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beatles on usb stick (interesting marketing idea)

post #1 of 23
3/11/10 at 5:47pm
Thread Starter 
The Beatles - Limited Edition USB Stick (Containing All Audio and Visuals From the Remastered Beatles Stereo Box Set): The Beatles: Amazon.ca: Music

today (at least) its on sale for just over $200 canadian.

its a metal usb 'stick' that has all the beatles' songs on it, including mp3 and 24bit flac!

given that you can't 'fit' 24bit audio on cd's, flash media is a neat way around that. then again, so is a data cdrom and those don't get corrupted or erased like flash media does.

what do you guys think of selling commercial music on usb 'stick' form? do you buy into that concept or demand a non-erasable harder format to buy music in?
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post #2 of 23
3/11/10 at 7:26pm
I think its a neat concept though without a market. Anybody who just wants those formats is likely going to just torrent the thing anyway.
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post #3 of 23
3/11/10 at 8:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by linuxworks View Post
given that you can't 'fit' 24bit audio on cd's, flash media is a neat way around that. then again, so is a data cdrom and those don't get corrupted or erased like flash media does.
It is read-only isn't it? I don't understand what you mean by corruptable or eraseable in this case.

As for the concept. I have one album in CompactStick format. The benefits compared to a CD are quite small. It's completely silent and you can have some extra stuff on it. That's about it. Convenience wise it's pretty much on par with CD.

CompactStick doesn't have better quality than a CD so there isn't much reason to buy them. Having better quality than on CD could be a selling point of USB music. It would be more accessible than SACD or DVD-A, because an ordinary computer could play them with software.
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post #4 of 23
3/11/10 at 9:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by linuxworks View Post
The Beatles - Limited Edition USB Stick (Containing All Audio and Visuals From the Remastered Beatles Stereo Box Set): The Beatles: Amazon.ca: Music

today (at least) its on sale for just over $200 canadian.

its a metal usb 'stick' that has all the beatles' songs on it, including mp3 and 24bit flac!

given that you can't 'fit' 24bit audio on cd's, flash media is a neat way around that. then again, so is a data cdrom and those don't get corrupted or erased like flash media does.

what do you guys think of selling commercial music on usb 'stick' form? do you buy into that concept or demand a non-erasable harder format to buy music in?
I like the idea. (Obviously)
This was my Christmas present to me
First thing I did after loading it on my computer was to make a back up of it on another drive. Pretty sure my investment is safe. Haven't tried to see if it's locked for editing or otherwise protected however.

I think this is the future. I recently switched to a music server and sold my CD player.
I can play higher bit rate files than was ever possible with a CD, and the convenience is wonderful.
Now if they would just have more high rez downloads and regular strength uncompressed downloads I'd be very happy.
LL
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post #5 of 23
3/11/10 at 11:27pm
I carry one of these on my keychain. Along with the music, I have a small music player program on it. Plug it into any computer and you have killer tunes. You'd be surprised how often I use it when I'm over friends' houses; either to provide music or to showcase something new I want to show them. Not exactly what you were talking about, but I consider it great marketing.

.
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post #6 of 23
3/11/10 at 11:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin Uthadude View Post
I carry one of these on my keychain. Along with the music, I have a small music player program on it. Plug it into any computer and you have killer tunes. You'd be surprised how often I use it when I'm over friends' houses; either to provide music or to showcase something new I want to show them. Not exactly what you were talking about, but I consider it great marketing.

.
My last year of law school it was the cool marketing tool for law firms to give away flash drives. I literally have enough thumbnail drives to backup my entire music collection (over 200 GB). I sometimes give them away to friends with music on it.
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post #7 of 23
3/12/10 at 12:55am
I don't think there's enough demand for solid-state media. I think the future after CDs is just download-only (including for higher sampling rates/bit depths), not prepackaged flash storage. For those without internet access, kiosks will be available to download the files and transfer them to their media.
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post #8 of 23
3/12/10 at 1:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SirDrexl View Post
I don't think there's enough demand for solid-state media. I think the future after CDs is just download-only (including for higher sampling rates/bit depths), not prepackaged flash storage. For those without internet access, kiosks will be available to download the files and transfer them to their media.
Forget the kiosks. In the future, if one can't afford internet one cannot afford music either. It's already become so incredibly widespread that it's only a matter of time until there are affordable options for everyone in every crack/crevice of the planet.

