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Dataplay Ready to Launch
geophile writes "Let's see. This is a CD-like, CD-incompatible storage medium with
lower storage capacity than a CD; copying, which is supported by CDs
and permitted by fair-use laws is not possible; and it's more
expensive than a CD. Read about this great idea here." We've done a couple of stories on the Dataplay discs; this one discusses the heavy content controls built-in. MSNBC had an article on Dataplay a few weeks ago that mentions an "education process" needed to get people to re-buy all their old music in a new format.
Quite often when we see things like this, the general consensous is "If it sucks this bad and is this stupid, people will not buy it." Well, I do not have that much faith in the masses. All it takes is one exclusive block-buster album to come out on this format for all the sheep to buy and VOILA, TNBT. So, this will be a good test so see if the public can withstand the crap...
PS- Are there any plus sides??
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
I would much rather see someone release this, fail horribly (which I think it will) and tarnish the idea, then someone doing it right.
God sucks at running this place. Impeach God at
I quit buying CDs years ago due to the RIAA's greedy, grasping control-freak mentality. It will be a cold day in hell before I shell out a single cent to them for some broken incompatible crap like this.
These people live in their own little world - with only the MPAA and some other like-minded morons as neighbors. Small wonder they can get laws like the DMCA passed - Congress lives in the same world.
I just do not foresee people buying these things. Yes, the "public" can be incredibly stupid at times, but they do catch on, eventually, and I think the RIAA's game is up.
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
At least it looks like a CD, and I'm sure it smells like a cd, and probally if you lick it it will taste like a CD.
So its not all that big of a failure.
Veramocor
No.
People will henceforth start their whining of 'consumers are stupid' and 'they'll buy it because of the latest pop band!' crap.
Yeah. We've all seen that happen before.
Remember Divx. Remember the intelligence of consumers. They don't wish to be inconvenienced just because a bunch of geeks label something 'bad'. And I don't blame them.
But when corporations fsck them over? Yes, they tend to stand up to them.
I'd just like to say good luck to the RIAA.
They're really going to need it... because this is truly a bankrupting idea. And after this crap doesn't fly, they'll be charging $30 a CD to recoup costs.
I am sure as hell not going to buy something that is going to get lost in the hole in my jeans pocket... or the dog can easily chwe up and eat.
So compact flash sucks too because it's more expensive than CD's and incompatible? Dataplay discs are VERY small. That's the whole point. They are intended for digital cameras, PDA's and similar small, battery driven devices. Not PC's. Not even laptops.
Instead of focusing on being funny when submitting the article, how about focusing on being clued in?
The discs look like CDs an inch (2.5 centimeters) across and are housed in plastic cartridges.
I'm looking at my Sony Minidisc right now. The Dataplay people are joking. Right?
Syllable : It's an Operating System
These guys are going to be a massive success.
Yah think? Bwhahahaha.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I believe this "education process" is misunderstood. What they're refering to is the executives figuring out that being able to control the market through physical media is obsolete. Try to force the market into a new format and you'll just push even more people to the black market.
The music industry's arrogance towards their own customers is incredible. Imagine if Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, etc. all said that their programs will only install on new computers in MetaData format media and if you had legacy media you'd just have to buy it new. Or they told you they wouldn't honor upgrades unless you bought new licenses by a certain date (oops, beat me to that idea).
How long till we see this as 2002's dumbest business idea...
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
I was under the impression that once you owned the rights to the music, you wouldn't have to pay royalties again.
Why can't you just buy music in the new format for $1 a disc, if you already own the music?
eh.. I already know the answer why do I bother
And how long will it be before someone cracks all the "hidden" music on the disks?
actually according to the article the blank tracks is 650MB the filled tracks is supposed to hold 5 albums compressed. But I really don't see how this is going to institute copy protection. Even if its out put is encoded, it doesn't keep someone from copying the encoded file and then "trick" their own player to play the copied encoded file.
a compression like MP3? thats just enough for me NOT to adopt this format. If they use a lossy format, forget it. I like raw PCM used on CD's, or a codec that reconstructs it (like SHN audio). lossy formats suffice for pirating..but do you really want your $18 you shell out going for something that sounds just as good as a mp3 rip of it?
Make a blockbuster hit. 90% of fanbase has no compatible player. Do we a) forsake all that profit or b) release the CD? The music industry don't have all that much of a community feeling, if they can make cash, they will.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Especially if AOL finds some way to put media on them. I want new free stuff to put in the microwave . . .
While I've pretty much stopped buying cds from music row years ago, and now only purchase cd's from local artists (God, I love Austin), who actually see the profits from the cds, I still don't see how its security methods, are gonna prevent me from hooking it (if it actually catches on) to my receiver w/ digital output, and hooking that up to my sound card w/ digital input... How is this keeping me from copying the audio?
I'm only paranoid because everyone is against me...
From the article:
On Tuesday, a music industry group said worldwide sales of CDs fell 5 percent last year, the first drop ever. The group attributed it to the rise of Internet services like Napster, which distribute music copied from CDs.
As long as such CNN and the other mainstream media (ok, except M$NBC because of the "M$") - present things this way, the myth of "mp3 piracy" will live on; like the CD being "new media" and charged as such even as we speak (in spite of being in use more than the average age of slashdot users) - they can blame their losses on mp3's forever.
I guess this new format will die soon... but is it wishfull thinking on my side?
if you use a good enough junk-filter, slashdot.org will display a single, *blank*, page
" Portability and price will draw in the 18-34 age group first, predicts Bob Higgins, chairman and CEO of Albany, N.Y.-based Trans World Entertainment. The company invested in DataPlay last year, and Higgins sits on its board of directors.
"I just know by being in the business, there's definitely a need for a portable format," he said. "Portable CD players are too big and too bulky."
OK, in my opinion, I wouldn't put much trust in any of this guys "predictions". The younger market is already solidly behind MP3, they aren't going to go for this any more than people went for the MiniDiscs. MP3 players are both cheaper, and I'd say more portable, especially since you don't have to carry around discs for them. I still am not convinced on the lame memory chip-based (128 megs of flash memory is not enough for a long outing, at least not for me) ones, but the ones with actual multi-gig hard drives are a great idea. And a US Quarter sized disc? No way, too small, imagine those getting dropped on the floor of your car - you probably wouldn't even notice it at first, and then it'd get stepped on and smashed, or find it's way to some inaccessible crevice in your car.
Bad idea - think of all the coins you find when you life up your couch cushion.
And what, they're going to shrink the cover art even more? That's the one thing I don't like about CDs as compared to vinyl records - the cover art is too small, it's just not as asthetically pleasing as the good old 12"x12" (I think) album covers. And you never see any way cool covers with moving parts and spinners like on the old Led Zeppelin albums. Sucks!
Just read about this and I am excited about it, however I wish that it would be a little more versatile straight out. My other problem is that this will make us go out and buy new stuff, have to replace my car stereo, home stereo, and who knows what else. I guess besides the money that needs to be spent, it is also about the rack space in my entertainment center.
Well' I guees we will just have to see if it sticks or not.
I do suggest you read the article, pretty interesting!
"Entertain the Brutes"
..rubbish.
This new product is a lame attempt to try and quash the 'music copying' market - amusingly, I couldnt have imagined anyone else to be the 'flagship' artist to launch this product than Britney Spears.. gawd knows I am sick of seeing her on Pepsi Commercials, and now she goes and sells out on somthing like this too.
It sure as hell doesnt make me want to buy one - if I was to buy another portable media player (seeing as I have a car, I sold my MiniDisc player a while back) it would either be one of Sonys new NetMD MiniDisc players, or somthing groovy like an iPod.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
At least MiniDisc's are rewritable and if their MD-Data drives didn't cost so much it may have taken over from the humble floppy back when it was released (well before CDRW, or Zip), however in today's market something that is even more limited than MD simply doesn't stand a chance.
:/
DataPlay is essentially a small CDR then, but you can already buy small 8cm CDR's for under $1, burn your own MP3's onto them (i.e. pick your own bitrate and selection) and play them on things like the eXpanium, all less money, more control and higher quality than DataPlay.
Record companies should concentrate on delivering good music (that's why record sales are 5% up in the UK) on CD and then leave it upto the consumer whether they want to transfer it to a handheld player, car etc, on whatever format they desire.
What ever happened to all the engineers in terms of quality, everything released is "near CD Quality" why not go further? It's ridiculous today's technology has to claim to be "near" a technology that was released 20 years ago, if only SACD takes of, even then your fair-use rights have been taken away from your, DVD-Audio offers multichannel capability but they use AC3 compression
Last POST!!!
w00t!!!
