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Portable CD-RW/DVD Player

Posted by michael on from the everything-is-portable-if-you're-strong-enough dept.

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.

49 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. FINALLY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've been waiting for one of these for like 4 years, ever since I bought a Sony Glasstron. For those that don't know those are the "glasses" with the equivelent of a 56 inch tv inside. Now I can watch p0rn on the airplane without my seat-mate complaining about the moaning.

    1. Re:FINALLY by guidemaker · · Score: 5, Funny

      Now I can watch p0rn on the airplane without my seat-mate complaining about the moaning.

      Perhaps you should moan more quietly, then?

  2. Play mp3's off DVD? by Havokmon · · Score: 5, Informative
    But can it play my mp3's recorded on my DVD?

    "When away from the computer, the drive then works as a stand-alone CD player that can play standard audio CDs, and MP3 or WAV files from a CD, DVD or Memory Stick."

    Damn, sure sounds like it to me.

    --
    "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
  3. VCDs by gerf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can it play them? If it's "all" in one, and i'm payin 300 clams, i sure as hell hope it gets up and gets me a beer too.

    1. Re:VCDs by kc2dpt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeesh! You guys are a whiny bunch. $300 doesn't seem like a lot to me for all that functionality. Granted, it'll be 1/3 that in a year, but that's a normal price for new technology.

    2. Re:VCDs by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny

      This question is significant to me also. If it doesn't play VCD and SVCD, I'm not buying one. If it does, I probably will buy one. It's too cool a device (at that price) not to... But seriously, I have more SVCDs than DVDs (whistles casually) so SVCD is a deal-maker-or-breaker for me.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Re:Why not just get a notebook? by marc_gerges · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because this fits in my shoulder bag, I can take it jogging with me, it shows my movies in the hotel room and weighs less than my notebook battery plus charger.

  5. KINDA IRONIC by r_arr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder how Sony's Movie and music branch feel about this. On one side you have Sony telling people to burn DVD's cd-rw's and other stuff. While the other side says don't do that.

  6. Well... by Lobo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This thing looks neat! BUT considering Sony's use of DRM in it's players, I wonder just how useful this thing really is?

    --

    -------
    Bite Me Fanboy!!
  7. Sony is actually two companies? by Mr_Silver · · Score: 5, Interesting
    What's going on with Sony? One half is doing stuff like this and the other half release their NetMD minidisc line with so much DRM crowbarred into it, that it's cumbersome and annoying to use.

    What happens in there? Does one team produce cool stuff and then try and sneak it out before the music side get their claws into it? Or is this clearly a case of two different companies (or should I say cultures and ideals) releasing products under the same name?

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
    1. Re:Sony is actually two companies? by guidemaker · · Score: 4, Insightful
      What's going on with Sony? One half is doing stuff like this and the other half release their NetMD minidisc line with so much DRM crowbarred into it, that it's cumbersome and annoying to use.

      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?

    2. Re:Sony is actually two companies? by dackroyd · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sony is way, way more than two companies. You can find their list of subsidaries in Japan and outside Japan, which seems to be about 85 companies.

      The subsidaries seem to be free to act as they see fit and their seems to be very little interference in how they are run from the Sony group company.

      Just the computer games divisions are divided into Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEI*), Sony Computer Entertainment America(SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe(SCEE). All of these companies are separate entities, with seperate responsibilities and ideas about how they should be doing business.

      *Yes I know it should be SCEJ, but it isn't, okay?

      --
      "Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
    3. Re:Sony is actually two companies? by marc_gerges · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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...

    4. Re:Sony is actually two companies? by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Besides being a giant zaibatsu with dozens and dozens of subsidiaries, Sony basically embraces the hydra approach. Many heads, all attacking. Like AOL/TW, they straddle the media divide, so it gets a bit schizophrenic at times.

      While there are certainly folks at Sony who are right in there with the whole DRM thing, I think what happens is that the hardware sales have a polarizing effect on these efforts within Sony.

      Look at their competition with MS in the game space. Sony knows that, push comes to shove, they sell TVs and Walkmans and Glasstrons, and Microsoft sells the occasional keyboard or router. They will price MS right out of the market on the PS2 (in fact, they are already turning a profit on those things), while selling all the hardware they are known for. Microsoft cannot lean on an alternative revenue stream so heavily... although they do have that ridiculous war-chest in the bank. Investors won't stand for raiding it without a visible means of putting that money back, though.

      Sony can do this, and the tech industry is simply that much bigger than the media industry. Hell, Sony co-invented the CD; I think they actually take a tiny bit of profit from every CD-based game sold on the Xbox (someone correct me if I'm wrong about that; I know the PS2 has some CD-based games, some -DVD).

