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DataPlay

NotAlone	Date: February 12, 2002 @ 4:13 PM Have you been reading about DataPlay? DataPlay is a new digital media based on the DVD optical format but the disks are the size of a quarter. DataPlay drives are about the size of a small matchbox. The disks will hold up to 500 meg but the word is that 1 gig will be coming. The disks are write once but RW is suppose to be in the works. The disks will also be coming out pressed with prerecorded material such as music, ebooks, software and games. DataPlay drives are as we speak being installed in everything digital including cameras, portable music players, PDA's, car players and cell phones. If it's a portable digital device then it is being built with DataPlay inside. DataPlay devices are slated to be in stores by Q2 of this year. Don't hold your breath though. DataPlay has been on it's way out for a very long time now. They are late coming out but this isn't vaporware! I can see DataPlay being used in many ways with many different devices. I think it is one of the most exciting forms of digital media to come out in a very long time. However, I think there may be downside to this new format. Several of the music industries giants got in on the ground floor at DataPlay. Will the music industry try and use this new digital format to replace CD audio? Coming out with new music formats is what the music industry has done time and again through the years to resell their catalogue of old music. With a brand new digital drive and a brand new disk, DataPlay may give the music industry a chance to retake control of the distribution of music. Sure we can grab music from any source in analogue but the DataPlay drive and its new disk media have been designed from the ground up to be SDMI compliant. Extracting digital quality audio from this new digital media may be quite a challenge. I for one can't wait until DataPlay comes out to see what happens with it. Can't wait to see how long it takes for some genius kid programer cracks it. NotAlone
Frawgster	Date: February 12, 2002 @ 5:29 PM ==================== Another pristine example of how the music industry just doesn't 'get it'. The consumers have shown what they want, and it isn't a disk the size of a quarter. I have to admit though, the technology sounds interesting. But still, the people don't want "DataPlay", if they did, they wouldn't be flocking to programs like Morpheus and AG Satellite. People want unrestricted digital music, not a new technology monopolized by the industry that's been built from the ground up to be SDMI compliant. As a matter of fact, the current technology, CDs, is fine and dandy. It's perfectly acceptable. DataPlay sounds more like a way for the industry to get their wretched copy protection schemes embedded in every piece of plastic that contains music." id="3462">"However, I think there may be downside to this new format. Several of the music industries giants got in on the ground floor at DataPlay." ==================== Another pristine example of how the music industry just doesn't 'get it'. The consumers have shown what they want, and it isn't a disk the size of a quarter. I have to admit though, the technology sounds interesting. But still, the people don't want "DataPlay", if they did, they wouldn't be flocking to programs like Morpheus and AG Satellite. People want unrestricted digital music, not a new technology monopolized by the industry that's been built from the ground up to be SDMI compliant. As a matter of fact, the current technology, CDs, is fine and dandy. It's perfectly acceptable. DataPlay sounds more like a way for the industry to get their wretched copy protection schemes embedded in every piece of plastic that contains music.
milladrive	Date: February 12, 2002 @ 5:47 PM I also agree that the industry will probably try to use it to further control what we do w/music. At the same time, I don't think there's so much emphasis now reselling catalogs, since thru the years the various improvements have offered a noticeable improvement in sound quality and dynamic range. This is no longer possible, so if anything, some people may buy new copies just to save space. ...but is the artwork now gonna be a thing of the past? If not, they're gonna hafta have some overpackaging to satisfy people visually." id="3463">This is pretty cool, and it's sump'm I've been hearin' about now for ages. I agree that this isn't really want the public wants these days (5 years ago, yes), but the space-saving nature of it is worth a "wow" in and of itself. I also agree that the industry will probably try to use it to further control what we do w/music. At the same time, I don't think there's so much emphasis now reselling catalogs, since thru the years the various improvements have offered a noticeable improvement in sound quality and dynamic range. This is no longer possible, so if anything, some people may buy new copies just to save space. ...but is the artwork now gonna be a thing of the past? If not, they're gonna hafta have some overpackaging to satisfy people visually.
