Slashdot Mirror
Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw Blood
Mr_Silver writes "Walter Mossberg (of WSJ fame) managed to review the new Sony NW-HD1 and was distinctly unimpressed. The upsides: it's smaller, lighter and has a battery life of 20 hours. The downsides: goodbye MP3 - hello ATRAC3, slow upload (and converting) times and the confusing user interface on the walkman, PC software and the music store. When will someone pass Sony the cluestick?"
Sony R&D almost certainly would not have missed the general populace if it was just Sony in the picture. Sony's problems aren't their researchers or engineers who, IME, are some of the best - it's the influence Sony Entertainment (which deals with the media side of things- films, music, games etc) on the design decisions that causes all the problems. I have no doubt whatsoever that, left to themselves, Sony's designers would have produced something that could handle mp3, several other formats and given the ipod some real competition.
:/
But with the entertainment division and their lawyers jumping up and down about restricting the consumer's choice, the need for DRM and so on, they keep removing features, restricting things...
I really, really wish Sony would ditch SE, but they aren't likely to
I don't consider its use of ATRAC3 internally inherently a problem. If it allows me to seamlessly dump files from my computer onto the player, it doesn't really matter how they're represented in the device itself, since I only care that it plays the music.
HOWEVER, converting from one lossy format to another will cause artifacts (which I don't believe the article mentioned). And just as bad, it had better happen zippy-quick, at least on a relatively new computer. If the limiting factor is the speed of my CPU, then I don't want it.
And here's what I don't get. They're converting it to a format which is DRM'ed, but because they're converting it from MP3s you can't tell who owns it in the first place. That is, they can limit the distribution, but limit it to who? They can't tell if you own it or not.
Presumably the goal is to say, "You can use your MP3s, but they're slower to download. You'd rather get ATRACs from our spiffy music store!"
That could happen, I suppose. If the device is substantially cheaper than an iPod, then people will buy it on the shelves, and it's not clear until they get home that it's not compatible with the #1 music store. Or the #2 music store.
So it's a tactically bold maneuver, and it might work. Online music stores still account for a small percentage of music sales. Most people still buy CDs, with which this thing is compatible (albeit slowly). I'm not sure how much people would miss being able to buy stuff from iTunes Music Store and Napster and whatever Microsoft's version is going to be.
In the end, there's a lot said for being able to hit a lower price point for the same number of megs. Microsoft makes a huge living off the fact that people would rather buy a Dell/HP/etc. for a few hundred bucks less than the equivalent Macintosh, even if many people would prefer the Mac. (Not a religious war here, just pointing out that many people never look past the price tag.)
But this time, Apple already owns big market share, and compatibility with it may be the biggest problem for Sony here. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Because this *really* was suppose to be the iPod killer. Now that it doesn't look this way, that's good *news* for Apple. And unless these other companies start putting up more of fight, it looks like Microsoft will be the last company that has a chance of challenging Apple's dominance. They're rumored to be releasing their own online music store next month.
Lots of things can change in a few years, but I never would have thought I'd be using "monopoly" to describe Apple.
Little Bricklets
for it's own good. They seem to think that just because they are so huge that they will be able enter into an already well established market with a product that is not that innovative. if you want to make money you either a) start a whole new makret, like they did with the original walkman(portable music outside a car now a reality) or b) enter into a market with a bold new idea, like they did with playstation(cd based 3d gaming)
Though this seems to be a theme with a lot of Japanese companies, they end up trying to do everything, when they should only focus on a few core markets. In Japan, Mitsubishi manufactures a ton of things, from escalotors to trains to LCDs to automobiles. The red tape must be enormous. It probably ends up hurting them in the long run because it's easier to sweep a few small losses under the rug if you are such a huge company. But they will come back to bite you, just look at what is happening with Mitsubishi motors....
The problem is, converting from one lossy compression format to another equals BIG loss in quality. Perceptual encoding, which both ATRAC and MP3 use, depends on a clean incoming signal. The compression, when played back, introduces artifacts that show up as harmonic distortion. When you use another perceptual encoder to compress THAT file, the harmonic distortion is re-encoded and amplified. It ends up sounding anywhere from annoyingly bad to unlistenable.
I think Sony, as a mega-meda-electronics conglomerate, wants to protect it's music business, so uses it's own propriatary format to make sure it can do DRM or whatever other controls it wants.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
3 cheers fo you. (My sentiments exactly)
I bought a car deck (MP3, with hard drive, and rip ability MEX-1HD I think) a few years back. Found out quickly that the deck would play MP3, rip audio CD's to it's ahrd drive, but would under NO CIRCUMSTANCES allow me to move my mp3 CD's into it's hard drive.
3 days later, after tech support let me know it's a design fetaure to dissalow this kind of useful functionality. I removed the drive, and upgraded a laptop with it. (full format) Sony's idea of fair use had made it worthless to me.
Hey Sony! I don't buy your products anymore cause of that one. None of them. I even refuse to resell Sony to my customers. Great job there guys....