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NWA-HDD an indication of 3G Hi-MD ?

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bogon07

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Could the new 3G Hi-MDs be based on the NWA1000/3000 design? ......take out the harddrive and put in a slot or hinge for the minidisc. And add a sophisticated remote with OLED display.

If SonicStage3.2 is the last version and maybe an enhanced SimpleBurner will take over the software side of things to deal with legacy MD formats that Connect can't handle.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I certainly hope so. HiMD is just too fat! Look at iPod nano. That's a portable size, not 80x80x30mm. OK, MD can never be that small, but SOny sure isn't trying.

Remember those expensive player-only Pioneer units of <10mm thickness? That's the way it should be.

Sony is all chaos inside and there is a sort of "envy" among different branches That is why MD has never received a big support... I think more powerful branches/executives will kill MD for good.

I really hope there is a 3Gen...

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I certainly hope so. HiMD is just too fat! Look at iPod nano. That's a portable size, not 80x80x30mm. OK, MD can never be that small, but SOny sure isn't trying.

Remember those expensive player-only Pioneer units of <10mm thickness? That's the way it should be.

Not too thin. There appears to be some concerns with Nano screens cracking.

http://news.com.com/Problems+surfacing+wit...ml?tag=nefd.pop

The Sony design has a sort shell over the OLED display so this should not be as much of a problem.

The thickness is dictated to some extent by the type of battery in the unit. I quite like the NiMH AA rechargable batteries as I have 10 with 2 chargers from Sony. AAs are easily replaced and available everywhere. The gumstick and other hard wired ones allow for a much thinner unit. Seems a pain to have to send the unit in for service if a hard wired battery dies.

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Not too thin. There appears to be some concerns with Nano screens cracking.

http://news.com.com/Problems+surfacing+wit...ml?tag=nefd.pop

The Sony design has a sort shell over the OLED display so this should not be as much of a problem.

The thickness is dictated to some extent by the type of battery in the unit. I quite like the NiMH AA rechargable batteries as I have 10 with 2 chargers from Sony. AAs are easily replaced and available everywhere. The gumstick and other hard wired ones allow for a much thinner unit. Seems a pain to have to send the unit in for service if a hard wired battery dies.

Just use your creativity to design.

The AA can go (instead of under) somewhere beside the disc (so that the unit is more rectangular). iPod nano's screen scatching is somthing with Apple not adding screenprotectors (a half a mm of some plastic can fix this and won't make it much thicker).

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easy, show a little respect for the choices of other users no matter how silly they seem to you.

Have you tried to listen to Opera on an Ipod Nano with a decent pair of Bose 'phones.

'Ouch.

If Minidisc eventually DOES get killed off I could probably live with a DECENT HDD recorder -- but it would have to have RECORDING facilities with AT least an Optical INPUT (preferably an Optical output as well) and a LINE OUT --, have a decent screen and have a hard disk of AT LEAST 80-100GB.

I don't forsee much of a future for CF removable media such as microdrives -- the cards are too small and fiddly to make for a decent library system -especially for retrieving archived material and in any case will always cost much more per MB than a cheap blank minidisc.

Actually a 1GB microdrive with around 8 hours of recording at HI-SP is about right IMO for portable music.

What I also like about a system like Minidisc is that I can select the disks I want to take on a trip --and once the recordings have been ripped / copied to MD I don't need to be anywhere near a computer.

All these "Ipoddy" things need you to be at a computer if you want to change the music selection you've stored on the device --I can't be bothered with all of that especially as I like listening at home on DECENT Hi-Fi separates and REFUSE to have a Computer in any room in my house other than an "Office" which I've specifically designated for that purpose.

What WOULD be 100% welcome is being able to Drag and drop music files either from or to the device and be able to play these wherever you want and on whatever equipment you so choose.

While this is not likely to happen for "purchased music" there is no reason why this can't be implemented for your OWN music.

Cheers

-K

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I don't forsee much of a future for CF removable media such as microdrives -- the cards are too small and fiddly to make for a decent library system -especially for retrieving archived material and in any case will always cost much more per MB than a cheap blank minidisc.

Actually a 1GB microdrive with around 8 hours of recording at HI-SP is about right IMO for portable music.

