The last time we heard from
Vmedia, the company was on a quixotic journey to bring Minidisc-like optical video disks to cellphones in India -- and while we haven't heard anything on that front since, the company is back with plans to place its tiny 1GB disks inside netbooks, MIDs, and dedicated USB drives. If this just sounds like SanDisk's futile
SlotMusic initiative with weirder proprietary hardware and no installed base of readers, congratulations, you can identify terrible business models. Vmedia says that it'll succeed because SD and microSD don't offer consumers a standard set of codecs, while you'll always know a Vmedia drive will play video from a Vmedia disc. Sure, maybe, but we'd bet the industry adopts a few standard video codecs for SD and microSD long before we see a mainstream cellphone or netbook with a clunky mechanical optical drive in it. In fact, hell, let's get crazy: we're willing to bet that
UMD will take over as a dominant format before we see a Vmedia drive in a name-brand device. Any takers?
posted February 3rd 2009 9:44PM
STUPID STUPID STUPID.
Now I guess Sony will be building a Vaio P with UMD?
These lil disks hold less than 2 GB...just build higher capacity SSD drives and you'll make out way better with downloaded content.
If I had to bet between this and BetaMax making it, i'd go with Sony on this one...
Or just use an SD card. It's even more compact, more robust, interoperable with other computers and devices, comes in greater capacities and the price difference isn't massive, if the SD isn't cheaper.
The codec thing is just stupid. Coming up with a standard for that is pretty easy. The only potential problem is in standardising a DRM scheme, but that looks to be less and less of a problem every day.
Look at the size of those things, not only do they hold under 2GB, but they are also 10-20 times bigger than micro SD cards in every dimension.
Not to mention as long as you're not a dumb dumb and know what codecs you're phone supports/where to get codecs for your netbook, the codec support means nothing but "We limit the type of shit you can put on here!"
No thanks Vmedia, 2001 called and wants their concept back, i'll choose the media standard that is 10 times smaller and has 8-16 times the storage capacity.
Hi Vmedia, you're not Sony. Please stop pushing crap, proprietary formats, thanks.
PS-Name a mainstream OS that can't play MPEG4 natively.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA that's what your comment almost made me do.
Didn't Sony fail with UMD? And their Bluray seems like it will be taking forever to catch on, with streaming becoming the norm now.
MiniDiscs were the shit, before mp3 players...... Now I have 8 times the storage space on my freaking phone.....
Make it Blu-ray/whatever based - in 4G and 8G capacities - and I might be interested.
Why? You can get 32GB SD cards (64GB soon to follow) and 16GB MicroSD cards (32GB soon to follow).
An optical format limited to even 4 or 8 gigs just isn't very interesting. As for 1GB, it's a joke; I bought a 2GB MicroSD card the other day for $8 CAD ($6.50 USD), including two adapters (MiniSD and SD) and a carrying case. Kingston brand. So a 1GB optical format is laughable.
dual layer anybody?
what if it's a Vmedia branded player, eh?
Vmedia != major.
didn't say major, just said named :-p
In that case, bring on the "Action Sport" brand phones or netbooks with these installed, or some other type of generic sounding chinese brand. Any name will do.
Fail or Massive Fail?
Epic Fail
Massively epic fail.
lol..
Seriously what is this company thinking?
They think they're a bank that will get free handouts after purposely failing.
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977."
"Never say never. Ever."
- Some guy in a bar
there is no use for something like this anymore. It would be too big for a camera, and why would you use that to hold movies????? Ten years ago, maybe. This is just not a good idea. What would even read this kind of card? All new card readers? No.
EDIT. Oh I just wrote a long explanation of why this is futile.
Stuff it. You all know why. It's just futile.
Simply because this year we'll see microSD cards that hold 32 times more info than one disk and have size many-many times smaller than these disks and require much less battery power.. right?
epic fail. and sony, your memory cards suck. SDHC ftw.
Beyond stupid. Never gonna happen.
cool
USB flashdrives and SDHC cards are soo inexpensive, that this is pointless! Why would anyone want to invest in ANOTHER optical media?
