New Sony Minidisc Players

Andy_R writes "Sony's has announced it's new new range of Hi-MD players at the CES show. The range of players (which should hit the shops in April) will start below $200 for a device that can function as a USB hard drive as well as storing a claimed 45 hours of music. The twist is that the data is stored on a new type of removable 1Gb media, a development of the minidisk format, with blanks costing about $7 each. The BBC have some more details including backwards compatibility with old-style minidisks and an ominous mention of 'built-in copyright protection' but I can't find anything on Sony's official site yet." Another reader reader submitted some pictures and specifications (pdf).

Comments

Re:What's the point?

[IWorkForMorons]

I've recently seen an inexpensive MP3/CD player with 2 minutes of MP3 anti-skip. I personally had to continuously tap that thing for 5 minutes to get it to start skipping. Of course I was also defending myself from the young child who's MP3 player I was constantly hitting, so that could have given it the chance to recover once or twice.

Sony's new copy protection

[teamhasnoi]

After getting my hands on a prototype, I have found that due to US Treasury restrictions, the new Sony Minidisc Player will not allow any content containing the word, "money".

As it happens, this rejects the following songs:

ABBA - "Money, Money, Money"
COOL MO D - "Mo' Money"
PINK FLOYD - "Money"
PET SHOP BOYS - "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)"
BEATLES - "Money"
PRIMITIVE RADIO GODS - "Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth (With Money In My Hand)"
SUPERGRASS - "In It For The Money"
PSYCHEDELIC FURS - "All That Money Wants"
RAGGA TWINS - "Money"
DIRE STRAITS - "Money For Nothing"
WONDERSTUFF - "It's Yer Money I'm After Baby"
PATTI SMITH - "Free Money"
LIVING COLOUR - "Money Talks"
LOU REED - "No Money Down"
BIG PIG - "Money God"
PRINCE - "Money Don't Matter"
PINK FLOYD - "Money"
STEVE VAI - "Dirty Cash"
STYLE COUNCIL - "Money Go Round"
TOM WAITS - "Til The Money Runs Out"
CYNDI LAUPER - "Money Changes Everything"
FLYING LIZARDS - "Money"
NEIL YOUNG - "Loose Change"
NENEH CHERRY - "Money Love"
SMASHING PUMPKINS - "Pennies"
AC/DC - "Money Talks"
DONNA SUMMER - "She Works Hard For The Money"
MORPHINE - "Murder For The Money"
THE CHURCH - "Blood Money"
MICHAEL JACKSON - "Money"
EVERCLEAR - "Heartspark Dollarsign"
SPINAL TAP - "Gimme Some Money"
PRETENDERS - "Brass In Pocket"
PUFF DADDY - 'It's All About the Benjamins'

Plus many, many more. I cannot recommend this product in its current form, as this is unresonable copy protection.

Strangely, REM's - "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) plays perfectly. Hmm. Nothing beats apathy.