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Sony's New Bookshelf MP3 Player -- Audio TiVo? 231

Posted by timothy from the ok-now-run-with-it dept.
Betelgeuse writes: "The NY Times has a story story about a new bookshelf MP3/CD player from Sony. Every time you play a CD, the machine automatically copies its tracks onto its built-in 20-gigabyte hard drive. It will then try to get album track information off the CD or, alternately, you can use the PC link to get titles off your favorite cddb-like site." As the article puts it, they've come up with "the world's first TiVo for radio." Long overdue -- I only wish it used a format that was closer to standard, and let you pull tracks to other media. Update: 07/11 18:17 GMT by T : Ooops -- messed up that link, now fixed.
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Sony's New Bookshelf MP3 Player -- Audio TiVo? More

Sony's New Bookshelf MP3 Player -- Audio TiVo?

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  • Or will the DRM issues prevent this. Maybe they can roll it into their XBOX/UltimateTV can't do two things at once media hub...
    • ...Apex. Or any other conveniently located electronics manufacturer.

      Just imagine a device like this one, same looks, same sound quality etc, but with the following subtle differences:

      1) It plays MP3 CDs in addition to audio CDs (in this case copying the files themselves into the HDD instead of encoding);

      2) It uses MP3 for encoding. Ogg Vorbis optional.

      3) It is actually a small Linux machine with an Ethernet port. You can hack it at will. All of its software is GPL. It also comes with a rescue CD in case you screw up and forget to include the sound chip and network drivers in your latest kernel compilation.

      3a.) It has a Samba/NFS server set up by default so you can browse the HDD contents.

      I'd work for minimum wage for a company planning to build this. ;)

  • RIAA Lawsuit waiting to happen (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NETHED ( 258016 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:00PM (#3865448) Homepage
    Alright, so I buy one of these, and it rips my CDs, thats alright.

    My friend comes over w/ her CDs and we play them in MY player, and it rips those too. Now what? I just pirated music w/o intent, but I still did 'steal' the music. Oye.

    • Ironic, considering Sony owns a huge record label (Sony Music) and is a member of the RIAA.

      In fact, all of these Sony labels are members of the RIAA, according to their Members List [riaa.com]:

      - Sony Broadway
      - Sony Class./Sony Music Soundtrax
      - Sony Classical
      - Sony Direct
      - Sony Discos
      - Sony Masterworks
      - Sony Music Special Products
      - Sony Music US (Latin)
      - Sony Portrait
      - Sony Wonder
      • And this surprises you? I'm amazed it surprises anyone.

        You have two parts of a humongous corporation at odds with one another. Sony Music may want draconian anti-copying systems put into place (note the word may there... people who think that all of the members of an organization agree with every position of that organization are, frankly, idiots). Sony Electronics wants no such thing -- it restrains their sale of goods, it adds to cost (not only the cost of whatever components, but the need to manufacture it differently for different markets, plus the increased marketing and support costs for the different markets), and discourages the consumer from purchasing a restricted device.

        The two organizations probably have little or no contact with one another, and all the parent corporation really wants is increased profits from all its children. Corporations are amoral, and it's unlikely that Sony as a whole would make a definitive statement on this kind of thing this early on.

    • Re:RIAA Lawsuit waiting to happen (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you're geek enough to have one of these, then you don't have friends anyway.

    • Re:RIAA Lawsuit waiting to happen (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:18PM (#3865566)

      My friend comes over w/ her CDs and we play them in MY player, and it rips those too. Now what? I just pirated music w/o intent, but I still did 'steal' the music. Oye.

      Well son, even without "ripping" the music, you should know better than to listen to someone else's CD on your CD player. CDs are licensed for the use of the purchaser ONLY. It might seem fun and anti-establishment to "share" CDs with your friends like this, but remember, you've just commited a federal crime, and deprived a hard-working artist of their income. Without income, artists won't have food to eat, and they'll starve to death. And if you're caught stealing music, you'll be put in jail.

      Now, your little "piracy get-together" doesn't seem so much fun any more, does it?

      And take note: another way groups of teen-agers get together to steal music is at so-called Rave drug events, where unlicensed music played free for anyone who will listen. So, clearly, sharing music is usually a gateway to hard drug addiction.

