Secure Digital Overtakes Memory Stick

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/3530.html' target='_blank'>http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/3530.html</a><br /><br /></div>Hmm, this news makes me very happy. Please, give me a broadly accepted standard anyday over those expensive Memory Sticks... unfortunately, I don't think Sony will ever give in. :cry:<br /><br />"Despite numerous efforts by Sony, supremacy has slipped through the fingers for its Memory Stick format: now, the SD Memory Card format reigns supreme. According to analyst firm The NPD Group, SD Memory Cards captured approximately 23% of US retail sales in January and February combined, overtaking Memory Stick media and - in less than three years - positioning itself as the emerging de facto industry standard. The format saw a whopping growth of over 400 percent in 2002, and the SD Card Association controlling the format says early indications point to strong growth continuing in 2003."

[Coordinator]

Yes, memory stick going down is nice, if only it wasn't SD which overtook it. SD contains copy restriction technology implanted by the media cartel (RIAA). This makes cards more expansive to produce, eats up some of the memory and insults the users by making us pay for restricting our own freedom. Go CompactFlash! :D

[szamot]

give me my 4 gig SD card at a reasonable price and I will shut up about RIAA otherwise dido on CF

[ricksfiona]

Those Sony Memory Sticks are such a rip-off. Now Sony is coming out with a new Memory Stick that is of much higher capacity, but is incompatible with all their older Memory Stick devices. Go figure.

SD is cool. I need 1GB+ capacity with some more speed.

[R K]

This makes cards more expansive to produce, eats up some of the memory and insults the users by making us pay for restricting our own freedom. Go CompactFlash! :D

I'll agree with your first two points but regarding the third, I think the DRM on the SD Cards were supposed to be for music distributed on the SD Card itself. Since these DRM protected SD Cards haven't even taken off yet, I see no consumer-oriented problem coming for the future.

[Paul P]

1GB Memory Stick for $450 and available now? I call that one up for the Memory Stick.

[Pony99CA]

"Despite numerous efforts by Sony, supremacy has slipped through the fingers for its Memory Stick format: now, the SD Memory Card format reigns supreme."
Are they claiming that SD (and MemoryStick) sell more units than Compact Flash?

Steve

P.S. Hollister, California -- Home of the SD Card Association. I've actually visited it. :-D

[bjornkeizers]

Hardly a surprise if you ask me. I'm a CF junkie. Allways have been, allways will be. It's a great format; high capacity, cheap, and works with allmost anything without problems.

I do own a single memory stick. a 64 mb stick for my Clie SL10. I paid twice for the same amount of space then if I bought a CF card.

Besides, the only products to use MS are Sony products. I can use SD in just about as much products as CF: Palm's, PPC's, digital cameras, MP3 Players.... The way sony treats their customers it's hardly surprising consumers give sony The Finger and move to a decent format.

[beq]

A quick OT question -- will all those SD to CF adapters (where it's physically possible) also support SDIO or just memory? By physically possible I meant the SD card would have to be inserted vertically into the CF adapter (so not the Panasonic flush adapter).

[marconelly]

What that news is saying is basically that SD products from ALL other companies combined are selling a bit more than MStick products from Sony alone. Some victory :\

If sony decides to release Playstation 3 with memory stick instead of memory cards, you can say goodbye to whatever dominant format will be at the time - Stick will overtake it by the sheer need of buying one with the console.

Having said that, I wish Sony never introduced that stick. Why on Earth they needed that is beyond me.

[Ed Hansberry]

Mwahahahahahahaha. :twisted:

And my 512MB SD card will be here Thursday. :clap:

[BarryB]

I'm not a particular fan of memory sticks, but they are no longer that expensive given that Lexar as well as Sony makes them. I don't see them as being too proprietary any more since you can buy them from a third party.

If money was the criterion, then we should have stuck with compact flash and never gone to SD. Then we'd have one inexpensive standard and I wouldn't be shopping for a six-in-one reader. :)

[PlayAgain?]

I don't understand why people are happy that a product they have no intention of buying is losing popularity. Does it bother you that much that you don't want them to have that option (no matter how poor that option may be)?

[Janak Parekh]

I don't understand why people are happy that a product they have no intention of buying is losing popularity. Does it bother you that much that you don't want them to have that option (no matter how poor that option may be)?
Yes. I'd like to be able to use my SD memory in other devices, like Sony cameras, but I can't; worse, even, is Sony consumers who can't use Memory Stick Pro technology. The absolute best thing for the electronics and handheld industries is standardization. Could you have imagined computers with many different, incompatible disk drives back in the day? Admittedly, networking standards have made life easier, but networking is still not pervasive in handheld devices.

I'd also like to think that the broad adoption and pervasiveness of SD is a large reason why Memory Stick is declining, and that consumers aren't liking the Sony approach. We'll see if that continues to happen.

--janak

[Piedone]

I've spent $3000 on a TV with Memory Stick and close to $1000 on a digital photo camera that also works with Memory Stick. Sony recently released bigger capacity sticks because of market demand (bigger than 128mb) and guess what!? My TV and camera is left off with the older 128mb only sticks, not able to accept the new 512 or 1gb sticks. Also, guess what! I'll never buy a Sony products again, with or without the stick.

Piedone

[xoiph]

A quick OT question -- will all those SD to CF adapters (where it's physically possible) also support SDIO or just memory? By physically possible I meant the SD card would have to be inserted vertically into the CF adapter (so not the Panasonic flush adapter).

Why would it have to be inserted vertically?

[Jonathan1]

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!! :twisted:

Sorry. :oops: Went just a tad overboard.

