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Sony unveils HDD Walkman.

Very nice. Looks like the first serious competitor (one that finally has some style!) for the iPod.
 
Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
If this thing doesn't support MP3 it is doomed to fail outright.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

Earlier this month we reported on its first Vaio-branded colour portable music player, the VGF-AP1. Today, Sony unveiled a second machine, this time pitched even more as an adjunct to a home PC, but this time with still photography and video playback functionality.

And in a rare move for Sony, the player supports MP3 rather than the company's own ATRAC audio format.
Click to expand...
 
sony better not make the mp3 mistake they did w/ netMD... having to convert to atrac3... that was the last straw... I love MD, and I"d still be using it, if sony weren't so stuck up their arses. therefore, apple got my money (and cheaper than the good MD's 😛). I gotta say tho, I wish apple had a stick remote... but on a HD mp3 player.. it doesn't help .. too much music to flip though.
 
eh, sony and their paranoid copy protection bs software ruins it😛 that and tthe forced transcode of everything. sony = riaa!! when will they learn that they need to stop trying to cram attrac down our throats.
 
Originally posted by: MrChad
Very nice. Looks like the first serious competitor (one that finally has some style!) for the iPod.
Click to expand...

iRiver. Nice to see you out from under the rock 😛

But.. it's a Sony product. Even if it conjured pizza, beer, and girls out of thin air, I'd wait for a company who wouldn't kill me for a nickel to release one. As an added bonus it would work for more than 6 months and cost half the price 😉
 
Originally posted by: Gurck
Originally posted by: MrChad
Very nice. Looks like the first serious competitor (one that finally has some style!) for the iPod.
Click to expand...

iRiver. Nice to see you out from under the rock 😛

But.. it's a Sony product. Even if it conjured pizza, beer, and girls out of thin air, I'd wait for a company who wouldn't kill me for a nickel to release one. As an added bonus it would work for more than 6 months and cost half the price 😉
Click to expand...

iRivers are nice, but their style can't touch iPods'.
 
The LCD display and audio format support is inferior to competing MP3 CD Players (Stick remote ONLY) but with the Discman-style MP3/WAV/CD-Audio DVD player from Sony I don't even miss the iPod. You couldn't add another 5GB to your iPod for less than a dollar like you can with the MPD-AP20U 🙂 Also, you can't connect the iPod or NW-HD1 to a PC and end up with a CD-RW burner combo DVD drive + Memroy Stick reader like the MPD-AP20U is.

I'd say that Sony already makes a decent competitor to the iPod. The HDD players only support ATRAC3 yet the MPD-AP20U came from their optical storage / computer accessories dept so it doesn't have any such restriction. It can also operate as a solid-state flash memory player with no moving parts when using Memory Stick playback. It gets INSANELY GOOD battery life with or without using the cradle. I'd imagine that it's even more so when using the Memory Stick slot. With Memory Stick Pro support and the huge capacities that brings, you may not even need to burn a CD or DVD (If you have money to burn).

Sure, it's not tiny because DVD and CDs are so big, but it's as small as a sleek Discman and only a little bigger than a Slim-X. THe performance puts all MP3 CD players to shame: No pause between songs! Even if you try to skip through multiple tracks before the buffer fills.

I've only connected it to my PC out of curiosity so the USB2.0 CD-RW and DVD drive features (Supposedly its primary functions) haven't gotten much use from me 🙂 I keep forgetting that the $99 device does this!
 
Originally posted by: lnguyen
sony better not make the mp3 mistake they did w/ netMD... having to convert to atrac3... that was the last straw... I love MD, and I"d still be using it, if sony weren't so stuck up their arses. therefore, apple got my money (and cheaper than the good MD's 😛). I gotta say tho, I wish apple had a stick remote... but on a HD mp3 player.. it doesn't help .. too much music to flip though.
Click to expand...

I still love my MD's. The battery life is amazing and the form factor is great. The stick remote is SO SLICK. The iPod's remote DOES NOT TOUCH that. Much easier to navigate albums like that. I'd imagine they'd make it easy to navigate play lists also. That is all I ask of a remote.

The iPod's remote doesn't even have SHUFFLE, RANDOM, REPEAT on the dam remote FFS! They are BASIC functions you have to take the iPod out and go to menu's to do. Not very good.

Still I like my iPod for the speed of music transfers that my MD's don't have. I prefer the sound on m MD's though.

Sony should go the way of mp3 but they just want to keep their Atrac3 thing going.

Koing
 
I'm sure if Sony wanted to they could easily support multiple formats like we see with other companies like SonicBlue, iRiver, Samsung, etc... at least they decided to support MP3. It is definitely doomed for sales failure if it doesn't support at least MP3. A lot of people would like WMA support as well.

