Customer Reviews

Panasonic SV-SD85 e-wear SD Audio/MP3 Player with 128 MB SD Memory Card

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I really, really want to like this player. It's small, it's cute, it's got "unlimited" memory via cheapo SD cards, it's got really neat accessories and an amazing battery life... but tomorrow I'm returning it to the store where I bought it.

Why?

Simple. The UNBELIEVEABLY stupid "anti piracy" features they put into it.

No, You can't just copy your mp3 files to the player and listen to them. The player only wirks with specially encrypted files. To use it with an mp3 file you have to use the special software to "check" the files into and out of your hard drive

And yes, the files on your hard drive ARE MODIFIED for some evil reason when you check them out. Don't ask me why or what happens if I stick the card in my camera and format it without "checking" the mp3 files that were on it back into my hard drive. I don't know, and I'm not waiting to find out.

And OF COURSE the upload software is horrible to use, and YES it fails to install properly until the tenth try. Even then it took me ten minutes to get it to recognize the special SD card writer they supply. I mean, what else could it do?

What on earth were they thinking? They took this beautiful little gadget that somebody had designed and totally ruined it. Their hardware guys must be crying right now.

Did they think this system will somehow keep me from "pirating" the mp3 files THAT ARE *ALREADY* ON MY HARD DISK??

Whatever. Tomorrow I'll go and swap it for something by Creative or iRiver or something. Anything but Panasonic.

It's tiny, it's easy to use, has excellent battery life, and it sounds great. They had to spoil it someplace. The software, as usual.
Instead of letting you copy MP3/WMA/AAC files directly from Windows explorer, you are required to encrypt them and use their proprietary software. You can't even use your own SD card writer; the software won't recognize other than the one supplied.
I don't get it. Who at Panasonic could have made such a terrible decision, allegedly to "procect music copyright". Stop the BS... if I want to, I can pirate those songs even using the supplied SD Card reader. It's just that they won't play on the SV-SD85 if thet are not encrypted with the software.
Hopefully a better software will come out (if it were at least integrated into Windows explorer, I wouldn't complain so much).
Don't get me wrong; it's still a great buy. Besides, it seems that all players use some kind of proprietary software.

WARNING: The Panasonic SD-80 does not allow any protected files to be uploaded, legally purchased or not. It a great little player, the right size and lots of functionality BUT, if you can't upload your favorite music its not very functional. Since the future trend is to purchase songs rather than albums, more and more music will be purchased off Internet sites. None of these songs will be useable on the SD-80 and Panasonic has stated it has no intention of revising the software to allow the upload of legally purchased protected files. Great little player, BUT A WASTE OF MONEY.

I've spent the last hour trying to install software so that my boyfriend can use my computer to put music onto his MP3 player. While the SV-SD85 is small, cute, has good sound quality and is relatively tough, the software is proprietary and if you're disorganized, like he is, then you will loose the install drivers. Well, don't because it has a version of realplayer on it that has coding specific to panasonic. If you try to drag and drop files, you will be sorely disappointed (like I was). Don't try to go to the Panasonic website to download the drivers either, they're not there.

I bought this player to travel with. It's a great size and so tiny I can drop in my pocket and not feel the bulk of it like my PDA. But despite it's miniature size, the software that comes with it SUCKS! The SV-SD85 comes with a USB SD card reader/writer and you have to use that with their proprietary SD-Jukebox software to transfer music to the SD card. Unfortunately, the music files get converted to Panasonic's own proprietary format that can't even be seen in the File Manager. What's worse is the SD-Jukebox software is so outdated and there's no upgrade or patches for it. And the software regularly crashes, especially when importing songs with file names that have special characters like accents. It doesn't do well with too many songs either. And I can't even use other music managers like Real Player or iTunes to trasnfer songs (also doesn't work on Mac).

Overall, the design is good but Panasonic really failed to deliver on the software and handcuffs you to their buggy proprietary software.

I mean, just look at it. It's a sexy little thing, isn't it. Everything was fine with this unit....Until I lost my disc...You wouldn't BELIEVE the lack of support Panasonic gives their expensive mp3 player. Most of the "techs" you speak with when you clal literally do not even know this exists. There hasn't been an update to the software in 3 years (since it first came with the sd-80), and Panasonic refuses to not only put the software on their website for download, but also mail you a replacement disc! Unbelieveable. Eventually I had to download a version someone posted to a website and "hack" it to install it on my computer since I didn't have the CD-key. All this just so I can use something I paid way too much for. do not, whatever you do, DO NOT buy this product. You will be so, so, so so sorry.
PS After I lost the original CD which had a decent RealJukebox interface, the only version I could find was some stupid Panasonic check-in/check out sotware, and all music seemed to play at about 50% of the sound level they should have been at. This thing is just a nightmare. I evenntually Just bought an IPod Mini.

I really like this music player, once I figured out how it works, I imported all of my music files into the supplied program and ripped all of my CD's into my computer. It automatically labeled all of my tracks and all I had to do was change CD's. You can check in and checkout songs as you choose, and memory cards are available from 32-512 MB allowing you to choose the best size for your budget and needs. I think this thing is great for the casual portable music listener.

After reading negative reviews, I was expecting to be disappointed by this player. The hardware and accessories are awesome - earbuds provide great sound quality, and volume is more than adequate (and I listen to music loud). The pc software crashes pretty often, but it is easy to resume transfers after reopening the program. After reading about the copyright protections online and in the owner's brochure, I comprehensively and unsuccessfully tried to get it to prevent me from putting various types of mp3s onto the player. Maybe Panasonic improved its software; I don't know. I can't imagine this device being a major problem for anyone, and I would buy it again in a heartbeat. (It would have been 5 stars if the software didn't crash)

I bought this portible audio player recently as an upgrade for my SD-SV80 model. The feature I was most interested in is the ability to create playlists. What I got, however, was a whole new set of headaches.

First the player itself: It sounds great. It's tiny. It runs forever without recharging - especially when in the case with the back-up battery. It charges easily. It takes SD cards - which I like because they are small and cheap.

Next the interface. It won't play MP3 or AAC files without "SD-ifying" them with a program that transfers them to an SD card (you also HAVE to use the included SD card reader/writer). I can live with that. Yes, kind of a pain, but the hardware was worth it. I really missed the ability to create playlists though - why scroll through 500Mb of tunes to hear the ones you want?

So I invested in the SD85, which supposedly has this ability with the new included Jukebox software. It does - but only between its frequent crashes. THIS SOFTWARE WAS DESIGNED BY DRUNK RODENTS. It's terrible. It crashes frequently. It's so counterintuative that it's worthless. I actually find myself using the old SD80 software to rip and transfer files and I only attempt to use Jukebox when I want to make playlists.

Please do not buy this unit. Supporting Panasonic when they make such bad software is unconcienable. Wait until another brand makes a similarly small unit.

My husband bought this for me in Singapore last month. It's exactly what I wanted. Small, uses cheap SD cards and runs forever. But the software is insane. I keep trying to import my MP3 files and it just keeps crashing. Every so often I get it to take a few more songs.
The mood thing is great. I created playlists by mood which was easy. Just figured out how to get to the playlist today. Hint: Set Mode in the middle, turn on, press FF key, when it says Playlist, press FF key again, then use volume keys to move between playlists. Very intuitive, huh?
Also, I hate having to use the USB reader that came with it to write SD cards. It is very slooooooow. Had to leave it all night to put my songs on the card.
But it runs forever - I was stuck on a flight from JFK to San Diego behind a screaming kid, played songs the whole way. Ahhh...