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Portable CD-RW/DVD Player
BugNuker writes "If your CD/MP3 player wasn't enough, you have to check this out. Sony has released this all in one media device that can play mp3's, wma's, cd's, and DVD's... yes, DVD's. It can be hooked up to your computer, and be used as a CD-RW and then hooked up to your TV, and play your favorite DVD's. But can it play my mp3's recorded on my DVD? Ultimate media device I would say, same size as a personal cd player. Comes with a Memory Stick expansion slot, a rechargeable battery and a USB 2.0/1.1 interface." There's a picture. It's cute. And expensive.
I have seen portable DVD players for under $300.
This thing sounds like a bargain to me.
But does it play Ogg Vorbis?
I am alone, yet I also surf the universal backwash of undifferentiated Being, which is LOVE.
Why not just get a notebook with the same features? It won't be that much more expensive and would be a whole lot more useful than a portable DVD drive without a screen.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
This thing looks neat! BUT considering Sony's use of DRM in it's players, I wonder just how useful this thing really is?
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Bite Me Fanboy!!
I mean, seriously, is this such a bargain?
If you want a DVD player, you're much better off going with a dedicated unit for the same $$$. It will give you infinitely better picture quality.
If you want an MP3/etc player, head for an iPod or that new Creative device. It'll be smaller (and even the cheapest version will still have as much memory as a DVD), and the battery life will be better because it doesn't have to spin the damn dvd around all the time.
One of those cases of big wow factor because of convergence/size/cuteness, but when you look at it objectively - jack of all trades, master of none.
-- james
Minidisk may be fashionable in the UK, but the rest of Europe doesn't buy in either. If my music player of choice doesn't need to play the silver round thing I just bought in the mall, why should I not use an iPod? Or get rid of moving parts at all and have a flash MP* player?
I've always longed for those super-ultra-tiny notebooks like you find on Dynamism, but the coolest ones don't have built-in CD or DVD drives. I hate carrying around a drive just because I might need to read a cd-rom, but this little gizmo would be the perfect companion. I could use it to watch movies on the road in hotels, plus listen to music, and still play cd-roms with the computer.
The drawback of the bundled add-on CD drives that come with the notebooks is that they don't function separately - you're just lugging around a mostly useless cd-rom reader, not a CD/DVD Walkman. This thing is going to sell like hotcakes to business travelers!
What's your damage, Heather?
How depressing must it be to be a product developer in there, busting a gut to produce neat stuff that people will love, only to have the weasels in legal forcing them to eviscerate the product with ill-considered DRM?
Large corporations typically are divided into various legal entitites in different country, to maximize on government grant, subsidies, local taxation and such. Totally apart from that there's businesses/business units/segments/whatever you call them that deal with different products, markets or technologies. Explaining different directions within such a monster by referring to its legal entities doesn't make that much sense...
Because the minidisc uses Sony's proprietary ATRAC format, which is a pain, because it takes longer to transfer music to the player. See CNet's review...it's not exactly glowing. It's more expensive than CD players, and more handicapped. If it weren't it'd take the country by storm...it has great battery life and good media.
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
*Cue Apple switch music*
I had it... it worked... but it kinda sucked in the fact that to put music on.. you HAD to do it in real-time. I bought a HI-FI deck which allowed x2 speeds, but still it did not really satisfy my needs - who wants to waste 30 minutes waiting for a CD to copy over? Oh yeah, NetMD now apparently is better, but I've never had one, nor will I ever get a MD player again. For me? 20gb iPod all my music, all my documents and 'some' of my movies in my pocket. It brings a smirk to my face everytime I see people fumbling around with CDs/MDs on the train platform.. hehehe. If you're willing to spend *THAT* much on a personal audio device, you might as well buy the best availble... I'm Michael Jin, and I'm a student....
Fight Crime - Shoot Back!
The reason why MiniDisc is better than the iPod or other portable MP3 units is very simple. How much is a Flash memory card? A 128 meg card (or stick) will run you about $60 if you're very good at looking. Now, how much is a blank minidisc? Less than $2.00. If you don't ever plan on lending out your music, an MP3 player is fine and dandy.
Oh, but I almost forgot: an MP3 player is just that... a player . Not a recorder. So what happens when you want a digital copy of a concert? Or want to record a lecture? Or want to copy a friend's new CD? You're shit out of luck. With an MP3 player, you're constantly tethered to a computer if you want to expand your music collection. Minidisc doesn't have this problem.
People who think Minidiscs are poor substitutes for CD's miss the point entirely -- they are excellent substitutes for TAPES. Keep your CD player. But for portable tunes, with an option for recording, I always carry MiniDisc.
For a portable device which records and reads CDs at 24X, rewrites CDs at 10X and reads DVDs at 8X, for less than $300 I think it isn't too bad actually. IMHO of course.
Net-MD is too little too late. It will never compete with MP3 players here in the US, because it is an inferior product. This player offers more features, than any NetMD player as well as a lower price tag. You may trade off in size, but if that's what you're after, a Nomad Zen or iPod offers more features than a NetMD player for a lower price tag.
Why would anyone pay $350 for a NetMD player that has lower capacity and a proprietary format, not to mention all of the DRM.
There's one big reason why I don't use minidisc myself. Single speed recording. I love the fact that I can make a mix CD in less time than it takes to listen to the finished product. I rip a bunch of tracks, normalize them, then burn them down to another disc, all in about half an hour. This is much different from the MD-style of 'hit play, hit record, wait'. If I could get a PC-based MD drive that allowed me to record at something faster than 1x and gave me more control over the mastering process, I'd buy one right away. I don't like MP3 players because I use Ogg and the media is expensive. But I would happily buy cheap, removable MD media. It's just that damn speed issue.
Well, I'd also like a digital out, but that's not an issue that would keep me from buying a player. I'm sure the DACs in the MD players are plenty good, and then hardware to do ATRAC->PCM and then use your receiver to do PCM->Analog.
No company is going to feel compelled to offer OGG support until the competition offers OGG support. Kind of a catch-22. Not that some off brand could not make a name for themseleves (or at least push a few units to the /. crowd) by decoding OGG....But I guarentee you that no major brand is going to take the plunge (and spend the extra engineering and production fees) until they are forced to by the competition.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.