SanDisk, record labels announce new music format

The ever-shrinking record album--its latest iteration being the compact disc--just got a lot more compact, or shall we say, micro.

A "SlotMusic" card

(Credit: SanDisk)

Backed by four major music labels, SanDisk on Monday announced a new physical music format dubbed "SlotMusic" that's essentially an entire album on a MicroSD compact memory card. Wal-Mart and Best Buy are among the retailers that have already signed on to start selling the cards for the upcoming holiday season.

With CD sales continuing to flounder, this latest effort to boost physical media sales is aimed at users of the millions of cell phones and MP3 players with MicroSD slots. They can insert the card right into the slot and immediately hear the music. The card will also come with a USB sleeve so it can be plugged in directly to any USB-enabled computer.

SlotMusic cards will be sold without digital rights management restrictions and in the form of MP3 files from EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group.

A joint press release from all the involved parties is scant on details about what will be released in SlotMusic format. But The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), citing people close to the record companies and retailers, says the initial release batch will be 29 albums from all four of the involved labels. "The releases are mostly by current pop artists including Rihanna, Ne-Yo, Robin Thicke, New Kids on the Block, Weezer, Usher, Chris Brown, Akon and Leona Lewis," the story stays. "In a nod to older buyers, Elvis Presley is also represented."

Also not mentioned in the release is anything about pricing. The New York Times' Saul Hansell, however, says a record label executive told him he estimates they'll go for $7 to $10.

[limefan913]

April Fools? This is actually really cool. If we got things such as car stereos to support the format, it'd be even cooler. I'm impressed, and quite like it. I guess now that flash memory is so cheap on a per GB basis that it's finally an option. A 512MB MicroSD card can hold a few albums, so this works.

I'm curious to see where this goes, or if they publicize it.

[Randys2cents]

ok, now we're cooking. Now imagine if you will, a day in the near future when "all music" will fit inside of
a single MicroSD card, right at your fingerTips.

[the_ricochet]

Phew, the headline made me think SanDisk was dumb enough to create yet another music file format to further fragment the area. I'm glad it's a PHYSICAL format.

I wouldn't buy this, but I can see it catching on with teenagers maybe.

[arimasouichirou]

It's nice without the DRM, but I'd really like to see something higher quality than MP3. The file format is so old and the fidelity, even at the highest bitrates, isn't that great. I'll still buy CDs and just put them on microSD cards myself until something more technologically pleasing comes around. Besides, I want to put more than one album on a single card anyway.

[4schler]

agreed.

the people who actually still buy physical formats (myself included) are the ones who care at least a bit about the fidelity of the music they're buying and usually prefer listening to the cds rather than the ripped files. if they want to get those customers to switch to buying what are essentially micro sd albums with only mp3 quality tracks on them, they might as well try to catch a fly with a fishing net.

when they start offering this format with uncompressed/lossless or, dare i hope, Hi-Def (i.e. 1-bit/2.6MHz) tracks, I'll bite. until then, they can expect me to keep buying discs.

[CyStarkman]

ah. The joy of replacing all our media hardware again. I know they will fit into some computers and some phones. Wonder what specs the mp3's are at. Given the general 160k they are probably just 64meg cards. If they stop printing to CD that will be interesting. The death of anything even close to actual sound.

[gsmiller88]

Yeah replacing hardware is always fun. When I bought my car last year I was so excited about having an auxiliary input jack on my stereo head unit, now it looks like built in SD card readers will be all the rage...

In five years.

[ikramerica--2008]

And you thought losing a CD was easy. These micro cards are smaller than postage stamps. Kids will lose them like crazy. Which I supposed is the point?

[sherryli1961]

who cares. We need new music not new formats to play the bland boring music of today.

[thrasherbetty]

There is an entire generation that downloads music for free. The quality of an mp3 is worse than a CD and the only advantage would be to sell it as a new higher quality format, such as HD for audio, not necessarily the physical size of the memory card. There is nothing ground breaking here.

[thrasherbetty]

There is an entire generation that downloads music for free. The quality of an mp3 is worse than a CD and the only advantage would be to sell it as a new higher quality format, such as HD for audio, not necessarily the physical size of the memory card. There is nothing ground breaking here.

[gerrrg]

Sorry but this is a really stupid idea.

People enjoy online shopping of MP3s because they can buy ONE song after another. No one that has grown up buying individual songs will flock to the idea of buying little memory cards that they have to plug in and out to get different albums of songs on their devices. CD sales are slow because people would rather buy individual songs than entire albums. Why bother buying physical media with MP3s, when you can download them?

You'd have to be something of an old fool to dream up this idea, and then throw money at it.

[danielkwood]

I'm not going to buy an album on a micro SD card and change it in the phone each time I want to listen to a song by a different artist. I want an SD card that stores all of my music so I don't have to swap it and that's exactly what I have: an 8GB micro SD card in my phone. The only reason I'd buy this is because it would be faster to copy the files to my PC than ripping the songs from a CD when I purchase one. Otherwise I just download off iTunes (which is not DRM free but you can get around it). I could have seen this being a big hit a few years ago before online downloads and Micro HC-SD cards and iPods existed.

[kelmon]

Dear Music Industry,

The 1900's called and they want their distribution model back.

Regards,

Kel

P.S. Digital downloads are here to stay - no one wants to have to go to a shop or mail order service to buy music anymore. Deal with this.

[ecsakron]

for shizzle, changing the shape of the product isn't going to revive the defunct music distribution model. Sure, some people are going to buy them, but get over it, those days are OVER. Excuse me while I torrent up my favorite discrophy.

[motrhead]

I don't do digital downloads and don't plan on it. I discover stuff online, then I go buy the CD so I can have the album as the artist recorded it, and in the full quality wav format, not a sucky MP3.
Some of you guys should check out a CD store sometime! You can even meet real people, see cool album covers and get away from your computer for a while....
I'm hoping to have the choice of buying CDs for a few decades yet. Please don't be in such a hurry to write off the traditional album buyer. Most of the time, the one big hit you hear isn't really the best stuff on an album anyway, but most will never know without actually checking out the CD.

[t26l]

What the hell? Is SanDisk so stupid? Remember the UMD, the mini-Disc, the Memory Stick, XD Card and all the other crappy non-standard formats? Huh? Do you recall that, SanDisk? I will NEVER buy this! Man, the CEO of SanDisk looks like he's been living under a rock. iPhones, iTouches, & Zunes can download music wirelessly, seamlessly & for much cheaper (I assume)...What a ******* decision! I am disappointed.

[twodrbenz]

DOH!

[onchu_64]

So what can it do that the other 15 or 20 flash cards already in use cant?

Storage isn't the problem, prices are. The days or people paying $20 for a CD with one or two songs they actualy want to hear on it are over, and while this may be a small improvement, I doubt anybody is going to be rushing of to the stores to pay $10 for the same albums on a different medium. Why should they when they can get a 1GB SD card for the same price and load it with music they actualy like that they got for free?

[keiranj]

I fail to see how this is different from the mp3s I have currently stored on my microSD card in my phone already. This could only be useful for people unable or unwilling to buy music online. This isn't really that newsworthy in my eyes.

[imacpwr]

MP3 without DRM, great but at what quality level...??? If down in the 128 range then forget it, not interested.

[Gixxer76]

Wow what a terrible idea. The music industry as a whole is so out of touch with their customers it's not even funny. In not going to walmart to buy one of these things when I can buy only the songs I want from Amazon.com at my home.

[Ian Kirkland]

Another wasteful attempt to kept the album alive! Stupid!

[Astinsan]

New kids on the block? Should be renamed to Old people on the block.