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

I think this is great...

[ProppaT]

I've been looking into getting one of the newer minidisc/mp3 players anyway, so getting one that holds 1gb is great for me.

Why is the minidisc great?
* - You can quickly put music and mp3's on it (32x write on the current gen ones).
* - Current gen discs hold 5 hours worth of music a disk. The newer discs will hold approx 50 hours.
* - They are rewritable.
* - The discs can't be scratched
* - You can use md players as pocket voice recorders
* - Small size
* - More reliable than hard-drive solutions
* - Less access time / less skipping than cd/dvd solutions.

Sure, the media costs a little bit more than a cd or a dvd, but it's designed for those who want to quickly throw a bunch of songs on a device to go. Sure, you can backup your whole collection onto a series of discs too...but if you're looking to have your whole collection in your hands and you hate media...yeah, you need a hd player.

Like the orriginal minidisc, this will be a solution that a niche audience will love. Personally, I will use it exclusively. And, if nothing else, it gives you a third format option...ATRACK.

THIS is an iPod killer

[the_2nd_coming]

well, if it could play MP3 and other formats that is, to bad.