No offense, but this type of thought process is going to keep us in the technological "stone age" forever. How long do you expect disc-based mediums to last? Think about the concept of a disc revolving hundreds or even thousands of times to retrieve data -- how flawed is this method overall? It's simply not efficient in comparison to technologies such as flash, hence why we'll be seeing more hybrid flash + HDD storage units for computers and eventually music players before discs are completely obsolete.

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No offense, but this type of thought process is going to keep us in the technological "stone age" forever. How long do you expect disc-based mediums to last? Think about the concept of a disc revolving hundreds or even thousands of times to retrieve data -- how flawed is this method overall? It's simply not efficient in comparison to technologies such as flash, hence why we'll be seeing more hybrid flash + HDD storage units for computers and eventually music players before discs are completely obsolete.

Disc technology is not "stone age" or flawed at all. It works, is now extremely reliable, more flexible, a lot more robust and very cheap to manufacture. Will HD based devices replace disc based formats like CD? At the moment, it looks doubtful.

Edited by MDGB2
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DVD has primarily replaced VHS and other visual formats.

Still a long way to go to get rid of good ol' CD. In a way, I think that some of the new formats (SACD & DVD-A) struggle because they may just be too complex. You can get the same album on CD or SACD but it costs more, and how many average Jo's have a decent 5.1channel hi-fi setup to listen to it 'properly'? One format for video, a sepparate one for music.

At the end of day people want something simple, and although new technology is coming, it has a long way to go to being as familiar and user friendly.

This is one of the reasons why MD has struggled, at first it was marketed as a replacement to casette, to which it works superb. But then they tried to take on CD and lost.

ah well, y'never know what will happen in the future...

:wacko:

Edited by MDGB2
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if in the beginning, MD had Pcm and computer files storage capacities, with cosequent prerecoded catalog, it would have take a big paart on CD. Today, Hi-md is superior to CD for all purpose.

Do you know what type of technology has been put in the March modul, for scientifical data recordation?

No CD, nor CD-RW, nor tape, no flah memory:

just Magneto-Optical disc!

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No offense, but this type of thought process is going to keep us in the technological "stone age" forever. How long do you expect disc-based mediums to last? Think about the concept of a disc revolving hundreds or even thousands of times to retrieve data -- how flawed is this method overall? It's simply not efficient in comparison to technologies such as flash, hence why we'll be seeing more hybrid flash + HDD storage units for computers and eventually music players before discs are completely obsolete.

I'm glad you don't worry about what your Bank uses --- Your Bank archives are probably still backed up on to Old Fashioned Tapes languishing in some fire protected vaults.

The whole purpose of Archiving is not that it has to be technologically the most advanced but that it can be easily accessed and READ by any conceivable program in the future -- just look at the current dogs dinner of a mess with all the various DVD formats --to say nothing of the 2 new one's one the horizon -- Blu Ray and the new thing from Toshiba.

This reminds me of the story at N.A.S.A when their engineers were asked to come up with a medium which could read and write with an unlimited amounted of storage in Zero G, survive several G's on take off and landing and have to be randomly accessible.

Well N.A.S.A spent several 100's of million dollars of hard earned taxpayers money on coming up with something which has never seen the light of day as far as ordinary consumers are concerned.

The Russians had a much cheaper and probably neater answer to the problem -- it was called a PAPER and PENCIL.

Technology is fine --but it has to be useable and "User Friendl;y".

The reason CD's have stuck around so long is that they are relatively small, easy to organise and can be played on a huge variety of different devices in different environments at very high quality.

Downloadable "purchaseable" music has basically two FATAL flaws for serious long term use apart from the usually pretty horrible quality on offer compared to a decent CD --- The user HAS to be stuck at a computer both to get the music AND to organise it, and the music has horrendous DRM issues over where and on what equipment you can play it.

Compact flash type devices fail on the grounds of User "Organisability" whilst HD's suffer at the moment from lack of decent capacilty and ability to be played EASILY on top end equipment.

Things like the Mini Ipod are not designed to be used in top end gear -- just plug one in to say a decent Marantz sound system with a pair of decent speakers costing 2,000 USD a pair -- 'Nuf said.