      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
  8. Re:Why not just get a notebook? by G�tz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The cheapest notebook on the D*ll page you've linked has a price tag of $979.
    $979 vs. $300, see the difference?

  9. Links by uk_greg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sony press release: http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/2873

    Product page: http://www.storagebysony.com/cd-rw/product.asp?id= 185

  10. why by mydigitalself · · Score: 5, Interesting

    when you have something as sexy as the MZ-N1 would anybody want something this big to lug around.

    actually, a better why...

    why do americans not like/use minidisc players? i noticed that when i was over there about a month ago - everyone had clunkly cd-size walkmen. in london mini-disc players are continuing to become more ubiqitous and i would assume for two reasons:
    1) size
    2) re-recordable

    does this just not go down well in the US?
    i mean, discover the sony mz-n1....

    1. Re:why by (trb001) · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They never took off here because Sony never released pre-recorded stuff on them. All you could get for a long time (note: I had a MD player/recorder for 2 years) was blank discs, and to record on them was hell. You had to play music and hit the record button. Mine did a pretty good job of picking up on the space between tracks and splitting them, but it was still problematic.

      The only people that I know who used them were those that had them as part of their entertainment centers. That means you had to have the portable player and the standalone recorder which, in this day and age isn't happening.

      I suppose the greatest dilemna for Sony was that they didn't let anyone else produce material or hardware for the minidisc, it could have taken off had they done that.

      --trb

    2. Re:why by McCart42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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
    3. Re:why by hexdcml · · Score: 4, Insightful
      indeed.. it seems that only now that MD has really taken off.. i used to be an owner of a large and chunky MD player. At that time (it was only 2 years ago) I had all my mates gawking at it, and looking confuddled..

      *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!
    4. Re:why by trcooper · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:why by Mr_Silver · · Score: 4, Interesting
      why do americans not like/use minidisc players? i noticed that when i was over there about a month ago - everyone had clunkly cd-size walkmen. in london mini-disc players are continuing to become more ubiqitous and i would assume for two reasons:

      Well, I'm a Londoner and I wouldn't say they are becoming more ubiquitois. Yes, there are a larger number of people with them than I've ever seen before, but what is become more seen is those people with the little white clip on their clothes. That is the Nokia 8310.

      Plus those people that do have MD's are often holding several year old models rather than the latest one. Which either means there is a damn good trade in ancient MD's or these are players bought a while ago.

      But anyway I'm digressing, here's why I don't use the NetMD:

      MD's are good quality. If you can overlook the fact that you have to copy all your music to MD at realtime.

      Of course, you could get the NetMD, but then you'd have to jump through hoops (read check in/check out) to get the songs onto the MD, you can't copy them back off, you can't check them out more than 3 times, you have to convert them to Sony's propriatory ATRAC format, LP4 compression is so poor quality-wise you can only use LP2 at the most, you can't delete the songs off the MD without checking them back into the software and you sometimes find that the software refuses to convert an MP3 (often a VBR one).

      Oh, yes, and you get to pay £250 for the privilidge of the above when my player was over half the price.

      NetMD was an attempt by Sony to capitalise on the MP3 boom, unfortunately their content division were so paranoid about piracy that they effectivly cripped what would have been a seriously good product that might have stemmed the death of the MD.

      If, however, MP3 means nothing to you or you have no need for such a thing, then a plain old bog standard MD player is both cheap, light, jog-proof and rather cool. But NetMD is a joke.

      --
      Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
  11. look at it objectively by hype7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:look at it objectively by iceT · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It will give you infinitely better picture quality.

      Really? I've seen NO appreciable difference in DVD players.... The TV makes the most difference.

      --
      -- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
  12. 256MB memory stick? by Cutie+Pi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is sort of off topic, but the way that Sony is pushing their Memory Stick technology (it's in almost all their products now), you'd think that Sony would be focusing more on getting larger capacity Memory Sticks out the door. Currently they max out at 128MB, while you can get 1GB compactflash cards for pretty cheap. I have a 4MP Sony digicam, and it fills a 128MB stick pretty quickly. I think I remember Sony was planning to release the 256MB Memory Stick at the end of last year, with plans to take it up to 4GB(!). Well, Sony, we're almost at the end of this year, and 256MB sticks are nowhere to be seen. Not to mention a 128MB stick is still way too overpriced, even by Sony's licensee's. You have to wonder if Sony is having problems manufacturing higher density Memory Sticks. However, they are still pushing the technology, so maybe that is a good sign.

