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Media (Apple) Media Music Toys

Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw Blood 440

Posted by Hemos from the good-news-for-apple dept.
Mr_Silver writes "Walter Mossberg (of WSJ fame) managed to review the new Sony NW-HD1 and was distinctly unimpressed. The upsides: it's smaller, lighter and has a battery life of 20 hours. The downsides: goodbye MP3 - hello ATRAC3, slow upload (and converting) times and the confusing user interface on the walkman, PC software and the music store. When will someone pass Sony the cluestick?"
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Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw Blood More

Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw Blood

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  • Battery life question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dalamarian ( 741404 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:32PM (#9853089)
    I am curious why some of the other mp3 players out there comparable in storage and size to the ipod achieve so much more battery life?
    Ideas?

    • Re:Battery life question (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      RTFA on this one. They say the stated capacity and battery life only happens when you convert to such a poor quality of file that it sounds like wet dog shit.

    • Re:Battery life question (Score:2, Informative)

      by xombo ( 628858 )
      The iPod has one of the best MP3 decoders and amplifiers in the business. It sucks a lot of juice in comparison to the cheap junk the other companies throw in.

      • Re:Battery life question (Score:5, Informative)

        by character_assassin ( 773327 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:48PM (#9853199)
        It's nothing compared to the Rio Karma. The Karma supports true gapless playback, and has the best S/N ratio of any mojor HD-based player. The docking cradle has ethernet, and the player has a built-in webserver. Last but not least, it's less expensive than the iPod.

        • Re:Battery life question (Score:4, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:45PM (#9853510)
          Not to mention that it supports FLAC and Ogg (which won the latest round of public listening test [rjamorim.com]. And Rio is now owned by Denon-Marantz, who certainly know a thing or two about audio. The Karma even includes Sennheisser earbuds (unfortunately mx-300 rather than mx-500).

        • Re:Battery life question (Score:4, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:54PM (#9853543)

          ...and the player has a built-in webserver.

          I always wondered why I was never really happy when listening to music with my iPod. Finally I know...

        • Exactly. (Score:5, Informative)

          by sp0rk173 ( 609022 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @04:22PM (#9854046)
          I'm actually suprised the Karma hasn't gotten more press on slashdot. It's seriously the geek's mp3 player. The parent mentioned the webserver, but didn't mention that you can download a java app from the karma, and then upload music to it from any OS that has a working java implementation. I've been able to ass songs to mine from Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux this way. For me this is a HUGE advantage and shows a little bit of creativity/foresight on the side of Rio. Also the inclusion of open-source standard codecs like ogg and FLAC (For real audiophiles) is a huge plus. Yet, everyone on here is enamoured with the ipod.
          • The best part about the iRiver is that they (intelligently) decided it should use usb-mass storage to get stuff on and off the thing. Which makes it like a glorified USB memory stick which can additionally play many types of audio formats.

            Unfortuantely, you can't use the thing while it's docked... so the Karma wins in that respect (using it as a stereo system component). But it's got SPDIF optical in and out, and it can record to MP3 from the optical in; as far as I know, nobody has that feature.

            • Re:also the iRiver (like moi) (Score:4, Informative)

              by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear.pacbell@net> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:05PM (#9855846) Homepage
              You know that the iPod is a mass storage device (FIrewire and USB) as well?

              It's just a hard drive when you plug it in. When iTunes uploads music, it's via straight hard drive transfer. The *only* reason you need iTunes is to optimize the battery performance of the iPod. It writes an index file for every song uploaded into the iPod so that when you are browsing, seeking, and viewing title/album/artist info, you aren't killing battery life by thrashing the hard drive. Instead you are reading a roughly 11mb database.

    • Re:Battery life question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by morcheeba ( 260908 ) * on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:37PM (#9853128) Journal
      The big battery-killer is the drive. Find a way to use it less, and you'll get longer battery life. Two ways: more SDRAM buffer memory, and lower data rate (like the sibling post so eloquently poinnts out). Of course, if you skip around a lot so that your music selections are not predictable, you'll force the drive to spin up and kill it much sooner -- that's why a 2-hour SDRAM buffer won't help that much in real live (but it will make the specs look good)
    • The iPos offers an extensive amount of features that the other players don't. Additionally, the user-friendly features like the wheel interface and large LCD screen probably take more electricity than the cramped interfaces some of the competitors have.

      This Sony seems like a reasonable alternative so long as you don't mind the interface and are encoding directly to their proprietary format from CD rather than converting an MP3 collection. I don't know how you'd move copy-protected CDs, though most of th

      • Re:Battery life question (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Glonoinha ( 587375 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:36PM (#9853466) Journal
        This Sony seems like a reasonable alternative so long as you don't mind the interface and ... their proprietary (file) format

        That's like saying prison isn't so bad as long as you don't mind getting fscked up the ass.