      So remember, IF YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR IT, YOU CAN'T LISTEN TO IT!

      And roll up those windows when playing CDs in your car, you PIRATE!

      (note the sarcasm, I know it's hard to tell these dayz)

  • Was I the only one to read that "The NY Times has a story about a sorry new bookshelf MP3/CD player"?

    Hmm... well, I would say that remains to be seen...

    • When I read the part about it using an 8-track format, I knew it was sorry.

  • Yes but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:02PM (#3865462)
    Will it play the copy protected CD's From Sony Music?

  • The big problem (Score:4, Insightful)

    by micromoog ( 206608 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:02PM (#3865463)
    Even M-crew, however, doesn't let you copy MP3 files from your PC to the L7HD -- no surprise, really, when you consider that Sony is also a record company with a vested interest in stifling the casual trading of MP3 music.

    The lack of this key feature renders the machine dead in the water. Next.

    • This is an excellent point, which is totally correct! Almost all independent record labels give away mp3s. This proprietary system is doomed to fail.

      This guy's post should be modded up.
    • Even M-crew, however, doesn't let you copy MP3 files from your PC to the L7HD -- no surprise, really, when you consider that Sony is also a record company with a vested interest in stifling the casual trading of MP3 music.

      yeah well the Sony DVD player I bought here in Mexico not only plays DVDs from every region, it also is CDR compatible and plays MP3s, VCDs.

      I guess they have a different marketing strategy outside the US....

    • Re:The big problem (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BdosError ( 261714 )
      The lack of this key feature renders the machine dead in the water
      I would argue, based on history, that it won't take long for some enterprising hacker to mod this to allow MP3 copies. And, for that matter, extraction of the files stored on the hard drive.

      And they did say it had analog inputs too, so you could play MP3s into it that way. Not perfect, but functional.

    • Re:The big problem (Score:2, Insightful)

      by NickDngr ( 561211 )
      The lack of this key feature renders the machine dead in the water. Next.

      Just burn your MP3s to CD and play them on the L7HD. Problem solved.
      • That's what I have a regular CD player for. Actually, the fact that that is such a pain in the ass is why I never use my regular CD player (except in the car).

  • Implosion (Score:2, Funny)

    by maynard-lag ( 235813 )
    Isn't this the same company that released a Celion Deion CD that would crash some Macs?
  • This is Sony we're talking about, a company with interests in record labels as well as making hardware... wonder how they've crippled it?

  • Radio != CDs (Score:1, Informative)

    by elsegundo ( 316028 )
    the world's first TiVo for radio

    It creates MP3s from CDs that you play, not from the radio.

    • Re:"Radio != CDs." and Reading != Comprehension. (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What part of this paragraph didn't you understand?

      "Indeed, you can program the timer to record certain radio shows automatically, including on a daily or weekly schedule, so that they are ready to play whenever you feel like listening to them (or pausing, rewinding or fast-forwarding them). If you've ever used a TiVo or ReplayTV digital video recorder, you're no doubt smacking your forehead in recognition: In effect, Sony has created the world's first TiVo for radio."

      (And somebody modded that up?)
    • from the article

      "It can just as easily store the music on your tapes or even vinyl records, thanks to the analog and digital audio inputs on the back, or even from the built-in radio."

      Hrmm...so I guess a person could hook their computer's digital out on their sound card directly to the digital in on the Sony unit and copy the entire contents in one big stream over a few days. Not ideal, and certainly not what they intended.

      Of course the $1000 price tag makes absolutely no sense. One could build a new micro-atx mini system that would sit in about the same footprint for less than that, and it would do a whole lot more.
  • Why buy a CD anymore when you can just borrow your friends and copy them? Er.. wait? what?

  • If this thing were an am/fm radio that let you record/scrub a live radio broadcast or something, that would be cool. Not that this isn't cool, but that's what I though it was when I read that phrase.

    Would be useful for those Saturday night DJ mixes you hear, or I suppose if there was some talk radio segment you like, or a really funny morning-radio skit.

  • mm Is the Right Hand Talking To The Left? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by idfrsr ( 560314 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:06PM (#3865492)
    I wonder how the Sony Music People (the music label and copyright holders) feel about this?

