Sony NW-HD1

[SemiLOOSE]

sony finally decides to take on the HDD mape market

but by the time this new player get here..all the other leading comapnies will have colour screen on their players....sony gone loopy!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/3855745.stm

[FlameGrilled]

No, not gone loopy .. lik their other mainstream hifi counterparts.. they let the gadget-freak firms make the mistakes that cost money...

Sony build entirely to suit their reliable market sharee, not the fickle gadgeteers..

That's why MD still sells, and if they did their homework.. the HDD unit will have enough takers to make worth the research.

[FlameGrilled]

An seeing as it's an ATRAC deck, not an MP3 player .. all further comparisions are redundant.

It'll probably be ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus or ATRAC-S enabled. The giveaway is the propriety format only support (hence ATRAC/OMG) and it's intention to support use of the Connect EMD service, which is ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus only supplying service.

The only deck-type Sony make that actually natively supports non-ATRAC modes, is the ATRAC CD Walkman series that has an onboard decoder for mp3 - the rest of Sony's mp3 supporting kit is the NetMD and Network Walkman series.. that uses transcoded MP3's in ATRAC form for playback.

[SemiLOOSE]

i dont mind atrac3
but colour screen would be nice, especially when all its competitors are moving on from the basic screen

the battery lasts 30 hours apprently, i think they doing that 1 song repeat testing like apple

[NiceMarmot]

"The NW-HD1's primary format is Sony's own ATRAC 3 Plus - other formats are converted to that mode when they're transferred over to the player."

So how long would it take to transfer over the 20gb of mp3s I've got if they've got to be re-encoded?

Anything that locks you into a propriatory format is not for me. Hence my purchase of the HP140

[SemiLOOSE]

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0701/sony1.htm

shuld i be talkin about this on an iriver forum?!?!

[XavierGr]

No,no,no.... sony is crazy to do such thing! No mp3!!!? Come on who will buy this thing?
Ok its very small but why spent 400 euros on a product that will take me to rerip my entire collection? Not to mention that you cant storage data and transfer songs in every PC you want.

Its a shame to see a company like this taking such policies. Sony is a company that can really progress the DAP community but not with these actions. I am very dissapointed to that.

Other companies try to implement as many codecs as possible, instead sony sticks to the worst, "ATRAC".

Anyway they will be doomed in sales you'll see!

[AFF]

Originally Posted by NiceMarmot

Anything that locks you into a propriatory format is not for me. Hence my purchase of the HP140

my sentiments entirely. i don't really understand what the benefits of this product will be yet. are there any or does sony have a masterplan?

[SemiLOOSE]

this way sony doesnt have to pay royalties for using mp3 format..

these players come with software which converts mp3/wma into atrac3 or atrac3plus format

[y0da]

sony lives in sonyland where people will actually buy a DAP for $400 that underperforms....the y have been crippleing there hardware for a long time now ....hell part of the reason i have a "H"erbert is because they decided to restrict what you could transfer under the whole NetMD scheme...the only reason Hi-MD came out with UMS is because so many pple complained they got ripped off because the player didn't do what it seemed to be able to do.....this DAP will fail.... no one in this market will want something that can't play music in a format that they already have there entire collection encoded in if it was a matter of royalties they could at least impliment ogg vorbis or another open codec....i bet this thing will be pulled back to japan where no dout there will be no problem with slipping sales

[Exo]

y0da is right, I know people that will buy Sony regardless of how good they are.

Take the VIAO laptops they did a few years ago, a real joke and well expensive but they sold well because they looked nice (iPod *cough cough*).

Seriously though, I think they'll sell well ... the average joe doesn't care about formats, they just want music on a small portable unit.

Us lot (i.e. iRiver/iPod uers etc) are "into" MP3/OGG/ACC/WMA so will demand the formats we know is good.

iRiver need to worry more than Apple on losing a share of the market to Sony I feel.
But those that persue the best product will buy an iRiver right now.

[SemiLOOSE]

sony is playing catch up,
its releasing 4 different portable media players

1. NW-HD1 as mentioned above
2. Pocket vaio VGF-AP1
3. portable media player HMP-A1
4. portable video player PCVA-HVP20

"But those that persue the best product will buy an iRiver right now."

the H300s does look good, just not so good when u think about support

[SemiLOOSE]

i posted this news about sony's "mp3" player on ipodlounge..
and people there are hating sony...

whats the differnce between people here and people there?
i dont see any hating sony here...

