RSSSony Kills ATRAC, Introduces Video Walkmans
By Nate Mook | Published August 30, 2007, 2:36 PM
Sony's Walkman entered a new era Thursday, as the company introduced two new models capable of playing not just audio, but also video. Sony also announced it would shutter its Connect music download service, effectively killing its ATRAC format in exchange for Windows Media.
The new high-end Walkman, Sony's NWZ-810 series, sports a 2-inch QVGA (320 by 240 pixels) LCD display, and offers up to 8 hours of battery life when playing video or 33 hours with audio. The slightly-cheaper NWZ-610 models come with a 1.8-inch screen and FM tuner.
The video Walkmans support AVC (H.264/AVC) Baseline Profile and MPEG-4 video codecs, JPEG for pictures, non-DRM AAC and MP3 music, as well as subscription downloads in Microsoft's protected WMA format. Sony says the players have passed PlaysForSure compatibility and work with Windows Vista.
Because of its deal with Microsoft -- the Walkman models will include Windows Media Player 11 -- Sony will close Connect early next year. In turn, the company says customers will have more flexibility in where they purchase their music. eBooks sold via Connect will not be affected, the company said.
Both the NWZ-810 and NWZ-610 come in capacities of 8GB, 4GB and 2GB. The NWZ-810 is priced at $230, $180 and $140, while the NWZ-610 is $20 cheaper at $210, $160 and $120. The players can be ordered now directly from Sony and will begin shipping next month.
Another Sony proprietary format dead, let's add it to the list.
I see that blu-ray has started to realize that VC-1 (Windows Media 10) encoding looks better than MPEG-2 (which they are still using)
They get to pay MS for any movies encoded in VC-1. I guess Microsft knows how to properly market a format.
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|I have one of these players :) Although this new one for USA has a newer firmware (mine still supports atrac), i hope I will be able to get this firmware.
I did a review of it : http://www.traded.name/2...-nw-a800-walkman-review/
Yes its a cheap plug but i felt it was related to the article :)
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|Anything that sounds so much like 8-track was bound to be overdue for killing.
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|Well, who saw this coming? Score 1 for Sony. I guess past mistakes have forced them to consider the possibility that maybe their own proprietary formats aren't always the answer.
Seriously though, I thought Apple's products were expensive... but for an extra $20 the 30GB iPod is looking like a good deal all of a sudden.
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|This thing looks like it was designed in 1994. I literally bought a Sony pocket TV in 1993 or 1994 that looks almost just like this. Sony usually has very nice designs, what were they thinking letting something like this go to market?
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|The Video Walkman SUPPORTS avi as well as mp4. Sony is distributing Sony Trailers on the Sony Style site as mp4s. You can also download directly to the device from a web page (using an ActieX plugin). That's right, side-loading is optional. Take that Apple.
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|they should have done this 6 years ago.
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|It took them long enough to dumpb ATRAC. I believe most people hate that format because you had to convert in most cases to make use of the device.
I still won't use Sony products because they have ruined the brand. Sony is all about creating proprietary stuff rather than what the consumer wants.
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|Sony's deal with Microsoft.
The fanboys aren't going to know *what* to do now...
Like when Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon became part of the same team.
This should be highly amusing.
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|*Pfft*
Nicely.
And well done for not putting "batting for the same team".
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|It's funny. This article has it all. Sony, Microsoft... MS format vs. Sony Format...
They all must have died of aneurysms or something.
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|And that's the point.
Sony will adopt a conpetitors format, if it's in consumers interestts.
DO you ever see Microsoft adopting Blu-Ray, because it's best for the consumer? No you see them screwing over consumers by giving out backhanders to Paramount to lenghten the HD format war, whilst they wait for HD downloads to be the norm.
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|Whatever you want to keep believing. This has to be the first time I've ever heard of Sony adopting another's format in the consumer's interests.
Take the Clie... that's about as close as it came. They "adopted" the Palm OS and hacked it for their own interests. Had to even switch to their own Memory Stick for a "Palm"... absurd.
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|Sony and blu-ray to me is a serious problem. I don't like the idea of a movie, music studio also making the players to play their crap on. They can an will screw the customers.
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|Ah...here come the fanboys.
I was getting worried there.
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|Microsoft has support for blu-ray and hd-dvd with Windows what makes you think they cant add a blu-ray drive. There is no proof blu-ray is the better format at this time they still are the same. You truly are mad.
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|Arrgh, Tony Bennett! Way to go Sony, attracting the 90 year olds.
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|"killing its ATRAC format in exchange for Windows Media."
If the comments section needed a single spark to start building up, that statement was the equivilent of a nulear bomb detonating.
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|It's depressing.
How can one company not see that they've picked yet another crappy format?
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|Could not have said it better. WMA is yet another horrible proprietary M$ format. Why no OGG?
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|If one reads the article, what it is saying is that sony has developed an mpeg4 player, adding support of Windows Media aswell (both protected and unprotected).
Aside of Itunes .m4p files, wma's are the only other widely used DRM-protected architecture, and AFAIK, Apple does not want to license the technology to other parties. In other words, it is the only option it had.
And as you can read, it does support unprotected AAC's. What other non-crappy formats do you expect? Big companies don't care about small formats. (small meaning without big companies behind it)
Pd. Anyway, it sounds strange that it mentions that it uses Windows Media Player 11... I hope it means PC software, in order to get protected .wma content...
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|Becase WMA, like ATRAC is suited to low power devices, because they need very little CPU to decode, and thus much more efficient battery life. OGG uses considerably more CPU to decode.
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|Very true statement, although I wish it weren't so, as I've become rather fond of Vorbis over the years. After all this time I would've thought more optimizations to the code would have been made. The code itself is no more complex than that required to decode MP3 files at the same perceived quality.
Some advancements have been underway for a while for embedded applications though, such as this:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1183984
On my main workstation, it's not much of an issue, but I agree with you on the portability limitations.
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|I wonder why they didn't go with MP3 rather than WMA?
Another money deal for MS?
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|Maybe cheaper to go with wma as mp3 isn't free?
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