I know most users of this board are likely to be youngish and are into gadgets and gizmos -- that's fine but for music people don't want always want to be tied to computers to organise and play their collections -- currently the only decent portable formats that can also be used on high end separates, and is easily stored and organised are the CD and MD. The MD is a much more convenient size but si unfortunately a bit more limited over the stupid DRM issues -- had the MD been free like the CD it's probable the MD would have replaced the CD ages ago --now it's too late although I still think the format is great. In future some type of HD system will probably be used but of course if you break or lose the device the WHOLE LIBRARY is gone whereas with a MD recorder the most you lose is 1 disk.

Cheers

-K

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I'm not speaking of now -- I'm speaking of the future. CD's have been replaced by DVD's, and DVD's will get replaced by HDDVD or Blue Ray (Blue Ray computer drives will not be able to read CD's, btw), but what's after that? Flash will have matured at that point and we'll be employing that.

I agree. Currently my audio devices at home consists of a Tivoli table top radio connected to my home computer and a Yamaha A2070 DSP amp connected to a 15 year old pair (still sounds WONDERFUL) of NHT speakers. I also have a Proton D540 preamp/amp in the bedroom. I have owned nothing under $1000.00 that sounds better than my Proton D540. The government can take my guns, my liberties, but not my Proton!

Once we upgrade out TV to a HD system (2 more years) we will upgrade to a full featured 5.1 system, but right now I am perfectly happy with stereo.

Edited by lamewing
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Compact flash type devices fail on the grounds of User "Organisability"

How so?

..whilst HD's suffer at the moment from lack of decent capacilty and ability to be played EASILY on top end equipment.

Well, 20gb and beyond is a pretty decent sized capacity. Most portable HDD music players have a line out, including the new "Walkman", which is an easy way to interact with top-end equipment.

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What WOULD be 100% welcome is being able to Drag and drop music files either from or to the device and be able to play these wherever you want and on whatever equipment you so choose.

latest from the music biz is that the ability to do just that is a privelidge, not a right.

basicly if they could have their way you would only be able to play it one their designated devices, and only on one pr bought media or file...

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Things like the Mini Ipod are not designed to be used in top end gear -- just plug one in to say a decent Marantz sound system with a pair of decent speakers costing 2,000 USD a pair -- 'Nuf said.

err, what do price have to say about quality?

sure i know about the old saying that you pay for quality, its the same argument they use on anything branded with that partialy eaten apple...

also, its about the top 1-10% of the whole music market that feel the need to spend masses of money on equipment.

hell, i have more or less stopped reading reviews as they allways talk about having to use their own special headsets just to get music they can tolerate. i have been perfectly happy with the sound in the earphones i got with that protable cd player i bought some years back with mp3 playback ability.

and by the looks of it most people are very happy with the quality of sound they are getting from most pod products using the stock earphones...

and one comment about managing music on computers. there is a reason why ms and others are pushing more and more for that living-room pc. turn on the tv, tune to the right "channel" and you have your music collection there. no need to go into a seperate room to deal with it. you can then set up the playlists you want to have on your portable player, hit transfer, and then grab it out of the dock/charger when leaving.

the age of the pc as a gray box in corner is more or less gone. check out the small and quiet ones from the likes of shuttle or for that matter apple.

and while the hardware is becoming more and more pc based it allso becomes more and specialized. im guessing that 2-3 generations from now the computer will be a set of interconnected boxes with a central hub in the living room. want to add a extra hardrive plug it into one of the other boxes and the system will automaticaly detect its precence and set it up. it may even download drivers of the net automaticaly as needed. basicly the pc becomes just another part of your multimedia setup. most likely it will be a small box with only a cpu, ram and gpu. like a console basicly. hook it up to the dvd player/recorder and it becomes able to read and write cds and dvds. hook up a hardrive and it will be able to store files on that. hook it up to the inet connection and it will be able to locate music shops, movie shops, tv guides and other stuff online. the tv becomes the display.

most likely when people buy their first pc it will come as a package deal where you can opt out on parts you allready have. parts that are fully usable on their own.

hook a hardrive to the tv and you have a tivo. hook a dvd recorder into all this and it should be able to get stuff of the hardrive for recording.

with the right standardized protocols and connectors and anythings possible.

only problem right now is that the big ones in computing and the big ones in home entertainment are to used to control their sphere. when those two spheres overlap one gets a big war as noone wants ot cooperate on their turf. therefor its perfect time for someone small to come in and scoop them all.