Leviathan	Date: February 13, 2002 @ 10:18 PM Quick question: How much are we paying for these quarter-sized disks? If there's no increase in sound quality (and that's the impression I'm getting) or functionality, it still skips, it still gets scratched after a while, and it costs 10 bux more than a cd - you can have it? Oh yeah, one more note: Technically, as soon as you have cables to transmit music, it's not all that digital, so what's the definition of digital music? For the longest time it was MOD/XM/MP3, then CDs... It's turned into a catch-phrase don't ya think/
mtbatol	Date: February 13, 2002 @ 11:45 PM digital music by definition is music with no physical form. In other words CDs, cassette tapes, old ancient 8 track tapes, lp records before the 90's were the physical aspects of music that we all knew. When looking at mp3, wav, wma files for example there is no real physical aspect in them. This reletivly new medium of music can be stored in cd's, floopy disks if they're small enough, writable/rewritable dvd's, tape drives, and any other type of physical storage mediums that may surface in the future. This reletivly new flexible medium of music is what you call digital music which have no physical standard for storing.
milladrive	Date: February 14, 2002 @ 9:00 AM mmm ...digital music, by definition, is music made up of ones and zeros, whether they're stored on silver discs or on your hdd ...and in any format. Cda is just as digital as mp3 and wav. There certainly _is_ a physical aspect to a computer file. Without some means to store the file, you've got no file. btw, digitality can be maintained through a cable made up of fiber optics.
NotAlone	Date: February 14, 2002 @ 5:14 PM Leviathan: The DataPlay 500 meg blank disks are suppose to cost 10 bucks. This doesn't mean much because the cost will quickly decrease as new producers of the format come on line. I haven't seen any information on how much prerecorded disk will cost. There may be information about this out there but I haven't searched for this information. The prerecorded disks don't interest me much. I am interested in the portable, recordable disk aspect of this new technology. The little quarter size disk looks like it comes in a carrier, looks kinda like a tiny floppy. So the disk itself is protection against scratches.
NotAlone	Date: February 14, 2002 @ 5:19 PM Analog is what record players and all the different types of tape players used. Analog is a continuously variable signal. Analog is the signal that makes the cones in your speakers move. Each time you make a copy of copy of analog it degrades. If DataPlay comes with copy protection both in the drive and on the disk (you can bet it will) then we may have to settle for recording from DataPlay disks with our sound cards. This would mean converting the analog output from the sound card back into digital form. The resulting file would be digital but it would be a degraded version of the original file on the DataPlay disk." id="3526">mtbatol: The "digital" we are talking about here refers to data. Digital data can be transmitted or stored and copied over and over again without any appreciable loss. Digital in this case means binary data represented by 1's and 0's like milladrive said. CD's were the first digital audio format. Analog is what record players and all the different types of tape players used. Analog is a continuously variable signal. Analog is the signal that makes the cones in your speakers move. Each time you make a copy of copy of analog it degrades. If DataPlay comes with copy protection both in the drive and on the disk (you can bet it will) then we may have to settle for recording from DataPlay disks with our sound cards. This would mean converting the analog output from the sound card back into digital form. The resulting file would be digital but it would be a degraded version of the original file on the DataPlay disk.