        Guess what Sony - we mind. We have a zillion songs already on our hard drives in .MP3 format. Our music lives on as data long after the physical media had died / scratched / been lost or stolen.

        • Re:That's like saying prison isn't so bad as.... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by reezle ( 239894 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @03:39PM (#9853788) Homepage

          3 cheers fo you. (My sentiments exactly)

          I bought a car deck (MP3, with hard drive, and rip ability MEX-1HD I think) a few years back. Found out quickly that the deck would play MP3, rip audio CD's to it's ahrd drive, but would under NO CIRCUMSTANCES allow me to move my mp3 CD's into it's hard drive.

          3 days later, after tech support let me know it's a design fetaure to dissalow this kind of useful functionality. I removed the drive, and upgraded a laptop with it. (full format) Sony's idea of fair use had made it worthless to me.

          Hey Sony! I don't buy your products anymore cause of that one. None of them. I even refuse to resell Sony to my customers. Great job there guys....

  • Miss on all three counts... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dark Coder ( 66759 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:33PM (#9853093)
    Cluestick...
    non-MP3...
    dead battery...

    Sony R&D, try again. You missed the general populance.

    • Re:Miss on all three counts... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AllUsernamesAreGone ( 688381 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:58PM (#9853254)
      Sony R&D almost certainly would not have missed the general populace if it was just Sony in the picture. Sony's problems aren't their researchers or engineers who, IME, are some of the best - it's the influence Sony Entertainment (which deals with the media side of things- films, music, games etc) on the design decisions that causes all the problems. I have no doubt whatsoever that, left to themselves, Sony's designers would have produced something that could handle mp3, several other formats and given the ipod some real competition.

      But with the entertainment division and their lawyers jumping up and down about restricting the consumer's choice, the need for DRM and so on, they keep removing features, restricting things...

      I really, really wish Sony would ditch SE, but they aren't likely to :/

  • Sony's Business Model (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xombo ( 628858 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:33PM (#9853094)
    Sony will continue to compete despite the market's lack of adoption. They're still working on the minidisc format even when it's poorly accepted in the American market and most people prefer solid state or hard drive players. Not just that but a lot of people are getting fed up with Sony's recent lack of quality since they shifted a huge amount of their production to China. The PS2's disc read error is one such error and it's put me off from purchasing the PSP until at least a year after it comes out just to be sure there aren't any similar issues there. I wouldn't trust Sony's products farther than I could throw them.

    • Re:Sony's Business Model (Score:5, Funny)

      by bizpile ( 758055 ) * on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:41PM (#9853163) Homepage
      I wouldn't trust Sony's products farther than I could throw them.

      Do you realize how far you could throw a mini-disc?

    • Re:Sony's Business Model (Score:5, Informative)

      by Analog Penguin ( 550933 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:04PM (#9853282)
      I think the MD format would be much more popular if their copyright fascism were't allowed to dictate the specs.
      I got a MD recorder a few years ago to make recordings of concerts, lessons, recitals, and such (I'm a music major), and while the quality is decent and the portability useful, getting the recordings off the player is impossible to do digitally. NetMD doesn't support digital uploading unless the tracks were originally digitally downloaded onto the player, using their shitty software, which of course doesn't come for Mac, and didn't even work when I tried it on my family's PC. I understand you're limited to 2x speed uploading anyway. But the only option for Mac users, and anyone wanting to transfer home-made recordings, is analog upload. I wish I had researched this more beforehand, because this is infuriating.

      I think the MiniDisc format had great potential, but Sony's insistence on idiotic copyright meaures just make it way too inconvenient to gain wide acceptance. I use it mainly because (A) I already invested in it and (B) it's easy to cart around, but the format is so needlessly crippled as to be sad.

      • Minidisc could have been great if... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by tentimestwenty ( 693290 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @07:25PM (#9854988)
        It just acted like a native drive when connected to a computer. The medium itself is amazingly efficient and the new 1GB discs are a far better portable solution than anything else including CD. Even the size is about as small as an iPod and it doesn't scratch or easily deteriorate in harsh conditions. We all know the ways they screwed it up via DRM and cumbersome interfaces, but as to it's physical operation, if it was just like a ZIP disc, it would have been a huge success and given CD a big run for its money.

