SONY Fans loyalty..

[DailyGeek]

OP was mocking the BRAND as a whole so I responded to that, nothing more or less.

Yes they own the Aiwa brand which may not be to your taste - Do you blame VW for owning Seat , Audi or do you look at Fiat and expect a Ferrari? You choose your budget and go from there in all walks of life - why shouldnt Sony have a different budget brand?

Not true at all - I have bought £200 minidisc walkman recorders before and they are high quality without being a high price. Sony's budget AV packages for £300 or so have got outstanding reviews on their own and compared to similar stuff from other brands. Same for projectors you can buy one for £1000 ( which is really budget for a porjector) or you can pay £7000 for a better model - both of which have had decent reviews in many magazines

Talking about car manufacturers isn't really the same topic is it.

Laypeople are brand loyal to Sony as they don't know any different. There are much better performers out in the market, particularly home audio equipment. Find me a 300 quid Sony home cinema system that can't be bettered, by something like a panasonic for example.

It would make sense for you to defend MD as a format if you own one. I owned one too for a short while and have experience of them. The fact is it has been a failiure for the most part. you simply can't argue with that. Sony are doing the same thing to their mp3 players, expecting the brand to carry them and that people will put up with their crappy software and formats because its Sony. They are starting to realise that isn't the case.

Its ridiculous to think that blinkered brand loyalty alone will carry them. It is a risky comment to make. No business analyst would dispute that. It certainly not an excuse to release an overpriced, under developed console, which I seriously hope isn't going to be the case.

 

[NokkonWud]

maybe the failure of PS3 cannot be an option even worth considering for SONY.

It can't, hence the pushing of Blu-Ray. If that is a success it would almost single handedly solve their problems gradually over the next decade as the Blu-Ray disc, unlike CD, is Sony's.

 

[james.miller]

People who test electronic goods for a living are more likely to have a more rounded opinion I would say.

If you are closed minded then thats upto you, but Sony wouldnt be around if all their equipment was the junk you suggest.

Maybe you should actually TRY a minidisc recorder , because it certainly wasnt lossy at all, it was as crystal clear for the purpose intended ( I am talking about potentially around 5 years ago when I bought it ) IT was reasonable at the time and it was one of the few options available

1) i used to build mixing desks for cadac electronics. try not to tell me about sound quality when the desks i were building were used by the likes of ALW.
2) minidisks use ATRACT compression to store the music on the disk. its a lossy compression. that is simple common knowledge. check your facts lossy compression will never equaly a lossless format such as cd, and where they were released atract was terrible. yes it did come a long way, but not far enough.
3) philips invented the cd, sony backed it with money. again, you are wrong.

4) ah hell. i dont need to continue

phillips, on the birth of the cd:
http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/dossier/optrec/idea.html

its an interesting read.

http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/dossier/optrec/collaboration.html

Collaboration With Sony


It must have been a wonderful experience for the stewardesses. In the first class section a number of seats had been removed to make room for the vast items of equipment. On their way to Japan, the Philips men were not going to take their eyes off their invention, not even for a moment. Two prototypes of the CD player, including two cubic meters of electronics, traveled with the party.

In March 1979, one week after the press conference in which the CD player had been shown to the world, a large Philips delegation set off for Japan. The Japanese Ministry of Industry and Technology (MITI) had decided to convene a conference in which the industry would come together and decide upon a standard for the audio disc. In order to increase the opportunities for the Philips system, it seemed a good idea to collaborate with a Japanese partner. That is why a tight schedule of demonstrations was planned at all leading Japanese electronics companies.

The development of the CD took a decisive turn just before the return journey. The demonstrations in Japan had gone extremely well. As Joop van Tilburg, head of the audio division, was packing his suitcases, he received a telephone call from the president of Sony, Akio Morita. The offer of joint further development was accepted. In the months that followed, Philips and Sony engineers flew backwards and forwards in turn to see each other. Their aim was to agree upon a joint standard for the CD. Both companies would then be able to develop their own products in accordance with this standard.

so yes. phillips invented it.

 

[FrankJH]

Maybe my recollection is wrong but I remember it being reported at the time that PlayStation and WipeOut where responsible for getting consoles really noticed by the late teens and twenty somethings that have been the driving force of the console market for quite a while ( mainly due to the dance orientated soundtrack being a hit in clubs etc)

Maybe this is wrong , I am just posting a recollection

 

[DaveyD]

The same could have & has been said of the XBox 360 as well.

