MTV Delves Into Digital Music
Broadcast giant teams with DataPlay on an MP3 player that can
hold up to 11 hours of tunes.
James Niccolai, IDG News Service
Monday, January 07, 2002
LAS VEGAS -- MTV Networks is slapping its brand name on a digital music player
due out in April that can hold up to 11 hours of music stored in the MP3 format,
the company announced at the Consumer Electronics Show on Monday.
The player uses an innovative disc drive developed by newcomer DataPlay. It is
about the size of a matchbook and holds up to 500MB of data. The device will
be able to record and play back songs, and also doubles as an external drive for
storing digital photos, video clips, and documents for viewing on a PC, the
companies say in a statement.
Pricing wasn't immediately available, but DataPlay has said in the past that
players using its technology will retail for $200 and $300, with blank discs priced
at $5 to $10.
The MTV device measures
3.15 inches by 2.7 inches
by .98 inches and stores
music in the MP3, WMA,
AAC, and QDX formats.
Users navigate content
using a small LCD screen on
the front of the device. It
has a USB port for
connecting to a PC and
runs on a rechargeable
lithium-ion battery.
Brand Names
The company manufacturing
the device, Evolution
Technologies, will be
unfamiliar to many, but
having MTV's logo plastered
across the device should help attract users and boost the credibility of
DataPlay's fledgling storage technology, says Richard Doherty, a director with
the research company Envisioneering Group in Seaford, New York.
"MTV may be more important as a partner than someone like Toshiba," he says.
Besides music players, DataPlay hopes its drive will be used in gadgets including
digital cameras, personal digital assistants, and portable games. Vendors who've
climbed on board include Toshiba, Samsung Electronics, and SonicBlue, although
none have released products yet despite DataPlay's original launch target of
late 2001. The MTV gadget could be the first DataPlay device to hit the
streets.
Major record labels have said they will offer DataPlay discs preloaded with
music, although none are available yet. Some prepackaged content may be
available by launch, however.
"The big challenge for DataPlay is achieving a critical mass," Doherty says.
"They need enough device makers and content providers behind them to
achieve momentum."
Tough Competition
The MTV device joins an already crowded field that becomes yet more crowded
this week. Bantam Interactive has said it will launch its Explor BA800 player,
which comes with 256MB of solid-state memory and incorporates a 1.8-inch LCD
for viewing digital pictures.
Luck Technology of Korea will show off its super-slender SlimAudio player, which
is about the size of a credit card and uses a new compression technology
dubbed the Bytero format that the company claims can store three times as
much digital music as a standard MP3 player with the same memory.
Samsung says it plans to introduce new players, including wearable devices and
a combined CD/MP3 player, and SonicBlue also promised a new music player at
the show.
CES officially opens Tuesday, although the show kicks off Monday night with a
speech from Microsoft Chair and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates.
AI