    It seems to me that after all they and other labels have been trying to accomplish (and doing fairly well --I might add)this could cause some problems. I suppose they are 'separate' but I can't see how on one hand they can argue for no copying, than go ahead and copy on the other hand.
    • This unit only has regular analog audio out, like any other piece of audio equipment. So there is no way to take the digital music back out. That is the kind of copying they can support, one-way and in a proprietary format.

      I'll wager that it is an ordinary audio CD player in there too(rather than a CD-ROM player), so that it can play their copy-protected CDs, which means that the audio goes from digital to analog before encoded back to digital.
    • The left hand folks (Sony hardware) are simply reading and responding to consumer demand for such devices. More than anything, this stands a sign that the right hand folks (Sony music) and their friends (RIAA) just do not get it when it comes to what their customers truly desire. It will be interesting to see when and if the corporate head honchos decide to end this little bout of schizophrenia, and which side they squash.

  • Wow, I think I have one of these (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:07PM (#3865501) Homepage Journal
    Every time you play a CD, the machine automatically copies its tracks onto its built-in 20-gigabyte hard drive. It will then try to get album track information off the CD or, alternately, you can use the PC link to get titles off your favorite cddb-like site.
    I've got one of these. It's called a Macintosh. Does other fun things too.

    • It's called a Macintosh. Does other fun things too.

      Anyone know of a way to get a Mac to record audio programs from Radio?

      Or to do "buffered listening" so that if I decide that for some reason the last song that actually came over the Hell That Is Corporate Modern Radio appealed to me, I can keep it?

  • otherwise you'll be reading about them next week when some evil 4 letter acronym is sueing the pants off of them.
  • Hmm, $1000 for a player that doesn't let me conveniently use my existing MP3 collection or an iPod at half the price that not only lets me use my MP3's but holds more songs because they're stored as MP3's. I won't have to think too long about this one.

  • Get a clue - it's a Sony! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:08PM (#3865512)
    Why buy this expensive CD player with a hard drive, when Sony is one of the very same companies that is busy putting things on the CD to keep them from being read in this way? It will likely be unable to read Sony CD's if they have their way. And even if it can, do you want to support a system where it's OK for a Sony CD player to rip Sony CD's, but no other brand of CD player or your own computer can? Will you buy one of each brand CD player for each music company that publishes CD's? Get a clue people, Sony should get the word loud and clear that people are going to stop buying all of their products until they stop screwing with the redbook standards to screw the consumer. Unless this happens their copy protection games will continue.
  • 'The L7HD stores audio in Sony's own Atrac3 format rather than the more common MP3 format.'

    how can this be an mp3/cd player, when it only playr Atrac3/cd??
  • The L7HD stores audio in Sony's own Atrac3 format rather than the more common MP3 format. But since you can copy music only onto the hard drive, never off it, the storage format makes no practical difference.

    This seems to be Sony's motif with regard to compressed audio; it goes in, but it never comes out. Do they view themselves as singlehandedly holding back the P2P flood? A bit irritating, because I've got news for them: the shit's out of the horse already, folks, and there's no way I'm gonna dump this kind of cash on a device like this if they're going to cut off what would be its biggest convenience -- autoripping MP3s off of the CDs I play in my stereo so that I can play them at my computer later.

    • ... there's no way I'm gonna dump this kind of cash on a device like this if they're going to cut off what would be its biggest convenience -- autoripping MP3s off of the CDs I play in my stereo so that I can play them at my computer later.

      Not to mention playing them on the portable MP3 player that you bought but can't rip songs for because of "copy protection" on the Sony CD's. What was the brand name on that useless MP3 player again? Oh Yea, Sony!

  • $1000 ?!? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheMatt ( 541854 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:10PM (#3865529) Homepage Journal
    For $1000 you could get a cheap Shuttle PC with a CD drive and a 180 GB drive (and more). Put in a good sound card and buy speakers, and it'll sound as good. Plus, you can rip to OGG, MP3, whatever.
    • Yep, and it would look like a piece of crap. If you want to do this go ahead, you certainly aren't the market this product. This is meant to be a hifi component that "just works", not a hacked together pc that "almost works".
      • mine cost $300.00 and it doesnt remotely look like crap. Micro ATX case, black with a cover over the CDRdrive, fits right in with the rest of my stereo components... video output is fed to the TV, audio fed into my 250W reciever
        • what do you use for input. I have been trying to find a cheap touch screen (even really small like 5" or something) with linux drivers that I can use to make a cd/mp3 player with. but touch screens seem to be rather expensive.