Now call me one of the lucky ones, but I've had/have:

An original PlayStation - no problems
A PS2 (from launch day) - no problems
A slimline PS2 (exchanged the chunky one for it) - no problems
A Sony cassette walkman - no problems
2 Sony CD walkmans - no problems
A Sony ES range CD seperate - no problems
A Sony ES range HiFi Amp - no problems
A Sony Mini System - no problems
A Sony VHS recorder - no problems
A Sony TV - no problems
A Sony Digital Camera - no problems
(there's a pattern emerging here!!!)

There's probably a few more things that I've forgotten as well!!

The only thing I've had a problem with was some intermittent Laser problems with an old Sony DVD player I had.

I'd have to say I've been perfectly happy with just about all of their products that I've owned, and so just wanted to put the other side of the argument over - and I don't even classify myself as a Sony 'Fan'! (my current TV is Philips, DVD recorder is Panasonic & yes, I do own a 360)

Though I probably can come across as a bit anti Sony, I do have a shedload of Sony systems.

Got Sony widescreen TV, Sony Video player, Sony DVD player (broken), Sony MinDisc player, Sony CD Player, Sony 5.1 Amp. All fine, except for the DVD player. That refuses to work, but was a good player when it worked.

I think the reasons I bought the Sony DVD / 5.1 Amp was that a) it wouldn't look out of place with all the Sony Separates I already had, and b) it had good reviews, and was generally a good bargain from Richer Sounds.

I am aware that in general, when it comes to audio equipment especially, you can generally get a lot more quality for your money, and I've always seen Sony as a more 'cool' to have, good looking kind of system.

The thing is, to the average buyer, the difference in qualtiy between a Sony system and an equivalent, rated better system, you're not going to be able to tell very much difference between the systems, and you'll only really be able to tell if you're a more of an audio nut, but then you'll be buying what sounds best anyway if you were one. I'm happy with my audio equipment, it's a good £500 worth spent plus £1000 worth of speakers.

 

[NokkonWud]

Maybe my recollection is wrong but I remember it being reported at the time that PlayStation and WipeOut where responsible for getting consoles really noticed by the late teens and twenty somethings that have been the driving force of the console market for quite a while ( mainly due to the dance orientated soundtrack being a hit in clubs etc)

Maybe this is wrong , I am just posting a recollection

Amongst other things - Resident Evil, Battle Arena Toshinden and Doom were also other big reasons.
Sony were the first company to start advertising games using scantily clad women and big music, both of which worked.

 

[DaveyD]

Without the joint venture CD wouldnt be here, so YES they did discover it. They own the licence along with Phillips. Dotn get me wrong Phillips did 50% of the work and Sony the other 50%, but it took BOTH companies to get it working, so they DID discover it. No question

Where is the tape, where is the DCC? Formats dont have to last long to be a success, by your standards betamax was also a failure then - when it blatently wasnt.

I am pointing out facts for people who were dismissing the whole brand, not being arrogant.

Sorry, I really have to be an arse.

You don't just dig a hole in the ground and 'discover' a CD, or MiniDisc. You're going to develop a product and then sell it, but not find it in a mine like you do pot noodles.

 

[FrankJH]

1) i used to build mixing desks for cadac electronics. try not to tell me about sound quality when the desks i were building were used by the likes of ALW.
2) minidisks use ATRACT compression to store the music on the disk. its a lossy compression. that is simple common knowledge. check your facts
3) philips invented the cd, sony backed it with money. again, you are wrong.

4) ah hell. i dont need to continue

Prove it

Sony engineers where just as responsible for CD as Phillips, it was not just money they put forward

So you have knowledge of one limited aspect, so you therefore must be an expert huh???/Hmmmmmmm yeah ok

Well I prefer to rely on my own experience of when I recorded a live event on minidisc and the recording couldnt be faulted, you believe otherwise by all means

 

[Manlove is my forte]

People who test electronic goods for a living are more likely to have a more rounded opinion I would say.

If you are closed minded then thats upto you, but Sony wouldnt be around if all their equipment was the junk you suggest.

Maybe you should actually TRY a minidisc recorder , because it certainly wasnt lossy at all, it was as crystal clear for the purpose intended ( I am talking about potentially around 5 years ago when I bought it ) IT was reasonable at the time and it was one of the few options available

You are right Beta-max was a superior format. It did not do as well as it should have. But over all it was a failure, one that sony really did not learn from because they are making similar mistakes time and time again (mini-disc, umd)

I have had many mini-disc players over the year, I thought they were great at the time and when LP4 came out I was chuffed with it. I could get at least 4 cds onto a single disk. But lets be honest it was a failure. It did not make a big enough dent in the market for many artists to use the format. It never became main steem, it floped in the way UMDs are flopping.

However it was a good precurser to MP3 players. Had sony the forsight to invest in MP3 earlier then they may have had a larger share of the MP3 market.

