New Organization Within Sony to Direct Hi-MD Development.

[Christopher]

From: http://www.twice.com/article/CA501770.html

Sony Shifts Product Development Efforts

TOKYO— A new Sony reorganization has shifted product development for digital cameras and portable audio products to newly created business units, but the changes — intended to improve and accelerate product development — won't shift U.S. sales and marketing responsibilities “in the near term,” a U.S. spokeswoman said.

As part of the reorganization, development of Sony portable audio products will be split among three business units. Late last year, Sony formed the Sony Connect company to oversee development of HDD music portables, the PC software designed for them, and the software's integration with the Sony Connect online music store.

In the latest change, a new company called Personal Audio Video Network Co. (PAVNC) will oversee mobile CE products, including digital cameras and cassette- and CD-based portable audio. Another new company, Information Technology and Communication Network Co. (ITCNC), will develop Vaio-branded computers and peripherals, and portable audio products that store music in flash memory, on MiniDiscs and on Hi-MD discs.

"The intention is to strengthen product development, speed up decision-making, and enhance operational efficiency for IT and mobile CE products," the spokesperson said. One of PAVNC's missions is to increase the number of internally sourced components for its finished goods, she added.

As for splitting Walkman development, she said, "The new structure will allow us to respond more quickly to a changing business environment and speedily create new attractive products."

In the United States, portable audio products are marketed by Sony's Vaio IT unit and its CE unit. Vaio markets a HDD headphone portable and once marketed flash-memory portables. The CE unit markets those types plus Hi-MD, MiniDisc, CD and cassette portables.

Now this is what I'm talking about. First Sony hands development of Sonicstage over to another firm in San Diego, and now Minidisc will get more attention within it's own house. Very interesting times for the format, hopefully with prosperity ahead.

[Remington]

Very exciting news indeed! I can't wait to see what this brings us!

Edited February 10, 2005 by Remington

[Guest tony wong]

stupid move

discman actually is same kind product of md walkman

the market strategy would be the same for both discman and md walkman

[aeriyn]

discman actually is same kind product of md walkman

the market strategy would be the same for both discman and md walkman

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Not even close. PCDPs have no provision for recording at all, and MD was specifically designed with recording in mind. IMO, Sony should stop with pretending that MD is a DAP and start realizing that it's a portable digital recorder first and foremost.

[Michael1980]

I agree, that there is no way the Minidisc can win at the play-only game, the recording it is its most important feature.

[Guest tony wong]

Not even close. PCDPs have no provision for recording at all, and MD was specifically designed with recording in mind. IMO, Sony should stop with pretending that MD is a DAP and start realizing that it's a portable digital recorder first and foremost.

←

what is PCDP and DAP, can I ask?

well, I never think MD portable as a recording machine

I won't use it for recording

no way, it's way too dangerous to use a portable equipment both playing and recording

well, as u may also know, this may shorten the life of a portable equipment

and I have found some articles in minidisc.org say, that recording head/len of MD actually is quite fragile

no, anyway, I will buy a deck or mini system for recording and buy another portable for playback only

and, no, as u can see on the their ad(Sony)

they are always demonstrating the usual habit of "one recording MD mini-system with a play only portable"

and u can see, not until recent 1 or 2 years, there is far more play only MD portable than recording model from Sony

[Latexxx]

PCDP = Portable CD Player

DAP = Digital Audio Player (ie mp3 player or PCDP)

[aeriyn]

I agree, that there is no way the Minidisc can win at the play-only game, the recording it is its most important feature.

←

Not only is this true, but a colossal advantage over other portable recorders. MD is the only affordable, cost-efficient method of CD-quality recording that fits in the palm of your hand. Period.