Also there are USB powered DVD-DL Burners.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0301744
For less than $75.00 you can have access to REAL Optical media!
So why on EARTH would ANYONE find this appealing.
5 years ago maybe. Now? No way in hell.
If they made small and affordable 1Tb drives, they'd have a winner. For a couple of years.
Ewww, moving parts...
You must be a virgin!
Just the other day I was complaining that I had too much flexibility with SD.
Looks like this company has solved the problem.
This media sakshat!
How do companies like this get money for their projects? I'd like to get to a VC firm and ask for a couple million for something like this, pay myself a lot of money, say my model is outdated and call it a day.
Funniest thing I've read all day. Great writing Nilay.
All they have to do is look at UMD to see how this will go over. When half the media-oriented phones on the market have 2GB of memory built in and an SD slot of some sort, who's going to sacrifice size and battery life for 1GB discs that they have to change in and out all the time?
I really liked UMD when it came out, and I still hold that it could have been a good replacement for music CDs. Twice the capacity and 1/3 the size makes a lot of sense logistically speaking. But the price was always too high. It was one of those things (like MiniDisc) that was a good idea for such a short time that it could never take off. Flash and other portable media dropped in price so quickly that they could never get a foothold. UMD probably would have done better for video if they had packaged a UMD in with a DVD for like $5 more. I would've bought those packs so I could have a copy of the movie for home and a copy for on the road in my PSP. I think it would've taken off a lot more, especially since 512MB Memory Sticks were like $60 and could only fit one movie when the PSP first came out. Also, some other devices (like PMPs) that used the format would have been beneficial.
It's an iomega clik!
"In fact, hell, let's get crazy: we're willing to bet that UMD will take over as a dominant format before we see Vmedia drive in a name-brand device. Any takers?"
^ I agree with this
Why on Earth does Vmedia insist to do optical disc for mobile devices? This technology has already been done and we have that back in the late 1990s. The failure of UMD and the uprising of all the tiny flash, optical disc with only 1 to 2GB max storage is a archaic!
Vmedia, go do research on terabyte crystals!
BLAH+HA+HA+HAHA+
If there was a CrapGadget category for "Products as redundant as the jobs of the guys who make them", we'd have a winner already.
Why don't they just bring back 100MB Zip drives? Yeah, that'll make money in 2009....
They tried this in 2002. The company was called dataplay. They basically had a 1-year window in the late 90s to introduce the tech into the rapidly emerging mp3 scene and make it stick... instead they missed it by 2-3 years, and were left in the dust.
http://www.compress.ru/Archive/CP/2004/12/34/DataPlay.jpg
No way. It would be way more convienient to have a flash card (SD, etc.) music, movies and software since netbooks have SD card slots. Heck, I would love to see some flash ROM formats which is essentially the same as a CD/DVD ROM.
For example, Microsoft can sell Windows 7 Mobile (or whatever) edition on a bootable flash ROM for netbooks instead of DVDs.
Well this makes alot of sense huh. Just what we wanted...
No way. This can't be true. Only reason I used to hack my PSP was to avoid those things. Luckily my PSP has been laying in the closet for like a year now. But I might have to take it out for movies for my first flight to the US and A :o
I'm sure there is one Sony exec somewhere thinking this would be a great idea. Watch Sony buying the company and touted the thing as the successor to UMD.
To succeed, this thing needs to be dirt cheap, a user recordable data medium, and supported by every consumer electronics manufactures. UMD failed because those 3 things were not fulfilled. In the end, this will fail too.
You all make me sad, folks.
....Is it only me who thinks that 5.25" media (DVD, BD) is oversized for the times?
I'd support any open disk format which would allow me to carry say 10 disks with me - in pocket.
You do understand that 10 of this disks equals 10 GB. You know 32 GB SD cards exists. You do the math.
I'd much rather see a MiniDisc drive, one that has a RW function. THAT would be useful.
Or perhaps a drive that takes those half-size CDs, thatwould also be cool.