Leviathan	Date: February 14, 2002 @ 9:21 PM I like the idea but I'm skeptical to how realistic this is to anything lower than upper-middle class" id="3533">Good point there milla - with the fiber op.... I was just picking hairs, but I've been scammed again It'll be nice if they throw those disks into cartridges that are actually durable... hope they have a good labeling system .. I'm still skeptical on the price, 10 bux will obviously go down, as long as it goes down a fair deal it'll be okay. But think about it, I have a 4 year old Sony discman that was worth close to 250 bux when i got it... So, think about the drives that come in.. Smaller is more expensive, plus they have to fit a fancy blue-laser in there to read the data, plus some caching memory plus features... And the new "Sony DiscPlay-Man" totals about half the size of a Discman at 300 bux where a discman is worth 100 now.. and discs are worth, say, 3 bux each non-rewritable for slightly less storage. I like the idea but I'm skeptical to how realistic this is to anything lower than upper-middle class
NotAlone	Date: February 15, 2002 @ 10:03 AM I agree this thing will probably be a bit pricey when it first comes out. If you surf around and look at all the different devices this thing is slated to go in. The initial price of the different DataPlay devices will probably be high at first due to the lack of availability of the new drive. It will either catch on and the prices will come down or it won't catch on and it will die away. I really want some of the DataPlay devices that I have seen so I hope this new drive goes over big and prices will drop down so lowlifes like me can afford them.
TheWitchingHour	Date: February 15, 2002 @ 9:58 PM I can see something like this being used for video instead of audio.
NotAlone	Date: February 16, 2002 @ 12:37 PM I would bet the prerecorded stuff will be including video. Everything digital is the advertising hype. If this technology flies then we will be seeing DataPlay in every kind of digital device. One very interesting DataPlay device I have seen on the web is the Imation DiscGO. DiscGo is a portable USB, DataPlay device that will let you exchange digital content back and fourth between multiple memory card formats and DataPlay media without the use of a PC. This device would be terrific to use with a digital camera or a memory card mp3 player. If your interested, you can find information on the DiscGo on the Imation web site.
TheWitchingHour	Date: February 16, 2002 @ 10:43 PM I don't think that I would care about a dataplay audio player since the hd players comfortably fit my entire collection and hd sizes increase rather quickly and newer smaller drives are being introduced... Video on the other hand would be cool.
mtbatol	Date: February 17, 2002 @ 12:49 AM Overall i won't be very excited about these things coming out with recorded content such as music and at the same time i won't be too concerned about it becoming the standard to phase out the good ol CD as far as buying music is concerned(assuming that it isn't copy proof ). But then again there aren't too many people educated in how a m ouse works even to argue against copy protected media so i'm afraid that if copy protected dataplay disks become the standard then it'll be because of the greedy gruby industry. Hmmm... then again they did cracked the code to enable ripping dvd so that won't be a big perminate problem for a few people who wants to rip dataplay. Then when the discovery for cracking the code to enable ripping from dataplay media is made then we'll be back to square one. baaaaah... too much thinking, i go back to sleep now
mtbatol	Date: February 17, 2002 @ 12:51 AM square one as in industry getting mad at us "pirates" n stuff, ok now i go back to sleep.
aeroe	Date: February 18, 2002 @ 12:25 AM this would definetly be useful if they had the rw disc in the works, but they deny it. not just useful for music but i'm thinking digital cameras... would really bite when you can't erase bad pics. personally i'm planning on avoiding it, atleast until the price drops, restrictions are removed and a rw is in fact being produced. so basically i'll never use dataplay.
aeroe	Date: February 18, 2002 @ 12:31 AM oh i forgot, they're 250mb discs. dataplay simply double sided them so you'll need to be flipping them. be like glueing two cdrs back to back for 1400mb.
ThaCoyote	Date: February 18, 2002 @ 4:53 AM I don't think DataPlay is that interesting for us. DataPlay is good for people who still use CD's, rather than MP3's. If we want MP3 on DataPlay, what do we need? A DVD-writer, a DataPlay-MP3-player or DataPlay-multiformat-player and several writable DataPlay-Discs. This costs a lot! By the time the price has dropped, there will also be other affordable technologies available to play MP3 with, even better than DataPlay. I also think DataPlay can be interesting for other portable devices, such as cellphones or digital camera's, but I think we'll have to wait several years before a DataPlay video-supporting cellphone will be available. This is because, by now, there aren't small processors available that do not consume a lot of energy, do not produce a lot of heat and are powerfull enough to encode DivX (probably the codec for video on DataPlay). Something concerning the datastorage of a DataPlay-disc. Current DVD's are 4, 8 and 16 gigz. 4=single sided, single layered, 8=single sided, double layered or double sided, single density. 16 gigz means a disc being as well double sided as double layered. I think dataplay discs will be 250, 500 and 1000 MB with 250MB single sided and single layered, ...