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the age of the pc as a gray box in corner is more or less gone. check out the small and quiet ones from the likes of shuttle or for that matter apple.

A PC in a living room is not appropriate for a lot of people -- A living room tends to be a family / communal area for activities that usually several people participate in together.

A computer on the whole is more suited to Individual activities which is why IMO a computer is best left in a room / area designated for that purpose.

I'd imagine you'd be quite popular trying to rip CD tracks on to a PC situated in a Living Room when other members of the family / colleagues / housemates etc etc were trying to use the same PC's sound sytem at the same time to watch the latest DVD they'd just bought / rented.

Cheers

-K

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heh, true. but how about either waiting with the ripping until after the others have watched said movie. or are you in a hurry to get said cd ripped?

yes it may become a bit of a mess if several people want to do something at the same time, in the same area. so maybe put a second dvd player and tv in a diffrent room, but wired into the same system. that way people can go watch something on the other tv, or use it as a ripping terminal.

this is the usual solution with say kids in the house. a secondary unit that the kids can use so that they dont take up time on the primary one.

and how long does it realy take to rip a cd? surely they can wait a bit with said movie it they just walked in the door with it.

or how about ripping and dvd rental is redundant with a setup like this. why not just download the entire album from a online music shop or rent said movie as a stream that you can start watching at any time?

in this house there are atleast 3 computers, all networked together. this is so that we dont have to argue about who gets to use the computer at any given moment.

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I'm not speaking of now -- I'm speaking of the future. CD's have been replaced by DVD's, and DVD's will get replaced by HDDVD or Blue Ray (Blue Ray computer drives will not be able to read CD's, btw), but what's after that?

I don't know what country you are in, but overhere in Europa the DVD has most certainly not replaced the CD. That's mostly because DVD-A pratically doesn't exist (SACD is even bigger). If you want music, there's only 1 way to go: CD's.

Movie's of course are on DVD, but all DVD players can read CD's. Add that the next step (whichever that may be, HD-DVD/BluRay, nothing is sure yet) will be backwards compatible with CD's and DVD's, CD has proven to be a pretty sustainable archival method. Sure, it won't live forever, but there's no sign of dying (it's so called replacements DVD-A and SACD are, like I said, not really competing).

So if MD is over, it's lasted a little too short.

Edited by Breepee2
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I'm not speaking of now -- I'm speaking of the future. CD's have been replaced by DVD's, and DVD's will get replaced by HDDVD or Blue Ray (Blue Ray computer drives will not be able to read CD's, btw), but what's after that? Flash will have matured at that point and we'll be employing that.

Did you read the post I made near the start of the topic? recap. 850Gb AO-DVD from Toshiba. Expected release in 2008-2009. I hope this format crushes Blu-ray & HD-DVD. That way the companies involved can stop bitching about whose format is better and make things easier for the consumer.

err, what do price have to say about quality?

The audio industry is quite possibly the ONLY industry where you CAN'T (or it's damn near impossible to find) an equivalent product for half the price. Audio equipment is not a commodity; a good system will last well over 10 years so it makes sense to spend good money. "Buy it once, buy it right'.

and by the looks of it most people are very happy with the quality of sound they are getting from most pod products using the stock earphones

Let's be honest; people only use those little white earbuds of distortion so that they can tell the world how cool they think they are.

Flash memory won' t take over optical for DECADES. Flash is expensive to manufacture, there are too many CD/DVD drives in the world (people are loathe to upgrade unless it is for a good purpose. Look at HD TV in Australia; the content has to be worthwile to warrant purchase), and blank optical storage is REALLY cheap.

By the way, aren't floppy discs meant to be dead by now...

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Did you read the post I made near the start of the topic? recap. 850Gb AO-DVD from Toshiba. Expected release in 2008-2009. I hope this format crushes Blu-ray & HD-DVD. That way the companies involved can stop bitching about whose format is better and make things easier for the consumer.

