Topic: Datel Ships MAX Media Dock for DS

[Jonnyboy117]

This doodad lets you play movies, listen to music, or view photographs on your Nintendo DS.

Turn Your DS Into A Multimedia Machine!    

MAX Media Dock for DS and DS Lite is out now...    

June 6th, 2006 - With MAX Media Dock for DS and DS Lite, you can turn your happening handheld into a powerful home entertainment device, with movies, music and more played directly from any Compact Flash card of up to 8GB.    

At the heart of MAX Media Dock is Datel’s exclusive MAX Media Player, supplied on a DS cart. Insert it into the slot used for DS games, and you’re ready to roll with our fully featured browser. From here, you can access data stored on a Compact Flash card, which fits in your DS’s GBA port using the supplied Media Dock.    

MAX Media Player can play MP3s directly from your flash card, giving you access to music on the move. It can also stream video footage, and access your JPEGs for a convenient photo viewer. Perhaps best of all, it can launch executable programs stored on the flash drive, giving access to a thriving NDS home brew scene. Check out the MAX Media Player’s own mini-site at http://us.codejunkies.com/mpds/index.htm or do a Google search for “DS home brew" and you’ll find all sorts of downloadable applications, games and emulators for your new handheld. How cool is that?    

Sold in three versions, MAX Media Dock for DS and DS Lite is available bundled with 1GB or 2GB Compact Flash card, or there’s the cardless Base Version for those who already have a Compact Flash card.    

MAX Media Dock for DS and DS Lite is in the shops this week, and can also be bought direct at www.codejunkies.com or by calling 08456 010 015. Prices are as follows:    

Base Version, no CF Card: £29.99  
With 1GB CF Card: £54.99  
With 2GB CF Card: £84.99

[Rize]

I really like what I've read about this product so far. Allowing consumers to purchase a base version and use their existing Compact Flash cards or purchase smaller cards could save a lot of money for anyone interested in the homebrew scene. There are a lot of interesting applications and games being developed and this seems to be the first licensed product that allows players to run homebrewed code. Previously players had to use non-sanctioned hacking devices to bootup homebrew code in DS mode. If you're into the homebrew scene be sure to search for my falling-block puzzle game, Flux!

[MegaByte]

Licensed? Not quite.  It's still a "non-sanctioned hacking device;" just not so bulky since it no longer requires another DS card to boot the system...  Two other Flash card-based DS adapter manufacturers have recently come out with a similar product for booting into DS mode.  Personally, I prefer the M3 since it uses SD (or mini-SD), and thus isn't so bulky...  

[BlackNMild2k1]

Knowing that Nintendo officially supports SD cards, why didn't they provide/include a version that supports SD instead/along with CF.

CF cards seem to be just as cheap as SD cards(by the prices they listed) and sizes are always increasing(are there 8GB SD cards?).

Knowing that GC was supposed to use SD cards, Play-Yan does use SD cards and Wii will use SD cards, it would make sense to me to support SD cards too, unless they get some sort of revenue from CF cards to something.  

[Rize]

Compact Flash seems to be more prevalent for cameras and things though.  Maybe it's going out of of style though.

How could such a device be non-sanctioned though.  The only way to boot into DS mode is either with Nintendo's permission or by hijacking the header off of a real cartridge using a pass-through.  Unless someone reverse engineered the header and simply made a generic one.  You'd think Nintendo would take legal action otherwise.  Anyway, since you're probably right I edited my comments on the main site to account for that.

[MegaByte]

Well, I guess the same way Datel reverse-engineered the GC disc's barcode and encryption scheme (they have a ridiculous lab focused solely on doing this type of stuff).  I'm guessing they figured out some way, because the earlier pass-throughs were careful about being only pass-throughs so that they didn't infringe copyright by including the header and Datel is always careful about staying legal.

[Rize]

Yeah that must be it.  Hey, aren't you on the staff now?  You need to get your forum handle updated.

[thepoga]

So... does it stick out a whole bunch with the DS Lite?

[dack25]

This sounds cool, I wonder what the quality is.

[KDR_11k]

A guess about CF: CF cards are the biggest cards available. There are adapters from CF to anything but not from anything to CF simply because every other card fits into the physical dimensions of a CF card. Also I've seen 8GB harddrives as CF cards so you can store a LOT of data on these things.

[UncleBob]

The bad thing is that CF card slots are so easy to damage.

this is a spoiler. you're not supposed to be reading it.  how dare you?

[knux896]

I think that a major reason for Datel deciding to go with the compact flash option is because the connection that CF cards use is the same as the connection of the micro drive in the 4GB hard drive that Datel released earlier. All they had to do to make the Max Media dock was to change the mold of the cover on the back of the hard drive unit. Pretty easy way to make a new product from the same type of parts as an old one.