Sony Connect Launches

If you're a crazy mac-zealot, vote "negative"... J/K.

Anyone know anything about the DRM that will be used (or is it security by obscurity)... or the bitrates of the music?

Weak, very weak. This isn't even a real effort.

So, they're launching a music download service that works only with new players and new discs? Doesn't look very promising to me...

"Hey, look! Get your songs here for .99 and then buy a new MiniDisc player and some new discs, otherwise you won't be able to listen to your song!"

the only way people are going to use this is if they have a minidisc player because of the ATRAC format, which sucks anyways because the compression is so high that you lose a lot of quality, i dont thing this service will last if it keeps this format, iTunes works because of the popularity of the iPod, but the minidiscs are not all that popular as far as i know

oh yeah i forgot, the minidiscs wont work with macs - big surprise and the new connect service says this:

We're sorry.

We know you are interested in using the Connect music store. Unfortunately SonicStage only works on Windows 98SE and above.

We have no immediate plans to support other operating systems at this time. However, we believe this is an important user base and we hope to support it in the future.

Thank you for your interest.

big surprise there too right?

If you're a crazy mac-zealot, vote "negative"... J/K.

Anyone know anything about the DRM that will be used (or is it security by obscurity)... or the bitrates of the music?

I believe the DRM is called "MagicGate". It's pretty standard restrictions, unlimited copying to players, five burns to audio CD, five to MP3 CD (which I guess would be without restrictions), and sharing between three computers. The format is ATRAC, and is encoded at 132 kbs. I don't know how the auido quality compares to AAC or WMA (that is, does 132 kbs sound better or worse than 128 kbs AAC).

My major beef is that Sony, being a record company itself, doesn't try to cut music prices and drum up business. Since they make pretty much total profit from the sales, they could stand to reduce their price down to 75c or even 49c and sell a lot more music, which would drive up demand for their high capacity media players, and might convince the other record companies to slash their royalties as well.

In a sink-or-swim scenario, Sony has chosen "sink". This looks like pretty poor planning on their behalf.

While songs are similarly priced to the rest of the industry ($.99/song), Sony will be using the ATRAC song format, making it incompatible with most MP3 players and the iPod.

If Sony had used AAC instead of ATRAC it would not have made any difference. The underlying format doesn't matter once you lock it up with DRM. Since Apple refuses to license FairPlay, there's no way Sony could have made their service iPod compatible (Sony selling MP3 without DRM is not very realistic).

the only way people are going to use this is if they have a minidisc player because of the ATRAC format, which sucks anyways because the compression is so high that you lose a lot of quality, i dont thing this service will last if it keeps this format, iTunes works because of the popularity of the iPod, but the minidiscs are not all that popular as far as i know.

The Minidisc has its advantages. Their players DO support multiple formats, including mp3 and wma, and not just ATRAC. Minidisc also has WAY better battery life than most mp3 players, including one model that claims 58 hours of playback. And minidisc is skip-free.

The downsides are that the ATRAC format is not that great, definitely worse than AAC 128kbps. And if you end up listening to mp3s and wmas, the minidisc can't hold that much. Finally, sony products usually carry a premium.

Can't figure out what the music service is gonna do for Sony's bottom line. Do they really think that the music service will somehow popularize the ATRAC format? What are those people smoking?

My major beef is that Sony, being a record company itself, doesn't try to cut music prices and drum up business. Since they make pretty much total profit from the sales, they could stand to reduce their price down to 75c or even 49c and sell a lot more music, which would drive up demand for their high capacity media players, and might convince the other record companies to slash their royalties as well.

What is your beef exactly? It's not like Sony has a monopoly in any of the markets. They should be free to leverage their existing assets to promote new products. After all, isn't that what Apple does with its ipods and iTMS? I invite Sony to lower their prices. Maybe, although unlikely, it'll spur a market-wide reduction in download prices.

Sometimes, Sony just loves its technology to death.