Duo Pro

I completely agree, the 128MB limit is pi$$ing me more and more off! 😡

I have so much stuff I need, but I just cannot fit it all in one Duo, and I constantly find myself having to make compromises that I really find ridiculous in this day and age, what with 2GB regular Memory Sticks coming out, 512MB MMC cards being more or less common now, not to mention SD and CF cards... Buying several 128MB Duos and swap between them all the time is just not practical.

And I'm not just talking about media stuff like music and videos, but actual useful things like for example reference literature etc. I use the Mobipocket Reader every day and my "Library" folder has now grown to 44.5MB in size, and still there's about 40MB more of literature I would like to fit in there, but again, compromises has to be made because I also like to have a couple of albums of music, a small porn clip or two, some apps that I cannot do without, some pictures, and a couple of games to play. Currently I have 912KB free on D:, and if I want to install a new app now, a game, some pictures, a book, an Ogg, whatever, I have to remove something else, and believe me I have ONLY the things I really use/need installed.

And it definitely isn't just you and I who find 128MB insufficient, Qball. Any Px00 discussion forum on the web has brought up the "will the new Duo Pro format work with the Px00" issue, and most serious PDA users will never even consider the P900 as an alternative just because of this limit. I've been hoping that Mr & Mrs SE are listening for a while now, but the hope is dying and I've become more and more convinced that SE will just release a P1000 or whatever with Duo Pro support, and then just completely forget (stop all support) about the P800/P900. The question then is, will I/we take our business elsewhere? -I think so! Especially if it turns out that an upgraded firmware really is all that is required. 😡

[/rant]

Btw, I've encoded a full Simpsons episode, optimized for full widescreen view, that is only 25.3MB in size, so it's also possible to watch an entire, regular length movie on a 128MB stick (widescreen), but for great quality you would need a 256MB stick, and of course you will then again be faced with the compromise issue, if you're like me and like to have it all in one card.

This is a problem

Great quality in can be optimized for decent quality out. I have a 2 hr movie on my 128mb Duo stick now and there is very little to no pixelation in even the most vivid scenes. If SE has a new phone in store within the next few months I don't see why they'll bother with breaking the 128mb limit in the Pxxx line. However, SE really isn't pressured by any threatning competitors at the moment to do that. SE might start to worry about it only if its customers gets lured by a mobile giant that offers a Pxxx like phone with endless memory capabilities. However, that's what DUO PRO compatible 3G phones are trying to do now. DUO PRO makers do say the PRO format is a matter of formality whose complaince could be optained through firmware revisions.

*Examples of full length flixs (avg 90 min -120 minin length) I have on my stick that play very smoothly (no exagerated pixelation) in Widescreen mode.

Could you upload these converted movies somewhere? (if that's not against the forum-regulations...)

I often try to convert some video-clips, but the sound and picture never sync very well... 😞 But I guess that's just my stupidity...😉

Sorry,it is against forum regulations.

Hey

Could you quickly outline how to convert films to fit the P900's screen and what software you use to do it.

That will be great help if you could do that!

thanks in advance!😊 😊

SE support told me that limit was 256 is this not true?

What source in SE conveyed this statement to you? All SE documentation states 128mb. With that said it is very possible that you heard incorrectly or the representative mispoke. To state that 256mb was the limit would imply that the phone was DUO PRO compatible. However, this is not the case. Therefore, your information/source is incorrect.

I heard that Sony will publsih 256 MB in MSD format (Blue Duo NOT White Duo PRO) soon so maybe Sony representative are refering to this... not sure if it is true though.

This is a part of the email that I received from SE tech support:
"The P900 mobile phone supports a maximum of 256 MB pro duo memory stick. However, you will not be able to watch the video on P900, which is recorded on PEGA-V100K."

Originally posted by coreymcl
This is a part of the email that I received from SE tech support:
"The P900 mobile phone supports a maximum of 256 MB pro duo memory stick. However, you will not be able to watch the video on P900, which is recorded on PEGA-V100K."

Can you publish what it is you wrote to the support group? From what I can gather the rep was probably inebriated when he/she stated the P900 supports 256mb PRO Duos. As to the other sentence, it sounds like you were asking them how you could watch a specific file which may have been encoded in a format not compatible with the P900 player. One thing you must keep in mind. I can almost guarantee that members on this board collectively have more knowledge of the P900 then most level 1 support techs working for SE worldwide. So keep in mind that the answers they give you can be questionable.