  • Poor hardware engineers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fname ( 199759 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:33PM (#9853096) Journal
    My heart really does go out to the hardware engineers at Sony. After all, they created a really nifty device that bests the iPod in two important areas (battery life, size). All they needed was workable software and no intentional crippling, and the NW1 would have been at least a strong #2. Instead, Sony intentionally crippled it by not enabling MP3 playback, over-promised what it really did (based on lousy, lossy 48kbps ATRAC3+), and provided mediocre software at best.

    One of these days, the hardware guys at Sony will get the upper hand again, and Apple really will have something to worry about.
    • Yeah, if this supported MP3, and maybe even auto-syned with iTunes, this would stand a chance at putting a dent in iPod sales, but as it stands, the player is basically useless because of the ATRAC 3 shit.

    • Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:53PM (#9853227)
      After all, they created a really nifty device that bests the iPod in two important areas (battery life, size)

      Uh...with the new iPod, there's much less of a difference. The iPod also weighs so little and is so small, it fits in a pocket just fine. The old ones were too big, but Apple hit it right with the 3rd/4th gen models. I don't see a need to make it smaller, sorry. If anything, the iPod is good hand-sized.

      Reading about how the iPod is inferior because it weighs more and has "only" 12 hours of battery life is insane; Sony's figures drop quite a bit if you play "higher bitrate" files, which you'll invariably have to do because ATRAC3 blows goats. Why didn't he test battery life at a bitrate that showed(in his judgement) no degradation from the original Mp3 file? I'd be willing to bet it's the same, or worse, than an iPod.

      Reading Mossberg's comments about how the iPod Mini is inferior because it has much less capacity misses the point- the iPod mini wasn't designed to compete with devices like the Sony player. It was designed to compete with all the high end solid-state-memory players, and it's done so nicely. I hate it when "technology writers" can't recognize distinct markets; it'd be like an auto reviewer comparing a corvette to a pickup truck. "The corvette sucks because it has no cargo capacity"...

      Nevermind that both the Mini and the iPod cost LESS than the Sony by at least $100...

      • Is it just me or does ATRAC3 sound like a brand of safety razor?

      • Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:5, Informative)

        by fname ( 199759 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @04:56PM (#9854222) Journal
        Geeze, I don't know where to start on this one. First, let me clarify one thing: I'm a giant Apple booster. But I use Apple products (iBook G4, PowerMac G4, Airport Express, 3G iPod, even a damn iSight) because they are great products; I don't defend Apple products strictly because Apple makes them. I've been accused of being a basher before (not that you have accused me here), oftentimes because I'm not afraid of calling a spade a spade.

        I read the review last week, so my memory may be fuzzy. But Sony claims a 30 hour battery life, making the cardinal mistake of overpromising when it's unnecessary (22 hours is damn good; they also overpromised on song storage-- saying it could hold 13,000 songs was just a stupid thing to do). But in Walt's test, he got 22 hours of usage for 132kbps 8TRAC compared to 12+ hours for the iPod. It clearly is the winner.

        Your other points are self-contradictory-- first saying that iPod is so small it doesn't need to be any smaller so Sony wasted their effort, then defending the iPod mini as being in a different class, so the comparison to the Sony is unfair. That's just wrong, as the Sony is small enough that many miniPod users would opt for the NW-1 instead. As for distinct markets, that's wishful thinking. There's a spectrum of MP3 players ranging from tiny flash based players,to larger (but still light) flash players to miniPod types, to the iPods and finally to the 60-80GB devices that are quite large. Apple did a very clever thing in trying to segment the market into 2 distincts, and then pointing out they have the best device in both markets. But just 'cause Apple says it, doesn't make it true.

    • Re:Poor hardware engineers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wtcher ( 312395 ) <exa+slashdot@minishapes.com> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:56PM (#9853242) Homepage
      Actually, historically, the big winners in the Sony space (walkman, Playstation, etc) were heavily (re)developed by Sony designers... not just "hardware guys". Sony has a famous design studio that is somewhat exclusive. So does Apple. This makes it kind of interesting to see the two groups compete.

      Did you know that one of the major Playstation designers was heavily influenced by the Macintosh Classic? ;)
    • The only two things the hardware engineers managed to do was 1) get pretty close to what makes the iPod design good and 2) make it even smaller.

      They did *not* manage to get out better battery life. The 20 hours of battery life apply if you use 48 kbps, which is even below the quality of your average kitchen-integrated radio. Going to a higher bitrate means more frequent hard drive access and higher CPU processing power requirements, and therefore more less battery life.

      Kudos to Sony for being the only com
  • The hardware looks really nice -- smaller, lighter, longer battery, and a magnesium case. (it's also $100 more). The only drawback is the stupid file format choice. How long is it going to be until someone hacks this to play standard MP3's? Figuring that out may be enough reason for me to buy one (heh!).