          • I dont know if they are available anymore (I bought it several years ago), but I have a "pointing device" that is like the ones found in the middle of the IBM notebooks. It sits off to the left of my TV screen.
            • Ok, I think I still hav eone of these with a serial interface that I use to use for my really old 1991 era laptop. That would probly work I suppose for a short term thing. I would just really like it to be more like part of the rest of the cabinet and just hit play, pause, stop, next etc... on the unit itself.

    • "For $1000 you could get a cheap Shuttle PC with a CD drive and a 180 GB drive (and more). Put in a good sound card and buy speakers, and it'll sound as good. Plus, you can rip to OGG, MP3, whatever."

      Remember that a computer is WAY harder to use than a piece of stereo equipment. You seem to be the roll-your-own type. You'd have go get the equipment, put it together, get the OS, install that, install all the apps, figure out how to use/install the ripping software, then figure out how to use the encoding software, and then figure out how to use your software player.

      With this thing, you insert the CD and press play. Much easier for those not wanting to mess with computers.

      Not that I think it's worth $1K. I wouldn't buy it.

  • Let me see if I understand this...

    I pay for a CD player that automatically writes my music to a hard drive, and then automatically retrieves the album information from the Internet. I can thus play the music off of the hard drive, instead of using the CD.

    Why even bother buying a CD if its sole purpose is as a transfer medium? This portends the obsolesence of the compact disc...

  • Does this mean (Score:5, Funny)

    by barista ( 587936 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:12PM (#3865538) Homepage
    Does this mean that Sony will sue itself for creating an circumvention device?
    • Apparently it's OK for Sony to do this, but if you were to start a company and make a similar device, Sony would be one of the first companies lining up to sue you for violating the laws they bought. Does anyone else see a problem with this?
  • "The L7HD stores audio in Sony's own Atrac3 format rather than the more common MP3 format."

    This is not 'Sony's new bookshelf MP3 player' it's Sony's new bookshelf Atrac3 player.

    The NY Times has a story about a story new bookshelf...

    Huh? Is this some sort of meta-story? Did you mean to say a 'starry new bookshelf...' or more like just 'a story about a new...'
    • Well, now the link is 'fixed' it's still messed up though.

      The NY Times has a story story about a new bookshelf MP3/CD
    • Huh? Is this some sort of meta-story? Did you mean to say a 'starry new bookshelf...' or more like just 'a story about a new...'

      I should point out that it was at least made up of real sentences when I submitted it. It must have gone throught the "garble" filter before it was posted, though. :-)
  • "The NY Times has a story about a story new bookshelf MP3/CD player from Sony.
    - It doesn't use MP3, it uses some Sony proprietary format.

    Every time you play a CD, the machine automatically copies its tracks onto its built-in 20-gigabyte hard drive.
    - Unless it's a Sony CD, probably

    It will then try to get album track information off the CD or, alternately, you can use the PC link to get titles off your favorite cddb-like site."
    - Sony have CD-Text, but made it so proprietary that it hasn't caught on. So what a waste of time. Needless to say, if you have a spare $1000 you'd be better buying a PC in a small case to do the job for you. If you don't want a PC but want one of these boxes, this functionality will be pretty bloody useless.

    As the article puts it, they've come up with "the world's first TiVo for radio."
    - It's got nothing to do with radio.

    Long overdue --
    - Since when has some proprietary crap been "long overdue"?

    I only wish it used a format that was closer to standard,
    - Closer to standard? Either it IS standard, or it isn't.

    and let you pull tracks to other media.
    - OK well we can let this pass. No doubt of course it will be hackable to pull to other media, but you might not be able to hack the proprietary format.

    And to think, all those submissions which are made, and this is the best they have? Puhlease.

    • "- It doesn't use MP3, it uses some Sony proprietary format. "
      Atrac3 isn't a Sony proprietary format.

      "- It's got nothing to do with radio. "
      Except that it does.