  13. Where does it say it plays WMAs? by The-Bus · · Score: 3, Interesting
    has released this all in one media device that can play mp3's, wma's, cd's, and DVD's


    Where does it say this plays WMAs? I couldn't find it in the article. What I did see is that it provides enough playback for 1.5 hours of DVD, so less than a lot of movies.


    This should be a nice alternative to car DVD players which are always ridiculously expensive.

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

  14. This sounds cool, but... by Canuckanuck · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...it can't be hooked up directly to a TV to view a DVD. Only through a computer linkage can it that be done. This product will be totally cool when I can take it to my luddite grandmother's house where there is no computer and hook it up to her TV while she's baking brownies.

    Only then will it rock!

    1. Re:This sounds cool, but... by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you'll settle for CD, VCD, and mp3-on-CD, try the Napa DAV310. Hideous colour scheme, ropey interface, but, hey it's a portable VCD player.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  15. Perfect for travelers with subnotebooks! by Brento · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
  16. Really cool, but, what about regions? by pigeon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can it be hacked to be regionfree? And macrovisionfree?

  17. Platforms... by facelessnumber · · Score: 5, Funny

    supports both Macintosh and Windows platforms

    They say this like there are only two.


    "We got both kinds of music here - Country and Western."

  18. Another /. RTFA! by 3583+Bytes+Free · · Score: 4, Informative
    Read the f*cking article!

    Sony product page
    Sony's cool new Digital Relay(TM) portable battery operated CD-RW/DVD-ROM/Memory Stick® drive burns CDs when attached to a PC or Macintosh® computer using the USB 2.0/1.1 port. Detach the drive from the computer, and you now have a portable CD player that also plays MP3 and WAV files on CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, or Memory Stick media.

    It plays DVD-ROMs, not DVD-Video discs. This basically is a MP3 player that can use DVDs. So you can get 4.7GB on a MP3 disc instead of 650-700 MB. I still think it's worth a link on /., but for pete's sake, RTFA before you submit, and editors, RTFA before you post!

  19. Re:Expensive???? by Eight+01 · · Score: 3, Informative

    It will not play DVDs to a TV. It only acts as an external drive to allow DVDs to be played on a computer. My guess is that it has no MPEG2 circuitry and relies on the computer to do all decoding.

    This is what it does:
    Portable CD player - regular and Mp3 cds
    External CD-R/W drive and DVD ROM drive

    Maybe its just me, but this is no big deal. Portable CD/MP3 players can be had for under $100 dollars, and almost everyone already has a CD burner / DVD ROM in their computer.

    If you need to make CDRs while you are on the road, this may be useful, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't already get an external CD burner for under $300.

    To Sony, I say "big deal".

  20. Archos - 20Gb and a screen for $449 by DrSkwid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    US
    UK

    MP4 Video Player (DivX compatible*) JPEG/BMP Viewer MP3 Player & Recorder

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  21. Re:yeah, but memorystick? by uradu · · Score: 3

    > And they'll probably come to market with a more
    > useful replacement for memorystick, too.

    Such as no memory card slot at all, because what's the bloody point? Sony is just putting MS slots into everything it makes nowadays in order to force the standard down people's throats, whether it makes sense to or not. This is a CD and DVD player, not a memory card player. If I want a memory card player, I'll buy one of those. Why increase the cost of a rotating media player by also making it play other types of media?

  22. Expensive??? I don't think so. by forged · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's cute. And expensive.

    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.

  23. ogg files? by Omnifarious · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Will it play ogg files? My absolute requirement for anything I get like this is that it be able to play oggs.

    Also, does it use the USB storage interface, or some other standard USB interface so I don't need funky drivers to use it under Linux?

    --
    Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
    1. Re:ogg files? by SomeOtherGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.
  24. Re:Why not just get a notebook? by selderrr · · Score: 5, Funny

    yeah, jogging while watching a DVD...

    I'd pay an entrance fee just to see you do that.

    --
    When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
  25. No Linux support by InodoroPereyra · · Score: 3, Interesting
    From the Article:

    The MPD-AP20U includes a Memory Stick media slot, a USB 2.0 port and supports both Macintosh and Windows platforms.

    This alone is a showstopper for me. Of course people will hack around and maybe get it to work. The price doesn't seem too high if it is under US$ 300 as the article mentions though.

  26. Re:cute, but.... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not really.

    Ogg Vorbis has better audio quality than MP3. Someone who just wants better quality would say the same thing.

    Furthermore, supporting *wma* (also rarely used and lower quality than vorbis) costs money and doesn't have a lot of point.