NotAlone	Date: February 18, 2002 @ 7:39 PM ThaCoyote: CD's and DataPlay are both digital storage technologies but they are completely different formats. People using CD's or not has nothing to do with using DataPlay to store and play mp3.s Mp3's have everything to do with DataPlay. DataPlay devices have an optical drive that will write and play back all types of data files including mp3 files. Some time later this year, stores will be stocking a variety of mp3 players that will have DataPlay drives inside. All DataPlay drives are writer/players. These DataPlay enabled players will be competing head on with flash card mp3 players and mp3 CD players. In answer to your question. If you want to copy a mp3 file onto your DataPlay player you connect the player to your PC using a USB cable and download the file. This will be only one of several ways to copy files to a DataPlay drives.
ingenious	Date: February 19, 2002 @ 11:54 PM Sounds like a piece of trash. Crackers undid WinXP's "secure" activation process before it was even released. Anything released by the RIAA to go against MP3 will be the #1 objective to crack until it is. Remember the university that cracked SDMI before anybody was even using it? I'm quite happy burning 700MB on my $0.10 CDR, albeit maybe 5x larger than this "mini" thing. I don't want it! Bring it on, RIAA.
mtbatol	Date: February 20, 2002 @ 12:57 PM i agree, the good ol 700 cd-r & cd-rw will catch on with the masses before this dataplay thing takes root to fly in my opinion.
NotAlone	Date: February 20, 2002 @ 5:16 PM Do you think that Good ol' CDr drives will be the drive of choice for manufacturers to put in new portable digital devices like digital cameras, cell phones and a GPS device? I don't think so but don't get me wrong I like CDr's. I have 3 portable mp3 CD players, a mp3 car player and three different home stereo devices that play mp3 CD's. Mp3 CD's are very sweet! The thing is, CD drives are just too big to be the technology of choice for future portable devices. In our digital future there are going to be more and more portable digital devices. Music, pictures, video, games and data will all need a small and affordable archival storage media. A STANDARD storage media is needed for portable devices. We also badly need a replacement for the antiquated floppy drive. We do not currently have any type of storage media that fits the bill. However DataPlay will soon be out and it could fit the bill for our portable storage needs IF it can be made rewritable. We will all just have to wait and see if DataPlay technology will take off and succeed or fall by the wayside like so many other digital technologies have in the past. This technology has good backing and most of the makers of portable digital devices will be putting this technology in new products. I think this technology will make it as a storage technology all by itself. The other aspect of this technology is the prerecorded music, text, video and data that will be coming. I think DataPlay technology will succeed in part because some of the investors behind it are music labels. This, in itself, means lots of support for the format. The music industry has lost control of the distribution of music. In part because of the fact that CD's can be copied. The music industry is looking to get away from distributing music on CD's. They have changed media many times in the past they will not hesitate to change to a different media for distributing music.
ingenious	Date: February 21, 2002 @ 3:25 AM I bet CDR will be the next floppy disc.. Everybody will have a cdr soon, just like everybody had a phonograph. i'm intoxicated, don't mind me.
