Slashdot Mirror
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).
Finally being able to use MDs as removable media is really great. I remember hearing about a drive for the old MDs that was intended for using them as data storage, but I've never seen one.
These new MDs coul be a viable replacement for CD-roms, but only if they aren't bogged down with DRM. A physically small, 1GB disc in a protective caddy. It's almost too good to be true.
Eat the rich.
DAT is a ten year old perfectly good technology. I defy anyone to walk into a mall and find a DAT device, a Digitam Minidisc, or a host of others. People simply won't buy a crippled product, therefor an entire decade of technologies were exterminated. This is what happens when the law attempts to impose DRM.
litigious bastards
suck it sco!
Quite a lot:
* iPods have poor battery life compared to the NetMD and Hi-MD units (8 hours spec-sheet vs. about 30)
* iPods can't record - only accept uploads.
* iPods are HDD-based, so less resilient.
* NetMD players are smaller and lighter than even the iPod mini so I would expect the trend to continue with the similar sized Hi-MD walkman.
* The Hi-MD walkman is the first to support PCM recording - while the iPod can play back PCM wave files, the Hi-MD walkman can also record them in realtime, effectively a pro-sumer solution to the bulky and expensive DAT format.