    Side note: it's pretty neat that they made it smaller. Assuming that it uses the same 1.8" drive, the ipod is already pretty close to that size [ipoding.com], so there isn't much remove for improvement.

  • Decision Makers? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by shadowkoder ( 707230 )
    Who sits in the company and makes the decisions about this product? Could they possibly hold one of these in their hands, use it on a day to day basis, and say its an ipod killer? Quit listening to the marketing execs for christ sake!

  • Cluesticks (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:34PM (#9853103) Homepage Journal
    I suspect the cluestick will come in the form of crappy sales.
  • I haven't seen anything from them lately that hasn't been a (weak) attempt to lock you into their proprietary (now-)second-rate import electronics. Seriously, it's bad enough that nothing they make is at all above low-to-average quality, but now they want to lock you into it? No way.

  • Sony Formats (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:37PM (#9853125)

    its quite amusing that Sony tries to promote its terrible formats but always fail, minidisc, ARTRAC, Betamax, MemoryStick the list of failures goes on and on

    perhaps if they embraced worldwide standards instead of its own attempts people might accept them
    do you think the PS2 would be quite as popular if they had used their own format of discs instead of DVD and CD's ?

    perhaps they should take a leaf out of their own experiences
    • Well, their formats aren't terrible in and of themselves; the reason they try to push these formats is because Sony spends a lot of money in design and development, and they don't want to share the fruits of their labours with anyone else. Copyright infringement and electronic media is just another apple in the basket they need to worry about now.
    • its quite amusing that Sony tries to promote its terrible formats but always fail...Betamax

      You need to recall that VHS is also a Sony developed format. They sold the rights to it after developing Betamax, which they felt was a superior system -- and still got Betamaxs to the market first.

      • Re:Sony Formats - Betamax/VHS (Score:5, Informative)

        by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:20PM (#9853369)
        Actually, I believe it was Japan Victor Corporation (JVC) that came up with VHS in 1976. RCA Victor went head-to-head with Sony on that one, and it was only Sony's belief that technological superiority automatically equated to superior sales performance that allowed RCA to completely outmaneuver them, and foist VHS upon the world.

  • Apple category? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ianoo ( 711633 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:38PM (#9853131) Journal
    Why is this story in the Apple category? Sure, the iPod may be considered to be the "gold standard" for music players by many people, but Apple certainly weren't first, and although they have a sexy design and a great UI, there are plenty of competitors who are shipping thousands of units who do everything nearly as well, and some things better, often for a significantly lower price.

    I'm not trying to bash Apple, I like their products (although my pockets aren't normally deep enough to afford their latest kit, I have a G4 cube next to my PC), but putting this into the Apple category just seems a bit odd.

    • Re:Apple category? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Bricklets ( 703061 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:11PM (#9853318)
      Because this *really* was suppose to be the iPod killer. Now that it doesn't look this way, that's good *news* for Apple. And unless these other companies start putting up more of fight, it looks like Microsoft will be the last company that has a chance of challenging Apple's dominance. They're rumored to be releasing their own online music store next month.

      Lots of things can change in a few years, but I never would have thought I'd be using "monopoly" to describe Apple.

  • In Case of Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sony's iPod Killer
    By WALTER S. MOSSBERG

    Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod digital music player has fended off every rival product handily, not only remaining the most popular digital music player, but becoming a cultural icon and spawning an industry of accessories and of legal music downloads.

    Next month, however, the iPod will face its most potent competitor. This latest challenger is none other than Sony Corp., the Japanese giant that revolutionized portable music with its Walkman tape players 25 years ago. Son

  • Clue (Score:5, Funny)

    by apoplectic ( 711437 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:38PM (#9853133)
    When will someone pass Sony the cluestick?

    Sony has probably received many cluesticks...but they haven't been proprietary like the Sony memorystick, so Sony can read 'em.

  • Ugh thats slow! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chcorey ( 801648 )
    From the article:
    For my test, I used a very modest collection of 431 standard MP3 files. SonicStage 2 refused to transfer 15 of the files, posting a nonsensical error message. After that, it took an agonizingly long two hours and 13 minutes to transfer the remaining 416 tracks to the Walkman. By contrast, Apple's iTunes software transferred all 431 songs to an iPod in about four minutes.

    What happens for the rest of us who have a lot more than 431 mp3s? Do we leave our computer running for a week just

  • Nothing new here (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kiskoa ( 696916 )
    There is nothing revolutionary with the hardware (however i'm sure i'll buy one to replace my MZ-R700), their software sucks.

    The SonicStage reached the version 2.1 and it still gives you random Access Violation at error while importing media into your library. Even a malformed ID3 tag can kill it. And it does NOT run on Windows 2003 Server only Professional. This is a big drawback because I will NOT install an XP Prof just to feed my player or MD. And they do not have Linux support either...