As much as I hate Sony for being essentially "the Evil Empire", you kinda hafta admit they do make some sweet products sometimes. If supports MP3 like the HMP-A1 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/27/sony_mp3_vid_player/) then it should be SWEET. I'm sure a lot of retailers will discount it fairly readily from MSRP unlike Apple's iPods.
 
From the CNN Money article
Sony, well-regarded by gadget lovers for its design prowess, said the NW-HD1 will be the smallest 20-GB player on the market. It is slightly larger than a credit card and 12.6 mm thick -- less than half an inch.
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Yes...
The battery lasts 30 hours, at least three times longer than the iPod's -- a selling point that Sony plans to play up in promoting the device.
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Yes...
The Japanese consumer electronics maker said the 20-gigabyte device, which is its second hard-disk drive gadget aimed at unseating Apple and can store 13,000 songs, will be launched July 10 in Japan, by mid-August in the United States and in September in Europe.
Click to expand...
YES...
As with Sony's other players, the NW-HD1 plays songs in the company's proprietary ATRAC format only, meaning it is not compatible with other online stores and cannot play tunes in the popular MP3 format.
Click to expand...
OH DEAR LORD NO!!!!

Sigh....
 
Originally posted by: Koing
Originally posted by: lnguyen
sony better not make the mp3 mistake they did w/ netMD... having to convert to atrac3... that was the last straw... I love MD, and I"d still be using it, if sony weren't so stuck up their arses. therefore, apple got my money (and cheaper than the good MD's 😛). I gotta say tho, I wish apple had a stick remote... but on a HD mp3 player.. it doesn't help .. too much music to flip though.
Click to expand...

I still love my MD's. The battery life is amazing and the form factor is great. The stick remote is SO SLICK. The iPod's remote DOES NOT TOUCH that. Much easier to navigate albums like that. I'd imagine they'd make it easy to navigate play lists also. That is all I ask of a remote.

The iPod's remote doesn't even have SHUFFLE, RANDOM, REPEAT on the dam remote FFS! They are BASIC functions you have to take the iPod out and go to menu's to do. Not very good.

Still I like my iPod for the speed of music transfers that my MD's don't have. I prefer the sound on m MD's though.

Sony should go the way of mp3 but they just want to keep their Atrac3 thing going.

Koing
Click to expand...


I found that having a remote on the ipod might be useless.. even if it was sony's stick... it's difficult to navigate. I just hold the player in my hand anyway.. and not a lot of wires.
 
Originally posted by: lnguyen
Originally posted by: Koing
Originally posted by: lnguyen
sony better not make the mp3 mistake they did w/ netMD... having to convert to atrac3... that was the last straw... I love MD, and I"d still be using it, if sony weren't so stuck up their arses. therefore, apple got my money (and cheaper than the good MD's 😛). I gotta say tho, I wish apple had a stick remote... but on a HD mp3 player.. it doesn't help .. too much music to flip though.
Click to expand...

I still love my MD's. The battery life is amazing and the form factor is great. The stick remote is SO SLICK. The iPod's remote DOES NOT TOUCH that. Much easier to navigate albums like that. I'd imagine they'd make it easy to navigate play lists also. That is all I ask of a remote.

The iPod's remote doesn't even have SHUFFLE, RANDOM, REPEAT on the dam remote FFS! They are BASIC functions you have to take the iPod out and go to menu's to do. Not very good.

Still I like my iPod for the speed of music transfers that my MD's don't have. I prefer the sound on m MD's though.

Sony should go the way of mp3 but they just want to keep their Atrac3 thing going.

Koing
Click to expand...


I found that having a remote on the ipod might be useless.. even if it was sony's stick... it's difficult to navigate. I just hold the player in my hand anyway.. and not a lot of wires.
Click to expand...

Well I don't think it would be hard to navigate using the stick remote. The end knob turns up an down to scroll through the playlists. Press a side button to select.

But it would be SO nice to have a simple shuffe/ repeat all/ repeat once/ random button to select that.

I'm more of the type to stash the player in my pocket and to navigate using the remote instead. Don't like to carry stuff in my hands.

I'll see how it goes and may sell my 3rd gen iPod. I sold my 2nd Gen one as it was too big and thick. Didn't like that.

Still waiting for the perfect mp3 player 😀

Oh another thing the dam iPod headphone remote wire is FAR FAR TOO LONG. I think they should have made it a short cord one with the remote as I don't like having lots of wires about! No remote of course should have a longer wire. But longer wire with a remote? Not good imo.

Koing
 
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