Best Buy, Real and SanDisk To Launch Music Service 109
M00NIE writes "Best Buy has announced it's going to join forces with Real and SanDisk to launch a new online music store. The new technology apparently makes use of Sansa music players that support Rhapsody DNA subscriptions." From the article: "As far as technical details go, Best Buy's new service is going to be identical to Rhapsody's current offering of WMA-protected audio files with the additional features provided by Rhapsody DNA. Rhapsody DNA is based on Real's Helix DRM and gives users the ability to access their content across different types of devices, and provides what RealNetworks describes as an "end-to-end music experience" similar to the closed ecosystem approach that Apple uses and Microsoft will be using with the Zune."
why? (Score:1, Insightful)
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Just what the world needs... (Score:1, Funny)
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Actually, maybe that's a good way to purge the music industry...
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. .
KFG
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I overlooked the redundency factor.
KFG
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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Score:2, Insightful)
Too many idiots are buying into the Zune hype.
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Could they possibly have come up with a better combo for me to rush out and ignore?
I'm giving Sansa the benefit of the doubt until I see how the whole Rhythmbox thing turns out, which means I ain't buyin' that yet either.
KFG
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I donno....maybe they can slap the Packard Bell name on the digital music players?
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Mum! Dad! Don't touch it. It's evil!
KFG
mod request (Score:2)
"Digital watches, day one!"
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Best Buy, Microsoft DRM and Real.
Could they possibly have come up with a better combo for me to rush out and ignore?
Free coupons for the store when you subscribe to AOL, and with your first purchase you get a free Kevin Federline track.
Anyone else?
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KFG
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Indeed I did. I hate when that happens. Mea Culpa.
I shall take myself out and have me flogged with a wet Vorbis. If I don't know what he's done to deserve it; he will.
KFG
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After living in their cars on the streets of Wichita for five years, the Dot-Scammers are back in town - with new suits, new shoes, new business ideas, and a new attitude! (They've still got the same penchant for parties, though.)
I hope they crash and burn twice as violently this time. Maybe that'll learn 'em.
Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, they're doing pretty well against Sony...Pried open a nice niche in the console market. But they're competing on their home turf there...Anyone want to argue that Windows doesn't dominate PC gaming?
But competing against Apple where the atributes you have to beat are Coolness, User Interface, and User Friendlyness? What the hell are they smoking? It's not going to happen, it's going to be like those damn Mac Commercials [apple.com]...the dividing line between cool and crap is very clear.
Rule #1: Don't bother competing with Apple. (Score:1)
God forbid that an organization make an attempt to offer products and services in an open market.
Do you think it will be so difficult for these large companies to create "Coolness, User Interface, and User Friendlyness"? At the
WTF with Double Irony Points (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. There's more to this story than meets the eye.
According to this article [dapreview.net], the underlying hardware is based on the e200 series of players. That's interesting because the e200 [anythingbutipod.com]'s most distinguishing feature is its support for both MTP mode (yuck, Media Transfer Protocol means "works on XP only, and you can only transfer files by politely asking WMP10/11+ for permission") and UMS (woohoo, USB Mass Storage, it mounts like every other USB drive on every OS in the world) mode.
There's also been rumors of interest from Sandisk in working with the Rockbox [daniel.haxx.se] folks.
I speculate that Real is paying Sandisk a small fortune to place Real-branded (and Real-DRM-infected) firmware on the existing Sansa e200 hardware. The branding of the player "Sansa Rhapsody" doesn't stomp all over the "Sansa e2x0" series. Sandisk makes money off Real's licensing fees and the hardware even if the programme flops flat on its face. Sandisk, after all, is in the business of selling flash memory, not MP3 players - hence why the e200 is flash-based and has an expansion slot for MicroSD. If you're a flash manufacturer, high-capacity flash-based MP3 players are a great means of not just driving sales, but for boosting profit margins.
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I have an Sansa e200 player. For what it's worth, MTP also works well with recent versions of Winamp, so WMP isn't obligatory. Yes, it's still on Windows, but it's a little less painful than being forced to use WMP. The WinAmp support for audi
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You jumped on the iPod bandwagon and probably NEVER even used, seen, or know anything about the Sandisk players (or ANY player besides the ones from Apple) and have never used or seen Rhapsody either right? Quick, search Google for some negative reviews that you can cut and paste tidbits from to make it look like you actually have tried other products and services.
