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Sony to launch online music service

7 January 2004 20:51 by Jari Ketola | 2 comments

Consumer electronics giant Sony Electronics has announced that it will be opening an online music service in United States during the spring 2004. The specifications of the service sound quite familiar -- half a million songs at 99 cents per song, $9.99 per album.

The Connect online service will at first work only with Sony portable devices, such as the Mini Disc player. The songs will be available in Sony's ATRAC3 format. Support for devices by other manufacturers will be introduced later on.

In addition to Connect, Sony also unveiled a new high-capacity Mini Disc player Hi-MD Walkman. The Hi-MD discs allow a capacity of up to 45 hours per disc. Sony also plans to introduce several products with "combined functionality". For example a home theatre system connected to the Connect -service.

"Our role is to create new and exciting markets and whereas other companies are playing up the commoditization of products and driving cost, we think there are new ways to create entertainment experiences," said Tim Baxter, head of home entertainment products for Sony Electronics USA.

Source: Reuters

Permalink to this article

Sony admits ATRAC was a mistake (23 January 2005)

Sony Connect music service launched (5 May 2004)

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GrayArea (Member) 8 January 2004 14:59
ANOTHER propriatary format? To facilitate DRM of course, and sell lots of SONY hardware. Oh, and they OWN the rights to much (if not all) of the music they will be selling. Don't have to split that .99 cents with anybody. All I can say is, I hope they are one of the first to go... [ + quote]
robmill (Junior Member) 27 January 2004 4:21
Gray Area, Well, I will have to disagree with you on this one. We already have DVD - + r rw da da da da da,,,,CDR da da da da da,,,,not to mention all of the Computer Audio Based files. MiniDisc using Atrac is an established format, no matter what folks will say about it. Its used in the Business Industry, Home Recording and Studio Recording. It being a multi-compatable format, i.e. capable of direct audio recording from other sources, to holding a great if not the best compression scenero of them all "ATRAC" and just the capabibilty of holding so much music on one disc,,,45 hours,,,,I think it blows the IPOD and MP3 players out of the water. With Sonys announcement to port it into its home audio equipment as another source just adds to its capability. Not to mention the usage of multiple media that the Atrac encoded music can be placed on,,,,memory sticks and the like. I just think its a great announcement and the the audio industry stands to benefit from it. No all thats needed is SuperAudio MDs. Robert [ + quote]