Blu-Ray may or may not take off. Personally I don't think there will be a winner of the HD format wars, it will either be a draw, or a failure for all concerned. Quite simply I think the timing is off. DVD's have many years left in them. Sony should have been looking at the Technology to replace HD technology.

 

[james.miller]

Prove it

Sony engineers where just as responsible for CD as Phillips, it was not just money they put forward

So you have knowledge of one limited aspect, so you therefore must be an expert huh???/Hmmmmmmm yeah ok

Well I prefer to rely on my own experience of when I recorded a live event on minidisc and the recording couldnt be faulted, you believe otherwise by all means

read the quote? its not hard

as for your experiances that really is unimportant. the minidisk uses lossy compression, accept it. or google it, but dont ever tell me im wrong about it.

 

[NokkonWud]

Philips invented it all, however, they weren't happy with the sound quality, this is where Sony backed them with some of it's digital technology to help.

The invention was certainly Philips.

Oh, and ATRAC was certainly a lossy format, it's reknowned for it.

ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding) is a proprietary audio compression algorithm used to store information on Minidiscs and other Sony-branded audio players.

 

[Psycho Ned]

Yeah sony were the first console manufacturer to make gaming "cool" putting demo pods in clubs and stuff. There whole popularity can be drawn back to this point as they havent done much innovation since then!

I also remember the great playstation ad campains (most famously the Double Life ad) which were actually effective not like the crap "Third Place" ones they used this time around!

 

[james.miller]

Philips invented it all, however, they weren't happy with the sound quality, this is where Sony backed them with some of it's digital technology to help.

The invention was certainly Philips.

Oh, and ATRAC was certainly a lossy format, it's reknowned for it.

looking over the article (it really Is interesting) it didnt seem to pan out that way. at least from phillip's point of view

From their accounts, they were extremely happy with the first prototypes but they wanted some more muscle behind the format to really push it forwards. after Phillips demo'd the first prototype, sony got in contant and they decided to partner on it. At that point there were many things still undecided, such as the size of the disk and ultimately the capacity, as well as over details such as how the laser will read the info ect. They had problems with errors on the disks which is where sony's digital expertise came in to play. Sony pretty much own digital error checking and they applied to to the cd format. Its called circ (Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Code) and allowed for those errors to be 'masked', improving the playback quality. Phillips used 14bit presicision on their prototype but sony werent happy with it. sony convinced them to go to 16bit, much improving the quality. Phillips found a way to get their 14bit hardware reading the 16 bit format untill they respun their own 16bit hardware.

Phillips also invented the oversampling processors which at the time were also a big step forward for cd players. They had big problems with manufacturing though as a large number of the ic's were failing at the plant. That *im guessing* was due mostly to them being the single biggest ic ever intergrated into home electronics. As a result, they used sony electronics for the first ever production series of cd players. It was still a phillips though For the record though, the first mass market single piece cd player was a sony - the sony cdp-101. the name (cd-player 101) came from the use of digital binary on the cd's - 0's and 1's

 

[deSade]

Laypeople are brand loyal to Sony as they don't know any different. There are much better performers out in the market, particularly home audio equipment. Find me a 300 quid Sony home cinema system that can't be bettered, by something like a panasonic for example.

Oh dear, "Laypeople......don't know any different". That's starting to sound like the sort of arguement I'm used to from the Audio Visual Snobbery Club!!
Trouble is, to say that & then compare them to the likes of Panasonic doesn't really do your argument any favours IMO. To me, Sony/Panasonic/Philips/Denon/Pioneer, etc, etc, are much of a muchness in terms of quality - they exist to serve the mass market, & are pretty good quality at a reasonable price.

 

[NokkonWud]

looking over the article (it really Is interesting) it didnt seem to pan out that way. at least from phillip's point of view.

From their accounts, they were extremely happy withthe first prototypes but they wanted some more muscle behind the format to really push it forwards. after Phillips demo'd the first prototype, sony got in contant and they decided to partner on it. At that point there were many things still undecided, such as the size of the disk and ultimately the capacity, as well as over details such as how the laser will read the info ect. They had problems with errors on the disks which is where sonys digital expertise came in to play. Sony pretty much own digital error checking and they applied to to the cd format. Its called circ (Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Code) and allowed for those errors to bew masked, much improving the playback quality. Phillips used 14bit presicision on their prototype but sony werent happy with it. sony convinced them to go to 16bit, much improving the quality. Phillips found a way to get their 14bit hardware reading the 16 bit format untill they respun their own 16bit hardware.

