simonh

Hi Max. I agree that md can be very versatile. As a portable recording device it is second to none (that I'm aware of). To my mind, the only future that md has, is a future without Sony. I have been thinking about this for the last few days. Here are my thoughts: Ditch DRM entirely. Allow playback of all (semi) popular digital formats - mp3, vorbis, musepack, flac, wavpack, aac. Allow developers to create their own audio management software. In short, an open source effort. Rockbox for the minidisc. Why doesn't someone send them an email?

"If your not into Recording , and your not into Audiophile quality sound ,............ Then Why are you on this board ? 3 posts , and your blurting out negatives about something you obviously do NOT understand ? or appreciate , ......... interesting , were you a lonely child? Did you get picked on a lot in school?" To the above: Never a lonely child. Never been picked on. I can only try to understand what you went through. To everyone else: I made my post in response to the thread title and the general theme of replies that I saw. I thought I may as well point out why I think md equipment and blanks are becoming harder to find. I sincerely would like to see md flourish, but I don't see how that will happen now. Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows.

As a former minidisc lover who has since 'moved on', I've a couple of points I'd like to make as to why I think MD is struggling: 1. D.R.M. Never a popular acronym, minidisc has been plagued with it from the start. This was Sony's biggest mistake I think. It was inevitable that a format that had such a ridiculous concept built in was doomed to fail. CDR and DVD+/-R have no interest in anyone's rights (and nor should they). 2. MP3. The beginning of the end for mindisc. Shareable, downloadable and copyable anywhere. CD lookup via freedb or musicbrainz or gracenote etc. No manual inputting of track titles (ouch, my fingers are hurting). No DRM. Still the most popular digital audio format today, mainly thanks to the LAME encoder and the lack of DRM. Fantastic quality using the LAME presets or equivalent V* presets today. ATRAC cannot compete any more than AAC can. Sony Connect which I clicked on the site today said: "We have performed a basic system check and detected that your system is not compatible with the CONNECT service. We recommend to download and install the item below and try again. Microsoft® Internet Explorer" Firefox is not supported? What a joke! Goodbye. (I read that Connect was closing, by the way). 3. Compact Discs and CD/DVDR. Seen by many, many people as the only digital/physical format worth buying today. Why would anyone buy a prerecorded MD? For that matter why would anyone buy a recordable minidisc? 4. The Ipod. Yes, I own an 80gb classic. I hate Apple more than Sony, but no one else offers such large storage capacities. No more needs to be said why it has become so popular. And no, I have never purchased a single track from their store. I hope I haven't offended anyone, but supporting minidisc now seems to be a case of pathological optimism. Hi-md, the 'new' format, does not seem to have any home decks. A last ditch effort to rob more money from folk, I believe. Well, you can count me out.

thanks for the reply Wizard. After reading your post, I think it's a lost cause. I will sling them.

Hi all. First post. Heres my sad story: I grew up with tapes. When minidiscs came out, I thought it was the best of both worlds. The compactness of a tape, the quality of a cd. I signed up in (probably) 1999/2000. I spent God knows how long manually inputting track titles etc for my cd to md recordings. A hell of a lot of work! Anyway, to cut a long story short, I'm now an mp3 affectionado. Have been for about five years. I like the fact that my data, and the medium used to store it, are eventually independent of each other. However... My girlfriend wants me to get rid of all my md's. I have about 300 recordable discs. All but about 50 have albums on them, the rest are blank. What to do? I can't bring myself to sling them. The design is fantastic. I keep telling myself that one day those discs will be of use (I haven't listended to an MD in about 3 years). The question: Is there any chance that minidiscs will be of use in the future? Maybe something similar to rockbox may pick up on minidiscs. What do you think: store or sell? Edit: One: Are there any hi-fi hi-md decks (not portable)? Two: All of my mp3 albums are vbr lame > 200kbs (so I have no quality worries with my favoured format).