      "- Since when has some proprietary crap been "long overdue"?"
      Since forever. Unless something has to be a completely open standard for you to use it or acknowledge that others do, then whether something is proprietary or not has nothing to do with its timeliness.

      If you're going to claim a 'summary' of the article, it would be nice if you a) read the article and b) summarized it instead of editorializing it.

      Yeah I have a 50 karma cap too, so what?
      • "Atrac3 isn't a Sony proprietary format."
        (forestalling a flamefest) Well, yeah. It is a Sony format, but it's used by other companies, including RealPlayer8, which is beside the point anyhow becase, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's only storing music in the device, not for sharing, so the format is irrelevant as long as the quality is sufficient.

  • Encoding CDs to mp3? My computer will start encoding any audio CD I feed it.

    Radio? Most radios I listen to are online. There are many programs I can use to record them. If a local radio broadcasts something I want to keep, I can buy a cheap cable and record it too.

    Sharing? My computer automatically stores them on my server, which I mount with nfs and let some friends access via FTP.

    I really can't see how Sony is going to make people pay $1000 for something unefficient they can get for half the price.

  • Please read the article.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by teetam ( 584150 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:20PM (#3865582) Homepage
    ...before posting replies. I am amazed how many people just read the brief /. post and reply based on that.

    The title is misleading. This is not an MP3 player. The songs are stored in Sony's own format.

    Also, this device can copy from any audio source, digital or analog. That means CDs, tapes, radio and even your PC (when it is playing music).

    Sony has not attempted to build CD to MP3 ripper/player. This is a digital jukebox very similar in concept to TiVo.

  • Similar to RioCentral (Score:4, Informative)

    by adamjone ( 412980 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:23PM (#3865591) Homepage
    This Sony products sounds very similar to the RioCentral [sonicblue.com] from SonicBlue [sonicblue.com]. The RioCentral rips a CD that you insert, grabs cd track info from cddb, and stores on 40GB drive in mp3 format. It has USB ports for connecting your portable MP3 player, and you can connect it to the rest of your network with the ethernet port. A feature it has over the Sony model is that it can also burn CDs that you mix. You can also transfer files to and from the unit over the network. The only feature sony seems to have on this guy is the ability to tune to radio stations.
  • See:

    Escient Fireball [escientconvergence.com]
    Audieorequest ARQ2 Pro [request.com]

    -Andrew
  • I've been using Applian's Replay Radio [applian.com] for a while now.

    Joseph Elwell.
  • More like VCR for radio.

    The genius of Tivo is that I don't have to know what time or channel shows come on - I tell it to record a show by name, and the Tivo just finds it, no matter where and when it's coming on.

    From reading the article, it sounds more like the traditional VCR. You tell it what station and for how long, and it records whatever is playing at that time on that station. If it were truly "Tivo for Radio", you'd tell it to record "All Things Considered", and it'd figure out when and where to grab it.

  • I tried making a "radio tivo" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by brer_rabbit ( 195413 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:39PM (#3865677) Journal
    A previous company I was with did audio fingerprinting. One thing we tried was making a "radio tivo", ie- fingerprint the radio waves, identify songs, and record them to disk. Despite having a fingerprinting algorithm robust down to crappy 8kb Real Audio, radio waves were beyond the scope of our fingerprint. Radio stations use a ton of dynamic compression and other tricks to redline the VU meter. Try A/B'ing a radio version of a song and the same off a CD. Yuck.

    So, does the sony actually index radio as it plays in realtime? Somehow I doubt it, at least without some additional metadata and/or help. It's an interesting problem.
    • I'd thought of that one myself, and discussed it with some people. The biggest problem appeared to be "talking over the music". It's rare today that you get a clean version of a song on broadcast radio. This may be why only familar stuff does well on radio.
      • You could always record the same song multiple times, and let the user pick which version has less talk over. You might even be able to splice different airings of the same song together, but that's stretching it a bit.
        • The "splice different airings" idea is tough to do, although worth thinking about.

          The basic idea was that you power it up, it listens to the whole FM band at once, and accumulates a music library. It's legal to do this; see the Audio Home Recording Act. But it's tough to make it work well enough to give a seamless listening experience without user intervention.