Phillips also invented the oversampling processors which at the time were also a big step forward for cd players. They had big problems with manufacturing though as a large number of the ic's were failing at the plant. That was due mostely to them, being the singel biggest ic ever intergrated into home electronics. As a result, they used sony electronics for the first ever production series of cd players. It was still a phillips though

Well you know more than me on the subject and from the many posts over the years I've seen you post I'm inclined to believe you.

 

[DailyGeek]

Oh dear, "Laypeople......don't know any different". That's starting to sound like the sort of arguement I'm used to from the Audio Visual Snobbery Club!!
Trouble is, to say that & then compare them to the likes of Panasonic doesn't really do your argument any favours IMO. To me, Sony/Panasonic/Philips/Denon/Pioneer, etc, etc, are much of a muchness in terms of quality - they exist to serve the mass market, & are pretty good quality at a reasonable price.

Well, I'm saying laypeople from a perspective of someone that works in electrical retail, hence see a lot of people ask for Sony. When I ask them why they are after a Sony the general response is errr because thats what I've always had, or an uninformed- they're the best!. I'm certainly no AV snob. I don't even own a hi-fi! I'm purely speaking as someone who has a lot of experience with this market and price point.

 

[fieldy]

Sony have a reputation for quality

Yup shame about the workmanship of their products, sorry just saw that comment and creased up, sony's playstation 2 is the machine with the worst quality out of all major games platforms their machines have the highest failure rate of any machine (including 360) trust me on this one if I had a pound for every time somone brought back a machine saying its fualty or another classic "it wont play blue disc's" I would be a very rich man indeed probably more than Ken Katsuragi himself!

 

[davetherave2]

Well I think we are all loyal to particular brands. Just look at pc components many are loyal to particular manufacturers for motherboards, hard drives, cpu, memory etc. The same is true for almost all other things in life. I personally like some of Sony's products and to say they are more expensive than the competition is possibly true, although I think in the large screen tv format (greater than 42") I think they are probably on par with the other manufacturers.

It is no surprise that vast numbers of people will buy the PS3 as Sony have built up a remarkable consumer base when it comes to consoles. Think back to the 80's and early 90's when we had the SEGA/ NINTENDO wars people were either one or the other down to brand loyaltiy, then Sony came onto the scene and no one really knew what to make of it but look 10 years later Sony are the dominent force and Microsoft are trying to take a share of the console market and the cycle of the console wars continues. Who knows maybe in 10 years time we will have the same arguments as we are having now but with different manufacturers.

I think Microsoft seem to get a kicking a lot simply because they have been such a dominent force in the pc environment for the last 10 or so years but they just seem to cater for the needs of their users. Yes they may not be perfect at it but they have developed products that have made pc's a lot more user friendly to the casual / novice user. The XBOX/360 may not have as big a core fanbase as the playstation but it is still a growing brand. I am sure once Microsoft start to get in on the big promotions such as the big sporting events like the Champions League they will be able to build up as big or maybe bigger fanbase as the Playstation has.

By no means I am no Microsoft Fanboy but I think they have done a good job up to now and who knows maybe in 10 - 15 years another manufacturer will take over Microsoft's crown as the dominent force in the PC environment.

I own both the XBOX and 360. This isn't just down to brand loyalty but down to the types of games that I like. Some of my most favorite games were on the XBOX and although some of them were available on the Playstation I just didn't like the way the games looked and felt. Not to say the Playstation isn't a good console I'm sure it is but it has never interested me at all. I was tempted to buy a PSP but then realised that I would probably be bored of it in a week or two so decided against it but I can see the potential given that it has multimedia functions and wi fi so browsing on the move would be a good thing.

I think this is what will probably make or break a console now the added value features the machine can bring to the market such as dvd playback, on line features, interoperability with other devices, future format playback (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD) and also backwards compatability with previous gen games. The last point is one Microsoft need to sort out and sort out fast. This may put a lot of people off if they currently own a lot of xbox games and want to make way for the 360. Which to Sony's credit is something they have managed to do so well.

Once the PS3 comes onto the scene we will be able to see what this console is made off. Hopefully we will be able to put these arguements to which is better to rest or at least have some hard facts to compare.

 

[james.miller]

Well you know more than me on the subject and from the many posts over the years I've seen you post I'm inclined to believe you.

oh no im just trying to summerise what phillips have to say on the matter, but thank you all the same lol. I at least will try to research a subject before holding ground in an argument lol. Id recommend everybody who's remotely interested to read the phillips article, its facinating

 

[VIRII]

Yup shame about the workmanship of their products, sorry just saw that comment and creased up

Hehe. Joe average consumer believes Sony to be quality. Whether that is misplaced confidence or not isn't the point of my post, I was merely pointing out that the majority of high street consumers think Sony are "high end" bits of kit. Like I said I only own 1 Sony device.