tekdroid

From what I understand: MZ-NH1 Advantages *can change recording levels on the back-lit remote in dark places *all-metal construction of unit (magnesium) like oldskool MD units *Lithium Ion battery as opposed to Ni-MH Disadvantages *proprietary, hideously overpriced Sony battery (if you want a spare or replacement) *non-standard USB cable (an issue if you lose it and/or damage it & need a replacement) *hideous cradle (some love it - I hate it) MZ-NH900 Advantages *Ability to use tried-and-true standard (and cheap) AA batteries *Standard USB cable Disadvantages *Half plastic/metal construction *Inability to change recording levels on remote in dark places (must use non-backlit LCD on main unit) The NH1's lack of AA battery support and the hideous cradle (and non-standard proprietary USB cable) bother me, but I still think it might be the better unit when all the pros and cons are weighed in (at least for my uses). 2nd generation units *have fully plastic exteriors. *The RH10's face has been reported to be scratch and fingerprint-prone *The RH10's OLED display is generally considered great for night viewing *Native MP3 support (no need for transcoding to ATRAC beforehand) A note MP3 playback has been crippled in the sense that Sony has made mp3s sound duller than ATRAC (accident or on purpose? You decide). The RH10 was also initially released with a notable firmware bugs that required the unit to be returned for a firmware update to correct the 'missing letters' problem. It might be a non-issue if you're buying now but you never know who has older stock. Personally, the second-generation MD units leave me underwhelmed. Especially at regular prices. But I have no use for compressed audio like MP3 and ATRAC, so your needs may differ. DRM restrictions in SonicStage 3.2 The good news (that you may or may not have heard) is that DRM restrictions (Digital Rights Management, aka "a pain in the arse") have finally been lifted in SonicStage 3.2 for your own MIC/LINE-IN recordings. That is, you can upload as many times as you like. How sweet of Sony for giving us permission to use our own recordings as we see fit Something that should have been done ages ago because there was no logic in it whatsoever. But good news nonetheless. Anyway, there are interface/usability/design issues you might encounter when using your unit (and tastes vary), so I recommend downloading their manuals and having a read-through before deciding on what's best for you. Good luck

The release of these models can only make sense in the Japanese market, to me. Anywhere else they just wouldn't sell enough to be viable bringing them out and supporting them. As for their competitors mostly releasing MD models... I doubt most are prepared for the investment but limited market of Hi-MD. Sony's Annual Report 2005 states: Sales of headphone stereos declined as a result of a significant decrease in the unit shipments of both CD format and MD format devices due to a shift in demand towards hard disc- and flash-based memory players. Worldwide shipments of CD format devices decreased by approximately 3.68 million units to approximately 7.28 million units and worldwide shipments of MD format devices decreased by approximately 1.44 million units to 1.92 million units. Sales of home audio declined primarily due to a contraction of the market. On the other hand, overall sales of car audio increased slightly due to strong sales in the European market and Other Areas. It might also be possible for Sony to drop mp3 support if their 'pro focus' of MD is to be believed. Right now, with the players not being able to play them (and their recorders offering a custom-made (cough) frequency response on playback..) I can only guess that Sony is: *very afraid of mp3 *will possibly drop mp3 from future models They love selling MD units as native mp3 to encourage sales, but I think they want to test our reasonable assumptions on what mp3 'support' really is. Back on topic: These players look fresh, but again, I think their market is simply Japan.

The prices aren't bad, eh. I held off on the last round of price cuts. I'm tempted, considering that we'll probably never see a half-decent linear PCM recorder priced like this for some time. And we'll probably never see MiniDisc units selling in Oz for some time, too. Yes, I think I'll go the Hi-MD now. The question is: which one? Gah. Decisions, decisions. The only thing really worrying me about this is: unit reliability. There are probably a million different (inconclusive) opinions on this, so I might look at other differentiating factors when deciding on which one I should choose. And now for some thinking music..

