Interesting theory.

wierd, my car does not have an sd slot.....

/though i do have aux in...
// and a iphone.

I never understook this move by Sandisk either. They don't really need to worry about much in their field, electronics for the most part will always carry a need for expandable memory. So as long as they continue to crank out better, smaller, and higher capacity cards they'll be fine.

This move seems to be more of a "lets try and get every dollar we can out of whoever is stupid enough to buy it".

Kar98: Interesting theory.

Yeah it is. However, I think that the days of physical media for music distribution are coming to a permanent end. Not tomorrow or next year, but probably in the next 10 years, it will all be gone. I personally hate physical media. I have the unrelenting ability to drop, scratch, leave around, use as a coaster, and lose CDs. But when I have my music on an hard drive, so long as I have a good UPS, and maybe have it raided, I will never lose that media.

But that also brings into question, if there's no physical media, why is the price the same? I could only assume that the actual production costs would drop drastically. Final mix -> Dump to web site -> Profit.

Ultimately it all ends up with the record companies working with technology instead of against it.

I bought a Kenwwood stereo for my car that had an sd slot, it was a pain in the ass so I gave it to my brother.

Because nothing says Green like creating more useless plastic "disks".

aszure: I personally hate physical media. I have the unrelenting ability to drop, scratch, leave around, use as a coaster, and lose CDs.

Sackly. The appeal of things like iPods is that you can drag your entire music library around WITHOUT having to juggle physical media.

admvernclark: wierd, my car does not have an sd slot.....

Mine does, and I like it quite a bit. Don't get scratched up like CDs, re-writable, and 2 gig chips are like $8.

I guess when it all comes down to it, Sandisk wants to sell flash cards. And figure they will sell more if there's something on them.

Sony sells a chip for the PSP that comes with a Sony movie on it (think the one I seen was Ghost Rider). Seems like a decent idea though. Although I hate DRM since the only person it affects is us honest buyers.

The main appeal of this isn't the ability to swap in and out music from a single player (since larger HD mp3 players already allow people to carry around their entire music collection). It's the ability to easily transfer music files from one device to another.

I would love an mp3 player that stored music on a single enormous SD card (like 100 gigs, or something, enough that it could hold a whole collection of music). Then if I ever want to change players, I could swap the card out and put it in the new player. Or put it in my stereo system, or my car, etc. No need to transfer massive amonts of data.

However, selling SD cards like they're CDs is a losing idea.

Supes: However, selling SD cards like they're CDs is a losing idea.

THIS.

That's going to be the main issue surrounding it, I don't think people are going to buy into it unless they already own a flash based player.

I know I won't be going out and buying new player anytime soon to support this format.

I could see it going either way, personally I'd love to move all my media (music, movies, tv shows, print media games ect) to a collection of SD cards

Great. I need a box full of SanDisks lying around my apartment.

Here comes my rant against SanDisk.

SanDisk has their own line of MP3 players. The one I have, Sansa Clip, has this long-running defect where the battery will literally drain even if completely off after 2 days. When it's charged, you can get like 12 hours of playtime so there's no reason it should drain after 2 days.

Never buying their crap again, unless forced to for compatibility reasons.

Bondidude: I know I won't be going out and buying new player anytime soon to support this format.

Well, my phone does have a microSD slot and Windows MediaPlayer. However, the latter is the only piece of software on it that I've never used.

aszure: Kar98: Interesting theory.

Yeah it is. However, I think that the days of physical media for music distribution are coming to a permanent end. Not tomorrow or next year, but probably in the next 10 years, it will all be gone. I personally hate physical media. I have the unrelenting ability to drop, scratch, leave around, use as a coaster, and lose CDs. But when I have my music on an hard drive, so long as I have a good UPS, and maybe have it raided, I will never lose that media.

But that also brings into question, if there's no physical media, why is the price the same? I could only assume that the actual production costs would drop drastically. Final mix -> Dump to web site -> Profit.

Ultimately it all ends up with the record companies working with technology instead of against it.