The audio industry is quite possibly the ONLY industry where you CAN'T (or it's damn near impossible to find) an equivalent product for half the price. Audio equipment is not a commodity; a good system will last well over 10 years so it makes sense to spend good money. "Buy it once, buy it right'.

Let's be honest; people only use those little white earbuds of distortion so that they can tell the world how cool they think they are.

Flash memory won' t take over optical for DECADES. Flash is expensive to manufacture, there are too many CD/DVD drives in the world (people are loathe to upgrade unless it is for a good purpose. Look at HD TV in Australia; the content has to be worthwile to warrant purchase), and blank optical storage is REALLY cheap.

By the way, aren't floppy discs meant to be dead by now...

Well said!!

Back to Hi-MD - the local Fry's store just got in a bunch of RH910s and about 100 blue Hi-MD blanks. They had the RH10s but those apparently went out the door pretty quickly. Can you beat that! I just wonder how many customers are using them as recorders? It says "player" on the blister package ("MP3 Player" sticker!!), not Recorder. Crazy.

As I type this, I'm enjoying the incredible sound of a DAT walkman using some tapes I recorded a while ago. What a rugged machine - solid metal construction with real metallic enamel paint, durable, never skips, even when recording. It just keeps on going and going... Yes, tape.

My expensive flash recorders were cheaply made plastic junk by comparison (if there even can be one). They even sounded cheap, somehow. I had temporarily succumbed to the neat idea of having no moving parts to worry about. In my area Hi-MD blanks go for about $6.00 whereas 1G CF cards sell for $90 - $110! No contest. The prices are NOT falling quickly by any stretch of the imagination.

Oh, by the way, even when flash prices come down, the format still has issues (contact problems and static discharge damage come immediately to mind). MO media remain an excellent long term option and come in handy sizes.

Cheers

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The audio industry is quite possibly the ONLY industry where you CAN'T (or it's damn near impossible to find) an equivalent product for half the price. Audio equipment is not a commodity; a good system will last well over 10 years so it makes sense to spend good money. "Buy it once, buy it right'.

maybe so but for most people out there that either dont work with music or are not obesessed with out-bing-ing their fellows the low cost all on one boxes are good enough. so, posting about what something costs as a label about how good they sound dont work. atleast it dont do so for me. hell, im listening to music on my pc thru some fairly old pc speakers as i type this :P

Let's be honest; people only use those little white earbuds of distortion so that they can tell the world how cool they think they are.

those that buy a apple ipod buy them as much for image as for listening yes. but what about those that buy creative, iriver, or any other brand and still use the stock earbuds?

it often helps to understand what drives things by taking a step down from ones cloud of enlightend knowledge.

ms office and windows stays in use not because it happens to be better, but because its good enough for the job people want to do, surf, mail, im and writing stuff. only thing that changes this is that people now see that one gets sued left right and center for piracy, and as they maybe cant afford that they rather go for linux or similar that dont cost them as much (if anything at all).

its cost and convinience that drives the markets, not quality, atleast not past the point that the masses see as good enough. that is, unless they are going for image/bling.

as in, people deck out their cars from a image angle, not from a quality angle. it just happens that in some areas quality and image goes hand in hand. like say how a well made suit helps with your image in politics and economics. come there with a cheap one and your automaticaly second rate.

so i have stopped pushing stuff on people and rather inform them on the positives and negatives of each option, one of them being cost, and then let them choose based on what they feel they need.

sure, maybe the world could become a better place if the enlightend elite ruled and everyone else just followed. but even enlightend rule can become oppressive given time. and what if one enlightend dont aggre with a thoughts and plans of a diffrent enlightend?

i hate saying this but in the end its the lowest common denominator that counts. thats why 99% of the music files out there still is mp3s even tho one have better and more effective codecs. its good enough for the "unwashed masses".

it may at times help to take a step out of ones ivory tower and see what the world looks like for the rest of those that live there. im sure i dont do it enough tho...

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This is my first post so go easy on me.

