Sony to Launch Online Music Service

[geerlingguy]

Re: Re: ATRAC

Originally posted by desdomg
Actually, Sony are able to benefit from an global installed base of MD players that is much larger than the iPod market. From Hi-Fi components to in-car stereos there is a massive selection of MD players on the market. They are a lot cheaper than iPod too. The only advantages to the iPod for me are that the fairplay DRM is more liberal and the iPod looks cooler, holds more songs and doubles as an extra FW drive.

But for an already massive installed base of MD players round the world, for which these new 1 gig disks will be backwards compatible - the emergence of the Sony store will be a force to be reckoned with and serious competition for Apple. Perhaps for the first time.

It was Sony's inactivity that allowed Apple into the market in the first place. Now they seem to be waking up, Apple watch out!

I know one, and only one person who has an MD player. And he thinks it's a pile of crud. The fact is, people who purchase these MD players are usually more the producer and audio editing types -- NOT the kind of people like you and me who will purchase music legally online.

The iPod has universal appeal -- both to young (like me) and older (like my parents, my aunts, etc) alike. The only problem with the iPod right now is that it has no way of recording line-level stereo, 44.1KHz audio in any format. If this feature were introduced, the iPod would gain another market; radio broadcasting (in fact, the company I work for was going to purchase about five iPods per station if the current generation had included a way to record audio).

 

[pcharles]

Originally posted by noverflow
yes I do. And as a broadcast professional, i can tell you that Beta SP is still the number one tape format used by television broadcasters. If you make a commercial, the cable reps or local stations are going to ask for it in beta SP.

We are well aware of professional needs, but what about at the Consumer level? I remember betamax as a kid in England. Looking for betamax tapes was like looking for Mac software in Walmart.

 

[JohnStrass]

Sony's Ego

This is just silly. Sony dried to dominate with the menory stick (oh yeah, that really cought on...) and the microMooV (or whatever the hell it is called) format for videocams. Now another propriatary SONG format?

Not only will sony fail, but it will put a bad taste in the mouth of consumers whan they discoover that in a few years their newer/faster/shinier/cheaper electronic gadget cant play their Michael Jackson music.

 

[desdomg]

Well whatever your views on on the MD platform it is clear that neither Sony nor it are going away any time soon.

In fact a company the size of Sony for which Walkman type devices have and will continue to be one of its key products and which is such a big player in the music world will be one of the key competitors to Apple in the future.

MD is just one of the techs. they are supporting in this store - the other is Memory Stick, also at 1 gig and with larger capacities reportedly in the pipeline.

I don't need to remind anyone that Memory Stick is very small and can be used literally anywhere. In any device.

 

[Photorun]

Hate to see them throw their hat in the ring but ya had to figure with the music companies it was coming. I'm hoping Sony's will be sucktacular though.

If Apple didn't have iTMS they could have made iMusicStore at this point and everyone could have a web music store... er, well if Apple didn't have iTMS there wouldn't BE any of these only music stores.

 

[eazyway]

Originally posted by hokka
Someone need to get the file format standarized NOW before it's too late, we have what? 4 different incompatable formats now? AAC w/ FairPlay; AAC w/Helix; WMA and now ATRAC

It makes sense to the Sony MD & NET crowd only at the moment, as they do have a huge install base - though this new HiMD (1GB @ $7) will mean all the older equipment would be outdated and it's gonna be a pain-in-the-butt to record or transfer from the computer

Not to mention when the PSP comes out with another disk format

WHY ? If I am at Apple I am cheering on this diversity of format as Apple now has the big head start and iPod and iTMS are so well known. Apple's products work together so well , they must be snickering at all the competing Music Stores.

So for Apple more priority services are good for them. I mean why would Apple want anyone without an iPod to download songs from the iTMS. (if they don't make any money on them why have extra broad band service used up to support other players)

 

[Mudbug]

yay. another format to forget about.

 

[brywalker]

This has the potential to be super cool.

This is where it is critical for Sony. The only thing that this format needs is 2 things. And they are both VERY simple to implement.