I disagree, I think there will always be a demand, albeit a much smaller demand, for physical media. AS someone who collects and listens to vinyl (yea, I'm one of those guys) I always feel more connected to the music when I have something to hold onto/look at. Besides that the fact remains that artist make the majority of their money in merch sales, with no physical product what money would they be making? Sure the artist could sell their own music but then they don't get the exposure that labels can provide, making it harder for the artist to sell the album they are selling on their own, and causing less people to attend their shows, which results in less people buying shirts and things.

No i think that there will always be the option to purchase a physical copy of music, what that physical medium may be in ten years I don't know but I am certain that the option will exist.

/hopes they keep making vinyl
//likes the feel of putting on a nice Mingus album and sip on some single malt.

Aside from the obvious difficulty of getting people to pay for music they've been Dling for years, you gotta consider the extraordinarily stupid idea of keeping track of tiny media cards. They're gonna disappear in the wash, get vacuumed, fall like quarters around the toilet bowl, get dropped in drain gates, etc. And the argument that the media is of higher quality is only argued by those who never spent the 30 seconds required to Google a 320, FLAC, or lossless torrent, nzb file, or rapidshare link.

I do agree with the idea of having one flash chip hold move everything from player to player, like a SIM card. But that's not the point, here.

gatsome:
This move seems to be more of a "lets try and get every dollar we can out of whoever is stupid enough to buy it".

Also known as capitalism.

Just what I need, a thousand little SD Cards laying around my house.

If it would have about 500 songs I love and would save me the pain in the ass of downloading it myself, while at the same time costing very little, then maybe it's a good idea.

Chances are that it won't. In which case it's just a glorified MiniDisc, and we all know what happened to them (iPod Smash!).

/hotlinked like I stole it

They could always try lowering the prices to something that people would be willing to actually pay for, but that's just crazy talk.

aszure:
But that also brings into question, if there's no physical media, why is the price the same?

Because they feel the demand is the same.

d3 , I believe Rhapsody offers a lot of DRM-free mp3 downloads now...I noticed some a week or two ago. They cost a little more of course, but still it got a mild "ZOMG" reaction from me. Haven't tried it and of course they are a subscription service first and a pay-to-download second so you have to pay a monthly fee either way I think.

admvernclark: wierd, my car does not have an sd slot.....

/though i do have aux in...
// and a iphone.


Mine does, and it also has a USB drive for my 4GB thumbdrive full of music too. Oh and it has AUX too!

/oh yea. . . .and a cd slot. . . .but I never use it. lol.

Looks like I'll have to buy the White Album again.

gatsome: I never understook this move by Sandisk either. They don't really need to worry about much in their field, electronics for the most part will always carry a need for expandable memory. So as long as they continue to crank out better, smaller, and higher capacity cards they'll be fine.

This move seems to be more of a "lets try and get every dollar we can out of whoever is stupid enough to buy it".

exactly. this is a "Let's get more people to buy SD cards" move. they don't care what's actually on them.

I think the key would be to have music vending machines where you could either insert your own SD or buy them directly from the machine that already have the songs stored locally. This way if your out and about and want some new songs you can just plug in and transfer without waiting to download.

With high-speed internet it's not a big deal to down load a 5mb song, but if 16GB SD cards get cheap enough, I could really see the value in buying movies this way.

It's an interesting step.

I would personally love to have a multi-terabyte SD card that I could hold massive amounts of music on. I like the vending machine idea as well. Set it up like a Redbox, except you buy it right out and it's yours for the taking. I for one don't care much if I don't have album art, but it may bother some people. Who knows.

discmakers offers replication on custom printed usb thumb drives, but they start at 7.95 each (or therabouts, based on quantity). a cd is 1 dollar(or less, yadda yadda). why would i pay 8 times as much for the same content? because remember, you dont own anything but a liscense when you buy media. i would guess the answer was that you could "reuse" the drive, but drives of larger size are cheaper at the checkout counter in "insert store here".

makes no sense. or cents.

aszure: I personally hate physical media. I have the unrelenting ability to drop, scratch, leave around, use as a coaster, and lose CDs. But when I have my music on an hard drive, so long as I have a good UPS, and maybe have it raided, I will never lose that media.

Uh.. huh. This is different from you not dropping, scratching, losing or putting your drink on your CDs how?

I guess they have this tied into the Sansa View that Sandisk make and so on, that have a microSD card slot.

Still I am not paying all that money for a crappy DRM laden, low quality mp3s of an album.