[QT]

I just found this picture of the main unit. See attachement....

[Sp00k]

I certainly don't hate Sony, I just avoid them like the plague!!

Try getting spares or repair on an older model, try obtaining neccessary accessories to keep them running (sub-miniature reel-to-reel cassette tapes the size of a postage-stamp, to suit the NT-1, in my case... a £600+ machine). Try all those and you'll see why I feel as I do.

In addition to which, the build-quality and reliability of their recent consumer-electronic products is nowhere near as good as it once used to be IMHO.

[ManchesterUnited4Life]

When I first saw the unit at Gizmodo, the first thing I noticed was the green backlight, followed by the GUI, which absolutely stinks IMHO - it got worse after reading the Spec List (all I'm going to say is that AFF has 'hit the nail on the head' so to speak).

In fact, the only thing going for it, IMO, is its size. Even the aesthetics are poor when you consider what they produced with their QUALIA range of MD Players. It would have taken a Qualia design, AT LEAST, to rival the iP*d.

Having said all that, I'll end on what was said by TheRegister.co.uk;

Sony's 'kludgy' MP3 support may hinder it, but if Apple can get away with what is effectively its own music format, so can Sony

[uXs]

I'm not buying anything which doesn't have MP3 AND Ogg support. (And I'm perfectly happy with my H120 right now, so I'm not buying anything for a while anyway.)

[FlameGrilled]

Anyone who really feels they can state that Sony will fail, is literally talking out of their ass.

They have a section of the DA market they sell to primarily, and it's to that market they'll suceed in if nothing else. A failure to capture the mp3 lovers by the neck and make them jump ship, isn't much of a loss to a company - they have a native mp3 decoding deck series called the ATRAC CD Walkman's to pander to mp3 obsessives.

It's pretty obvious, to me anyway, this new HDD unit will more than likely be Sony's attack on the DAP market that falls into the same category as the iPod/iTunes MS turnout.

If so, it's no bad thing since Apple are hardly losing customer loyalty rapidly for all the weaknesses of the iPOD.

Total hatred vs Sony is a bit rare here, but it does exist (this topic reveals some of it) - i can offer some sympathy on account of SpOOK.. as when a spares situation does get a little hairy.. it's frustration fuel.

According to my friend, the guy who informs me of the sources of lots of my audio bargains, he has little or no problem getting parts & spares out of Sony(UK). Then again, it's a rarity of times when he is stuck for any spares.

I'm a Sony user myself, mostly due to the outstanding battery life of the CDP i bought (noone else touches that kinda performance in the endurance department). I used MD for many years in the workplace, so I got to know ATRAC long before most of the lossy codec users who based their hatred for it on second-hand info, got into the DA game. If personal MD decks had hi-md capacity (higher than CD-ROM, at best .. so bordering on the territory of the baby hdd decks) and the battery endurance of the D-NE1, MD would be a done deal instead of ATRAC CD.

ATRAC, like any other lossy codec, does it's job - that's the important base issue to remember re codecs.

All i will say, to close, is the 'Sony will fail' attitude tends to selectively gloss over the fact that Sony are the only DAP manufacturer (AWIA is more a subsidary than a make these days) that sells directly into the hifi marketplace - everyone else is part reliant on the internet culture perception of downloadable music and it's perception of lossy audio as their audience.

And like anyone will tell you, the HiFi marketplace continues to survive even when it panders to excesses commonly, because the HiFi buyers dont subscribe to the 'i want it for free dammit' internet culture philosophy. They dont mind buying at a slighty higher price, goods that do the job for them, from a make that is literally a granddaddy of modern hifi.

If i had to ditch my hifi kit tomorrow, and means dictated Sony was as premium as i could afford or justify.. so be it, as i find Sony to be typically of a muchness - a reliable muchness when it comes to their serious kit. I'd still ditch the speakers for some Wharf's, but that's taste not a reflection of standard speakers with serious Sony kit.

[sweetspot]

Anyone who really feels they can state that Sony will fail, is literally talking out of their ass.

Yes and no. I think that if someone boasts such a thing, they'd better make sure to be very specific when saying what they'll fail at. I DO believe that Sony will fail to reach a particular demographic of the market, while at the same time, continue to pull be famous for doing what they always do: " get the blind vast majority of shopping mall consumers".