1) Native MP3 playing. Just drop them onto the disc, not transcoding.

2) USB2 support. Make this thing transfer hella fast.

I don't think its a matter of the disc not being able to record fast enough, but it may be the case.

They will absolutely have an iPod mini killer if they just get on the ball and add these 2 things.

The players are backwards compatable with older discs and you can take existing discs and reformat them to 300MB instead of the standard 140MB.

Think about how cool it would be to have an iPod mini with removable 1GB microdrives for $7 a disc. Never happen, but I would love to see it. Yeah this disc is my hip hop disc. This is my (insert band name here) full catalog disc. Breaks the 4GB max for the iPod mini and is very small and light. And battery life smokes Apple. Just get a NiMH rechargable AA and it will play well over 30hrs, and last the life of the player.

Sony could really have a winner on their hands. Minidisc are very durable and I haven't had one fail yet, and I have had my home and portables for well over 5 years. Hard disks, on the other hand, will fail. Period. It's just a matter of when...

And for those that are knocking the format, it wouldn't have lasted the past 12 years if they weren't doing something right.

 

[X-Baz]

Sony's advantage over the other stores

Sony does have one advantage over the Dells and CocaCola's of this world - and it's the same as Apple's .

They control the "whole widget" so can make the user experience very slick and use the music sales to drive hardware sales (and profit). Plus most consumers regard Sony as a "cool" brand - just like Apple.

The (only) advantage they have over Apple is they are also a label.

But it's the pretenders that should really be worried.

 

[ITR 81]

This is just a copy of the current Japanese Sony Music store thats been in Japan for yrs but has never really caught on.

I doubt it will do much better in the US.

 

[svenas1]

Originally posted by brywalker
This has the potential to be super cool.

[snip]

Think about how cool it would be to have an iPod mini with removable 1GB microdrives for $7 a disc. Never happen, but I would love to see it. Yeah this disc is my hip hop disc. This is my (insert band name here) full catalog disc.

I'm very glad the iPod mini does not have removable discs. There is enough clutter in my life already as it is. That is why the iPod is so much more enjoyable to use. You can't forget / loose / sit on these tiny memory thingies. For me, there is no point in going all digital when I still have these whatnots to carry about.

For those people who like it, fine, but I don't think Apple should go down this route - and am glad they don't.

 

[geerlingguy]

Originally posted by desdomg
I don't need to remind anyone that Memory Stick is very small and can be used literally anywhere. In any device.

The key words are "can be" -- nobody but Sony uses Memory sticks in their products because they are expensive, slow, and fragile when compared to other flash products. Sony will not succeed in this area. Example: Sony used to have the Walkman; still, everyone knows what it was - everyone used to have one. But now, nobody cares about the DiscMan, or the MemoryStickMan, or the MiniDiscMan, because they are not the Walkman. Sony needs to strengthen themselves in other sectors of consumer electronics, not fail miserably at one area they already arent shining in...

 

[P-Worm]

Before we get more of these "The whole idea is stupid because it competes with Apple's service," I want to know more about this fomat of theirs. Is it super tiny? Because having a small capacity player that plays files at a really small size could equal or better a high capacity player with somewhat large file sizes. I'm not keen on switching out MD's, but 1GB at something like 500K per song is nothing to laugh at.

P-Worm

 

[BwanaZulia]

My father is in broadcast (and has been for 30 years) and yes Beta is the standard. It was, though, a huge consumer flop that Sony hung onto for years and years and years trying to get it to go. Sometimes Sony is just too stubborn for its own good.

Trust me, I loved MD, and I currently have 3 MD players and 2 iPods in my house. The MDs gather dust, the iPods are used every day.

Sony should work WITH Apple on this one, not against.

BZ

Originally posted by noverflow
yes I do. And as a broadcast professional, i can tell you that Beta SP is still the number one tape format used by television broadcasters. If you make a commercial, the cable reps or local stations are going to ask for it in beta SP.


a MD is only 160MB, for a 4min song that comes in at less than 256k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im sorry but that is awesome

 

[~Shard~]

What company HASN'T announced an online music store yet? Yeesh, good luck Sony, you'll need it...