ThaCoyote	Date: February 21, 2002 @ 3:49 AM But the subject is DataPlay. According to NotAlone's reply to my previous comment I think dataplay will be like MiniDisc. Minidisk also has an optical laser able to read/write/rewrite the small protected disk. I think it's strange that noone has made this comparison before in this thread. But Minidisc never really flourished. Why? I really don't know! I have one myself and I think it's pretty cewl, in spite of the fact that it has 1:1 record ability (You actually need 74 minutes to fully record a disk, through the line out from your sound card for example). Minidisc was also able to hold data, so it would be easy to make a Minidisc MP3-player. I wonder if Dataplay would ever replace audio CD's. I don't think so, since it doesn't add anything to minidisc, regarding its audio capacities and Sony's MiniDisc has tried it before." id="3648">What's the huss about a new floppy disk/drive? Isn't there ZIP-disk/drive? It's just like floppy as a floppy disk, but with a hard casing though. It's also 3.25" like a floppy disk drive and it fits 100 or 250 MB. But the subject is DataPlay. According to NotAlone's reply to my previous comment I think dataplay will be like MiniDisc. Minidisk also has an optical laser able to read/write/rewrite the small protected disk. I think it's strange that noone has made this comparison before in this thread. But Minidisc never really flourished. Why? I really don't know! I have one myself and I think it's pretty cewl, in spite of the fact that it has 1:1 record ability (You actually need 74 minutes to fully record a disk, through the line out from your sound card for example). Minidisc was also able to hold data, so it would be easy to make a Minidisc MP3-player. I wonder if Dataplay would ever replace audio CD's. I don't think so, since it doesn't add anything to minidisc, regarding its audio capacities and Sony's MiniDisc has tried it before.
ThaCoyote	Date: February 21, 2002 @ 4:06 AM I might think now why MiniDisc never flourished: Record labels never brought music on MiniDisc (maybe because they were involved in developing another technology like DataPlay?) One sentence above might be confusing: "It's just like floppy as a floppy disk, ..." Should be: "It's as floppy as a floppy disk, ..." Please don't blame me
draugluin	Date: February 22, 2002 @ 9:37 PM I all around think its pretty cool, despite the price of course, but just think you'll be able to carry cd's the size of pocket change in tiny jewel cases in your pockets, with small labels, and you just whip out your PDA then whip out your small cd's sit int he middle of class and listen to well over 3 hours of music right there on the PDA. so yea I think it will pretty much revolutionize alot of the stuff we have today..
Karlu	Date: April 19, 2002 @ 12:45 PM There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there about DataPlay. Contrary to some of the posts here, DataPlay will not prevent users from making copies even though it uses some copy protection approaches dictated by the record labels. Users will still be able to make digital quality copies to other DataPlay discs from the original pre-recorded copies. This will not be an infinite number but it will be enough (3,5 or more) to let users have one for their home, some for their friends, one for the office, the car etc. Unlike copy protrected CD's, DataPlay will let you make copies of protected pre-recorded content and these copies are guaranteed to playback on any DataPlay device or when connected to the PC. Also, you'll be able to easily move your MP3's on your PC or from services like Morpheus to blank DataPlay discs and play those in any DataPlay device. This also does not skip at all, and hasa cartridge so you can't scratch it like CD, and compared to solid state it costs about 1 penny per MB vs. around $1.00 per MB for solid state, and you'll also get pre-recorded music which you can't get on solid state. The players are also burners and operate like external drives so you can store pictures, video, data, anything on blanks. You also be able to write to the blank areas of the pre-recorded DataPlay discs to add pictures, create custom playlists, etc. You can't do that with ROM pre-recorded CD's. You'll also be able to use the same DataPlay media in digital cameras coming out, PDA's coming out, portble video players, PC drives, etc.
drewelle	Date: April 24, 2002 @ 11:39 AM OK - I am going to convert all of my CD's to DataPlay because I want a rights restricted, lower quality, smaller form factor and I want to buy yet another piece of hardware? Somebody explain the REAL advantage here. I would also like to better understand this concept of unlocking additional content....yeah right. And where my friends does the retailer sit in all of this - I cannot imagine they are thrilled. Sell one physical disk with 5 other disks on it? Get paid for one - sell six?
mtbatol	Date: April 24, 2002 @ 5:57 PM ehh, dataplay may be ideal for lets say... digital cameras or even camcorders but as music players I think the best that it can achieve is replace minidisk players and even dominate over the solid state players. Now I think about it this may shove solid state players out of the way altogether since it's cheaper, just as compact, etc. (as long as the copy protection isn't $hi++y) But like i say time n time again just give me a hi compacity HD player

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