The discs will cost about $16 when they are released in stores in early June, with one album of music ready to play. But because the discs pack data densely and the music is compressed using methods similar to that of MP3 software, each can contain up to five albums of music.
Some music companies will release the discs with hidden extra albums, which can be activated by entering codes bought at their Web sites for $8 to $13.
The extra disc space can contain videos and lyrics, accessed by connecting a Dataplay player to a computer. When connected, a user can also store data on the discs -- 250 megabytes on each side, for a total slightly less than the 650 megabytes that fit on a CD.
Data can only be written to the discs, not erased.
That's Good:
Hey! There's a "secret album" on this disc, and I only have to pay 50-80% of what it would cost to buy that album by itself.
That's Bad:
Hey! All of the "secret albums" are third-rate crap that the record company didn't think they'd be able to sell as standalong albums.
That's Good:
Wow! I can store my own data on the 80% of the storage capacity that's just going to waste.
That's Bad:
Wow! The record company put three crap "secret albums" on this disc...but I still have 20% of the storage capacity for my own stuff.
That's Good:
Cool! I'll put this album that I haven't listened to yet on the free 20% of this disc, so that I can check it out on my way to school.
That's Bad:
Cool! There's one good song on this album, and the rest of it sucks. I guess I'll just listen to the good song a lot, since I can't delete this album from the disc.
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
What the submitter fails to mention in all that rhetoric is that these disks are the size of a US quarter, which I find pretty interesting.
All the other crap he spewed may or may not be true. It's hard to tell when it's obvious that he's biased against the device and fails to mention the positive points.
In short, once again the Slashdot editors don't bother to do any editing.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Does your tongue incorporate RIAA-approved DRM technology?
No?
Then keep your filthy tongue off of those Dataplay discs, pirate!!
I think its safe to asume within one week of these product being launched someone will have found a way to rip music from it.
OK guys, here's the clue. In order to be able to use them, we have to be able to decrypt them. If we can decrypt them, we can rip them.
.cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
Ill stick with my music on my hard drive (MiniDisk for when im on the move). I have everything available on my computer (TV, Radio, Movies, Games, Music, Phone and more). I use MiniDisk for mobility. Why would I want a format that restricts this capability I have today.
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
However, that just means hackers get to go to a new level, modifying hardware, changing the code in the microcontrollers, etc.
I've no doubt that this will go the way of the "DVD Killer Divx", the minidisc, and the DAT (which is used professionally - dataplay won't even have that market).
All of which have Digital Restrictions Management built in. Of course the recording industry is going to go for it. Their SDMI initiative failed (and is still flopping about like a fish looking for water), and there is no way they can control any software/data based approach - too many fingers have to be in the pudding to make it work, and one of those fingers may leak - much like how the DVD decryption routines were discovered (which would have taken longer without the key, but would likely have still taken place)
So their only hope is
- Copyright/patent new format
- Copyright/patent hardware and algorithms
- Only license copyrights/patents to those willing to play ball their way
But the trick is then getting the consumers to pay for this new deal, which initially is going to be very expensive. Given the choice of buying an IPOD and this new disc device, which do you think the average joe is going to get? No little discs to lose, tons of space, no DRM (well, hacked away) , and personal organizer to boot.They'd have to sell millions of these before the price comes down, and like the minidisc it ain't gonna happen.
I suspect that even when they only release a certian artist in that format the music will still be available (one person with player and a nice sound card, or simply ripped off the radio) in an adequate format. It will backfire, because music consumers are fickle and will simply stop listening to an artist if the entrance fee is $300, and the artists are less likely to play ball with companies that use them like pawns to bring about DRM.
It's a complicated chess game, and they are playing like they've lost their queen. They will fail if they don't fold the game and start with a completely different mindset.
So I'm not worried. Besides, CDs will likely be available cheaply for a long, long time.
-Adam
"I just know by being in the business, there's definitely a need for a portable format," he said. "Portable CD players are too big and too bulky." -- see article
*Portable CD Players are mostly used for plugging into your car or listening to in a bus.
*If you really want a cost-effective and small music player, try an MP3 player like the iPod (5GB, rw, $400). Why would a consumer by a read-only, write-protected, $270 dollar, 500Mb device when they could have so much more with an iPod or Rio...much less "bulky" than a CD player too. (provided, you do need a CPU for one, not hard to find someone with one though.)
[whirrrr. thupa thupa thupa thupa thupa GRRRRRRR]
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
>CD-incompatible storage medium with lower storage capacity than a CD
Oops..
Article says it holds five albums.... lower is higher.
yah know... the format is not the only important thing in making a purchase decision. The functionality of the portable device is also important.
One very cool thing about minidisc was the minidisc recorders. Digital input (fiber cable out and get master quality portable) -- admittably niche, but nice for building samples.
on another note, the copyright protection is being looked at in terms of music. How about software distributed on this medium? That would be interesting. Need a code to unlock the disc to install. As opposed to install and then unlock. (that could be interesting from M$ point of view)
Vital Idea
The feature that you cannot copy it is a major one! This will give it major support from the "content" industry.
"The tiny discs will be able to store up to five hours of CD-quality music, one hour of video, 1,000 digital photos, one video game or 100 e-books -- or any combination, up to 500 megabytes of storage."
Let's see 80 minutes of CD-quality music now uses 700 MB of space. How exactly does 300 minutes of CD-quality music fit on 500 MB?
Blank discs, which can store up to 500 megabytes of data, will retail for between $10 and $12
Wow, much better than the $15 I'm paying for 50 700 MB CD's. A single 500 MB disk for the price of over 20 GB of blank CD's. Where do I get in line?
"I just know by being in the business, there's definitely a need for a portable format," Bob Higgins said. "Portable CD players are too big and too bulky."
Gee, if there were only widely available, simple to use, portable digital music storage and listening devices on the market right now.
This sentence no verb.
i'm currently doing my core4 (reasearch paper)on the RIAA and why they are fighting mp3s. no matter where i look there's a new reason to hate the RIAA, i thought they'd already thought of every possible GOD DAMNED way to piss me off, then i get on slashdot to see some news that might spark my interenst and not piss me off, and THIS shows up! WTF! i'm already pissed off enough as it is trying to write this stupid paper about those silly asses, and then they come up with a plan that sounds supider than thier press releases! damnit! i think i popped an artery, i need some mountain dew...
"Imagin me naked, now imagin me quickly turning a corner" -Cyko
P.S. please dont moderate...
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
"You WILL listen to Dataplay disks!" or maybe it will be more like: "2+2=DATAPLAY DISKS!!!!"
* 2002-04-18 07:06:54 Copying Limits Stifle Innovation (articles,news) (rejected)
Take a look at me. I'm just a ridiculous nerd that can't barely know the visual difference between CD-R and CD-RW. Even though I know that this stupid idea won't be enough to avoid the so called digital piracy.
Let's see what they hope to get with this brand-new device:
- Some music companies will release the discs with hidden extra albums, which can be activated by entering codes bought at their Web sites for $8 to $13.
May I know the jack-ass who have had this stupid idea? I give a week to a chinese hacker find a way to activate the entire disk without paying a nickel. And I want to see the dam DMCA look for the anonymous hacker who would do this!- When connected, a user can also store data on the discs -- 250 megabytes on each side, for a total slightly less than the 650 megabytes that fit on a CD.
How long will take until the technical advisors wonders what will happen after a regular nerd have digital access to the disc content? Of course it will try to put all the content to its HD and get rid of the dam disc.Due to its small size it's obvious that it can become very popular, even replacing that old 3"1/2 floppies, and the 5"1/4 CDs. When this happen, GPLds hackers will want to access the disc and all its contents, then they can say goodbye to the copy protections and the cryptographic methods.
- Dataplay incorporates safeguards to prevent songs sold on the discs from being copied to computers, a major plus for the music industry.
First of all, a major plus for the music industry should be quality, this shows that MPAA isn't worryied about the consumer, but about theirselves. Should we buy products from an industry that cares that much about the consumer? All they worry about is money, and not about the consumer's satisfactionAnd the technical issue. As I said before, there's no way to avoid it to happen. It's digitaly recorded and there's a machine wich reads it, so it's completely possible to hack it and get it's digital content.
- Sony introduced the compact, rewritable Minidisc in 1992, and while moderately popular in Japan and Europe, it has never caught on in the United States.