    When they sup

    • their software sucks.

      Really, the ideal interface for a device like this is for it to appear like a hard drive to the computer. So when you plug it in, either USB or Firewire, the computer sees a hard drive (and doesn't need any special drivers.) I believe the iPod did this, though they were hardly first (many cameras work this way.) This is what other companies should emulate.

      If they want to ship a pretty GUI on top of that, fine, but don't force us to use it.

      Oh, and support the entire USB pro

  • I think it says a lot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:39PM (#9853144)
    That now, rather than describing the iPod as the "walkman of the 21st century", we're describing new Sony products as "iPod killers"...

    And as far as when Sony will find the cluestick, maybe it'll happen after the PSP totally fails as a media device in the U.S...

  • ATRAC? 8-Track, more like (Score:5, Insightful)

    by payndz ( 589033 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:40PM (#9853151)
    How can Sony claim that ATRAC offers better performance than MP3 when the chances are it'll be converting songs *from* MP3? Lossy format to another lossy format? No thanks. When will Sony (and other companies) realise that people don't want weird, crippled formats?

    • Indeed, transcoding in general drastically reduces audio quality.

      A friend of mind bought a Sony mini disc player, and transcoded MP3's downloaded off the net.

      I don't know what the originals sounded like, but the transcoded versions sounded completely awful. I had to tell him to shut it off.

      The mini disc player was a good idea, back in the late ninties. However, its time has passed. I think the new Walkman's time will pass... quickly.

    • "weird, crippled formats"?! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by theonomist ( 442009 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:52PM (#9853537) Homepage

      When will Sony (and other companies) realise that people don't want weird, crippled formats?

      128kbps MP3s are weird and crippled, but kids love 'em. Cassette tapes are weird and crippled, too, and they were popular for many years. Lots of people seem to think VHS was weird and crippled compared to Betamax (PS: VHS won).

      The average consumer will tolerate weird and crippled formats if they're not too weird, and not too crippled. You can degrade the signal quality to a remarkable degree before the average listener (or viewer) will care.

      Who cares what the WSJ thinks? They're not the target market for this device. The kids at whom the it is aimed may make purchasing decisions based on a lot of factors, some more rational than others (e.g. what their friends bought, etc.), but "it sounds like ass" is not necessarily on their radar screen. Ass sounds fine to them. As long as they can tell which song is playing, that's good enough.

  • Oh. Ok. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kennylives ( 27274 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:41PM (#9853159) Journal
    Sony's back to being stupid and evil because of ATRAC3 in their iPod "killer"? That PS3 thread had me confused for a sec...

    Seriously, did anyone not see this coming? ATRAC3, while technically competent, is still a Sony-proprietary scheme. How many other manufacturers even bothered to license it? Three?

    I got into an argument with someone the other day about this very unit. This person actually believed that Sony actually "gets it" WRT consumer gear. He honestly thought that Sony had some chance in hell of putting a dent in the iPod's dominance with this piece of shit. The truly surreal/funny part was that this argument actually took place in an Apple store.

    • The truly surreal/funny part was that this argument actually took place in an Apple store.

      If I were in your position, I would have Atrac3 his ass right there on the spot.

  • Conspiracy Theory? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Teppy ( 105859 ) * on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:41PM (#9853165) Homepage
    Big surprise - ATRAC3 has DRM!

    All I can think of when I see this kind of thing is that the media companies are building a case for a future lobbying effort to outlaw non-DRM-locked hardware.

    Sony just developed an eBook reader [eink.com] - the first to use an e-ink display, and then castrated it with DRM, and a total library of 400 expire-in-2-months books.

    Obviously products like these are going to fail, and I just can't see their existance as mistakes. Sony may be smarter than they appear.

  • you're all forgetting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    sony is a media company too.. why would they release a player that could potentially cut into their music biz revenue? At least that what I believe drove the bizness decision to use a DRMed format.

  • Stillborn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ralph Spoilsport ( 673134 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:51PM (#9853215) Journal
    From the Article:

    One major downside of the new Walkman is that it can't play MP3 files, or any of the other standard formats. It can play back only a proprietary Sony format called ATRAC3, or a variation called ATRAC3plus.

    STEEEERIKE ONE!

    This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files.

    STEEEERIKE TWO!!!!

    To transfer MP3 song files from your PC to the Walkman, you first launch the software Sony supplies to manage the Walkman, called SonicStage 2.... ... the Sony software must grind away, converting all of them, one at a time, to the special Sony format.