The demo they'll fail to reach, is almost every DAP aware tech junkie who resides on some forum or another, who don't forget, will always do their best to educate their friends and family in the process. The c0mmunity which will undoubtedly be the most biased and blinded, is the MD community. I've never seen such blind devotion to a unconvenient technology as ATRAC, and the will to herald its format..it's un-nerving. I own a MD recorder, and think it SOUNDS fantastic, but for the hassle you have to put up with in order to format the discs to the proprietary ATRAC is just unreasonable IMO, and I think that only a very small percentage of people will ever see it as a non-issue, while the rest of us see so many of its inherant flaws.

Someone said that there was no Sony hating going on here..well lemmie' step up to the plate and be the first to say "Hi, my name is Doug, and I'm a Sony Hater". I'm also a "BIT" of a hippocrite, because I own Sony headphones, but IMO, headphones, and gear which dons proprietary input jacks ect, in order to force you to keep buying said brands products, is a different story. Sony has always been infamous for making products which could only be paired with other Sony gear !

Here's a good reason why I currently hate Sony: I think that the current DAP is one of the sexiest things I've ever seen. It has enormous potential, great standing features such as the ability to do gapless straight off the bat (ATRAC does gapless by default), OTF playlists, bookmarking, nice inline remote etc..but this is all for naught when you read something such as this:

Words from a U.S. Sony insider

Fantastic Wired article that still holds its own. Good read

Basically the gist of my hate towards Sony can be summed bp by saying that they are for one..huge hippocrites. So copy protection schemes, and proprietary hardware and software formats are supposed to keep the artists and developers safe from pirates, but on the other hand, you've got a large portion of revenue coming in which rely's on selling BLANK CDR CDRW media ? Oh..OK then !

Two that they are run by asses who assume that all people are thieves, which makes ME believe that this mentality is due to the fact that it takes one to know one....and three, I'll NEVER support communism. When I'm being FORCED into doing something, in order to play ball..there's just something wrong with that. Sure, there are choices out there...but if Sony wants ME to line their pockets, buy their glorious devices and ignore the competition, they're going to have to give me a choice between the existing formats out there, just like all the other electronic manufacturers do.

Lemmie be the first to say : Bite me Sony !

[Sp00k]

Interesting links SS, particularly this extract from one of them that caught my eye...

...another contact at Sony, one who deals with high-level executives in Tokyo, told him that the company’s top leadership makes decisions based on what is popular (in) Japan and feels that what they make should be based only on what Japanese consumers like ..... They refuse to pay attention to other trends around the world.

Now I wonder, does this remind anyone of another company situated in that part of the world?

[SemiLOOSE]

that sounds like poppycock..

if sony only cares for japanese people why doesnt it just make stuff for japanese people ..
why bother releasing it to the rest of the world?

i dont see why you have to hate a company, all companies do the same thing, all they want is the profit to soar, the world is full of hippocrites.

why do i buy sony? coz i trust sony quality over other companies. it does bother me when they have a memory stick and a memory stick duo and i cant use the big one in the new machines coz they use the small memory card (kinda forcin me to buy the small one) but thats natural to all companies, u cant just dig at sony!

i think its silly to hate sony on those basis that were mentioned ,
imagine if they didnt exist we would have to put up with second rate products

[profingersk8er]

sony has the tech for awsome units, few of sony's new units have showed that, however they always shoot themselves in the foot by makeing them ATRAC3 only..
how sad

[MGogesch]

I will start by saying, Sony has killed their line of DAPs. The "Check in/Check out" system has got to be the dumbest thing i have ever seen. BUT what everyone here has to keep in mind, is that most of the people in this forum are more technicly inclined than the avarage DAP user. If you dont have some clue of what you are doing, you probably wouldnt buy an iRiver. (iTunes IS simpler than using Explorer, BUT i would perfer to do it myself) This player WILL NOT FAIL becuase to to uninformed masses, those specs look really good.

Second point-
Dont forget what sony did for the DAP market.
They came out with the first really portable mp3 players. Sony may not make the best things, but what they do when they enter a market, is add competition. When people start buying these Sony players, the market will adapt, causing the other manufacturers to give us even cooler stuff, at an even better price. (This has happend [with sony] in several other markets countless numberes of times)

In conclusion-
I dont hate Sony, I dont dislike Sony, I would never touch a Sony DAP. Believe it or not Sony makes good stuff. Though the ATRAC stuff is reallly stupid, it does what it is supposed to do. They arent making any false clames here.