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Yet another NEW HDD music player from Sony, NW-HD1

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Leland

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It is interesting that this comes short on the heels of the Vaio Pocket, but is not branded Vaio. It is half the size, same capacity, no color screen, roughly similar battery life and the same list price in Japan. It makes me think there are competing development teams in Sony, one from the computer group and one from consumer electronics. Another idea would be that the Vaio Pocket was a decoy while they readied this more compelling unit for sale. It is surprising that the announcement is so close to the first ship date. For something this new, that is uncommon for Sony.

For me, this product is perfect. I can use my existing SS2 database, but migrate to a HDD system. If it looks good in person, I'm getting one for sure. My biggest problem is that I will be outside Japan during July so I won't be the first person on the list to have one as has been the case a few times in the past. mad.gif

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It looks like the round dial next to the display works as a scroll wheel to navigate playlists. On the Sony Japan website, there is a nice flash based description of the device.

Also, my guess that the Vaio Pocket and NW-HD1 were developed by different teams is confirmed. In the Asian Wall Street Journal today there is an article about the NW-HD1 describing it as the best shot yet Sony has to compete with the Ipod. It goes on to quote Shizuo Takashino, executive deputy president at Sony and responsible for both the Vaio and the Walkman divisions. He says the Vaio Pocket came out of the Vaio group and that Sony is known for letting its business units develop products autonomously and that ultimately one of the two gadgets - either the Walkman or Vaio player - probably will win out in the market. He is quoted as saying "They overlap a bit, but I think that's OK. I suppose from the standpoint of focus and selection, it's not the best thing"

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Battery life seems good. One of the things that was most attractive about MDs was the battery life of it's players, surpassing anything i know in mp3 players and discmen. Now the Hi-MD has a very crappy battery life, it lose that up and can't compensate with anything else, it's just going into the same market field as everyone else, trying to have a big disc space but certainly failing as well. I'd rather buy an a classic MD player with long battery life and change disc more often. Now that even HDD players can beat battery life of MD.... I shake my head in shame.

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Battery life seems good.  Now the Hi-MD has a very crappy battery life, it lose that up and can't compensate with anything else, .

Eh? I've read the Hi-MD has a good battery life of up to 27 hours. That's pretty good in my book, especially off of one AA battery that is easy to replace.

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Battery life of a NH900

PCM/Hi-SP/Hi-LP play record

NiMH NH-10WM: 5/8/10 hr 4/5/6 hr

AA x 1: 10/18/23 hr 3/5/5 hr

Both: 15/26/33 hr 7/10/11 hr

SP/LP2/LP4

NiMH NH-10WM: 9/10/12 hr 5/7/7 hr

AA x 1: 18/22/25 hr 7/8/10 hr

Both: 27/32/37 hr 12/15/17 hr

Battery life of a comparable classic md recorder, the N910

NiMH NH-14WM: 31/38/45 hr 11/16/20 hr

AA x 1: 47/57/69 hr 11/16/21 hr

Both: 80/95/114 hr 29/38/50 hr

We can't compare with the NiMH specs because the NH-14WM has more charge than the NH-10WM. But we can compare the AA battery. And clearly, the classic MD's battery life is more than twice that of a HiMD.

Playback only MDs can reach battery life of more than 200 hours, and now our battery life is nothing more than on par with MP3s and HDDs. This IS crap.

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27 hours seems fine to me.

That's crappy.

I don't know many people who listen to their MD's for more than 27 hours at a time. :happy:

And considering that we're moving around 1Gb of data instead of 150mb for the same comparative AA battery, your stats actually show good battery times.

But regardless, I'm truly sorry for the people who expected Hi-MD to last 80 hours a day. I bet Sony will be losing a lot of customers from that demographic.

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I apologise for my stupidity, but what does "moving" 1GB and 150MB of data have anything to do with battery life? Unless I remember incorrectly, playback times and battery duration times are measured in hours, minutes and seconds, not MB and GBs.

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I apologise for my stupidity, but what does "moving" 1GB and 150MB of data have anything to do with battery life?

Higher data transfer rate.

There should be specs lying around.

I think... SP/LP2/LP4 works in a similar way? LP4 > SP in battery life?

EDIT: Current MD's have 177mb of storage. No idea where I pulled 150mb out from.

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That's because LP4 is lower bitrate, which means more data can be stored in the buffer, and hence less physical/mechanical activity since longer lengths of audio can be read at any one seek. A single seek can store roughly 40~50 seconds of traditional SP audio, whereas LP4 will store 4x that amount, hence 4x less physical/mechanical activity is required, and that's where you get longer battery play times.

Hi-SP is 256kbps, just slightly under traditional SP's 292kbps. This has absolutely nothing to do with the discs data storage capacity. Audio is time-base measured, not data capacity. If Hi-MD has 6x the data storage capacity compared to traditional MD, it stores 6x (actually more, since Hi-MD uses a smaller bitrate, ie. higher compression) the length of audio.

So do you have any idea what you're on about, or am I just blabbering rubbish?

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I think the reason for the lower battery life figures (mainly speculation and conjecture - don't take this as fact), is that in order to read from the disc, the player needs to write to the disc on two layers before hand, forming a little window for the third "data" layer to be visible through. Because it is easier to be more accurate when writing than when reading, this method means that they can have a much higher density. If I understand things correctly (which I don't), then this means that considering what the player is doing, these figures are quite good.

Of course, as consumers, we don't need to cut it any slack at all, if we don't like it we can just not buy it. But, I think these battery life figures show that Sony has actually put some effort into increasing battery life.

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Andy, you're on the right track here, the windowing layer has to be heated by the laser to achieve the magnification effect. And that costs energy. But that doesn't explain the shorter running time in NetMD-Mode, as with old discs, this heating isn't necessary. I expect, that the second or third generation of Hi-MD players will have a considerably higher running time.

Btw, Sony never had the most enduring players out there, other brands outperformed Sony players regularly in the battery life department.

On the other paw, compared to my R37, the numbers are indeed very good.

@Fast Eddie: Get used to it, Skytherx is the provocative one here.

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I understand that the new disc technology makes the battery life shorter than the old one, and as Andy said we don't have to cut it any slack at all since this isn't gonna change anything to the fact that i'm getting less music. About the bitrates, i don't intend to use PCM so i don't expect it to get a shorter battery life.

The thing is a larger disc but less battery life does not seem like a good tradeoff for me. I don't use the lower models that run only on AA (because it's fat, and i think MDs' flatness is another attractive factor that shouldn't be discarded lest you become just another fat HDD player) and it's a pain always having to recharge the battery. I have a sharp MT877 and now that the battery is two years old it holds less than half of its innitial charge. If an MD like the NH900 has short battery life to start with, the rechargable battery providing half of that after being worn down would be horrible. Larger discs just doesn't cut it. A disc you can carry more than one to cope, and you reuse them time after time. But batteries, they die a little everytime you use them. On a long run, i don't need a disc that can play music for a week but a battery that wouldn't even last a fift of that.

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