I haven't read this entire thread, but the feeling I get is that there's one party who thinks that flash based devices will be the future of "musical data storage", while others feel otherwise, correct? There's some other little debates about CD s vs. DVDs, etc.

I'm not sure that I agree that flash based devices will the future or not, but I can tell you that I wouldn't buy a portable hard drive to store music or files. A hard drive is nothing more than a collection of stacked, spinning 'platters' .

A CD or DVD is also not redundant enough for many large corporations to use to back up data, tape drives are still widely used becuase of a simple feature: it does what it's supposed to do and it works as it was intended to. Reports of CDs & DVDs wearing out after 7-10 yrs is not what I call redundant. I've only read articles and never come across it myself, but its enough to make me think that CDs & DVDs aren' as good as tape backup for the long term.

so the question comes back to "what are you going to use it for?" If you want quality live recording gear, with possibility of redundancy (replaceable media): go for MD. If you want to load up your entire music collection in one device, go get a nano.

Sorry this is long but I also would like to add that the technology will not determine what is going to be the "future" of portable players/recorders. Marketing & big business and availability will determine that.

Case in point: VHS & Beta

Case #2 : Atrac vs. Mp3 Sony wanted to control everything, the quality was better, but because of their lack of vision, mp3 is the dominant choice as a result of it's availability and use.

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funny thing is that i belive many corps are going MO media for backups these days. only reason tape is still widely used in install base. as in, why trow out that tape robot when its working so fine?

but for a new install i would think MO would be a logical choise...

funny thing is that its basicly the same tech as the MD...

only that the discs are cd sized...

Edited by hobgoblin
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As a long time MD follower, I have been quite disppointed about Sony's decision though which was expected. The reason for the failure of MD is simpy to simple that MD is NOT an open format. Too much concern is involved in the copy right protection issue. I just don't know why I have to spend hours in porting music into my MD disc via a computer thru the bug loaded Sonic Stage while I can finish it in seconds using my IRiver or iPod. Why Sony has to rely on a dying technology while Sony can push the HiMD using blue laser and open the SonicStage to the public, rivals the survival, if not iPod, but other MP3 players.

The history jsut repeats itself. :wacko::wacko::wacko:

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err, ipod allso requires a special program to transfer music to it.

its only that its not a drm feature and therefor was simple for people using alternative os's to open it up.

on the ipod the drm is on the individual files only from what i understand. on the md its in the very design of the player :(

Edited by hobgoblin
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err, ipod allso requires a special program to transfer music to it.

its only that its not a drm feature and therefor was simple for people using alternative os's to open it up.

on the ipod the drm is on the individual files only from what i understand. on the md its in the very design of the player :(

No 'special' program as there are alternatives. DRM is only on iTunes music store files, not ripped ones. Sony at least finally caught on with SS3.2.

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those that buy a apple ipod buy them as much for image as for listening yes. but what about those that buy creative, iriver, or any other brand and still use the stock earbuds?

Ah, yes, the unwritten rule of portable audio. NEVER, EVER, EVER use stock earphones. Quite frankly, you would have to be an idiot to jam plastic into your ears. But I digress. My point on my earlier post is that iPod owners use stock earphones just to (try to) look cool. One could safely assume that Creative and iRiver owners care more about what's coming from the earphones rather than being shallow enough to worry about what they look like. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I saw someone using the crappy stock Creative or iRiver (or Sony) earbuds. Even now, I'm seeing more iPod owners start to use aftermarket headphones. The small, white, plastic distortion creators are still prevalent though...

it often helps to understand what drives things by taking a step down from ones cloud of enlightend knowledge.