And how do they want to introduce a lower-quality product? Have their technical advisors realized that there already is a very good competitor? I wouldn't buy a new and inferior product if the better one is avaiable and already is spreaded in the market.- (under a picture)
- South Korea's iRiver Inc. is expected to release a music player that uses the tiny Dataplay discs in June.
This shows that the format is about to born already dead, in South Korea there already is avaiable MDs and as stated before, they are much better. Even if it becomes a success, there's no DMCA in Korea, so we'll have a GPLd player even sooner.- Other partner companies plan to incorporate Dataplay discs in digital cameras and small handheld movie viewers, to be released later this year. A disc can store a two-hour movie at a low resolution suitable for small screens.
Finally something intelligent about this piece of shit. IMHO a standard "high-capacity" storage medium is needed in the market, each device has its own medium, and it can become a standard for the industry.For all this that I have seen, and their technical advisors haven't, I think that they need new advisors. Maybe I'm one of the ellectibles, maybe everybody reading slashdot can be a good advisor for them, but first they need to find out this.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Mossberg pans the Dataplay and one of the reasons he cites is that it deprives him of his rights as a consumer. He points out that the Dataplay only allows for five (5) copies to be made of the purchased music and says that while such a format may be good for the music industry, it's not a reason to switch from CDs.
I've noticed that Mossberg has recently (within the last year or two) made gentle but reasoned swipes against MS as well as heavy-handed digital rights management. Has anyone in the free (or open, if you prefer) software domain ever talked to him? I've never read or heard anything like that (say, Doc Searls or Bruce Perens mentioning "I chatted with Walter Mossberg...". I know that a lot of conservative and nontechnical people read Mossberg faithfully. It's encouraging to see that he seems to be for many of the same things.
somebody will reverse engineer this thing and find out that they used an ogg-vorbis based codec, only changing it slightly to make it incompatible with ogg players, AND not realesing the source code for the changes. Good way to counter piracy by violating the GPL and the rights of the Ogg dev crew.
- Pimp
I like computers, women and computers... in that order...
...I find that I'm really glad that I bought a MiniDisk player/recorder instead of the MP3 player.
Pros:
* Cheap disks - $2 each as opposed to $45 a compact flash card
* Quality player devices - can survive a trek into the off road bike trails with no skip
* Good sound reproduction - as good as 256bit MP3 (in my opinion)
* Holds 74 minutes - more if you downsample the music (built into most new recorders)
* using analog input - prevents any copy protection as it can record from the headphone-out jack
* Can erase and re-use disks, or delete an unwanted track
* Player costs the same as a MP3 player (32-64mb devices)
Cons:
* Did not catch on as well in the US as other standards (MP3, CD/CD-R)
* Can only record in real time (not too much of a problem as I will listen to a CD all the way the first time...takes no effort to record at the same time)
So the record companies can do whatever they want. We will find a way around whatever the @#$% they try to throw at us. They never seem to learn that there is ALWAYS a way to get around whatever they want to do to us. I found a way that works well for me, others will find thier own way.
Nero often is described as playing the violin as Rome burned. When the RIAA burns, I'll be playing the bagpipes
Phoenix
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
Looking at the pictures with the minidisc and comparing a quarter to a CD, I've come to realise my quarters are the wrong size. Is there an authority I should report my obviously counterfeit quarters to? Can I still play arcade games with the new quarters? If I buy music on the quarter sized discs, can I trick an arcade game to accept it?
So let me get this straight.. blank DataPlay discs are going to be about $10-$12. Discs with an album on them are going to sell for $16. Ok, by those numbers it's $4-$6 that the record company makes off each one.
So when mass production allows DataPlay discs to be produced for 25 cents a piece, we should be able to buy pre-recorded ones for $5?
(yes, I do realize this has no hope in hell of happening. but the question does need to be raised)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
This can't be for digital cameras unless you buy a new one because you can't erase it and put new pictures on it. It would be like film again if they put this in a camera. On compact flash you can erase and put new info on it, not on this. Why would anyone use this in a camera?
There seems to be some misconceptions about fair use around here. In the US and most other western countries, you have the legal right to copy portions of copywrited work for certain purposes. Thats is, you have the right to photocopy portions of a book, or use part of a song in a presentation. I'm sure someone else could provide more information of the detail of how much.
However there is no right guaranteeing that you can use this, that is a copywrite holder has the right to try and prevent the fair use of his work, however the copywrite holder has no legal was to prevent fair use. Even the DMCA and the whateverthehellthehollingsbilliscalledtoday do not try and prevent fair use, but they make it harder to be able to use it 'fairly', while trying to prevent it being used unfairly.
This is very much like free speech, you have the right to say whatever you want, but no right to be heard (ie published).
Obviously fair use is in everyones best intrest, it can only help publicize work and it gives people the ability to use portions of it, but it is a casualty of trying to prevent non-fair use.
I agree these might be an OK replacement for CF in general.
But the main focus for this thing is to sell music in a protected format. They want to produce DataPlay based music players, and get the public used to using this format. I think a measure of how well this technology might do is to see how many music players built with this storage medium support MP3's stored on the disc - my guess is few to none.
Furthermore, I'm not at all sure you'll see digital cameras that support this format. Why? Because you then limit yourself to this storage size, instead of being able to support 1GB+ CF storage. The cheapness of it might negate that effect though, and make some low-end cameras support this format... though you'd think a camera maker (and buyer!) would want to make suure the format wasn't going to die on the vine before they support it. But then again the resolutions cameras are going to quickly make this format too limiting.
To summarize, here's an argument for why it seems to me it's a format meant to push music. It seems to have too many drawbacks to really replace CF (limited device support and fixed size). SD already supports copyright protection controls, so they could have released music on that, but it would be too expensive. Thus, the only reason they are pushing this new format is because it's cheap enough to relase an album on. From that stream-of-thought you can then deduce the only reason this format is being pushed is to try and sell protected music in stores.
A last note - why I would pay CD prices for a lossy compressed version of a song is beyond me. I would wish them good luck, but frankly I hope it's a full-on DIVX syle failure that leads me to abandoning some other poor store (for the rest of my life I refuse to shop at Circuit City as a result of supporting DIVX).
Further note - if you (meaning: The Man [translation - companies developing this stuff]) bother to release a new compact storage format, please make sure first it can support DVD levels of storage so I can have a decent 10MP digital camera and store more than a few images in raw format.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The last thing I want is a zillion coin-sized discs, each holding the tiny amount of 500Mbytes. A hard disk is much more convenient for the home stereo, as is a portable MP3 player for the car and running around. The ability to copy between them is essential.
This sounds like a bunch of clueless executives designing hardware that is of absolutely no appeal to people who actually listen to music.
Hello you guys out there: discs are dead. Give us music-on-demand for a reasonable price and with no technological copy restrictions and people will subscribe to your services for the convenience of it.
Is this COULD be a really nifty format, if it had full R\W capacity and no hardware crippling. You could fit in your pocket more albums than the most advanced MP3 player can hold, and moreover, gosh darnit, tiny media formats are cute!
Downside, though, is that you'd suddenly be in danger of losing entire albums in your couch cushions.
From the article:
Some music companies will release the discs with hidden extra albums, which can be activated by entering codes bought at their Web sites for $8 to $13.
And I'll bet within 30 seconds of releasing the code, it will be posted on the net for everyone to use.
Yup, those record companies sure are smart.
On the other hand, once the encryption scheme is cracked, each time you buy an album, you'll get two additional albums by the same artist for free!
DataPlay users will be able to record directly from CDs they already own, but Quigley predicts those users will be a minority. Most people, he said, will go ahead and buy their favorites again in the new format.
But will we be able to record music from DataPlay to the next format?
The shareholder is always right.
You assume an artist will be willing to put their blockbuster song EXCLUSIVELY on this new format. "Hey, lets only sell our music on these neat little disks few people have heard of, no one asks about in the stores and no one has players for yet"... Artists and their agents cant be THAT stupid...
It was an uphill battle for CDs for the same reason--however CDs had advantages over tapes and records. CDs hold more music, are physically smaller, and somewhat more robust than records. Unlike tapes they are random access--no seeking for songs--and they dont wear out. To top it all off, CDs sound better than tapes and (to most people) records. Despite that, it took many years to become mainstream, and the backing of the GIANT SONY corporation.
So whats new here? We have a smaller disk, but less capacity than a CD (put MP3s on a data CD and they hold more hours of music), no better sound quality, 3 times the expense for players, and they are functionally cripled by content control "features". And as much as the potential for multimedia (video, etc) is played up...well DVD's, CD-R's, flash memory media, miniDV tapes, etc seem to do fine for any kind of digital content.