As to the 256mb support SE hasn't released any press releases on it. However, I'm curious to know why they would release a 256mb DUO instead of working on a solution that would allow Pxxx phones to support the DUO PRO format. That would make more of a business sense I would think.

Originally posted by Bigfeat
As to the 256mb support SE hasn't released any press releases on it. However, I'm curious to know why they would release a 256mb DUO instead of working on a solution that would allow Pxxx phones to support the DUO PRO format. That would make more of a business sense I would think.

The sense is that 256Mb MS / MS DUO is not only usable for P800/P900 but all devices in the market which support MS / MS DUO but not PRO. Not all devices can had easy firmware upgrade.

Of casue, we users of P900/P800 will definately prefer an upgrade on firmware to allow us to use DUO PRO.

Also I myself also had much doubt if the rumors is true or not.

Thinking about it, I expect P800 and P900 will get firmware upgrade once Sony have got rid of all those Duos that are sat around in their warehouses.

Justmade -

There aren't that many devices that accept the simple DUO format m8. So to broaden the scope as if there are way to many to deal with would be an exaggeration. Some Viao laptops that only accepted regular memory sticks were upgraded to accept the PRO format. Clies as well. I was able to gather a list of all Sony products (ie cameras, pda , personal media player, etc.) about 3 months ago that only accepted DUOs. The list was extremely small. Everthing else was pretty much DUO PRO complaint.

On a side note. I think I've also been seeing some more advertising blunders which I have brought up in past posts. Some companies are now advertising 128mb DUO PRO sticks. Oddly enough these particular sticks are only manufactured by Sandisk. One supposed 'reputable' company listed the price as $259USD. I then saw one of its competitors list the exact item part for $49USD. When I questioned them they all replied that they have extremely qualified research marketing reps that find these products and lists them. However, the manufacturer's description of that same product does not concur with what these vendors are reporting. How, this continues to go on I don't know. I'm sure a lot of non-informed consumers are buying these products thinking they are as described and these companies are getting away with false advertisement. We (board members)should be compensated by these vendors for providing more accurate information to inquirers then their $80K + salaried researchers. 😃

Originally posted by Bigfeat
We (board members)should be compensated by these vendors for providing more accurate information to inquirers then their $80K + salaried researchers.

If you DO decide to drop them an invoice, let us know how you get on! 😃

Bigfeat,

I know there is not much duo only devices but I think there is still quite some MS only devices. As they are basically same spec, releasing a 256MB version is for both.

Another (maybe more driven) business logic is that releasing a 256MB MSD can reduced the complain and at the same time keep their newer or comming models which support PRO more attritive for upgrade. If they fix the weaknesses in P900, they might expect fewer sales in their comming models...

Actually I think they withdraw some functions (recording converstion, fax ability, etc) on purpose to make the P800/P900 not so perfect to path for their further products...

There will never be a "Perfect" product becuase one person's idea of perfect is not necessarily anothers.

With regards to "leaving out" fax capability, I read somewhere that SE made a deliberate choice NOT to support Fax modems in their cutting edge devices a long time ago. Certainly the R380 (the P800's predecessor) did not have a fax capable modem either, and this is now a few years old. They were (apparently) of the opinion that Fax's were no longer cutting edge enough and had been superseded by SMS and e-mail. So it would have been an added cost for little benefit in terms of extra sales.

As for voice recording, this seems to be a legal issue. In the majority of countries you cannot record a conversation without the other persons permission, so SE seem to be avoiding potential legal problems. After all, the R380, P800 and P900 are all capable of recording conversations. It has actually been disabled.

So I would not expect to see either of these features in the P900's ultimate successor.

I don't think any company would deliberately leave out functionality they thought people would want just for marketing purposes. Mainly things are left out due to budget or time contraints caused by development problems.

If they deliberately leave something out that people want, they risk lossing sales, so where is the advantage for them? The telecommunications and technology industries move so quickly nowadays that there are always dozens of new\improved technologies being developed every few months. The manufacturers challenge is how can we fit them all in and still get the device out on time and budget, not which ones shall we leave over until the next phone so that people will buy that as well.

Where has it been mentioned that Sony intends to release a 256mb DUO anyway? Is it a rumor? I'm sure I'll find out at the CEBIT next month.