 

[pcharles]

Re: Sony's Ego

Originally posted by JohnStrass
This is just silly. Sony dried to dominate with the menory stick (oh yeah, that really cought on...) and the microMooV (or whatever the hell it is called) format for videocams. Now another propriatary SONG format?

I think ATRAC has been around for a while on MD. The memory stick is a major problem because it confuses the flash market. there is no good reason for a proprietary storage format except to limit a consumers electronic choices.

My fiance has a sony clie and a vaio at work. They are superb products that work together as well as can be expected. Certainly better than my Gateway ever did. The problem is that Sony cameras, up to very recently, we absolutely awful and we have two Canon cameras that use Compact Flash, so she is stuck. My new Sony HDTV has a memory stick slot for showing jpeg images. NOT JUST ANY JPEG though, they have to be in a special folder and have a special format that can only be done with a Sony camera or Sony Computer. This is just sony who, like Apple, make their products work together. Apple, however, is at least working with others.

Don't even get me started on MicroMV. It is a superb format that only Sony computer users can access. I got so tired of listening to people blaming Apple for their woas with MicroMV and iMovie that I quit reading that forum.

 

[MarcL]

Beta formats are not all the same

Originally posted by noverflow
yes I do. And as a broadcast professional, i can tell you that Beta SP is still the number one tape format used by television broadcasters. If you make a commercial, the cable reps or local stations are going to ask for it in beta SP.

BetacamSP is not the same thing as Betamax. The broadcast Beta and the defunct consumer Beta have nothing to do with each other besides being magnetic tape and in the same-sized shell.

Betacam became a broadcast standard because of its high quality, but mostly because the small tapes were perfect for ENG cameras, even though they only hold 30-minutes of tape. The small-shell Betacam tapes still only hold 30-minutes, but the shell is now the standard for Digital Betacam, BetacamSX, and HDCAM.

These days, at least where I live, most broadcasters ask for Digital Betacam masters, which is even farther in similarity from Betamax.

 

[IlluminatedSage]

"Dubbed Sony Connect, the service will offer some 500,000 tracks at the now de rigueur price of 99 cents per track and $9.95 per album. More to the point, the service is intended to work with Sony electronics; the company is launching several new music gadgets simultaneously."


Perhaps this will be a good notice to Apple to improve pricing coming from SONY. If you look closely, many albums coming from sony labels are priced way higher than 9.99 per album.

So.... one would believe they could want to steer people to their service for better pricing, or perhaps apple can get a better price from them now.

 

[kidA]

all i can think of here is BETAMAX.

 

[neutrino23]

MD was OK in its day but it is now a format ready to die. The players are fairly pricey and they are extremely slow. I have two. To jump tracks takes like ten seconds. The disks are fairly reliable though I have had a few fail on me over the years.

I do not want a player with removable disks. This is the beauty of the iPod. You put everything there in one place then you don't have to decide what you take with you. It really does simplify your life.

This is just Sony being obstinate. This too will pass.

 

[alandail]

Re: Re: ATRAC

Originally posted by desdomg
Actually, Sony are able to benefit from an global installed base of MD players that is much larger than the iPod market. From Hi-Fi components to in-car stereos there is a massive selection of MD players on the market. They are a lot cheaper than iPod too. The only advantages to the iPod for me are that the fairplay DRM is more liberal and the iPod looks cooler, holds more songs and doubles as an extra FW drive.

But for an already massive installed base of MD players round the world, for which these new 1 gig disks will be backwards compatible - the emergence of the Sony store will be a force to be reckoned with and serious competition for Apple. Perhaps for the first time.

It was Sony's inactivity that allowed Apple into the market in the first place. Now they seem to be waking up, Apple watch out!