Recording executive's wet dream to be sure, but there is absolutely nothing here to lure a customer away from any existing choices...
Well...unless RIAA petitions successfully in the US to have those choices made illegal under the DMCA because the facilitate the illegal distribution of copyrighted music...
I bet Circuit City runs screaming when Samsung and whoever else ask them to sell these things. And I love all the wonderful marketing speak they use. I bet a search for DivX articles on Google would turn up old press releases that said many of the same things, and that was a better (quality, not useful) product. What 15 year old kid with Mom's credit card at Best Buy would say, gee, something with little use now, and questionable use later, or an MP3 player that I can use now and later, and probaby even after that. The cost is the same, the format is different, but teens (and other focus groups) are notoriously shortsighted (that's why marketing people love them). If the industry focuses on stupid people (note, teens are not stupid people by default but flash Brittany on screen and we all get a little weak) they will sell some of this.
I don't think it will ever get big. Why store video on a disk you can only use in an audio player? Really, just so you can move it around? There are a hundred already purchased ways to move files less than 500 MB around (how much is a CD-RW now) without having to cram it on something that your buddy at his/her house doesn't have? This is all just wishful thinking so thank god for capitalism.
Also, I can overpay for a CD, and still pay less than one of these things. And the CD, while not useful for recording things, is, for lack of a better way to put it, actually CD quality (not just stated to be and hoped no one will notice a diff). Not many are gonna be all that interested in replacing CD-R(W) or DVD-R(W/AM) with these. Really, easy to use, no restrictions, cheaper, faster vs. locked up proprietary expensive not mainstream. Seems like a moot point to me. In fact, if one doesn't read the press, but walks into Best Buy and reads the description, one might be tempted to laugh.
Bah
The WSJ chimed in on this last week...you guys are behind the curve once again
Whoa.. hold on now.. I get great benefits like lower sound quality, can't play it on my current equipment, can't make a legitimite copy of it.. AND I get to pay more? This is great!
On a serious note, correct me if I'm wrong, but when the hell could companies get away with charging more for a product that does less, and still make it a viable business model? I mean, that the kind of stuff only monopolies *coughRIAAcough* get away with.. oops.. I said too much. *hides*
slashdot!=valid HTML
A technological "solution" is better than something like the disney bill. I could see the market becoming fragmented to the point (if there is enough acceptance of the format) where new content may no longer even be offered on cd, but instead only via protected media [which dataplay hopes to become]. This is a practical real world solution to copyprotection issues, which at least dosen't involve legislating what can be done with a general purpose computer altogether.
There only real problem is that it sounds like they are also going to be offering it as a pc storage medium. Once it's a adopted as a commodity data storage medium, and PC's normally possess them as drives, I imagine that some vendor will release one that allows some sort of head position ing trick in software, or a modded drive like a region free dvd player, that will allow direct reading of the erncrypted bytestream. At which point I suspect it's only a matter of time before decryption tools become available. Unless they actually use good encryption, at which point the unlock keys will likely be posted on sites like serial numbers are today. If they were really bright they would actually distrbute each disk prerecorded somewhat manually [as opposed to stamping] with a different encryption key, and an index number, so their central server could look up and fetch the appropriate decryption key from a database. This might be somewhat prohibitively expensive, compared to stamping.... But not much. They could even transfer the labor to the consumer, where you go to the store and get a case with the cover art, and a custom version is burned for you right there at a kiosk.
Mind you, I hope it dosen't catch on. The sound quality is obviously LESS than cd quality, or they wouldn't be able to store multiple albums in less than 500Mb. It's probably a varient of ac3 or one of it's cousins which, although arguably slightly better than mp3, is still lossy compared to the uncompressed audio the consumer has come to expect on cd.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
Lets look at the problems with this product
1. Compression, they use lossy compression so of course lower audio quality.
2. CD's already have a foothold, why the hell would i want to buy more usless junk when i can hardly play anything on it.
3. Its devolution not evolution.
4. Copy protection is futile, as long as the audio is output decrypted its copyable. Unless they do the decryption in the headphones. Then its just really hard.
I'm going to laugh if someone acctully buys one of these. But then there are britiny spears fans who have rich parents. Enough said.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
Just get everyone who visits slashdot to donate 1 or 2 or 10 dollars to the EFF, then have the EFF run a public service ad campaign.
A solution to the problem with music today
The mass market audio standard for at least the next 20 years has been decided. Even a company as huge as Sony couldn't push a format that had real benefits (MiniDisc) into this sector.. What makes these buttmonkeys think their broken format will do any better with consumers?
Writen "Education Process" read "Brainwashing"
Just like josie and the pussy cats, the company will begin brainwashing consumers to think that CDs are bulky and these new things are cool... there will be commercials with cute 20 year old girls using these things, and while the geek comunity laughs, joe six pack will begin believing what he sees on TV... Ok, so I'm a cynic, at least I'm not an asshole!
I like replies better than Karma, even if they are flames, because that tells me I got someone thinking.
Some corporations seems to be into it, kodak, and others are reporting of how great this new technology is.
I surely hope this will never catch on seeing how a normal CD is better and more conveniant than this RIAA loved piece of trash but you never know, especially if it continues to get touted in the medias like this. "Ohh so it is ALMOST as good as a CD and can protect our valuable music GUARANTEED? Give me 5 000 000 please and...yeah...those...them old CDs over there...you know what to...yeah ok good..THANK YOU pleasure doing business with you!"
Anataka suki desu. Itsumo. Itsumademo.
In the future in order to listen to our favorite artists we'll have to download data codes directly into our brains that allow our ears to decode the encrypted sounds coming off whatever medium is in use then.
The costs are too high. Unless you give away the players, there is no way people are gonna drop money for a new device.
The blank price is too high as well.
-- There's only one replacement for displacement.....
I think this, like DVD, is another good idea. My reasoning is thus: I have never bought a CD in my life, I own one DVD (it was on sale for £10). I have no moral problems with downloading ripped music, videos or anything else. For this reason i have saved much money over the years and when i see other peoples massive CD collections i always feel better knowing that they wasted thousands of pounds on it. I can spend my money on other things and therefore _appear_ to have more money. Not only this, but i'm not restricted as to what i can fast-forward through, what devices i can play stuff on, or what country i can play stuff in.
If stupid people want to buy this stuff, let them. I tell people how much it costs to press a CD, how DVDs restrict what the owner can do, and how buying all these things is supporting those corporate pigs and they just stare at me. F*ck'em, f*ck'em all, they can go and waste their money on inferior products and find that its incompatible with everything else and obsolete by next year. They can go and pay for Windows XP and be forced to sign-up for MSN, they can have their computers turned into remote controlled corporate cash machines and they can live with it.
Ok, granted they are helping to fuel the evil corporations who then go on to bribe governments into doing their bidding, but in the end, when people are being arrested for fast-forwarding though adverts, or putting music on their portable, i can sit back, laugh, and say "I told you so, you dumb fuck"
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
a new tiny format which requires that i buy several thousand new disks... yah, right! a non rewritable medium... what? how about that new half sized cdr? much more useful. this has none of the advantages of md disks, and all of the disadvantages. ttfn datadisc!
It shows you how serious they must be about pushing this new standard if they simultaneously are working on 30 Gig blue DVD rewriteables.
5 Britney Spears album on one un-erasable disk? Oh, the humanity.
Napster comes in, CD sales go up 8%.
Napster goes OUT, CD sales go DOWN 5%.
What in the Sam Hill are they putting in the water coolers at the RIAA?
If I can hear the music first, I'll buy it. If, like in central CT, there are two dozen candy-ass radio stations all following maybe four godforsaken formats, there's a better likelyhood that I'll hemorrhage from hearing "Rock The Boat" seventeen times a day before I'll hear something I want to try.
Of course, if MTV would try playing music again, maybe we'd have another venue for music that wasn't an inch wide and a mile deep. Not convinced? Here's the show list for the plucky little channel...
Andy Dick / Becoming / Celebrity Deathmatch / Cribs / Daria / Diary / Dismissed / Fashionably Loud: Swimsuit 2002
Fear / Icon: Aerosmith / Making The Band / Making the Video Movie Awards 2002 / National Sex Quiz / Now What
The Osbournes / The Real World / Road Rules / Real World/Road Rules Challenge / Rock N Jock
Señor Moby's House of Music / Spring Break / TRL / Unplugged / Video Music Awards 2001 / WWF Tough Enough
Any channel that has The Osbornes, Andy Dick, the Real World and the WWF needs a name change, a new mission statement, and a prescription pad.