I have been using Rhapsody for years and I love it and I have zero complaints. I have no comment on the music to go service or th
are the files usable? (Score:3, Interesting)
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At one point, the ear itself will be outlawed because of its DMCA-defiant qualities.
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And the mouth and the hand that holds a pen or types on a keyboard, for communicating potentially subversive thoughts.
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As far as I know though, it only supports Real and WMA, which is to say Windows and Windows compatible players.
It's a big standards war...Everyone is trying to turn their DRM into the standard, and so no one wants their stuff to be interoperable with their competition. Microsoft and Apple are in the best position to push their stuff right now,
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If so, that's really going to undermine the "PlaysForSure" brand...
Do you want the Audio Performance Plan with that? (Score:5, Funny)
The BestBuy plan. (Score:1)
And they'll advertise music players for $29.99, but when you get there you find out that it's really $159.99 with a $130 rebate, which you never receive after you mail in the rebate form (there is fine print that basically says they aren't obligated to pay you after all).
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speaking of extended warranties. . . (Score:5, Funny)
The player takes a friggin AAA.
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Grow balls, AC.
PS I surf the internet at work. Here is a link [bestbuy.com] to a $49 player at BB. Looks like I see a little 'protect it' logo. Seems I can buy a 2 year contract for $8.99.
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Is this a joke? (Score:3, Insightful)
At the risk of repeating myself (Score:2)
"You don't know what the world you're living in is going to be like but you can guess some things about it: there will be no music companies in it. Now if you leave them alone to buy more congressmen, in this very corrupt time of ours, they will survive for a little while longer but all of this talk is about the technicalities of the adjustment of the terms of their demise. When we want to start talking about something that matters, we would do better to begin fro
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Yeah, my first thought when reading the headline was, could there be 3 companies that could join forces that I'd want less to do with? And then I thought, maybe.... CompUSA selling MP3 players based on..... LaCIE hard drives with music from.... Real. Nope, in this mad-lib I can't think of something worse than Real.
Anyone else have something better (worse)? _____________ selling MP3 players based on _____________ with Music from _____________.
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WalMart selling MP3 players based on SCO Unixware with Music from ClearChannel..
even then I just donno
Take a Business 101 class... (Score:1)
Why are you personally threatened by this? If you're an Apple fanboy, you can still purchase your protected media from the iTunes store. God forbid anyone offer competition to Apple. Face it, in the near distant future, Apple's main
I feel so special... (Score:2, Funny)
Huge... (Score:1, Redundant)
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This thing is going to drop like a rock. I give it 6 mos. to a year, tops.
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They're also in many ways customer-hostile. Return a dvd without a reciept, and get treated like a child molester, even if it's still got all the original best buy stickers on it. That sort of attitude fits right in with the DRM scheme that they're espousing in this online service.
Unless Microsoft craps a miracle and their clunky "available in white, black, a
the mr hankey music player. (Score:1)
Hi-dee hi! But it wouldn't be so bad if the music didn't happen to be crap as well.
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Probably so. After all, "no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
Best Buy is legendary as a terrible place to shop; I've had plenty of nontechnical people tell me how miserable their shopping experiences were there; yet Best Buy seems to be doing just fine as a company despite this. Even the ill-fated DIVX v
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Well, except for those Divx guys. That went over like the proverbial stainless steel Hindenburg.
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So I will get to buy music (Score:2)
Real + Bestbuy (Score:1)
Enough! (Score:2)
$249 for 8GB, $.99 per song (Score:2)
Cut off $100 of the player and $.49 of each song and you MIGHT be able to compete.
Would Best Buy stop selling iPods? (Score:1)
Thanks for the revalation. Yes, new market entrants must provide products and services at a lower price point. [I clap my hands and hand you a silver star.]
But the real competition will come when the marketing and service power of Best Buy is able to one up Apple. Time will tell. This is another competitive advantage Best Buy/Real/Sandisk will have over Apple. And if Best Buy is really predatory, they will stop selling i
All of my favorite companies working together! (Score:1)
Is it just me or (Score:1)
"Hey guys, APPLE is succesful with a closed ecosystem, maybe thats the magic mojo? Limiting customers choices! Brilliant!"
The only way to beat Apple is to make something thats more compelling then an ipod. If you want a music player are you going to buy an iPod or a device just like an iPod??