  • Stupid question (Score:2, Insightful)

    by John Ineson ( 538704 )
    They say... "YOU know how some people resent Microsoft for its size and ambition? Well, here's a conversation starter: Why don't people resent Sony? After all, Sony has its fingers in more pies than Bill Gates would even dream of: digital cameras, camcorders, home audio and video, game consoles, even pop music and movies."

    Simple answer, bud -- Sony Has Real Competition. In every one of those markets, there are rivals producing ``perfect substitutes''[0]. For the millions that are locked into Windows, Office, etc, there is no such luxary.

    If your Sony DVD player is crap, you can just take it back and get a Panasonic. But if Windows doesn't work, you're screwed -- most people are locked in by the time they've invested in learning to use it, the money they've spent on the software, the hardware they've bought that won't work with anything else, etc. That's why people get pissed off at MS -- 'cos when their stuff sucks, you can't just buy another 100% compatible OS & Office suite. Not even close.

    [0] OK, maybe less so in movies & music, but they're failed oligopolistic markets anyhow. Sony escapes vilification because it isn't the only big company screwing us, it's one of half-a-dozen.
  • I wish someone would make something like this for the car. There are multi-disc changers, but they hold, at most, 10 cds and are often mounted in the trunk. I'd love the versatility of a large range of music, without...

    - having to juggle which cds are in my car and are in my house
    - the mess of many cds sitting around in the car
    - not being able to play a cd because it wouldn't be safe drive while trying to find it
    - the chance that my cds will be stolen/damaged

    MP3 cd players are nice, but I still have to select a playlist and keep the cd up-to-date with my favorites.
  • so where is the ability to schedule recording of radio shows??

    I dont care about auto-cd-ripping.. I can rip cd's just fine and with a decent encoder (I guarentee that this toy doesnt have a top-class encoder)

    Hey sony, why not make products that people actually want! encode from radio or line-in.... or better yet ethernet on the back so I can play my 95,354,232.12 songs I have already encoded...

  • Here in Sweden digital radio broadcasting MP2 music has already been cut down to a minimum. There were no killer application like this, not even any players for sale. Whenever they plan for the next technical standard with a lifespan of 50+ years they'd better get support from the industry first.

    I predict that the next big thing will be suffocated by licencing costs.

  • Be Did It First (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @02:56PM (#3865818) Homepage Journal

    About a year before we cratered, Be, Incorporated, had developed a prototype of a product very similar to what Sony's come out with.

    It was called HARP (Home Audio Reference Platform). Built on top of BeOS (naturally), the HARP prototype looked like an ordinary stereo component (principally because we bought an actual stereo component, hollowed it out, and shoved an Intel 810-based mobo in there). When you inserted a CD, HARP would begin ripping it immediately, convert it to MP3, and store it on the internal disk. But all that happened in the background; you could still play the disc immediately.

    We used the built-in database features of the BeOS filesystem to index all internally stored MP3s. And we'd send off to FreeDB.org [freedb.org] for the tracklist. But the really cool bit was that HARP had a built-in Web server. Just fire up your PC -- or your wireless Web tablet, of which we had plenty laying around -- connect to the HARP server, and you'd get a browsable list of all the songs on the machine, viewable in any Web browser. Pick one, and it would start playing.

    We never got to finish the prototype; Be died before that could happen.

    Funny, though; I seem to remember that we had showed HARP to the Sony people when we were developing the e-Villa Web appliance for them...

    Schwab

  • I, personally, would reserve judgement on calling this device a "Tivo for music" until I get a little more info on how expandable it is. Half the reason Tivo has such a great community of supporters is the fact that you can mod them out and do so many things with them that the designers didn't fill in themselves (network cards, bigger drives, new software to run it, etc). If Sony can give those same capabilities with this device, then they might actually earn the honor of being compared with the Tivo line.
  • I only wish it used a format that was closer to standard, and let you pull tracks to other media
    With the SDMI comliant^h^h^h^h^h lawsuit avoiding players out there, it ain't gonna happen. A copy of a copy is a no-no. Get used to this. The only way it will die is if nobody buys this. Unfortunately nobody will release anything else due to the attack lawyers awaiting a target. Ya gotta walk a very tightrope to put out a player that the public will buy and will keep you out of the court system.
    Current standards are not going to be supported anymore except by write and erease players.
    An player that will serial copy from one player to another is a device that will be soon under legal attack.

