KHA

Watched Hight Fidelity, with john Cusack. A great movie: i love the actor + it makes me dreaming about having a Minidisc shop... The shop in the movie is too big even with all commercial mds ever released lol I wonder if such stores are still existing: one shop selling vinyles in my town closed 2 years ago...

Interesting topic, It would be great one day to see a BLUE MD launched by sony, using the blue ray support... but i am not sure it will be sold, even if they market it. I agree for the reason of the fail "The failure of SACD/DVD-audio has little/nothing to do with iPods" AT THE TIME. Now, the audio cultures have changed. People are now used to compressed audio, and they like it because it is convenient. You transfer, and you go with Thouthans of songs > then you can do audio zapping all the day... Today, i doubt that any new format (cd, md or any real support) will work, even with full support of industrials. The culture has changed and people would be reluctant to go back to less convenient systems. (it is my point of view). Now, the question is more "what will be the next compression format?" that "what will be the next support used?"

Exactly, MD is about sound quality sure, but it is also about music experience! MP3 players with more and more capacity are just offering a Zapping experience, which sadly is enough for most of people out there. I really don't see how a new MD like concept could work, as the culture of music has dramaticaly changed last years, we will remain old freaks using a device from old times... What is also amazing with MD: I just bought new expensive Headphones to replace the previous ones... At first, i hated them because the basses were too strong... Then i remembered you can set up the sound you like with the MD equalizer... I am so happy now, i have found exactly the sound my ears are expecting! Thank you MD!

Hello everybody, I really hope not to recreate any topic done on this subject, or how to imagine the next Mini-Disc. The context (pure fiction) 2009, Sony is not leading anymore in the audio device market. Despite huge efforts, the new MP3 players devices are being sold, but as much as sony is expecting. Sony wants to get back its strengh by proposing a new support. The president wants to put back Sony as leader in audio technology. The Administration council is expecting an increase of 11% in profits next year, so the solution has to be sold. The Senior vice president of the audio technology department is considering all solutions, and has made several groups to consider all solutions: A group is thinking on using the Disc support as base of a new format. A group is thinking about a new audio compression format. The last group is composed of people thinking about the possibility of a new MD like approach, the group is called MD 2 live Today, you are joining this group, right here in this forum. Few rules: You don't have to build a format similar to the MD, but the concept of a phisical support and the idea of audio quality superior to classic MP3 is a requirement Be professionnal, the vice president is not waiting for some sci-fi ideas, but a real new viable technology based on old MD concepts (see point one) You can see the MD 2 Live project from several aspects, including the marketing, technology , culture, consumers uses, costs... No idea is stupid. Just be realistic and avoid proposing a solution which may work only for MD fans. Here, we are talking about beating MP3 players, beating APPLE... We can get to the conclusion that there are no solutions > at least we had tried and better understood the consumer for next products... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ok, hello guys, i start first then. I think that we won't stay in the meeting room for long. From a consumer uses aspects, the creation of a Phisical support based technology is really hard to sell. Why should i lose time in recording in a MD2 when i can just transfert huge ammounts in my MP3 player. I mean, we speak about classic consumers here, and they don't see the life like MD's fans do... Ok, the idea then would be to propose a solution even more convenient than the MP3 player. I don't know if even a MD2 with 300 gigas memory capacity would be a solution... Do we know if the usages of MP3 are changing? Compared to 5 years ago, maybe more people are considering higher compression rates as the storage spaces are bigger and the internet connections are faster. What is the biggest capacity of an I-Pod today? Take this number and definite it for one blank Minidisc 2 capacity... then, we may have our chances... Sorry, i am losing myself into theories, but i think there are not that many solutions: - We can go on the way of competitors, propose a MD2 player, with easy USB music transfert, large compatibilities... - We can go on a MD2 focusing on the quality of music, and proposing something really differant from today... The problem is... Today, quality sound is not the priority anymore. People may tell you "i am expecting from a MP3 player a good sound quality", but actually, they download poor compression MP3 songs on the net... So what can we do? Propose something similar and try to beat them on marketing? It won't work i think... What about focusing on marketing about > find back the HI-FI quality... buy sony or something... well... i don't think so... Ah! Coffee is coming! Who else what to join the meeting?

Congrats for your purshase, i plan to get as well a Sony MZ-M200 as the one i have for 3 years is about to die... Maybee i should buy 2 of them in case in one year the player is no salled anymore... It makes me crasy to imagine the end coming... i would like to live with this audio system all my life! I am really gonna cry in few years when i won't find any device to play my 400 mds... i mean, i will cry, literraly.

I just bought a Memory stick for my PSP yesterday, and i must say they are doing 16 gigas in a flash card, and if i remember, the transfer speed is much more efficient than HI-MD. I am fan of MD for music but i must recognise its non potencial for data transfer. Optical transfer is not as fast as flash sadly... Even, if sony develops a blue-ray mini disc based system, you will have, i think, the same speed transfer issue than we had with HI-MD... So frankly, i don't think there will be a 'next' for minidisc... and when i see Sony marketing work, i almost prefer they don't do anything about it...

And there is a proof of the nice feeling of using MD: Look at these movies using MD as great data/audio highly technological device like Matrix and lastly Transformers. In this movie, the secret agency guy is coming with top secret videos stored in minidisc. He puts the md into his computer... He could just take the laptop and show directly the video, but the movement of taking the MD and putting it in the laptop make our brain phantasm on this whole thing! that is so better that a guy just saying "look at what i just download from our private server" Next movies using MD will add more excitement as this audio support is forgotten by people...