    For my test, I used a very modest collection of 431 standard MP3 files.... ...it took an agonizingly long two hours and 13 minutes to transfer the remaining 416 tracks to the Walkman.

    STEEEEEERIKE THREE!!!! YOU'RE OUTA HERE!

    WTF was Sony thinking? Let's see, right now, I have 8991 mp3s that eat 53.64 gigs of space on my drive. If it took him 133 minutes for 416 tracks, it would take me...ummm (open crackulator) 468 hours to convert my files to a Sony compatible format!!!!

    that's only about Nineteen DAYS

    I think I speak for many when I say:

    Sony: kindly go FUCK YOURSELF - YOU MORONS.

    think about it - RIGHT.... I'm going to let my machine Grind Away for what - the better part of a month, just so my mp3 collection will fit on their stupid little player?

    Ummmm, No.

    I'll take my iPod THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

    Note to Sony: GAME OVER. Would you like to play again?

    RS

    • Re:Stillborn (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:07PM (#9853296) Homepage Journal
      I don't consider its use of ATRAC3 internally inherently a problem. If it allows me to seamlessly dump files from my computer onto the player, it doesn't really matter how they're represented in the device itself, since I only care that it plays the music.

      HOWEVER, converting from one lossy format to another will cause artifacts (which I don't believe the article mentioned). And just as bad, it had better happen zippy-quick, at least on a relatively new computer. If the limiting factor is the speed of my CPU, then I don't want it.

      And here's what I don't get. They're converting it to a format which is DRM'ed, but because they're converting it from MP3s you can't tell who owns it in the first place. That is, they can limit the distribution, but limit it to who? They can't tell if you own it or not.

      Presumably the goal is to say, "You can use your MP3s, but they're slower to download. You'd rather get ATRACs from our spiffy music store!"

      That could happen, I suppose. If the device is substantially cheaper than an iPod, then people will buy it on the shelves, and it's not clear until they get home that it's not compatible with the #1 music store. Or the #2 music store.

      So it's a tactically bold maneuver, and it might work. Online music stores still account for a small percentage of music sales. Most people still buy CDs, with which this thing is compatible (albeit slowly). I'm not sure how much people would miss being able to buy stuff from iTunes Music Store and Napster and whatever Microsoft's version is going to be.

      In the end, there's a lot said for being able to hit a lower price point for the same number of megs. Microsoft makes a huge living off the fact that people would rather buy a Dell/HP/etc. for a few hundred bucks less than the equivalent Macintosh, even if many people would prefer the Mac. (Not a religious war here, just pointing out that many people never look past the price tag.)

      But this time, Apple already owns big market share, and compatibility with it may be the biggest problem for Sony here. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

  • Corporate attitudes differ (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The I Shing ( 700142 ) * on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:55PM (#9853237) Journal
    I imagine that Sony has an uphill fight on its hand due to the differences between their corporate culture and Apple's. Apple engineers are, I bet, given more free reign to do things right, where Sony's engineers are probably in a Dilbert-like world of impossible demands by toga-clad marketing departments. And, of course, Apple's specialty has always been the end user software experience, an area where Sony has a lot of catching up to do. And don't forget about patents... it's easy to say, Why doesn't x-company's device do what y-company's device can do, when we don't have to worry about y-company filing an infringement suit, and don't have executives breathing down our necks to get this product on store shelves by July.
    • Don't forget the designers. Both companies have very strong design departments. Design is where all the nice features (ie. the advanced UIs, streamlining, sizing and weight considerations, useability, etc) come in, and it's also why their products don't look like everybody else's. Apparently, a lot of other companies copy Sony's look and feel, while I can't think of many products that follow those of Apple's distinctive nature.

  • Of HD based players and stuff (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kuzb ( 724081 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:56PM (#9853244)
    With all this hype about HD-based MP3 players, people may has forgotten to look at other options.

    Not everything Sony produces is outright bad. I recently purchased a Sony D-NE300 CD based MP3 player for $99 CAD. I can easily store more music on a single CD (128Kbps) than i can listen to in an entire day. Not to mention, that with some high capacity NiMH batteries (I use 1600 mAh) I get about 50 hours of playtime out of it. I remember my last (fairly old) Sanyo walkman only went for about 6 hours before it sputtered out.

    Given this, why bother with an iPod or similar device at all? Blank CDs are cheap, and if I burn 3 or 4 I have more than enough selection to keep me going for several days.

  • Double lossy is SUPERIOR?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tm2b ( 42473 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:57PM (#9853250) Journal
    From the article:
    This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files. Sony claims it designed the player this way because ATRAC3 produces superior sound, [...]
    Er, right. So this is a magic format that restores the information in the lost bits from the original mp3 conversion?

