RSSNew Sony MiniDisc Players Take on MP3
By Ed Oswald | Published March 2, 2005, 12:04 PM
Sony has expanded its line of MiniDisc players in an effort to better compete with the Apple iPod and other digital music devices. Sony introduced a line of Hi-MD players, which are capable of holding up to 1GB of music on each disc, as well as being able to play MP3, WMA and WAV files.
Also released Wednesday was the MZ-DH10P, a new Hi-MD model that includes a color screen and a 1.3 megapixel digital camera with 4x digital zoom.
"Many musicians, journalists and digital music fans rely on the flexibility and durability of the MiniDisc format," said Allan Jason, vice president for portable audio products at Sony Electronics. "Our latest models increase the utility of the players and bring more advantages to our MD customers."
Sony's moves in recent months are a concession that its proprietary ATRAC format was not desirable to consumers. Last year, the company admitted that its failure to support MP3 in MiniDisc players could have been the reason why sales of the units never met expectations.
The MZ-DH10P will be available in May for around $500. Other players introduced by Sony will range from $100 for the Psyc model to $300 for the MZ-RH10, which sports a six-line, self-emitting organic EL (electroluminescence) display.
I'm afraid Sony have missed the boat on this. Providing mp3 support now is like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Nobody wants minidisc anymore (if they ever did anyway). [shrugs]
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|"Many musicians, journalists and digital music fans rely on the flexibility and durability of the MiniDisc format," said Allan Jason...
Has someone told Allan Jason that those musicians and others (but esspecially musicians) do not care at all about mp3 support ? What they ask for for years is the hability to digitally extract the gigs or rehearsals they just recorded : most MD players have a digital input, wich we don't care about, and no digital output, wich is *the* feature we need. I understand that bot digital input and output would open a door to piracy, but we don't need both, for God's sake, just invert it !
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|these new lines of md players sound very nice. its about time they supported mp3 files. but at $500, what would be the incentive for me to get one when i could get a 40gb ipod for a bit more?
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|40GB ipods are $500??
Sure glad mine was free. Thank you sticky fingers!
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|40GB iPods don't have a digital camera, though I agree, it does seem rather expensive. I wonder how much the discs will cost?
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|Sony's moves in recent months are a concession that its proprietary ATRAC format was not desirable to consumers. Last year, the company admitted that its failure to support MP3 in MiniDisc players could have been the reason why sales of the units never met expectations.
Gee Sony, you think?? MD's were a piece of ish because of the retarded restrictions you forced on your users. I should know, I owned one.
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|Funny, I was just thinking the other day how I would love to have a miniDVD based portable audio player, and what do you know. Now here they are. (yes i realise miniDVD and Hi-MD aren't the same thing, but they are close enough that their functionality will be the same)
I wonder how fast the players can write to the Hi-MD disks. They can write to them I assume?
I might have to get me one of those if they are as good as I think they could be.
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|$500 for an MP3 Playing MiniDisc
$50 - 400 CDRs (pricewatch shipped)
Cannot Justify paying out all that money for something that essentially serves the same purpose as a $.08 CD. get an mp3/cd player and your set!
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