I hope i won't be too much off topic but as we are talking about audio format... I would like to prevent the end of MD (at least, the end of my use) by starting convert all my cds in some computer based audio file such as MP3, WMA, ect... Considering that my priority is the audio quality, which audio file can i use? which compression rate? And finally with which tool? (i mean i liked WMP but what if i chose something else than MP3 or WMA?) I would like to start convertion even before buying any device, as my MD is still working, as a back up... and i just realised it may take a while so better to get started!

I agree with the initial post, and i would like to add something. By selecting the MD you want to put in your deck, mostly an album, you already think about what you want to listen, and then , you get a feeling of contentment as you take the desired minidisc with you. You start enter into the musical ambiance of your minidisc even before starting playing it. You enjoy already music, and then when you push the play button, it is even more appreciable and... (i let you complete here ) Then you see one of your colleagues on the way back to home: He is using his hard drive or flash music player with more that 3000 songs (average at 128k): he is not really listening, he is just zapping the music, one song from this Album, then something completely different from that one... He does not realise that more and more, he is just running the same 100 songs during his trips... He is not listening to music anymore, he is just consuming music as a way to spend his time to home, and then he will connect to a streaming website and listen for what he wants to listen. Can you believe someone told me he was listening music through youtube clips and that he thinks he can find really good quality there... poor guy... More and more, people in the subway (Paris) are looking at me when i change of minidisc. I am not a freak to them, not yet, but they don't see the point of changing of minidisc when you can have a huge library of songs with you. I wonder how many of them have listened a complete album without zapping using a hard drive or flash music player

It happened the contrary to me: I used to record and to listen MDs in SP and HI-SP formats for years now. Last week, i wanted to do a big best of all, with pretty much everything... and in the format HI-LP ... i must say i realise how far ears can get used to good or bad quality sounds. My true question is: do you guys know what is the order of sound quality for recording MDs? Here is the order i guess, but i am looking for some document detailling results: PCM HI-SP SP LP HI-LP LP2 Ok, i just had a look to the website informations, and i realised how far i was wrong, need to have a more detailled look at it

I have about 100 MD and 15 HI-MD. I use HI-MD to rec on PCM for classic music from CD's, or for big compilations from 7 Movie soundtracks albums. I think PCM is really cool for music that diserve some special treatment, the music you are fond of. I don't think anyone may record all his/her albums in PCM > 100 HI-MD by exemple lol

Hello everybody, I would like to talk about my main MD concern: I plan to keep using mini-disc for the next decades, but as the support is less and less selled, i am a little bit worried about the future of my music: What i mean is i fear what could happenned in 4 years, when my last md player will broke-down, or when my onkyo HI-MD element may not work correctly... If i try to buy a new one from an european website, in 2012, i wont find any new model, even the 'old' ones won't be sold, so i will have to buy one on e-bay, but years after years, all my equipement will be unusable... Don't you feel the same? There is no way i change of support because i believe in mini-disc, and allways will but i just can't stand the idea that one day, i will have no choice but to use an other support, which means transfert all my music... It is kind of sad to think about it, and to realise that we like a condamned technology can make me seek. Do you have any plan to avoid this problem? i could buy about 20 players to be ready for my life but... sound foolish... In a second part, i would like to share with you my crazy imagination: just imagine some sci-fi story: ok tha'ts a litlle bit crazy but have a look at it: Terrorists kidnaps the best hackers in the world and make them making the worst virus ever. Then they integrate this deadly virus by some way in most popular RSS feed contents. They let this virus go in most of RSS feeds for 9 months, the virus is sleeping at this time. The 21 october 2013, 3PM, paris hour, the virus which is allready in all RSS readers in the world is launched. It infects also computer not connected this day, but connect at least one day for the last 9 months. Most of people in the world get their computer and hard-drives infected. I get to the point: Most of the human race is, by the time (end of 2013), keeping orginal music on their computer and hard disc system. Most of them lost all their music. (MP3 i guess lol) FIRE IN THE HOLE: no one can find back his music as the peer to peer concept is dead (no seeders). Panic in the world, the music disc majors chosen in 2011 to transfert all the music content on their private servers. But terrorists destroyed these facilities the day the virus came as music is evil for them. End of the story: it seems there are only 30 000 people in the world who kept their music safe. Mini-Disc fans, few freacky geeks who protected their computer with some weird nuke radiation based system and 7 mummies who haven't connected their computer to the internet for 9 months. What about that? Isn't scary? Take Care Greg

Hello all, I am going to Hong-Kong next April, and as i am a Mini-Disc fan/addict, allready well equiped, i plan to buy couple of mini-disc players in order to be even more equiped for the end of the mini-disc era. I want to be sure to be ale to use MD again for years... plus i guess there are original player models out there. Any of you guys do know Hong-Kong? Do you recommand me some stores? Or can you tell me which stores, areas i should avoid? I know it is not the Japan over there but i really expect to have a large choice of models... As i have a complete Onkyo hi-fi system with a hi-md recorder element, and the last sony player/recorder, i am looking for 2 MD devices: One classic md player, really thin, and one HI-MD player, the coolest possible. Do you guys could give me some advice about my plan?

Yeah, these people don't know how much we venerate our Holy MD... We should try to convert more people to the Holy MD faith!

So if i follow you, there is not any MD unit with keyboard connection in the market? even in japan? For the JE580 without any digital out, that is realy a shame... As i remember, my onkyo hi-md deck does not have any digital out neither... Does anyone have the double md deck? (i mean 2 MD spaces in one deck). I should look for these great device on Ebay, but most of sellers don't want to send it all over the world...