It would be good if Sony were a higher level audio company, like Mackie or Tannoy, where if they turn a profit then that's good enough. It RELLY sucks when profits get in the way of good products (video games, anyone...).

its cost and convinience that drives the markets, not quality, atleast not past the point that the masses see as good enough. that is, unless they are going for image/bling
I'll have to argue the cost point. Look at BOSE; way overpriced yet people still buy BOSE in droves because thier stuff looks good and performs good enough. Not GREAT, but good enough for Joe Blow, not that Joe Blow could afford Bose's ludicrous prices. Speaking of purchasing based on looks, have you heard of a company called Bang & Olufsen?

so i have stopped pushing stuff on people and rather inform them on the positives and negatives of each option, one of them being cost, and then let them choose based on what they feel they need.
This is probably going to sound hypocritical but I when someone asks me "what sort of portable audio device should I buy", the first thing I'll say is "What do you need it for?" and then I'll say "Don't buy an iPod". I do my best to accept that some people aren't as banal or picky as I when it comes to audio, but it really shits me off when peple buy an inferior product (that usually costs more), justs because it looks good. I have a saying that goes "iPod is a waste of the gift of individual thought", i.e. you have the power to think differently from other people but instead you go and decide to be just like everyone else. Derr

it may at times help to take a step out of ones ivory tower and see what the world looks like for the rest of those that live there. im sure i dont do it enough tho...

I'll do my best! ^_^ Thanks for the constructive criticism anyway. No, really, I mean it.

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No 'special' program as there are alternatives. DRM is only on iTunes music store files, not ripped ones. Sony at least finally caught on with SS3.2.

special in that you cantjust drag and drop files onto a removable media icon located somewhere on your desktop...

using a iriver or iaudio player you can do this. and if one could allso do this with a himd player it would be interesting to say the least ;)

Ah, yes, the unwritten rule of portable audio. NEVER, EVER, EVER use stock earphones. Quite frankly, you would have to be an idiot to jam plastic into your ears. But I digress. My point on my earlier post is that iPod owners use stock earphones just to (try to) look cool. One could safely assume that Creative and iRiver owners care more about what's coming from the earphones rather than being shallow enough to worry about what they look like. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I saw someone using the crappy stock Creative or iRiver (or Sony) earbuds. Even now, I'm seeing more iPod owners start to use aftermarket headphones. The small, white, plastic distortion creators are still prevalent though...

well for some reason i find those that came with my grundig portable cd player fully usable. sure there is better equipment out there but i dont feel like wearing big eardrums just for listening to music while traveling to and from places. but each their own. i guess it just shows that im no prosumer i guess ;)

It would be good if Sony were a higher level audio company, like Mackie or Tannoy, where if they turn a profit then that's good enough. It RELLY sucks when profits get in the way of good products (video games, anyone...).

yes it allways sucks. but the only way to remove that problem is to remove greed, and good luck with that...

I'll have to argue the cost point. Look at BOSE; way overpriced yet people still buy BOSE in droves because thier stuff looks good and performs good enough. Not GREAT, but good enough for Joe Blow, not that Joe Blow could afford Bose's ludicrous prices. Speaking of purchasing based on looks, have you heard of a company called Bang & Olufsen?

when it performs good enough, looks have a bad habbit of driving price way out of proportions. we humans are slaves to good looks. be it cars, clothes, partners in life or anything else. we are kinda trying to buy ourselfs status this way. and yes im fully aware of bang &olufsen. never liked their kind of design.

This is probably going to sound hypocritical but I when someone asks me "what sort of portable audio device should I buy", the first thing I'll say is "What do you need it for?" and then I'll say "Don't buy an iPod". I do my best to accept that some people aren't as banal or picky as I when it comes to audio, but it really shits me off when peple buy an inferior product (that usually costs more), justs because it looks good. I have a saying that goes "iPod is a waste of the gift of individual thought", i.e. you have the power to think differently from other people but instead you go and decide to be just like everyone else. Derr

cant agree more, im looking into any music player other then crative and apple products just for the sake of being diffrent. and as i can find some very nice and very diffrent products in those iaudio players (i like the idea of "large" lcd on the remote, with a clip on the back for attachment to clothing, and only 3 buttons on the player itself. may have to get myself a m3 before they are discontinued) im happy :) funny that much of the good stuff is coming out of south korea these days. now if only some company there would licence the himd format and release it from those silly requirements of sonicstage and drm.

I'll do my best! ^_^ Thanks for the constructive criticism anyway. No, really, I mean it.

glad to be of service.

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now if only some company there would licence the himd format and release it from those silly requirements of sonicstage and drm.

*cough* someone please make a WAV/WMA hack for Hi-MD so people can use the excellent Creative Mediasource software *cough* ^_^

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