    --
    May we never see th
  27. Thank you, Sony! by Flakeloaf · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now when I'm stranded on a lonely bus or subway in desperate need of a coaster, I need only to fire up my portable CDRW with the half-dead batteries and voila! A handy place to set my coffee cup down in under eight minutes. Thank you Sony Man!

    --

    Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?

  28. Re:Expensive???? by macrom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sure you can get external drives cheaper, but they are usually enclosed in a 5.25" external case, making transportation of the unit cumbersome. This device, by all appearances, will slip into a side pocket of a laptop bag. Add that it doubles as a portable CD player (which can't be said of a dedicated drive), a DVD player (which may be said of a traditional external drive, but if you built your own), an MP3 player AND it has Memory Stick capabilites, which can't be said of any external CD burner that I know of. Acquiring all of the requisite hardware for the same price is not an issue, but getting all of the functionality in the same lightweight, small-footprint device is an issue for those the live on airplanes/airports and their ilk.

    One additional bonus that this device presents laptop users : most modern laptops have some sort of swapable drive bay that houses the optical drive but will also house a second battery. With this (IMO, relatively inexpensive) drive, you can add a second battery but still retain portability and optical drive connectivity.

  29. Re:cute, but.... by rootlocus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would consider it more "Informative" than "Insitghtful" but, that's just me..

    The reason so many people ask about Ogg Vorbis is because they are actually interested in supporting the format..

    If there were some feature missing from a product that you were interested in, don't you think that posting a message about it in a public forum would be a good way to raise awareness of that feature?... Also note that when you follow a link to the story, there is a section there for posting comments too.. And the first comment that you see, is "Does it support ogg?"... Probably a slashdotter that followed the link, but still.. People are trying to get the word out, not troll..

    Personally, I agree with the poster, and many other posters, in saying that I won't be buying a player until someone comes out with one that supports Ogg... It's simply a better format...

    In comparison, I think that buying a device without Ogg support would be like buying a really fancy cassette player.. Just like CDs sound better than casettes, Oggs sound better than MP3s.. I'm not just making that statement based on what I've read elsewhere.. I have actually taken several songs and encoded them both ways, at various bitrates to compare for myself..

  30. OK... some things don't look right here... by ClumzyKid · · Score: 5, Informative

    After reading some comments here about the fact that it doesn't support display nor Linux... I did a lil' research...

    The ZDNet article states "...When connected to a television or PC, the device can also become a DVD player for watching movies. "... Now that is not entirely false... As you'll see in a copy of the press release (scroll down the page to find it) here... You'll see that you can play DVD movies via the PC's USB.. "Hi-Speed USB Interface (USB 2.0/1.1)"! at 8x speed... only... as for the TV it's not supported; as stated "Output: Mini analog stereo (headphone jack) only"... So that is one fact down... Prolly in the future they may provide the means to do it via USB>DECODER>TV... :)

    Now for the other problem... support for Linux... the press release states "System requirements: Pentium® II 233Mhz or faster PC with 32Mb RAM, HDD with 1.2Mb sustained transfer rate or faster, Direct-X supported sound card, Installed USB 1.1 or 2.0 port, Power Macintosh G3, Power Mac G4, iMac DV or iBook® computer running Mac OS 9.2.2 or higher OR Windows 98/2000/Me/XP operating system..." So the answer for the time being is no... no Linux support... but it's less than a month away... and who knows... if everyone rants on their head they may support it ;)... However, I think the Linux community will find way ....

    --
    Great ideas happen at 4am. Bad career moves happen at 4pm...
  31. MD == Slow by nuxx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  32. Re:Why not just get a notebook? by $rtbl_this · · Score: 3, Funny

    And laptops are where cats sleep, curl up purring or pad until they draw blood. There's no escape from ambiguity.

    --
    "Are you being weird, or sarcastic?" said Emma. I said I didn't know because I get the two feelings mixed up.
  33. Re:Expensive???? by damiangerous · · Score: 5, Informative
    Portable CD/MP3 players can be had for under $100 dollars

    Portable CD/MP3/DVD players can be had for under $100. The only link I can find has them for $107, but my local Target has one on clearance for ~$70.

  34. mp3's play longer than CD-audio? by phorm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    it offers up to four hours of CD audio playback, up to 10 hours of MP3 CD playback and up to 1.5 hours of DVD-ROM playback

    Interesting that it gets more power playing an Mp3 CD than a regular CD. I would have assumed that it would take more juice to decode for mp3's.Perhaps mp3's cache to reduce disc spinning laser usage?

    Also, it would be nice to get a stat on the load-time for mp3's. I've noticed that some Sony mp3-disc players in cars (such as mine) seem to prefer caching the filenames on spinup, which can take annoyingly long.