Believe me, if they are releasing it to mainly curb complaints as you put it a lot of consumers will still complain of not being able to expand to 512mb, 1G, and so forth. So I truly doubt they would release it for those reasons. I think the technology is moving into releasing everything with the PRO format. SE wouldn't have an incentive to limit the P900 to insure consumers will not neglect its successors. If the P900 is granted full memory expandibility I'm sure its predecessor will have much more features that would draw consumers to it. I mean, look at the P800 vs P900. Same memory capacity, but there are appealing differences that separate the two which lead former P800 owners to move on to the P900. So I think the marketing and sales history of their phones show their ability to lure consumers to new products.

Regarding to release some functionality or not, it is true in the lower end model that they should include all which can increase sales over cost because they are in a near perfect competition. However, in P900 there is some different. P900 do not had clear substitution by far (the most close one to me is the PDA phone XDA 2) and so putting some extra functionality will not generate much greater sales.

If you lead the technology, it would be much more profitable to limit the improvement of each step of product you release then you put all you can to produce a super product of its time. It is clearly seen in Intel CPU releasing strategy. They can produce much faster CPU but they wont do it. They make slight improvement step by step to keep people upgrading. You can see that when AMD draw closer, they release higher speed CPU faster. When AMD fall behind, they slow down. Software world is also similar. Support keep telling you your problem is solved in the new release so you can upgrade to "fix" the bug.

Back to P900, I see that many sales are from P800 users. Why? They liked their P800 but not satisfy with many limitations. There are no good substitutions and the new P900 do offer some improvements they desire for long. Do you really think most of those "improvement" cannot be implemented in P800 straight away? Do you think the cost different is really so much to use directly a 65536 screen one year ago when P800 release? Do you think the technology of Sony Ericsson really cannot include a video recorder in P800 while third party can? And now in P900 do you think including a better camera or include MSD PRO support are really so hard and costly?

Simply put, to put all they can do in P900 simply reduce their "improvement" in next product. It is very possible that the increase in direct sales in do so is much lower then the decrease in sales when the current P900 user is too satisfied and have low intention to upgrade.

Well, I am not very familiar in the phone world, as I do not change phone often. it is just educated guess using my experience in the computer world and common business logic. So maybe I am all wrong and it is just technical issue.

But even so, based on the P800 experience, it is quite not likely that Sony will give improvement upgrade more then the functionality already published. As it already stated that it do not support MSD PRO, even if it can be done easily, I bet they won't do it. I will be in great surprise (with great happiness) if they do it in firmware upgrade in the near future.

Regarding the sources of the rumor of 256M DUO, it is from a top Chinese SE fans site in Taiwan. There are no solid evident so as I said it is just a rumor which make some sense to me.

Sony mem duo 256 can be bought on eBAY. I wonder if my P900 can use it now... or with firmware update.

Hehe, guess only Sonyericsson can answere that...

Tom

Originally posted by Tommen
Sony mem duo 256 can be bought on eBAY. I wonder if my P900 can use it now... or with firmware update.

Hehe, guess only Sonyericsson can answere that...

Tom

Are you serious? You read through all these posts and actually felf inclined to post rubbish, despite? Comon' m8 I'd have some respect for u if you just say you're kidding, but to even mention the Ebay listings as if they're verifiable is riddiculous. Let's not start this 256mb DUO sticks available campaign again. Maybe I should jump on the bandwagon and start scamming plp too. 😃

Originally posted by Bigfeat
Are you serious? You read through all these posts and actually felf inclined to post rubbish, despite? Comon' m8 I'd have some respect for u if you just say you're kidding, but to even mention the Ebay listings as if they're verifiable is riddiculous. Let's not start this 256mb DUO sticks available campaign again. Maybe I should jump on the bandwagon and start scamming plp too. 😃

Well.. It's pro duo, same size as duo. But i dunno if SE P900 accepts them.. Check this link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3800139461&category=48527

Tom

Originally posted by Tommen
Well.. It's pro duo, same size as duo. But i dunno if SE P900 accepts them.. Check this link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3800139461&category=48527

Tom

Tom,

The point is you should know that SE P900 doesn't accept them because SE sais they don't. What is there to contemplate? Maybe you should re-read through all the posts in this thread a second time to clear things up for you. I don't think you quite get it yet.

Moreover, if you read the Ebayer's comment on product specifics they note 'digital camera'. So I really don't know what that listing has that this thread hasn't already addressed to keep you on the fence about compatibility issues.

The maximum MS Duo is 128mb. To go any larger you would need MS Duo Pro.

The current problem with fullsize MS Pro is that you cannot playback MP3 files stored on them with *any* Sony device, as one shopper found out when he bought a 1GB Pro stick to go in his new UX50; not a happy bunny.