Like most people who can afford the necesary bandwidth in the first place, I have more money than time. I haven't the hours nor the inclination to burn everything I want to own. I go buy it. HMV and Borders are on my commute. Or I click and three days later it's in my mailbox, total extra investment of time - about 3 minutes.
I've downloaded much gig of music, and deleted nearly all of it once purchased. It's an iBook, not a server farm. I believe I have at most a half dozen CD-R keepers - mostly the stuff I'd gotten and paid for on mp3.com back when they were sane, and a whole bunch of rare tracks and but-wait-there's-more - the entire TIAA-CREF investment primer library so I can afford all this stuff in the first place (lousy beat, but you can dance to it all the way to the bank).
If I burned everything I ever downloaded to sample, I'd have a large, substandard collection of badly labeled CD-Rs, no life, dead tropical fish, and Howard-Hughes-league fingernails. Not to mention a cataloging system nowhere near the intuitiveness and familiarity of a bookcase, alphabetical by artist.
The RIAA should kiss Shawn's nappy little ass for providing the only true breakthru in music marketing since the music video. But as usual, the industry has figured out how to tie the whole relaunch up in knots because even BMG really doesn't like the whole thing but they smell money. I doubt it was a sanctified "we should be honestly representing our artist's interest" but rather a pant-wetting "holy crap - see these DL logs? can you imagine a dollar sign in front of each of these?" I mean please - it's taken them a year to not get ready, and from the get go they won't be able to write a MacOS client (no mention of any other platforms) and they can't for the life of them figure out how to take credit AND debit cards at the same time. There are one-man roasted cashew operations in East Rainbucket, Maine who can do this.
I gotta go.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
This is great though - now you won't feel like you getting something inferior when you download an mp3, because, the disk you buy in the shops will contain exactly the same reduced quality file!!!!
I wonder how long before it will be cracked
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
When all the music companies try and put 5 CDs worth of music on these disks (to be unlocked by a special registration code), we will all get 5 CDs for the price of 1! Oh, yeah, I'm sure no one will break their reg code.. ha!
I think the big problem with this is that there is no real benefit to switching over to another digital format. I mean, CDs won out by replacing magnetic media (tapes and floppies) and records. I don't think we'll see another shift until we switch over to solid-state media - ROM chips or Flash cards of some sort.
People are stupid, but they're not as irrational as some high power execs like to imagine.
Blank discs costing $5 to $12, and the first music players, for $300 to $370, will hit stores at the end of May.
...do you really want to spend that much to listen to britney?
There is one way, count it ONE way that you can distribute music without it being copied. You must supply an armed guard with every unit, and ensure that they shoot on sight anyone who attempts to copy anything. No other way will work so stop bull shitting, stop trying to flogg inferior products and stop being pigs. IF I CAN HEAR IT I CAN COPY IT. IF I CAN HEAR IT I CAN COPY IT, now say it pig, say it: I-F I C-A-N H-E-A-R I-T I C-A-N C-O-P-Y I-T. You stupid executives, what do you do all day? sit around your table letting shit come out of your ass? how do you get paid for this?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Hmmm. 2x250 = 500. 500/650 = 10/13 = 0.769. That's actually something like 23% less data. Someone less beholden to the Content Cartel could have written this as "It holds nearly one quarter less music", and it would have been more accurate to boot.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Take the ATRAC psycho-acoustic compression scheme used for minidiscs, where the quality is virtually indistinguishable from that of a CD. A minidisc stores 140 MB of raw data, so that means a bitrate of approximately 256 kbps. So compression can give good results, if you use an adequate bitrate and a quality encoder. There's no reason for MP3 files to NOT sound good, too; of course, if you're talking of a 128kbps rip of a complex orchestral recording, you're gonna suffer a loss, but the same piece encoded at 320kbps will hardly be distinguishable from the real thing.
Unless of course, you're talking about one of those freak audiophiles who spend 30 grand on a bizantine rig which can only play vinyl LPs...
If CD sales are flat ... for whatever reason you think that might be ... how is a new format going to bring in new sales? Are people holding off on buying new content so they can end up spending money buying the same content on a new format? Suppose it is the case ... as the industry claims ... that internet piracy is the cause of reduced CD sales. How is a new format going to make people uninterested in the internet piracy? Do they think that people will abandon sharing and trading online to buy this new format? Maybe if the format completely replaces CDs and perfectly prevents ripping it could make it hard to have source material for trading. But that won't happen since if you can hear it, you can rip it, and even though that won't be perfect digital quality, it won't ever degrade any further over the net, and people are already happy to download poor quality rips.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Discs are fragile. CF is sturdy. I can safely slip a CF card into my pocket without using a protective case. This is important with digital cameras. (Also, SmartMedia is fragile. MemoryStick is proprietary. CF rules.)
I don't mind bias. Everyone has their bias. Not everyone will admit their biases. It's better to read knowing the author's bias than to read a piece without knowing the author's bias.
Even folks that strive for objectivity are still biased. Much of the time, when you see a "pro" statement balanced by the "anti" statement, that's not being objective and it's not being neutral, that's sloppy reporting.
And that's the lesson of Heisenberg, Hunter S. Thompson, Global Warming and the whole post modern movement.
Welcome to 2002.
Well at $13 per blank disc, no kidding.
This of course, assuming i'm stupid enough to get this new format in the first place.
Rant on, man. I'm typing slowly because I'm wiping the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard.
Thanks for making my afternoon....
I've no doubt that this will go the way of the "DVD Killer Divx", the minidisc, and the DAT (which is used professionally - dataplay won't even have that market).
...
:)
Divx did kill DVDs. I haven't bought a single
Oh, wait. Wrong Divx.
Unfortunatly any technology that is backed by the biggest players will become standard. If they wanted to phase out CDs and make Dataplay the standard, they could easily do so.
10$ for a blank disc? And why wouldn't I just stick with my CDR which not only holds 200MB more but cost 9.60$ less?
I just bought a spindle of 100 80Min CD's for about 40 bucks. That is 0.40$ each.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Your sig isn't a Pokey reffrence is it? San Quinton hold the key you know...
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
If this format succeeds, the music industry will have killed the greatest reason people still buy CD's even if they can download them - the non-compressed CD audio. The audio on DataPlay discs is compressed, and downloaded 192 kbps MP3's are likely to sound at least as good.
When connected, a user can also store data on the discs -- 250 megabytes on each side, for a total slightly less than the 650 megabytes that fit on a CD.
Let's see... 250MB/side... 2 sides right? so that's 500MB... good... i can do math... now 650MB CD - 500MB dataplay disk... is 150MB!
How the heck is losing almost 25% of data storage "slightly less"?!
I'm thinking someone at Dataplay needs remedial math.
And another thing... Unless this is a rewritable disk... I'm NOT paying $15 for a double-sided mini-CDR. $1 sure... $3 maybe...
You just made my Quote file!
For any PDA software author looking for a way to make software that
a) can have some decently sized content (ie. more than a meg)
b) will not be pirated like there's no tomorrow (1. size of app - 1MB apps spread by email pretty darn well, 2. DRM)
the dataplay disk is totally from heaven. PDA games will be the killer app for those, if they survive so far.
Imagine a Beowolf cluster of those!
For the rest I think this is a lousy idea that will almost certainly fail because general public hasn't got a reason to throw their old CD's out of the window because of this.
Sincerely,
Remco
I knew this holepunch would come in useful again some day!
I just plugged my old ghetto blaster with a single cassette deck into my line-in on my PC, used a cracked copy of Sound Forge my friend gave me way back, and hit record. Sure I had to wait and actually listen to the songs as I put them to wavs then to both mp3 (saved to my gnucleus-readable directory) and CD, but I copied that tape off my friend years ago for a reason: because I enjoyed listening to it. I don't mind hearing it once more as it's converted.
Time taken: 1/2 hour per side, plus burning time. How much different will it be with these new things? None. No DRM scheme can stop me either. Dataplay will fail, and they're stupid not to know this themselves.
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
Ok, I'm getting a bit tired of all the whining going on here. First, it's high time some of you come to realize that you're never going to see media without encryption and content controls EVER AGAIN. The way some of you carry on, it sounds like you refuse to step into the next generation until the record companies bend to your will. "I'm gonna keep the ol' CD around for the next 20 years if I have to!" Riiight. Personally, I'm getting sick of 4 1/2 inch CD media that scratches if you so much as breath on it wrong. You all say you'll crack the new encrption format the day it's released, right? So give it a rest already.