    And, Sony marketing says, it'll give you a pony.
  • This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files. Sony claims it designed the player this way because ATRAC3 produces superior sound

    Let me get this straight. Is Sony trying to say if I convert my compressed MP3 format directly to their compressed ATRAC3 format, my music will automagically sound better?

  • I wonder why they just don't have PS2 connectivity for this Walkman?

  • SonicStage (Score:4, Informative)

    by InsaneCreator ( 209742 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:13PM (#9853332)
    To transfer MP3 song files from your PC to the Walkman, you first launch the software Sony supplies to manage the Walkman, called SonicStage 2

    Oh, man... SonicStage sucks so hard, I can't even begin to describe it. Even if SonicStage 2 is only half as bad as the version I recieved with my minidisc player, it's still enugh to keep me from even thinking about buying any player which requires it.
    When it comes to terrible UI design, sonicstage has to be the absolute winner!
  • Man, I thought the Sony ones would suck (ATRAC3 being the principle reason why) but this sounds really bad :)

    Obviously it doesn't play ogg :)

    Rio Karma [rioaudio.com], iRiver [iriver.com], and Neuros [neurosaudio.com] all play Ogg well. I would definitely qualify my Rio Karma as a worthy iPod competitor; I won't post a review here because there's enough out there on the Internet.

  • Sony is incompatible with cluestick technology... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:16PM (#9853342)
    Sony wouldn't be able to read the cluestick even if was passed to them, it's incompatible with the Memorystick [memorystick.com] technology that they're so in love with...

    Sony is rarely about putting out good technology, they're more about putting out technology that consumers will buy despite a higher-than-usual profit margin on the price. Sure, every consumer electronics company has to make a profit or it won't exist, but Sony products are always higher-priced than technically equal models from other brands. Basically, Sony's profits come only from people too stupid to notice there's a better choice on most items.
  • I ranted about this a few weeks ago here:
    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16999
    The short summary, ATRAC and the McDonalds give away will turn people off, and turn them off to the concept of buying music on the net.

    To me, that is a win/win :) Sony has always been the assholes of the group, trying to bend you to their will throught proprietary standards. Memory stick, Betamax, and other leap to mind.

    The funny thing is that is simply doesn't work, again and again and again. Superior hardware, crippled by corporate greed and lack of vision. Gotta love capitalism.

    -Charlie
    • I do love capitalism. It has allowed me to run my own business and do things my own way for a very long time. Things I'd be hard pressed to do under most other economic systems. What you're talking about is "unenlightened capitalism" and that's very different.

      But still ... Sony's problem isn't lack of vision, or necessarily any more corporate greed (see: Nintendo) but the fact that their vision of the future of entertainment has been corrupted by their investment in the movie/music industries, and is

  • nonono (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lord Omlette ( 124579 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:18PM (#9853353) Homepage
    Please don't pass Sony a clue in any way, shape or form. Comedy gold like this simply does not come along every day.

  • It's a Shame... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Blic ( 672552 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:18PM (#9853354)
    Sony's done some great consumer electronics stuff, but they've just been so damn stupid when it comes to anything having to do with computers.

    They can't resist making everything proprietary, and they can't shake the Not-Invented-Here disease that used to plague Apple.

    You know they could make a killer device - but two years late they delivery that POS. I'm sure they'll get some mileage off their reputation amongst non-geeks and the Walkman name, but what a dissapointment...

  • Maybe Sony is getting too big (Score:5, Interesting)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:18PM (#9853356)
    for it's own good. They seem to think that just because they are so huge that they will be able enter into an already well established market with a product that is not that innovative. if you want to make money you either a) start a whole new makret, like they did with the original walkman(portable music outside a car now a reality) or b) enter into a market with a bold new idea, like they did with playstation(cd based 3d gaming)
    Though this seems to be a theme with a lot of Japanese companies, they end up trying to do everything, when they should only focus on a few core markets. In Japan, Mitsubishi manufactures a ton of things, from escalotors to trains to LCDs to automobiles. The red tape must be enormous. It probably ends up hurting them in the long run because it's easier to sweep a few small losses under the rug if you are such a huge company. But they will come back to bite you, just look at what is happening with Mitsubishi motors....
  • I can't believe a megapowerful corperation like Sony could screw up as bad as this Network Walkman. The critical mistake, in my mind, is the proprietary Sony format ATRAC3 they're trying to pimp off on the consumer. Why are they trying to re-invent the wheel?

    Which brings to mind the iPod and it's perfect design. It's clean form-factor looks like it was designed by God. The most brilliant things in life are simple in design and concept. Like the wheel.