I'm not sure if the same goes for MS Duo Pro, but i'll find out. If that is the case, that would explain the reason why the P900 was designed without Pro support and why you won't see a firmware update in the near future.

Originally posted by Bigfeat
Tom,

The point is you should know that SE P900 doesn't accept them because SE sais they don't. What is there to contemplate? Maybe you should re-read through all the posts in this thread a second time to clear things up for you. I don't think you quite get it yet.

Moreover, if you read the Ebayer's comment on product specifics they note 'digital camera'. So I really don't know what that listing has that this thread hasn't already addressed to keep you on the fence about compatibility issues.

I i said in my first note 😊 the chip exist. Also it's 'said' it may work in future firmware upgrade of phone. Online upgrade that is 😉

So all we can do is hope.. I for shure does' As it is now, the phone is not usabel as MP3 player. Not enough space.

But when i say that... It is the best phone/PDA mix in the world today 😊 So if it can accept the 256MB chip in future.. i consider that a bonus.

Tom

Tommen -

I have posted documentation that illustrated that DUO formatted devices could 'possibly' conform to the DUO PRO format through upgrades. With that said, I had as much hope as you have now. However, with the talks of the P1000 echoing louder every day I doubt SE would spend time in the immediate future to make our P900 DUO PRO compatible. It doesn't make that much sense in a marketing perspective, but it does for immediate business revenue rewards for the company. By the marketing perspective I'm talking about getting consumers to go after the enhancements that the P1000 has that the P900 lacks. These techniques usually work in luring past and future customers to purchase the 'new and improved' successor. Memory manufacturers would probably gain more immediate revenue if their devices were compatible with the Pxxx as I believe that Pxxx users might have a higher demand for DUO XXX memory sticks.

I've lost hope in the P900 surpassing the 128mb limit. 😞 I'm already looking forward to the P1000. Moreover, I don't think I'm going to bank on resellers that post erroneous and bogus advertisements.. Keep in mind that they are simply vendors/resellers. Their inadequecies bring about confusion and brew rumours. So if you can't verify it from the manufacturer then don't believe the hype. 😊

Well, there's a kind of answer on the question where the limitation is. You can find it in the white paper for P900, I quote:

Memory Stick Versions and Compatibility
There are currently several versions of the Memory Stick Duo:

Memory Stick Duo
Available Sizes: 8, 16, 32 MB (standard), 64 and 128 MB (Magic Gate). Maximum size 128 MB
Hardware interface: Serial
Write protect switch: No
Colour: Violet (standard), white (Magic Gate)
File system: FAT16

Memory Stick Duo New
Available Sizes: 32, 64, 128 MB (Magic Gate). Maximum size 128 MB
Hardware interface: Serial, parallel
Write protect switch: No
Colour: Dark blue
File system: FAT 16

Memory Stick Duo Pro
Available Sizes: 256, 512 MB (Magic Gate). Up to 4GB will be supported.
Hardware interface: Serial, parallel
Write protect switch: No
Colour: Yellow
File system: Fat 32

The file system FAT16 supports sizes up to 128 MB; FAT32 will support sizes up to 4 GB. The P900/908 can currently only use FAT16.

The parallel hardware interface gives more than double the read/write speed compared to the serial interface. The P900/908 uses only the serial interface.

By the way, as far as I know the size limit of FAT16 is 2GB...
So, where is the truth?

AFAIK Px00 uses FAT12 and not FAT16. Anyone with a memorystick reader who could verify this? (right click the memorystick drive and click "properties"😉

Posted: Wednesday, 03.Mar.2004 19:58 Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Symbian OS uses VFAT (Virtual FAT), which is FAT16 with support for long file names. This is described in the Symbian OS Version 7.0 Functional description and the Symbian OS v7.0 Developer Library. And according to this page:

VFAT
The Microsoft Windows 95 and NT version of the FAT file system. Supports long file names.
And the capacity of FAT16 is max 2 GB according to this article. So the 128 MB limit on the Px00 is solely due to Sony Ericsson.

--
Bent Laursen

http://my-symbian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2659&start=60&sid=a82fc5621624cb1ee6f7741ff9e602e4

Keep in mind that they are simply vendors/resellers. Their inadequecies bring about confusion and brew rumours. So if you can't verify it from the manufacturer then don't believe the hype.

Too true. You've all ignored the only reply (albeit a crap one 😉 ) you've had from an employee of the company in question though! 😉