:soapbox:
My thousand dollar Cybershot 707 was forced into obsolescence why?
-It wasn't because a 5MP camera isn't good enough anymore.
-It wasn't because the battery standard isn't being produced anymore.
-It wasn't because accessories aren't available anymore.
Its because Sony changed the blasted MS format!! Sure I can use the duo switch memory stick thingy but my core point from the day they announced the new MS is that I shouldn't have to. I stand firm with the paranoid belief that there is NO way in heck that a company like Sony thought they wouldn't ever need to go above 128MB. Na ah. I don't buy that. The only possibility is stupidity (Don't buy that either) or planned obsolescence. :evil:

So please forgive me if I don't feel a tad jaded and more then a tad used by Sony. Yes I know there are at least 5 people reading this thinking “you knew what you were getting into”. Yah I swallowed the poison of my own choice but I had read online somewhere that there was going to be an antidote to it. (Read: Higher cap sticks.) I never realized that to cure me I’d have to cut off a limb. :|

At any rate I will NEVER buy, recommend, solicited, or speak positively of the memory stick ever again. Been mulling over boycotting gum as well because of the likeness. :wink: :?

This has been a patented Jonathan rant. Copyrwong 2003. All rights reserved. The author holds the right to retract any section of the statement at any time on the basis of a brain fart or caffeine overdose.

[Pony99CA]

Besides, the only products to use MS are Sony products.
That's not true. The Acer Pocket PC and Palm OS devices (http://global.acer.com/products/pda/index.htm) support Memory Stick, as does my Fujitsu laptop (http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=AC) (the laptop slot is a Memory Stick/SD slot).

Steve

[bjornkeizers]

My thousand dollar Cybershot 707 was forced into obsolescence why?
-It wasn't because a 5MP camera isn't good enough anymore.
-It wasn't because the battery standard isn't being produced anymore.
-It wasn't because accessories aren't available anymore.
Its because Sony changed the blasted MS format!! Sure I can use the duo switch memory stick thingy but my core point from the day they announced the new MS is that I shouldn't have to. I stand firm with the paranoid belief that there is NO way in heck that a company like Sony thought they wouldn't ever need to go above 128MB. Na ah. I don't buy that. The only possibility is stupidity (Don't buy that either) or planned obsolescence. :evil:

Yeah, exactly. I bought a Clie SL10, but I know people who bought a high end $500 NR70 on the promise of Sony that it'd accept a high-cap card. Sony effectively cut the legs out under all older memory stick products.


So please forgive me if I don't feel a tad jaded and more then a tad used by Sony. Yes I know there are at least 5 people reading this thinking “you knew what you were getting into”. Yah I swallowed the poison of my own choice but I had read online somewhere that there was going to be an antidote to it. (Read: Higher cap sticks.) I never realized that to cure me I’d have to cut off a limb. :|

See?


At any rate I will NEVER buy, recommend, solicited, or speak positively of the memory stick ever again. Been mulling over boycotting gum as well because of the likeness. :wink: :?

I'll tell you a little story. I bought a Fuji Finepix A201 camera last year. I bought it over a sony for the simple reason that the sony camera was a tad more expensive and used yet another stupid format. Now, my aunt and uncle want a digital camera too. Know what I told them? "Do not buy a sony. Ever. Don't even think about it." Simple as that.

I already own a lot of different formats; Smartmedia in my camera. CF for my PPC [it's so great, I even use it to replace floppys and CD-Roms], memory stick and Secure Digital. I can tell you, I'll see hell freeze over before I buy anything Sony ever again.

[Janak Parekh]

That's not true. The Acer Pocket PC and Palm OS devices (http://global.acer.com/products/pda/index.htm) support Memory Stick, as does my Fujitsu laptop (http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=AC) (the laptop slot is a Memory Stick/SD slot).
They are, however, in the serious minority. I don't know if it's because Sony's being selective, or if vendors are afraid of adoping a Sony technology because they could also compete in the same space, or if the licensing fees are too high. Neither of those three possibilities is particularly appealing, IMHO...

--janak

[Pony99CA]

That's not true. The Acer Pocket PC and Palm OS devices (http://global.acer.com/products/pda/index.htm) support Memory Stick, as does my Fujitsu laptop (http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=AC) (the laptop slot is a Memory Stick/SD slot).
They are, however, in the serious minority.
No question about it, but the point is that Sony is not alone. We can hate Memory Stick and still remain factual. :-D

And let's not just blame Sony. I can understand why SmartMedia was created (Compact Flash wasn't even really around then), but I really don't see why Olympus and Fuji needed to create xD. PC World (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,103484,00.asp) said they listed size and capacity as the two main reasons for developing their own standard, instead of going along with SmartMedia co-creator Toshiba to SD.

Personally, I don't buy that. I think SD is certainly small enough (as do many others I've seen comment here). As for capacity, SD is available in larger sizes than xD is (but I don't know what their respective maximum capacities are).

I wonder if the licensing was too expensive. It would have to be very bad, though, to justify the expenses of engineering an entirely new card format.

Steve

[rooks308]

I recently was shopping and i found a 256mb mem stick and thought "hmmm didnt think id see that, I thought only mem stick pro went above 128 mb." Then i looked closer and found that it was almost like a casette tape. LMAO it had a switch on it to use the other half of the mem stick. LOL 128 megs, then when full click the switch and boom another 128... :drinking: Yeah i think ill pass... CF and SD all the way... When i replace my Cybershot it will not be with a Sony.

[FredMurphy]

Just bought a Vaio Z1 laptop, my first Sony IT purchase. Got to say it's a very nice piece of hardware - built in WiFi, Bluetooth, great screen, lightweight, good battery.

I was just thinking that the only thing that's really wrong with it is the built-in Memory Stick slot (marked "MagicGate" whatever that is :?). If it had SD instead it'd be close to perfect. At least it's got a PCMCIA slot (only a single type II) for my CF cards.