Second, why all the hate here concerning DataPlay media? Aside from copy protection, that is. It's the size of a quarter for cryin' out loud. I sure as hell won't be missing that massive 150mb size difference between it and a normal CD. It's re-writable. It's encased in a protective shell. So don't buy "The Man's" music. Get some blank media and record your MP3s to it. I'd love a media player as small as this is going to be with affordable mass storage. I absolutely loved my MD player and now I can get nearly the space of a CD with the durability of an MD. What's not to like? (copy protection; See first paragraph).
Finally; Music isn't going to be the only application for this stuff. 500mb "floppy disks"? I'll take it. Besides this, I've already drawn up a (very)basic design for a portable gaming system. Most PS1 games will fit on a Dataplay disk, people. A truly portable CD based gaming system? I'd snap one right up. But that's just me.
So please, if anybody complains anymore, I'll puke. Literally. I'm not joking. I swear. I'll come to YOUR HOUSE and puke. You won't like that. Really.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Here's my 2 cents. :-)
1. Media is too small.
If I pay $18 for something, I need to
get something bigger than a quarter.
There is just no room for artwork, lyrics,
whatever. Yeah, you could store that as data
too, but it's just not the same. A CD jewel
case is about the smallest you can get and
still have a reasonable size cover art.
Otherwise it's just a $18 piece of Bazooka gum.
2. It has moving parts.
The NEXT BIG THING as far as media delivery
goes will not have (or require players that have)
moving parts. Sure, iPod is great. It is sooo
close to perfect, but not quite. I mean, we
already know what the next big thing is
(cheap, non-volatile RAM). Someone just needs
to figure out how to do it.
Oh, wait, that's right, that tech is for making
non-rebootable PC's. Forget it
Let's see. This is a CD-like, CD-incompatible storage medium with lower storage capacity than a CD; copying, which is supported by CDs and permitted by fair-use laws is not possible; and it's more expensive than a CD"
And has a radius at least 10 times smaller than that of a CD.
What stops me from plugging in a cross cable from the device to the line in on my soundcard and recording the music that way?
Granted, not the easiest, nicest or cleanest way of doing things, but why not?
If you have good cable and soundcard, the degradation would be minimal if any....
Just my 2 cents.
This'll probably seem embarrassingly obvious once someone expands the acronym for me, but what is SD? That's a new one for me. Or did you mistype MD (minidisc)?
:)
Somebody please, beat me with a clue stick!
It's a 1.6 gigahertz box with 640 megs RAM and an 80 gig HD. I had a couple old 1.2 megabyte 5 1/2 floppy drives sitting around, so I put one in the box, just more to get strange looks that to actually use it. :)
But, it runs Linux, never NEVER will I put XP on anything, I cannot agree with the licensing restrictions, plus the only way to actually USE XP is to get in and tweak all the settings so that it acts like Win2K, which in my opinion is the best OS M$ has ever released, but Linux is still far better!
Anyway...
Media is so 90s.
Cheers,
Backov
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.
We just have to be able to read them. Then we can copy the bits, encrypted or not, to a different disk. As long as we can make a device that makes an identical copy, we'll be fine.
Of course, it's going to be easier to just not buy the things in the first place :) I still don't have a DVD player, because of my initial disgust at the region coding thing.
The little man speaks. Whoohoo.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
That's the biggest drawback. Yeah, it's small. Cool. I like small. I like protective shells. I like re-rightable. But who is going to buy entirely new albums on this thing? I sure won't. I'd buy the blank media and make my own mixes, but the Big Labels would be SOL. As cool as it is for music media, it just isn't the quantum leap Tape to CD was. I'll preach a portable Dataplay based handheld game system all day long, but like DVD Audio, it's just not enough.
;)
Screw Beowolf clusters... Let's raid these bad boys
You need a FREE iPod Nano
(From the MSNBC article)
...If they survive that long. When MDs first appeared, they were similarly priced but have since come down. I'd suspect the same would happen with DP disks.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Where was I when this happened? I miss all the cool stuff :(
Anyway, killthiskid is right. All the components nessisary to mix your own CDs are cheap and easy to come by. The labels are really going to have to sweeten the deal to cause a mass exodus away from the CD to occur. And seeing as how greedy they're being now, I don't see that happening.
Damn... I wanna be in a room full of Asian women, minus the spontaneous combustion part of course.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I've no doubt that this will go the way of the "DVD Killer Divx", the minidisc, and the DAT (which is used professionally - dataplay won't even have that market).
Minidisc
MD's have been big in Japan for a long time now. I've even encountered a Japanese homeless lady happily listening to MD! Japan also has many CD "rental" stores which most certainly are in violation of explicitly stated lines in most CD licenses, but for some surprising reason, they're not banned.
DAT tapes
Dat tapes are an amazing technology that went sour under RIAA's imposed restrictions. It should have replaced many audio mediums, but the high tax (imposed by the RIAA) and patents killed it except in non-proffessional markets. Dats store music digitally and they support direct access to raw data. That's hella cool, IMHO.
listen, dataplay is just the disc format. there are about 10 companies that are working on dataplay mp3 players, you will be able to write/rewrite to. 250mb of mp3's on a small disc like this would pretty cool in my opinion, and is much smaller than a minicdr. there are other products being made for the dataplay discs also, like game devices and cameras, so don't knock the entire format, just because of one certain application of it.
The R/W drives should run about $200 according to
the WSJ article on this subject
(http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html).
Sure, it's a non-starter as a medium for
mass-market publishing -- but who cares about
that?! DataPlay offers tiny portable drives
that store 500MB on a disk the size of a
quarter! That rocks. Disregard their access control
crap. Everyone will ignore that, and use them
exclusively as file-systems.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Recorded discs will include 30-second teases to older recordings by the same artist. If the buyer wants to own that too, he or she merely goes to the Internet, pays for it, and then the company can unlock the music. It's faster than downloading, DataPlay says, so it's more convenient for customers.
Imagine unlocking all of the albums for the price of one.
Ack, my bad. I was looking at this, availible from their site;
Pre-recordable and user-recordable -- the same media can be mastered like a CD or DVD for mass distribution of published content and it can be recorded by consumers like CD-R or DVD-R. In fact, pre-recorded media can still be recorded by the user allowing consumers to customize or interact with published content.
I guess they just don't close them out?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I like the sound of it: "Education process".
Sounds a lot like the Reeducation that was customary for people in communism. Disagree with the government, and be reeducated, preferrably in healthy sibirian climate. Although it is certainly to the credit of capitalism that here not governments do the "Reeducation" but it is left to the private sector.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted and ignored otherwise.
if you don't want anyone to be able to steal and read your disks, however, this would be great for you.
sig - .
That this device supports "MP3-like" compression, according to their press release. This would enable several hours of audio on the re-writable medium... This one has me spooked.
Go f*** yourself.
Any questions?
Didn't think so.
Preface: Along with my degree in MIS, I received a degree also in Entrepreneurship and engaged in two different and very successful start-ups during my college career, including being named outstanding student in the program.
There is an adage that is accepted wrongly by entrepreneurs that "If I can get 2% of the Chinese market to buy my product, that's a whole lot of money". The second adage is don't try to force the market, let the market come to you.
So let's start at the beginning:
We have a 4 year old high-risk, high reward startup with a backing of $119 million dollars to date and 240 employees.
Management Team: From what I can come up with so far is that Steve Volk was the president of an 8 year-old company called Integral Peripherals before this position. Due to a change in the market the company failed and Steve left to start DataPlay. I like to see management teams that are "A" list and who aren't afraid of new ideas. But executives who don't see the future I have a big problem with.
Consumer Acceptance: The premise of DataPlay repeated throughout the article was portability and archiving capabilities of DataPlay. I would accpet this if indeed it was still 1998. However, you have two sides of the market kicking you in the teeth along with a great number of external factors contributing to a very tough hill to climb.
1. Drop in CF, CD, and Flash memory prices to the point that they all are in the consumer's mind or so inexpensive that there is no need for the format.
2. Passed failure of such products as the Iomega HipZip. While not giving the same amount of space it did have the same idea. A bad idea regurgitated is still a bad idea.
3. No increased value proposition for the consumer. Why would a consumer buy material when they will receive in their own mind that same material just in a different format. I believe this is a SERIOUS miscalculation. The switching costs of going from CD to MP3 is negligible, all you give away is time or if you want to buy one of those rinky pieces of software to do it. Switching to the DataPlay format you have time and also the costs of new media and new hardware. So not only is their no compelling reason to "upgrade" content (ie DVD superior quality and special goodies") it also costs the consumer.
