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DataPlay discs -- The future of removable media?

M

Martin

Lifer
Well, I posted a thread in GH, but no one seems to care much over there. I complained about how dataplay discs might be vapourware, but I did some surfing and I changed my opinion.


Anyway, we've all heard of DataPlay discs. Small CDs about the size of a quarter that hold 500mb of data and are writeable (But not rewriteable -- yet). Well, after my surfing, I found out that the company is still very yonge (it was forned in november of 98) and is planning to launch its DataPlay discs, along with lots of third-party DataPlay enabled devices (PDAs, music players and cameras) in Q1'02.


I really think that if the company plays its cards well, DataPlay can become the de facto standard, like CDs are today for music, for future media storage.

A further plus is that the media should cost around $10 each (which will come down in price I am guessing) for 500mb.


Link to company site
 
Looks interesting. Wonder why they can't manage random-access yet? It's a MO media, right?

Looking over PDF...
1MB/s sustained
10MB/s burst
CLV
200ms seek

Pretty neat, I'm keeping an eye on this.
 
Size of a quarter?

What if they made it the size of a regular CD? That would hold quite a bit.

(Either my connection is slow for some reason or that site is really slow.)
 
Nothing with copy control works. The market outright rejects it.

Circuit City Divx lost out to DVD, because Divx had copy control, and DVD no longer does. (It's been cracked.)

Nintendo 64 lost out to PSX, because Nintendo 64 used proprietary cartridges that were difficult to copy, and PSX used easily copiable CDs.

WMA is consistently losing to MP3, because WMA has copy control, and MP3 does not.

Show me two equivalent technologies, one with copy control, one without, and the one without will consistently win.

P.S. Copyright protection is the wrong term to use. Every copyrighted work automatically has copyright protection. The term you are looking for is copy control, which is technology used by the manufacturer to prevent consumer copying for any use, including fair use rights.
 
yup, copy whatever sucks. and i'm glad the market rejects it, i find it amusing that companies keep on trying to force it on us. ha!
 


<< We already have minidisk 😉 >>


Yeah, but md can only store 120mb data, the reason it can hold the same amount of music as a cd is because it's compressed like mp3.

The DataPlay discs sound interesting, but we'll see if they really are good when they are released, but I agree that it would be bad if they will be copy-protected.
 
We already have CD-RW and mini CD-RW and DVD-RW and mini DVD-RW (not yet in very common use, but available).

Who needs Yet Another Removable Optical Storage Medium?

With copy control, no less!
 
1) With copy control, as others have said, it's an almost certain loser.

2) I have to question the wisdom of such a small size. Sure, miniturization is nice, but you do reach a point where getting smaller is more of a detriment than a benefit. Something the size of a quarter is just too easy to lose. I'd rather see it be about the size of a 3.5" floppy. That's perfect for shirt-pocket transportation and easy to store, but large enough that it won't get put into a candy machine by mistake. And at that size, it should be able to hold far more data.

3) The media needs to come down to CD costs to have a chance. 500MB for $10? Yeah, I'll give up my 700MB 20 cent CD-R's for that, sure I will.
 


<< The media needs to come down to CD costs to have a chance. 500MB for $10? Yeah, I'll give up my 700MB 20 cent CD-R's for that, sure I will. >>

Actually, I don't think the target market for this will be desktop pcs. I can see it having a huge inpact on the PDA / Digital camera market. As long as it reads/writes as fast as Compact Flash or smartmedia, it should be a viable replacement for them. Unless they can make a CF type adapter for it though, I don't see it taking off. Companies will be hard pressed to make cameras/pda's that use it, especially with CF so firmly entrenched.
 
Had my eye on it over a year ago thinking it would be the mp3 player and md player killer, 500megs of storage for $10, beats them all! But it seems to take forever to release! 🙁
 


<< 1) With copy control, as others have said, it's an almost certain loser.

2) I have to question the wisdom of such a small size. Sure, miniturization is nice, but you do reach a point where getting smaller is more of a detriment than a benefit. Something the size of a quarter is just too easy to lose. I'd rather see it be about the size of a 3.5" floppy. That's perfect for shirt-pocket transportation and easy to store, but large enough that it won't get put into a candy machine by mistake. And at that size, it should be able to hold far more data.

3) The media needs to come down to CD costs to have a chance. 500MB for $10? Yeah, I'll give up my 700MB 20 cent CD-R's for that, sure I will. >>





1. I think you are talking this copy control out of proportion (I'm talking to everyone here). You WILL be able to buy blank media, record on your mp3s on it and put it in your PDA/MP3 player. Of course, DP discs will come preloadeed with content too. That content might be copy protected, but DVDs were copy protected too, weren't they? Its just a matter of time before it gets cracked, so its no use whining about it.
2. Like someone mentioned, this is supposed to compete with CF, SM, Memory Stick etc. Why the hell would you buy 64mb card for $30, when you can have 500mb for $10?????
3. See #2
 


<< WMA is consistently losing to MP3, because WMA has copy control, and MP3 does not. >>

What do you mean by copy control? I encoded a song with WMA8 and sent it to someone else and it played fine for them just like an MP3 would.
 
it means that record companies can make wma files that are protected.

so its no use whining about it.

nobody's whining, we're just saying that we think it's going to flop. who knows though, it might not.
 


<< it means that record companies can make wma files that are protected.

so its no use whining about it.

nobody's whining, we're just saying that we think it's going to flop. who knows though, it might not. >>



if they provide blank media onto which you can copy your own mp3s, why should it flop?

 
If the copy protection is unbeatable or too much work to circumvent it will fail miserably.
 
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