The Marantz, Edirol and Mayah CF recorders are excellent pieces of equipment, but they're rather large, heavy, extremely expensive (US $500 or more) and use a very pricey media type. Hi-MD can record just as well if not better for half the price of the cheapest CF recorder (the Edirol at this point).

what is PCDP and DAP, can I ask?

well, I never think MD portable as a recording machine

I won't use it for recording

no way, it's way too dangerous to use a portable equipment both playing and recording

well, as u may also know, this may shorten the life of a portable equipment

no, anyway, I will buy a deck or mini system for recording and buy another portable for playback only

←

It seems to me that your usage would be better suited by a HDD-based DAP such as the Sony NW-HD3, Rio Carbon/Karma or Apple iPod. The only real advantage of MD over these units is that it can record CD-quality audio from a microphone portably. If you're not going to use it for that, there's really not much point in having one unless you're already significantly invested into the format (or you just like the format).

I don't see how using the MD unit's recording function could reduce the life of the MD unit itself, considering how it was designed specifically for that purpose. And yes, MD units, like any other device with moving parts, is fragile to an extend and suceptible to damage from physical shock. Only solid-state (flash-memory based) digital audio players/recorders can avoid this, and really they too could be considered fragile.

[AgentK7]

well, I never think MD portable as a recording machine

I won't use it for recording

no way, it's way too dangerous to use a portable equipment both playing and recording

well, as u may also know, this may shorten the life of a portable equipment

and I have found some articles in minidisc.org say, that recording head/len of MD actually is quite fragile

no, anyway, I will buy a deck or mini system for recording and buy another portable for playback only

←

I know the only reason I'm interested in MD is the concept of portable recording. If you consider a portable MD for play only, you might as well use a regular CD player. 10 years ago it may have made more sense to have a portable MD for play only, but nowadays it's so easy to burn a CD, or even an mp3 CD that a portable MD unit's only advantage is that it's a little smaller (and the Hi-MD discs can 300 more megs).

Portable MD recording with disc swapping is something fairly unique. Sure there are portable hard disk and compactflash recorders but they are very expensive and usually much bigger then an NH900 or NH1, not even mentioning the recording quality.

I think Sony will definitely focus on this as a strength and hopefully add features that will make the Hi-MD format that much more desirable.

Edited February 13, 2005 by AgentK7

[MAVickers]

Not only is this true, but a colossal advantage over other portable recorders. MD is the only affordable, cost-efficient method of CD-quality recording that fits in the palm of your hand. Period.

←

Well, that depends on what you mean by "affordable." I was using an iRiver hard disk device that records straight to WAV or DRM-less MP3 before I bought my recent HiMD unit. The iRiver device was about $500 US but can probably be had for less now.

[Michael1980]

How good is recording to hard drive? I hear the NJB3 is the next best thing after minidisc for recording, but are there any issues/annoyances when dealing with HDD players for recording into WAV?

[MAVickers]

How good is recording to hard drive? I hear the NJB3 is the next best thing after minidisc for recording, but are there any issues/annoyances when dealing with HDD players for recording into WAV?

←

The iRiver device worked quite well. The product page for the most recent model doesn't seem to indicate recording to WAV, but it supports a variety of other formats. When you want to transfer back to the PC, you just plug in though a Firewire port and drag the files over through Explorer.

[dex Otaku]

iRiver hdps are well-known for their problems with sustained recording, such as glitches and gapping in the audio.

This is not a defect caused by the fact that they are hd-based; it's just because the players themselves are not designed specifically for recording. iRiver themselves note to their customers that the recording functions are basically experimental and not intended for any kind of serious use.

[Rumz]

Yeah I think MD is still kind of a niche format, but definitely usable as a DAP, esp. with 1GB discs.

Maybe some people don't mind rigging their iPod up to their car or their home stereo, but I still like having removable media to play in the car or on a mini system without having to worry about carrying the actual player with me everywhere. I'd love to see a Hi-MD car deck

[MAVickers]

iRiver hdps are well-known for their problems with sustained recording, such as glitches and gapping in the audio.