  • Linux Radio Timeshift HOWTO (Score:4, Informative)

    by dara ( 119068 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @03:34PM (#3866125)

    If you use Linux or Windows, you have a TiVo for the radio now. See Linux Radio Timeshift HOWTO [iu.edu].

    If you use Windows, try: Nowhere Man - Messer's Home Page [pmp.com.pl].

    There is probably something for the Mac, but I wouldn't know.

    Both solutions require that you have an external radio tuned to the station that you want or a Radio Card you can control from your OS. Unfortunately neither Windows or Linux is capable of waking up from a deep sleep via the computer's clock (this is ridiculous, somebody should fix this and offer a smarter computer/BIOS), so it isn't exactly the same as a VCR for the radio. But if you leave your computer on all the time anyway, it doesn't matter.

    Dara Parsavand

    • Unfortunately neither Windows or Linux is capable of waking up from a deep sleep via the computer's clock

      Sure they are. Numerous BIOS's have a "power on at time" option.

      Of course, that's an option set in the BIOS, by a human. I'm presuming you want a system that would power itself on and off whenever it wanted to, which isn't available to my knowledge.

      It's also rather silly... the power consumption involved in having a PC on 24/7 (no monitor) is relatively small and you'll save wear and tear on the disks too. If you have cause for your PC to be on 12 hours a day, may as well leave it on 24.
  • You know how some people resent Microsoft for its size and ambition? Well, here's a conversation starter: Why don't people resent Sony?

    Moderators: you're going to be tempted to hit "Offtopic" here, but keep in mind the above is a direct quote from the article and I'm commenting on it.

    I don't know ANYONE who resents Microsoft for its size and success. But somehow, when the topic of conversation turns to Microsoft and the people with whom I'm conversing with are dazzled by Microsoft's phenomenal position in the industry, concerns about Microsoft get answered with "You're just jealous!"

    That ain't it. We're disturbed by Microsoft's apparent ambition of total control over the desktop computing experience (or computing experience in general). About the prospect of not being able to work with a computer w/o HAVING to use a piece of Microsoft's software.

    Size and success have nothing to do with it.

    Maybe being an Apple advocate for many years does turn your brain to mush. David Pogue should know better.

    (I use and love a Powerbook, Apple fans, just in case you want to flame).

  • Also (Score:2, Informative)

    by Ntense007 ( 409868 )
    Note that when you buy a new Sony Minidisc recorder to record music on you minidisc....you can't upload that music to a different machine than the one used to record it.

    SOny is doing everything to lock you down. Don't buy this ting. I have their Minidisc recorder, which is cool, but I can't transfer files from my work pc to my home one using the MD.

  • Close, but no cigar... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vanyel ( 28049 ) on Thursday July 11, 2002 @05:10PM (#3866939) Journal
    ...and too many bells. What I've been wanting for some time is a Tivo for radio. A real tivo for radio. This is a vcr for radio, as you have to program the timer. I want something that I can say "record Radio Reader" and "Weird DJs in the Morning" etc.

    Then, a recent addition to the wishlist, is to say "copy the latest recordings onto cdr" (or cdrw if my car player will read them) so I can play them in the car.

    I'd almost pay a kilobuck for that...

  • To be honest i'm not interested in anything that plays digital music by Sony. Why? Because they don't have their heart in it.

    Take the Minidisc. Beautful piece of kit. Small, light, long battery life, very cheap digital media, feature packed. Lovely. Ideal for sticking your MP3's on there. LP2 compression and two albums (22 odd tracks for 3 UKP). Pretty good going.

    But nooooo. Sony come up with a one way device, with flakey software that requires you to check in and check out your songs. That is, they place restrictions on the music that YOU own. Once the music is on the minidisc, you can't do anything with it, but check it back out again (yep, the MD won't let you delete it).

    Oh yes, and you have to convert it to Sony's music format (ATRAC) - so now you have two music formats floating about on your HD.

    So, in short, what could have been a pretty damn good MP3 app, gets absolutely shafted and restricted up to the hilt because on one hand Sony wants to capitalise on the MP3 boon but on the other wants to kill it dead and replace it with something more controlling.

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