Comments on: Sony MZ-RH1 Hi-MD Walkman faces axe (but MiniDisc lives on!)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:44:00 +0000

Ipod and itunes is much more relaxed when it comes to MP3s. Hell, only the really late releasesd of MDHD allowed for mp3 native decoding. Before then it would be recoded into some Sony custom format. And even after that, the MP3s would be wrapped in a very tight drm shell. the ipod in comparison basically dumps the mp3 files into a database with little or no drm wrapped around. This then allowed third party programs to support basic music transfer after some time.

By: Average Joe

Average Joe — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:38:00 +0000

The iPod does the same thing with iTunes and that didn’t stop it from being successful.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:02:00 +0000

Meh, it was the Sony media business that killed this. MP3s could not be stored natively on the data partition of the media, so everything had to go via sonicstage. And that program would freak if the disc content was not written by the same program “key” that was later reading it. A classic example of DRM hell.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:02:00 +0000