This is not a defect caused by the fact that they are hd-based; it's just because the players themselves are not designed specifically for recording.  iRiver themselves note to their customers that the recording functions are basically experimental and not intended for any kind of serious use.

←

I have to say that's a strange thing to say since the model I purchased advertised it's recording capabilities and had both optical and line in. You could record in CD quality WAV or encode to MP3 on the fly.

I had also used it over the course of a couple years and didn't experience the "sustained recording" problem you mentioned... unless sustained recording means something longer than 1.5 hours.

[icel0rd]

I have to say that's a strange thing to say since the model I purchased advertised it's recording capabilities and had both optical and line in. You could record in CD quality WAV or encode to MP3 on the fly.

I had also used it over the course of a couple years and didn't experience the "sustained recording" problem you mentioned... unless sustained recording means something longer than 1.5 hours.

←

Also, let's not forget that Iriver was giving us optical in and optical out with surround sound support. Mine was great until it died on me.

Anyway, I also wanted to say that I disagree with the opinions that Sony should be marketing the MD units as recorders first. There isn't as big a demand for a recorder as there is a demand for a player with recording capabilities. What sells Ipods? Not recording, that's for certain.

I believe that marketing and forcing the marriage between MD and ATRAC really hurt their progress. MD is media, first and foremost. It is more cost effective and covenient than any other removable media that I'm aware of. They needed to stop forcing people to use proprietary codecs with MD. In my opinion, they should have supported drag and drop and most of the popular music formats like Iriver.

MD media should have been able to replace big, cumbersome, and fragile CDs. It should be treated like the media it is.

I guess time will tell how well MD will do in the near future. This should be interesting. One thing that concerns me is that you are bombarded with Ipod commercials but never see anything about an MD player/recorder.

[Will Fastie]

I'd use a Hi-MD device as my primary personal player, but I will not buy one with restricted recording abilities.

So I add my 2 cents or my vote to the chorus of those asking Sony to wake up and smell the recorder!

[Fray Adjacent]

Also, let's not forget that Iriver was giving us optical in and optical out with surround sound support. Mine was great until it died on me.

Anyway, I also wanted to say that I disagree with the opinions that Sony should be marketing the MD units as recorders first. There isn't as big a demand for a recorder as there is a demand for a player with recording capabilities. What sells Ipods? Not recording, that's for certain.

I believe that marketing and forcing the marriage between MD and ATRAC really hurt their progress. MD is media, first and foremost. It is more cost effective and covenient than any other removable media that I'm aware of. They needed to stop forcing people to use proprietary codecs with MD. In my opinion, they should have supported drag and drop and most of the popular music formats like Iriver.

MD media should have been able to replace big, cumbersome, and fragile CDs. It should be treated like the media it is.

I guess time will tell how well MD will do in the near future. This should be interesting. One thing that concerns me is that you are bombarded with Ipod commercials but never see anything about an MD player/recorder.

I agree with all of the above. When I first saw an MD (a buddy at work back in 1996 got a portable player and stereo deck), I thought it was absolutely amazing. This was before the days of MP3 and digital audio players. My thought was, that little disc would make a great replacement standard for the 3.5" Floppy Disk drive! Then ZIP disk, SuperDisk and a few others... none caught on... probably mostly because of marketing and expensive media. With MD and HiMD being relatively inexpensive, Sony could make a move to make MiniDisc a new removable data medium standard.

As far as a player/recorder goes, you're right on the nose about it. The majority of people using portable audio devices are only going to copy digital audio to the device for playback. Not a lot will use a microphone or line in recording function, but it can be nice to have. Sony needs to wake up and see that. If they sell it as a digital audio PLAYER, capable of playing standard formats in common use without arbitrary restrictions.

Open it up, and they should be able to market it and sell 'em like hotcakes!

[ROMBUSTERS]

Sony should make the following ad:

$200 for 4GB? or $28?

Music at a fraction of the cost with no limit on space.

Sony HiMD... blah blah blah

the units are great but no one knows wut makes them different