These companys need to raise the bar and come up with something compelling that Apple hasn't done already instead of trying to scamble for some of apples table scraps.
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It's not the iPod that's compelling. (Score:2)
"The only way to beat Apple is to make something thats more compelling then an ipod."
It's not the iPod or the iTunes Store that are compelling. It's iTunes itself. Until a competitor produces software that makes managing your music collection and getting it from your computer to your music player easier than iTunes does, there'll never be an "iPod killer", regardless of features, price, ease of use etc. The ease of use of iTunes made the Store possible, and it is that ease of use of the service, not the
How Does Real Make Money? (Score:1)
But I don't know anyone who likes anything real does at all. I mean, they used to be a playering in streaming media, but we all know
...buffering...
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how well that turned out: Microsoft and Apple ate their painfully bloated spyware's lunch.
So, market is Real a leade
Ford cars run only on Mobil gasoline, (Score:3, Insightful)
It's always been that way. That's what made American oil companies and American automakers so successful.
Consumers love being asked to guess which product to buy, knowing that there's only one chance in three they'll be able to use the product five years from now.
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Apple does it and its merrily called an ecosystem! (Score:1)
Yes, and all Apple fanboys feel warm inside knowing that protected iTunes files will only run on their iPods. Every fanboy gets his due desert.
yrotagilbO (Score:1)
Best Buy, Real, Sandisk? (Score:2, Funny)
Sansa makes some good stuff (Score:2)
I got tired of MP3 players, including an Ipod, being either unreliable or having design issues (Ipod doesn't work when you have gloves on or cold hands, Dell's players STINK, etc.)
So I got a supercheap Sansa player that works with my Yahoo subscription and it just works great. And their other devices are priced well and look good.
Please stow the DRM complaints. Those are the kind of complaints that stupid people m
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Personally, I do. It's just hard to imagine why anyone *would* pay for DRM'd music, at least for me. It's crazy--you're paying for music as if it's a service. What ever happened to the satisfaction of having an actual record (LP or CD or what have you) on the shelf that you can do w
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Why would I want to have to haul a huge collection of CDs around with me, spend the time to get them onto my computer, catalog them, and then have to do it all over again every time I get a new computer?
Why would I want to have to spend $15 a month for only one LP a month when I can spend just $5 a month and get EVERYthing that came out that month.
Why would I want to have CDs that can scratch or break or be stolen?
Why would I not want a service that giv
Every company I hate... (Score:1)
For Once! (Score:3, Insightful)
My mooosic player plays old fasioned MP3's and I pay $10 a month for a good news group subscription.
In Defense of Rhapsody (Score:2, Informative)
* More aff
Interesting confict of interest, problem for Zune (Score:2)
That said I could see this working if the Sansa device is promoted purely as a service device that you pay for a month of song access, just like the phone. There are some people that would go for that and they could take over that niche.
Honestly this seems to have a much better chance of staying around than the Zune does. The Zune doesn't know what it is, is it a music player or an all you can eat browser? It will focus on
Real Corporate Slogan (Score:1)
This might be interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, the e200R and Rhapsody 4.0 actually appear to be a decent alternative to an iPod/iTMS, not to mention Microsoft's Zune. I know, I know - BestBuy and Real (along with Microsoft WMA) sound like a match made in hell, but the features posted on Wired [wired.com] actually sound interesting - especially "My Rhapsody Channel" (sort of like Pandora [pandora.com] for portable music players) and "Dynamic Playlists" (same idea, but featuring new releases).
Regardless of what you think of Real, you can't argue that they are doing some innovative things here (we'll have to see on how well it is executed). And while I haven't even touched a Sansa, they are the 2nd most popular MP3 player and do get decent reviews [engadget.com].
I'm thinking that for people who are interested in renting music, as opposed to the $0.99 per-track iTunes model, this sounds a lot more compelling than any of the PlaysForSure alternatives. If they would just subsidize the player and sell it cheap ($99 or less) with a 1 or 2 year service commitment, I think they could do very well.
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Damnit! I bought one of those! (Score:2)
Well, I for one will continue to not sign up for any of these evil DRM sites and services. I do all my access in MSC mode (just plain USB disk installation mode) via linux.
What's funny is that the player has to be in the no-drm plain transfer mode to do automatic firmware updates.
Someone somewhere isn't thinking.
And no, I don't even _care_ what the details of Helix DNA are. The concept is flawed so the implem
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