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?

[FerretOnMountDew]

MDs are great. They combine the size of a flashcard-style mp3 player with the removable media features of a cd/cdrw mp3 player. And cost a bit less to replace than a HDD player.

Personally, I've been eyeing a sony md player for a bit, but I think I'll hold off for the new 1gb md format to pan out a little. If nothing else, it'll drive the cost of the older-style players down a bit. Hopefully, the 1gb format will take off, though.

Now an annoying DRM is a different story. And that will be the only factor (for me) which will make or break it in the long run.

Copyright Protection Technology

[burgburgburg]

From the PDF:

4) Copyright Protection Technology
To prevent an illegal copying of digital content, "Hi-MD" incorporates OpenMG and MagicGate technology, already adopted in Memory Stick and Net MD for content management to ensure that music content stored on a "Hi-MD" disc will be encrypted. "Hi-MD" also conforms to the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS).

Re:Compatible with PC. What about Mac? Linux?

[merlin_jim]

"Hi-MD" uses the FAT file system, making it possible to use...

Furthermore, as portable, rewritable PC media, "Hi-MD" complies with USB format's Mass Storage Class

What do you think, Mac, Linux compatible?

Absolutely.

Guess what? EVERY USB Mass Storage Device uses FAT for storage. If you can connect a digital camera to it, you can attach this to it, because all digital cameras use FAT. That's how those USB readers can work, BTW... standardized storage format...