Dataplay's disc will challenge CDs

sylvainw and jsl used our newssubmit (Thanx!) to tell us that a company called Dataplay has announced a new CD format that will be used for new records of Britney Spears, 'NSync and R. Kelly.

Reading the article I really have no clue what's new about it and what benefits it has above MP3 CD's but they do brag a lot about it, so it MUST be something great I guess:

Boulder's DataPlay, makers of a highly anticipated recordable disc about the size of a half-dollar coin, will announce today that it has landed an agreement with the parent company of Jive Records to release content in DataPlay format.

DataPlay is also announcing for the first time some of the artists who will be available in its format. Other artists under the Jive label, a subsidiary of Zomba Recording Corp., to be released on DataPlay discs include Aaron Carter and Joe.

The first albums are scheduled to hit stores June 11, said Pat Quigley, DataPlay's chief marketing officer. The price will be comparable to what CDs cost.

Blank discs and music players and recorders will be available in late April. Blank discs will cost about $10, and players and recorders will range from $299 to $369.

Okay it's some very small CD like thing, but you will need new players and recorders and the CD's itself don't get any cheaper. I wonder who read their businessplan, or did they make it in the 1960's ?

Source: Denverpost.com

By Guest, Tue 19 Mar 2002 21:29

If you read their website, you find that it is the one of the many new inevitable formats that include a "Content Key" system. They actually expect you to "activate" your new media. I will be sincerely happy to see the execs. of this corporation beggin for change on the corner in the near future. The RIAA and MPAA need to realize that they can't get away with violating thier customers, no matter how much money they pump into congress.

By Halo, Tue 19 Mar 2002 23:39

Alpine's right. I saw DataPlay's technology analyzed in a local newspaper about a month ago. The 'technology's' purpose? Solely to provide new copy prohibition mechanisms to the recording industry. If you want to Boycott the RIAA, help usher this company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy :8

By kain, Wed 20 Mar 2002 14:11

Sorry temo, but MiniDisc is indeed a dead format in the USA. I'm one of the few suckers that bought a recorder/player a few years ago only to own a big paper weight now. I got maybe 20 hours of use out of it total as CD burners and MP3 players have pretty much toasted it's existence. MD's compression codec is inferior to the higher quality MP3 and WMA formats and it's a lot cooler to have a CD with 20 hours of mp3's on it playing in your home system than a Minidisc with at most 90+ minutes on it. Now Sony is trying to make camcorders based on Minidisc technology...again the quality is inferior to DV or D-8 format. Until they can significantly increase the raw storage amount of the Minidisc format, they are wasting R&D and Marketing trying to sell that crap in the US. DataPlay's new technology being marketed above suffers from the exact same weaknesses not to mention the added "content key" system that is worse than MiniDisc's SCMS crap. puke

By Guest, Thu 21 Mar 2002 17:00

kain, I do agree that the MD market is dead in the US/Europe as far as pre-recorded music goes, but don't diss the format if you can't back it with facts: Standard singleplay bitrate is 292kbps. LP2 is ~132kbps. LP4 is ~66kbps. I wouldn't call that "inferior" compared to MP3 & WMA. (http://www.minidisc.org) MD definitely has a problem when recording your music, as most of the recorders don't support fast transfers. And NetMD is not good enough yet. But if I had to choose a portable device today, that can be used to bootleg concerts, do not skip whenever I move my fat ass around, use a media that doesn't break or turn into spaghetti when I play it and sounds considerably better than a cassette tape, I would choose a MD any day. MP3 players are fine, but considering the limited amount of solid-state storage they are simply not worth it yet, IMHO. MP3 CD players are nice if you don't move around, but they have the same problem as normal Discman players: They can't record and they easily skip when shaken. SCMS is easily defeated when copying digitally: Just record your MD through your soundcards optical out. Can't comment on the camcorder tech, as I haven't tried it or researched it. Have you ?

Top news

Forum threads

Our Community messages