    If Sony can't beat the iPod, maybe nobody can.

    • Re:I'm gonna sound like a fanboy... (Score:5, Funny)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @04:50PM (#9854192)
      God would not have designed the iPod the way Apple did. I spoke with Him the other day about it and we agreed that the iPod should have a proper on/off switch so the batteries won't discharge in just a few days. He also doesn't care for how the slipcase scratches the display.

      Perhaps we need a player designed by Satan. I bet it'd be way cooler than God's one and you might get sex just for owning one (though not from any mac lovers).

  • ATRAC? more like SUCKTRAC (Score:3, Informative)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:39PM (#9853483) Homepage Journal
    I got a pretty sweet sony Atrac player, which used memory sticks. It was tiny, and although it could only hold about 2 hours of music, I liked it. But the requirement of ATRAC really made it much less usefull. It would take an hour or so to fill a memory stick up with music, when it would have only taken a few minutes to copy over mp3s.

    Sony is shooting themselves in the foot here, I don't understand why they are so obsessed with ATRAC. Especialy given they cell CD players that can play MP3 files off CD-ROMs.
    • They're obsessed with ATRAC because the RIAA is obsessed with DRM. No other reason. Sony has become more schizophrenic than most hardware manufacturers. I mean ... companies like Apex and others that make consumer electronics are often at odds with media companies and their puppet attorneys (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) because the hardware guys make money by providing more bang-for-the-buck to the customer, and the media companies make money by providing less. Sony is trying to be both a media company and a consu

  • 8-track? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ktheory ( 64289 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @05:59PM (#9854554) Homepage
    I can't read "ATRAC" without thinking of "8-track". It's like they're subliminally telling us how crappy the format is.

  • Really sad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kobotronic ( 240246 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @06:59PM (#9854866)
    I was this close to buying a top of the line Clie a year ago, but I held off when I learned that Sony had intentionally crippled the mini-PCMCIA socket on the device so that it couldn't be used for compact flash cards, which would have been an obvious application for it.

    Many digital photographers such as myself have large capacity inexpensive compact flash cards, and refuse to purchase stupid memory sticks which have less storage capacity for the same money.

    This was such a glaringly obvious example of Sony regarding their own interests much more than the interests of their customers, and that ultimately made me not buy the otherwise fine product. (I'll probably buy a phone-PIM-PDA-gps-mp3 thing in a year or two anyways)

    The pattern of Sony's schizophrenic boardroom screwing up their own products is becoming more and more obvious. Their DVD players initially didn't play home-burned discs, and I still haven't seen a Sony DVD player supporting SVCD, MPEG4 or MP3 content.

    Their camcorders and digital video recorders have hyper-sensitive macrovision detection on their video inputs, and sometimes they "detect" macrovision falsely and accordingly refuse to record from a legit source.

    The worst part is this ATRAC3 nonsense. Apple is showing the way by permitting the unprotected, popular what-the-people-want mp3 format to coexist with the house DRM brand. That's respecting their users and having business smarts.

    If Sony tried the same, and perhaps included mp3 playback capability on all their products alongside ATRAC[3], people would have a choice.

    For all I know, ATRAC3 is a better format, but I refuse to be forced to convert it to another lossy format in order to have the "privilege" of listening to it on a portable device. They must be out of their minds.

    It doesn't have to be this way. Take Phillips. They have a music catalog (substantially smaller than Sony, granted), but they have repeatedly shown themselves as acting in the interest of people, such as when they refused Audio CD logo licensing to the crippled DRM-infested discs they sell in stores these days. Philips

  • Meanwhile, the MS submarine stealthily tracks iPod (Score:3, Insightful)

    by michaeldot ( 751590 ) on Sunday August 01, 2004 @06:00AM (#9856943)

    I believe all this talk of "iPod killers" having failed and that Apple cannot be toppled in the market is vastly premature.

    Don't forget Microsoft is planning both a music store and a hardware reference platform...

    This, combined with Microsoft's marketing muscle (and just imagine what they have at their disposal: an ad in every Hotmail message sent around the world, an icon on the desktop from XP SP2, every CNet headline for 6 months, etc, etc) could blow a hole in Apple's music initiative as large as a dinosaur killing crater.

    In case you think I've strapped on the Gates & Ballmer Live Rock Cafe headphones, I've had both a 1st gen iPod and a 3rd gen iPod, and am responsible for encouraging about 12 people to get their own (I take no credit, it was as easy as saying "look at this").

    However, I'm also old enough to have seen what Microsoft did to the Macintosh once they set their nuclear powered submarine sights on it. I predict history will repeat: an inferior store and an inferior player will blast iPod into niche status.

    The market will not be better for it.

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