Slashdot Mirror
Sony Japan to Abolish Copy Controlled CDs
Gridle writes "In a complete reversal of their policy and on the heels of Avex's partial cessation of copy protected CDs (translation), Sony Music Entertainment in Japan has announced that it will abolish its Label Gate CCCD format (translation) beginning in November 2004 and move back to normal CD-audio format discs for all future releases. Reasons cited are music users' increased consciousness about copyrights and maintenance of legality (conformity to the CD-audio format specification). In related news, Sony also released a slightly updated HD walkman (translation) due to pressure from the iPod, but because of hardware limitations the device still does not support MP3 playback."
What happened to their promise that all new portables would do MP3, and they'd have firmware updates for existing ones?
The article only mentions ATRAC, but from the translation it's hard to tell whether ATRAC is the main format or the only format. This article on the larger model mentions mp3 support.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
The UK however I don't have a clue about. However if you can get a DVD player through customs send one home and change its power plug :)
In this article Sony says that they are working hard to bring MP3 devices to market but they have nothing to announce at this time.
http://www.busyweather.com/
1. can I get a region free DVD drive for my Dell laptops? no.
You can play DVD's from any region on any player if you use software with decss... like VLC and such. (Yes, it works under Windows too.)
Some links that may be of interest to you:l ist&to ols=region&pol=2c om/
:-)
http://dvd.box.sk/index.php?pid=d_soft&prj=
http://regionhacks.datatestlab.
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks
Enjoy your movies
Mplayer uses it too, there is also a Windows version
BTW, it is not libcss anymore, but libdvdcss.
Move Sig. For great justice.
>Sony's "NW-HD2" music player only accepts
>their proprietary ATRAC* audio format. What
>about all my mp3's?
Huh? It transparently converts mp3 to ATRAC3+ in import process, so average consumer only notices that it takes a bit long time to import mp3 tracks in their walkman. In other words, it can 'play' mp3, but not natively, from the beginning of the release of the product.
I think it's because it shows one (or both) of two things.
Coming from a company so involved in the industry I see this as a good thing. If nothing else it's a pleasant change to the usual story of trying to prolong the failing practice at the expense of customer irritation.
Even if it is "a simple decision to end a failing practice" it would be a very welcome decision if more companies would realise that irritating your customers isn't going to increase sales.
Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
Possibly. Try having a look on The Firmware Page and seeing if there is a region-unlocked firmware for the drive in your Dell laptop. Your other alternative is to get hold of a program like DVD Region Free which I believe will strip off the region coding (and other things) before it reaches your DVD player software.
No, you can't. For about the last five years, DVD drives themselves have been enforcing region coding in firmware. Firmwares that do not enforce regioning are called RPC-1. Ones that do are called RPC-2. The only way to make a recent drive RPC-1 is with a hacked firmware, since the companies only release RPC-2.
The Firmware Page is one of the best sources for hacked RPC-1 firmware. But if no one has hacked up a new firmware for your drive, then there's no way around region coding regardless what software you're using.
Ok, this is going completely offtopic, but
The PS2 is simply two PS1 cpu's in one box.
Err, that's just a lie. PS specs vs PS2 specs.
They didn't improve the controller design
In fact, the directional pad and button pads are analogue on the PS2 controller, they were pure digital "On/Off" on the PS1. Also, since the shape of the controller is pretty much perfect as far as most people are concerned, it would have been a little silly to replace it.
nor did they include a hdd or network connection
Makes it a damn sight cheaper than an XBox, particularly when they first came out, wonder if that was the idea?
And for kickers, they placed they power switch on the back of the system
This is golden! The power switch is on the front of the system. It's the one with the universal power switch symbol used on every TV, hifi, video recorder since I was born. Hold it down for a second, et voila!
On topic though, I agree that the whole ATRAC thing is a load of bollocks. The real reason I stopped buying Sony (with the exception of my PS2) is that after my minidisc walkman's power adapter broke and it cost £15 for a new one - even though its exactly the same as a £5 adapter you could buy from any electronics shop, just with a funky plug.