[barnaby1]

Haven't seen it mentioned here yet, but the folks over at the MinidiscT board are discussing the launch of the Sony Connect site (http://www.connect.com/). Just thought I would mention it...

 

[jpelg]

I saw Sheryl Crow on TV the other night peddling this. It's nice they have an attractive spokesperson

.

Site shows top downloads are:
1 - This Love (Maroon 5)
2 - Naughty Girl (Beyonce)
3 - Burn (Usher)
4 - Roses (Outkast)
5 - Tipsy (Kwon)

Their slogan is "Brought to you by the people who know music". Maybe, but they are marketing mainly to the masses who don't buy albums, and only want Top 100 singles. That's not my demographic.

 

[DigDub]

is this a signal to show that hiMD will be coming out soon? i'm pretty interested in how hiMD will work out.

 

[ixeo]

apparently they have issues with hi-md medias.. thus the delay of the launch.
originally it was scheduled to launch in April for the united states and june for japan and eu

then it got pushed back to mid-may, and now finally june.. im waiting for it to come out and i'm gonna snag one unit

 

[zombietycho]

I'm glad to see some competition coming. Although it may be a good while before Connect and iTunes MS come my way, I think they will be the top runners for the Online music supremecy.

NY times said something like "They are selling songs encoded in ATRAC, and if you don't have a Sony ATRAC player, it may aswell be 8-track". Pfff... Hogwash is what I say to that. All my sources tell me that SonicStage 2.0 will burn Atrac to CDR. (And lets not forget that there are more ATRAC players than iPods.)

 

[Idiot MD]

Check me on this.

To have access to the music I need to download the Connect client or the SonicStage program? I just want the music without jumping through any hoops, especially when I can't see if they are flaming or not. (Hey boys and girls, can anyone say "Spyware"?) Also, to get the music to work with a non-Sony product I need to burn the music to a cd and rip the music to my preferred format?

I'm not trying to make accusations here, but the "feature" and "overview" sections don't seem to answer many questions. It would be nice if there was a readily accessible FAQ (which seems to on the customer support area when it should be visible on the main page in my opinion since I'm not a customer yet.) Also it would be nice if Connect was compatible with something other than the leaky MSIE. I guess all answers will be provided by marketing, sensible or not.

 

[barnaby1]

I see no difference in the way Sony Connect works vs. the Itunes Music Store.

Itunes requires proprietary software and provides music in a format that will only work on certain types of portable players (Ipod; Ipod Mini).

I think the 'burning' policy for Sony Connect (as I understand it) is more lax, however...

My one big hope is that Connect will begin offering music in uncompressed linear PCM format (compatible with the new HiMD players due soon), or at the very least Hi-SP format (Atrac3+ 256K). Then, I could see paying the 0.99/song.

 

[ixeo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by barnaby1 I see no difference in the way Sony Connect works vs. the Itunes Music Store. Itunes requires proprietary software and provides music in a format that will only work on certain types of portable players (Ipod; Ipod Mini). I think the 'burning' policy for Sony Connect (as I understand it) is more lax, however... My one big hope is that Connect will begin offering music in uncompressed linear PCM format (compatible with the new HiMD players due soon), or at the very least Hi-SP format (Atrac3+ 256K). Then, I could see paying the 0.99/song.

and i second that. $0.99 for the song at only 90% quality at best isn't worth it IMO. i rather get the CD.

now that apple have that loseless format, are the songs in iTunes available in that format for 99 cents?

 

[AndyH]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ixeo and i second that. $0.99 for the song at only 90% quality at best isn't worth it IMO. i rather get the CD. now that apple have that loseless format, are the songs in iTunes available in that format for 99 cents?

No, I've heard nothing about Apple offerring the songs on the iTunes Music Store in a higher-quality format. Even if they did, I'm sure they'd charge more for the higher-quality song.

 

[austonia]

I'm wary of Son'y new Connect service based on their past media restrictions (awful).. but Apple's proprietary format never conviced me to use it either. I'l stick with the all-compatable MP3 format. It may be older and less efficient, but storage space isn't such an issue anymore, and LAME -APX files are pretty damn near CD. I think it's a better deal to buy CD's from SecondSpin.com and rip them yourself. No restrictions, and you can make lossless backups on your hard drive.