I found this comment extremely amusing considering it came from a VC
"Portability and price will draw in the 18-34 age group first, predicts Bob Higgins, chairman and CEO of Albany, N.Y.-based Trans World Entertainment. The company invested in DataPlay last year, and Higgins sits on its board of directors."
The market did react to these two pieces in 2000. You can now buy MP3 CD Players, In-Car stereos, MP3 players. Indeed every major electronics major now produces one or all three of these, and DataPlay is expecting these companies to "Jump on the Bandwagon". While many of the content companies are there, (it cost them little) it does cost hardware makers a great deal to tool up (remember Divx).
Personally, I should go research this a little more but these are just some of the failings I see at the moment. I actually might write a case on this company (it intrigues me now) and send it back to the school.
With A 20GB Archos MP3 player who needs it? Just another way to get me to buy the same music again. Until it sounds better than CD, Why bother? Give me a dvd audo disc the size of a quarter and we might talk.
I can just hear it now. "Damn", "What?" "I just dropped my Nivana Dataplay Disc in the freakin Coke machine!" "Whoa dude, how many Cokes you get for it?"
Member DIVX (the lame DVD format)?
Well, this sucks even harder than that did, and will disappear even faster.
Short of out-and-out trust building behaviour that even the Bush administration could not ignore, this strategy is going NOWHERE!
Market traction is essential for a strategy like this to work. Faaaar too many folks are aware of what happened with DVD's (early adopters, especially) and they won't be burned again.
This one is still-born , folks.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Dataplay has been under development for a long ass time and missed its mark by about 1 year. I was introduced to the product in 2000 and was quite impressed by its physical size, its capacity, as well as its extensive uses. But now, with products like the iPod, and the Creative Nomad, this type of media isn't going to make the cut.
Pop Television?
MTV is a misnomer.
Technology has made possible a revolution in the distribution of media. But, the companies that control the rights to popular media are behind the times...They are too slow to change and innovate to meet consumer demand, and they are too powerful to have any incentive to try!
The proliferation of distributed file sharing has evolved out of a need for a more convenient way to retrieve media that is now digital by nature, and a means to do so.
Consumers DEMAND this convenience, because thats what they spend money on PC's and internet for, and because they've seen how smart and efficient it can be! (Napster, etc)
If the market can't meet the demand, then consumers will require some added value. Why should consumers sympathize with the publishers when they know how inefficient the current distribution method is?
You're not even supposed to give a small child a hotdog, unless it's cut up, because that could get caught in their throat.
As technology shrinks, people need to consider the two year old that likes to put EVERYTHING into their mouth! It seems obvious, but I bet very frew people have considered this.
hmm...disks will cost $16 and the player around $370. It looks like they are either trying really hard to fail, or are naively optimistic.
Reminds me of an anecdote about the great 13th century Turkish Humorist Nasreddin Hodja:
---
One day people founded Hodja pouring the remains of his yogurt into Aksehir Lake.
- Hodja, what are you doing? A man asked.
- I am turning the lake into yogurt, Hodja replied.
- Can a little bit of yeast ferment the great lake? The man asked while others laughed at Hodja.
- You never know perhaps it might, Hodja replied, but what if it should!
---
Since the process of getting around this is "circumventing a encryption device", I could get prosecuited under 1201 of the DMCA for telling you the easy way around this problem. I do wonder what the "LINE IN" jack on the audio card and the "LINE OUT" of the player is for...
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
And who ever heard of storage capacity going down over a 20 year period? Perhaps in an effort to improve the quality ratio, the recond companies will offer us albums with two good songs and four crap ones, instead of two good songs and eight crap ones as we get on CD ;-)
Instead of linking the music output to speaker or headphone, put it ina PC / Otehr type of recorder and record the analog output. Filter and repack. Since anyway this will apparently not be CD quality but with a certain loss, so you won't loose much by re recording digital. And even betetr you won't even need an extremly high bitrate to record those.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The discussion of failed formats (Betamax, DAT, that phillips digital tape thing that competed with minidisc, divx dvds) points out the obvious -- it's hard to get consumers to move to a new format. In fact you could say that the CD's success was really an abberation -- most formats fail.
I think this one will succeed, for a few reasons:
1: It's marginally open -- from the consumers point of view they can copy stuff around.
2: Most people can grasp the idea that they can 'fit' a certain amount on a disk, and it sounds likely that you _wouldn't_ need a PC to operate this thing as you most definitely do to feed MP3 players.
3: The record companies will now give you two options: A: The record on CD w/no extras, or B: the dataplay format with the album, a couple of other albums you might buy access to in the future (and can preview now), and VALUE ADDED CONTENT -- the dataplay format might offer the same music as the CD, but add in 20-30 minutes of video, or a game or fill-in-the-blank. So joe q consumer at musicland sees two formats, same price, one offers more content.
4: The record companies will likely start releasing the CD only 6-12 months after releasing on dataplay, if at all.
5: They're sure to have a bevvy of lawyers litigating against anyone they detect who is reverse engineering or otherwise cracking the dataplay protection. DMCA to the rescue!
And that sucks. Suppose I want to buy the led zeppelin album 'in through the out door', but the record companies only have two dataplay disks -- 1 has "dark side of the moon" as it's main album with led zeppelin II & III as extra 'buy in' albums on the same disk. The other has 'Led Zeppelin IV' as the main title, with 'houses of the holy' and 'in through the out door' as the 'buy in' albums. This means I have to buy the disk that contains that album for $16 + tax, then go to their website or call to 'unlock' the album I want for an extra $13. I can see why the record companies would be drooling at the prospect -- especially since all of the systems that have to be put in place to cover costs will probably justify them in ratcheting down artist royalties even further.
Or I could just listen to my old cds, copy them to my mp3 player (lets face it, most people have some kind of PC access -- certainly the people willing/able to plunk down $300 for a dataplay player)
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
The sound quality of the CDs was better than vinyl discs and they tended to be more durable and far more portable than LP's and 45's. In this case, you get less quality, no easy ability to copy to any of the standard formats (Casette doesn't exist in cars much anymore, but you will find CD and MP3 players...), and is being fronted by the media companies and one tech company.
This is Sony's minidisc all over again. (And don't believe that Sony didn't try to force the issue with the format either- they did.)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I bet Kodak, etc. will be onto this WORM shit quicksmart. By now they must have realised their little film/developing gravy train has been sitting in the maintenance shed for a while.
Cheap Discs - An MP3 CD player can hold many times more music and for $0.10 per disc. You're paying for miniaturization there in the case of the flash cartriges.
Quality players - An MP3 CD player can do much the same thing and the solid state units don't have moving parts and are MUCH smaller.
Good sound reproduction - depends on the music; side by side listening produced virtually no difference between 128kbit and the 74 minute mode on a Minidisc player.
Holds 74 minutes - nice, but if you're downsampling, you're definitely down in the same area as the MP3 players and for length of play you can't beat the MP3 CD units. Up to 10 hours of play on ONE CD mix.
Using analog output - ANYTHING can do that.
Can erase and reuse discs, or delete an unwanted track- If I use CD-RW's the MP3 CD player can match that except for the easy single deletion and the solid state units can do the same things as the Minidisc player.
Player costs the saem as a MP3 player (32-64mb devices)- an MP3 CD player can be bought for as little as $60.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Hopefully DataPlay won't succeed on the "5 albums on one disc" fact. Will average consumers realize that for the past few years you've been able to fit 10 or more albums on a MP3 CDR, and select only the songs you want if you wish? A CDR with 200 songs on it is worth buying a special player for. A smaller disc with less capacity is not worth buying a special player for.
Is there any company who is making a business of selling custom CD's? It seems that if the RIAA would sell custom CD's for like $4-$8 per disc they would make lots of cash. I haven't done any research on this, but it seems like it could work.
maby others have another view but this makes sense.
How many of you agree that most of the new music is crap ?
How many of you might be buying more CDs if there was more interesting music to be bought ?
How many of you find it easier to find interesting music in internet than in stores ?
Maybe the problem isn't the format after all, maybe it's the content.
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
Then return them next week and get your money back. If this happens often enough then the Retailers will pull the plug fast. Bye Bye Datascam!
