be more interested, but for a portable player, maybe not. If I am selected to beta test, it will still be a neat toy to play with!

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    Gorkman

  4. I'm wondering... by or_smth · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What exactly are the advantages of using these 3" cds over the normal sized ones? They hold less, cost more, may not be directly (though it seems you can get an adapter) supported by your burner and are probably a lot harder to find. I could only find one other device (those digital cameras) that really needs to use these things, so that means much less use of the extra mini cdrs around. Again, what exactly is the point?

  5. Re:what about DVD tech? by technos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Full size DVD-R: 4,700 megs
    Full size CD-R: 650 megs
    3 inch CD-R: 180 megs

    A quick ratio gives the result that a 3 inch DVD would hold about 1300 megs, twice the capacity of a full size CD..

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  6. It's kinda cute looking by DragonPup · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But with a width of at least 3 inches, reduced battery life compared to most others(since CDs tend to be power suckers) and 3 inch CDs that are not exactly common in the US to buy, will it take off?

    -Henry

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    "Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
  7. what about DVD tech? by philgross · · Score: 3, Insightful

    DVD's have higher density than CDs (I think) and allow dual layers. It seems like a 3" DVD would probably hold more than a full CD. Is a 3" format part of the DVD spec? It seems like you could get the best of both worlds, small media size and good capacity.

  8. What about business cards? by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Can it play these?

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    If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
  9. advantages of a smaller disk by xeno · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of folks have asked "why?"

    The advantages of a smaller disk include a smaller player (fits in your pocket, unlike the current raft of full-size CD/MP3 players), lower power consumption (it actually does take a lot less energy to spin up a ~40% smaller diameter disk), low-cost media (3" disks usually cost about US$0.55 in lots of 50 and US$1 in lots of 10 or less), requires no new software (!!), and low production cost of the player (since none of this is new technology). Out of about a dozen cd burner I've used, every one supports 3" CDRs, as well as all tray and most slot-loading players.

    This player and two disks will almost get me thru most of the workday without hearing a repeat, I can play the disk in my computer without any hardware-specific software or drivers, and the trivial cost of the media make it quite nice for sneakernet music swapping. Are you going to swap or give away your CF card or MiniDisc? I didn't think so. Who knows, maybe this will bring the cost of 3" CDRWs down.

    Low tech? Yes. But a very nice application of low-tech.

    Jon

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    I think not...(*poof*)