The iTunes music store targets not just the installed base of iPods, but the installed base of computers capable of running iTunes and the installed base of CD players and DVD players. You buy a song on the iTunes music store and you can burn it to a CD that plays on virtually every CD/DVD player in the world. I bought music from the iTunes store before I had an iPod.

The Apple store has content from all of the lables, including sony music. How is sony going to compete with that?

 

[LaughingMan]

Originally posted by jocknerd
Its simple. Demand Ogg Vorbis. Its the only open-source, patent-free, licensing-free format out there. You could always wrap a DRM around it if you wanted. Plus it sounds better than any of the other lossy formats out there.

Its not that simple... the listening public won't "demand" ogg vorbis while they are getting a good experience out of the iTunes Music Store, and all of the other music stores using AAC or WMA...

The whole idea of any of these stores is that the format of the file you are listening to is supposed to be abstracted away... the music is more important...

And really, AAC, WMA, and Ogg Vorbis are clearly a wash in terms of quality... A case can even be made that the Quicktime AAC codec outperforms Vorbis if you look here http://audio.ciara.us/test/128extension/results.html

And finally, the music providers, Apple, Napster, MusicMatch, and all of the others have invested a lot already into the codecs that they've chosen... there is no reason why they would turn their backs on their format of choice when there is not even a small public demand to switch to Ogg...

The problem with Ogg is that the mass public doesn't care. The people who are vocal are only the geeks on Slashdot and etc, and those people are few and far between... most people who are on the Internet don't care, so long as they have their music.

 

[LaughingMan]

Originally posted by desdomg
MD is just one of the techs. they are supporting in this store - the other is Memory Stick, also at 1 gig and with larger capacities reportedly in the pipeline.

I don't need to remind anyone that Memory Stick is very small and can be used literally anywhere. In any device.

Yes, well, for the price of a 1 GB Memory Stick Pro, from Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00008ZPNT/102-2213513-2686551?v=glance

i can buy a 20 GB iPod... And for $400, i can play music on my iPod, while the memory stick still requires a separate player that supports Memory Stick Pro...

Flash memory has a LONG way to go to get anywhere close to the value of the hard disk players out there now...

 

[Omad0n]

Sony MD

A couple things to note I suppose. 1 is that while MD isn't all that popular over here in America, if you go somewhere like Japan you'll find it to be HUGELY popular, due to size. 2 ATRAC is an excellent compression format, which is still being updated, so even though it's quite old, it's still growing. Now, I have no idea if Sony will be successful with this venture, but who knows, I'm still on the fence on what I think of carying MD's over an iPod with me. Oh, one more thing, you can get a MiniDisc player to work with a Mac, though not through Sony's craptacular software.

Also, check out my new sig!! And yes I'm aware it could apply to me.

 

[JohnStrass]

Re: Re: Sony's Ego

Originally posted by pcharles
I think ATRAC has been around for a while on MD. The memory stick is a major problem because it confuses the flash market. there is no good reason for a proprietary storage format except to limit a consumers electronic choices.

My fiance has a sony clie and a vaio at work. They are superb products that work together as well as can be expected. Certainly better than my Gateway ever did. The problem is that Sony cameras, up to very recently, we absolutely awful and we have two Canon cameras that use Compact Flash, so she is stuck. My new Sony HDTV has a memory stick slot for showing jpeg images. NOT JUST ANY JPEG though, they have to be in a special folder and have a special format that can only be done with a Sony camera or Sony Computer. This is just sony who, like Apple, make their products work together. Apple, however, is at least working with others.

Don't even get me started on MicroMV. It is a superb format that only Sony computer users can access. I got so tired of listening to people blaming Apple for their woas with MicroMV and iMovie that I quit reading that forum.

THe MS problem is even worse than that. Using my Sony digicam (photo function) on MS, I can not view them on my Clie. You have to reformat the images on a computer first. I mean, if Sony cant even get that cross-platform going, then why bother again with musing now. I guarantee that soon some SONY branded gadget will in the near future not be able to easily play the SONY downloads.

By the way, Since SONY owns Columbia, will this mean no Columbia music on iTMS?