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
OK, there seems to be a lot of uninformed opinions on DataPlay. This technology is very similar to DVD-R or CD-R. Yes, it's write once, but write once media is extremely popular, and re-writeable optical sales are only about 8% of write-once, so write-once is not a negative if the media is cheap enough and you want it to be archival, which DataPlay is. Yes, in the beginning it will be more expensive than CD, but CD has taken several years to get to it's current price and DataPlay will come down too. Even at $5-$12 at the start depending on the pack size you buy, it's a steal compared to Flash. Try getting 500MB of Flash for $5; you'll spend about $500 instead. It holds almost as much as CD (500MB vs 650MB) and will increase capacity to be larger than CD in the future (1GB or more). Even at 500MB you can store 11.5 hours of MP3 at 96kbps on a disc that is 32mm diameter vs. 120mm for CD. The players will be around one fourth the size of CD players and they operate as burners and external drag and drop storage drives as well. 3 devices in one that fits in your pocket. Try doing that with a CD player or try using a CD in a camera, a PDA, a cellphone, etc. All of these devices will be coming out with support for DataPlay so you can use one media for everything and finally get good use out of PDA's, portable pocketsized MP3 players, and digital cameras using a media that is removable, very small, archival and high capacity. Unlike solid state MP3 players today, DataPlay will give a player about the same size but it will burn content, store data and play back your own recorded content or pre-recorded content in one device. Since you also get pre-recorded content, it gives you everything you get on CDROM and CD-R plus small size like Flash, but at 1/100th the price of Flash. Contrary to some statements, you will be able to make a reasonable numbers of copies of pre-recorded albums on DataPlay and you will have no compatibility problems like copy-protected CD's coming out now, so it will not impact normal consumer use. You'll also get bonus content, extra albums, video, etc. You can get over 5 hours of CD quality on pre-recorded DataPlay media, because it uses new algorithms like AAC and QDX at high rates like 192kbps which is considered to be CD quality and has been tested to be equal. This is not MP3, but you can record in MP3 if you want and get over 11.5 hours at very good quality. Also remember that CD uses 20 year old WAVE PCM encoding. New AAC etc. can equal CD quality at lower rates allowing more play time with no quality loss. In addition you can put you own content (images, extra tracks, etc.) in the blank space on the pre-recorded DataPlay media, because it's a hybrid format. You can't do that with CDROM you buy today. For those who like solid state devices due to portability this will blow those away because it's the same size but cheaper and higher capacity with support for pre-recorded content. For those who like CD you get pre-recorded like CDROM and recording like CD-R with virtually the same capacity at a fraction of the size plus you can use the media in other devices that CD cannot be used in, and every device is a burner and a drive that allows users to drag and drop any file under File Explorer to the media (images, video, data, etc.) and access via PC over USB. Easy to use, cheap, small, universal. This is not like Click at all and it blows away Flash and does everything CD-R or CDROM does and more.
Actually, you'll only get about 7.5 albums (an hour each) on a CD with 650MB recording at 192 kbps data rate. The DataPlay 5 hours is actually about 5.7 hours at this rate 9for 5 albums) or 11.5 hours at 96 kbps rate. Obviously you'll get more on a CD with the extra 150MB it has, but who cares. You will still get tons of music on DataPlay and you could carry 5 times the number of discs in the same space it takes to carry one CD. Plus you can carry them in your pocket along with the player. Try fitting a 120mm CD in your pocket or a player for that matter. Plus you better have a separate CD burner because your CD player won't burn. Now your in for 2 devices using a media that's too big, can be scratched, and doesn't hold that much more than DataPlay. DataPlay devicesare burners, players and drives. Your CD burner also won't support file drag and drop under explorer. Plus you can use your DataPlay media in cameras and PDA's etc. that will come out. Can't do that with ancient CD and then you'll have to buy Flash if you can afford it. DataPlay gets rid of those problems with a better format that will be higher capacity thanm CD in the future. Remember CD players were $1000 when they first came out and CD-R was about the same price. This is a better format and much smaller and portable and it will only go down in price. CD is good but limited in use and Flash is too expensive with no content. If you've ever seen DataPlay or played with it at a trade show you won't go back if your serious about portability and use across more devices than just a CD player.
between $5 and $12 depending on whether you buy a 1, 3 or 5 pack. They are not $16. Compare that to Flash at $500 for 500MB. Devices will be between $299 and $369 to start depending on brand etc. and remember they are not just players, they are burners and drag and drop optical drives in one. Try getting a decent CD player with anti skip and a decent USB CD burner for less than $300, you can't. It'll run you about $170 for a decent CD player and $200 for a decent USB burner and then you'll be stuck with 2 giant devices instead of one small one that does everything. Plus you won't be able to use CD's in cameras or PDA's like DataPlay. No comparison. CD players were $1000 when they first came out and all they did was play. This is a leap in technology and will only go down in price with volume.
Actually DataPlay officially launched the product at CES in January 2001.If you saw something in 2000 it must have still been a mockup because prototypes were not even done yet. DataPlay indicated at CES 2001, launch of the product in Fall of 2001, so they really only slipped about 6 months. iPod is OK, but if you want removable media like CD or CD-R, you won't get that or pre-recorded content support with iPod. Plus you'll pay a lot more for iPod, and don't drop it (hardrive crash!!). Plus with DataPlay you get unlimited capacity. With 12 discs you've got 6GB, which is more than the entry level 5GB iPod. Nomad is also huge. How will you transfer a play content on your iPod in somebody elses device. You better hope they have Mac and Firewire. With DataPlay you just pull the disc out of one DataPlay device and put it in another. Don't get me wronf, iPod has it's place but ifd you want removable media and pre-recorded content and the ability to expand your collection and bin it it manageable pieces, then DataPlay is more flexible.
Sounds like you might need to. First CF will never drop enough in price to come close to DataPlay. Right now a 500MB CF costs $500. Dataplay will always be lower and in time will get close to CD price. For every drop in CF price, DataPlay will be an order of magnitude lower. Plus CF has corruption and degradation problems. Also, CF will never have any viable content not only due to price but because it can't be stamped out in high volume like optical. There is reason CD and DVD came out for content. DataPlay will only let you do more than CD and DVD. Second CD is too big to be useful in anything other than a CD player. If you want a media to be used in cameras, PDA's etc. and music players, this it it. Third, don't even compare this to HipZip (actually PocketZip or formerly Clik). PocketZip discs are bigger, more expensive ($15 vs. around $10), less capacity (40MB vs. 500MB), and magnetic vs. optical and they also had zero support by the CE industry in devices and no content support. Also Trans World is not a VC they are the largest independent Record Store chain in the US (Camelot, the Wall, etc.). Therefore not only does DataPlay have big CE names like Toshiba, Samsung, Olympus who have come on board along with content providers like Universal, EMI, BMG, Jive/Zomba, but key retailers are on board. For every skeptical view there are 100 consumers who want this and can use it. There are a host of hardware companies doing everything from cameras to PDAs that will be out with DataPlay later this year. The increased value prop for the user is extreme portabilty, use in all device types for simplicity, content with extra material you can't get on CD, recordability just like CD-R but easier to do, affordability far superior to flash with higher capacity and content. Remember all DataPlay players are burners, drives, and players. 3 devices in one to allow you to burn and play all the MP3's you want, or store data or images, or move content between devices. This does everything that CD or CD-R does and gives you Flash size at a much lower price. If you currently use CD-R or Flash, you've got to like this. Obviously if I just want to dump data to a $0.50 CD-R for backup I'll continue to do it, but if you want to consolidate your media types and use your content in more places at a low price, this is it.
Um, ok. What is your job title at DataPlay?
I never said 192k. I get at least 10 albums on a CD because I encode at 128k. Why even bring up a 96k rate, other than just to quote a big number for DataPlay capacity? I notice you didn't quote the corresponding CD number.
150MB is a big difference in the wrong direction. That's around 30 less songs per disc. Why downgrade? I sort of expect any new technology to at least double the capacity of the older technology. Or at least give higher quality. Give me *something* other than a tiny disc and copy protection. I haven't read anything that indicates DataPlay is innovative in any way.
We're talking about a disc with 13% less space and intrusive copy protection, plus buying all new playback/burning devices. Why would I do that?
And why would you think you can't you drag and drop to a CD from Explorer? I don't do it, but it can be done if you want to. Adaptec EZ-CD Creator can do it.
If DataPlay discs held 10GB or even 4.7 they might be interesting enough to ignore the "big brother" aspect. I for one don't care much about portability. A 24-cd wallet fits nicely under the armrest in my car and can hold literally 10 full days worth of music.