And yeah, downloads will be the future. A few decades from now kids will look back on CDs as quaint old relics from the 80s that are marketed to a select niche market, much like vinyl is viewed today. Of course, there will still be bands that release on CD and on vinyl, but most pop will be downloaded. Or streamed directly to ravenous fanbase noggins.
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post #9 of 23
3/12/10 at 1:25am
Quote:
My last year of law school it was the cool marketing tool for law firms to give away flash drives. I literally have enough thumbnail drives to backup my entire music collection (over 200 GB).
Man, all the firms that came to my school just gave out 128mg drives. Not so useful.
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post #10 of 23
3/12/10 at 1:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nealric View Post
Man, all the firms that came to my school just gave out 128mg drives. Not so useful.
The good firms (sullivan and cromwell, Jones Day, Paul Hastings, etc) gave away 2GB flash drives. The mid level firms gave away 512MB and 256MB. I don't think I even have any 128 MB drives. Though this may just be a difference of year, rather than quality. Not long ago a 128 MB drive was a big deal.
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post #11 of 23
3/12/10 at 2:26am
The CD will prove to be a much more reliable medium than MLC flash drives which use the crappiest of the crappy memory chips. I always prefer a physical product, but unless they use top grade SLC chips in these drives, I see it as a short-term gimmick. Think of the people that would be pissed if their $200+ drive became unreadable just like the plethora of ones for regular data transport. I'll take my chances with CD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
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post #12 of 23
3/12/10 at 8:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Head Injury View Post
Forget the kiosks. In the future, if one can't afford internet one cannot afford music either. It's already become so incredibly widespread that it's only a matter of time until there are affordable options for everyone in every crack/crevice of the planet.

And yeah, downloads will be the future. A few decades from now kids will look back on CDs as quaint old relics from the 80s that are marketed to a select niche market, much like vinyl is viewed today. Of course, there will still be bands that release on CD and on vinyl, but most pop will be downloaded. Or streamed directly to ravenous fanbase noggins.
Money isn't always the issue. Some people like my sister's family, make good money, but live far enough out of town that there is no cable or DSL available where they live. They suffer through with dial up.
I was in the same situation only a couple years ago.
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post #13 of 23
3/12/10 at 12:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by roadtonowhere08 View Post
The CD will prove to be a much more reliable medium than MLC flash drives which use the crappiest of the crappy memory chips. I always prefer a physical product, but unless they use top grade SLC chips in these drives, I see it as a short-term gimmick. Think of the people that would be pissed if their $200+ drive became unreadable just like the plethora of ones for regular data transport. I'll take my chances with CD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
I've only ever had one thumb drive corrupt. I've had roughly 13984623 CDs get scratched, even when taking the best care of them. I'm not sure CDs are more reliable. And yes, you'd be an idiot not to immediately transfer your USB stick to at least two other places. Whereas ripping CDs is a more time intensive process.
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post #14 of 23
3/12/10 at 1:51pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by roadtonowhere08 View Post
The CD will prove to be a much more reliable medium than MLC flash drives which use the crappiest of the crappy memory chips.
well, again, cd redbook has NO (zero, zilch, nada, nyet) checksums and so you can never know if you got a corrupted bit or not.

cd-data uses a filesystem and filesystems MUST be reliable; so those are. dvd never had a 'streaming' format on disc and was always a filesystem, so that's ok, too.

I've read that the dvd format is more robust than cd (more built in redundancy at the phys layer). so while I've seen dvd's be harder to read, the science does say that dvd is the better format for reading back your data, 'later on' and still getting it right.

if you need to use cd for archiving, at least create a zip or something that is a container format and then write THAT to the media.
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post #15 of 23
3/12/10 at 1:54pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by tuoppi View Post
It is read-only isn't it? I don't understand what you mean by corruptable or eraseable in this case.
are they, in fact, write-locked? I don't know. most flash drives are read-write; that's why I asked.

even if its write-locked, it could still get corrupted. have a 5v power supply glitch and the memory stick is toast.

lots of things can happen to it. my question is: can you just get your music back again if your media (stick, in this case) fails?

for $200+ dollars, I would want something hard and fast and in writing. or better
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