Completely agree with you. With food as well The masses don't KNOW what they want, overall. (a lot of [bad] habits start as children, too - just see the commercials during kids tv). But I stated that Sony was trying to tell us what we need in the context of ease-of-use. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. The masses ALWAYS want ease-of-use and basic flexibility, but Sony was telling them "no, we think DRM is for you". No, we think re-converting MP3s is for you. And now, "we think making mp3s sound different is for you". Hah. Making things a pain when they don't need to be. I know the frequency response thing is subject to argument, but I for one am very cynical of their intentions on that one. The thing is, even with an effective advertising campaign for MiniDisc, the product as it was (highly restrictive and not-as-friendly-as-it-could-be to the recordist (or the casual listener), would have been pretty ineffectual, so I don't blame them for not pushing it. Of course now the market has transformed completely, with or without Sony's involvement - and this news pretty much speaks for itself. If the portable market wasn't changing like it was, chances are they could have gotten away with all their grand plans, too - and we'd have no real choice in the matter. So I'm just glad it took outsiders to make them wake up. It's very easy to talk about this after the fact, but Sony had a LOT of time to get it right, but only gave the market crumbs. Steadily improving, but crumbs. They had feedback and they had heaps of it. They didn't take action fast enough to shake off perceptions, or create new (positive) ones. Is that Hi-MD or regular MD? Recently enough talk on this forum of recent models going south to be a concern (seems to be hardware-related making discs seem faulty). Gappy playback, inability to pull stuff off discs (both data & audio), etc. Seems to be a growing concern. Could be just a very minor percentage tho, but I suspect it's a large enough problem to need 'fixing' in the next generation, along with the firmware bugs (some of which could have been prevented with the most basic quality control measures in place).

First I'm surprised they'd kill it completely like this in Australia. I always thought bringing in only 1 or 2 portables would be Sony's move. Probably not impossible for them to reverse their decision next year, too - as new hardware comes out and they have finished getting rid of the current crop at rock-bottom prices You said it. Tho they had commercials in the past that I remember (I rarely watch tv now), but I think the very late native mp3 support (like it or not the masses demanded it (and got it) for years in other products, even within the same company) and ultra-restrictive DRM - even on your OWN recordings until recently (imagine those that lost all confidence in the product when losing their OWN stuff due to Sony's stupidity + bugs), coupled with buggy and unfriendly software killed all chance completely. This is the masses telling Sony it's not on and we shouldn't be lamenting their decision; Sony deserve what they got. Sony was trying to tell the market what they needed instead of the other way around. Ease-of-use suffered bigtime and was replaced with user frustration. I think it could all have been prevented, though. Technically, if done right, there's no reason why MiniDisc couldn't be so much more popular than it is, advertising or not. To the average Joe, tho, these days - as far as playback is concerned - it's hard for him not to be swayed by the (really) tiny flash portables on display everywhere and the small HD portables holding lots of storage. Without getting into technical differences and the finer points of pros and cons, Joe is hooked. Many things didn't inspire confidence or word-of-mouth recommendations with MiniDisc leading to this, so should we be that surprised? Probably not. Recent talk of trashed discs and Hi-MD (un)reliability, coupled with possibly declining build quality don't exactly inspire confidence, either (ignoring several other issues that have cropped up, like mp3 frequency response differences versus ATRAC, feature omissions on models, etc). It's a good time for Sony to get things right with Generation 3, I think - and just erase all previous bad vibes. But given these times of restructuring, who knows what other markets will get the (temporary?) axe?

classic!

just a comment on the bling design... It's as if Sony purposefully did some market research & discovered that people just can't get enough of scratches and visible fingerprints, and designed the units in accordances with their wishes. The roundness of both bases with no flat surface or feet says to me "uh oh, scratch time" whenever you lay the unit down on your desk or any flat surface without a protective jacket. The transparentish shiny rounded surfaces are just gonna get scratched to hell. If they're left in the sun I can see some just melting. Honestly, I'll never understand some design choices. Gloss surfaces? Scratchy transparentish plastic 'overlays'? I'd be happy to be corrected on the scratches, but come November, I think we're gonna be hearing stories. From some of the other photos we can see the fingerprint situation is a standout feature of the oh-so-hip gloss surfaces.

yep, traditional "discmans" outsell new flash/hd players 3 to 1, I hear. The point is the 'new market' of hd/flash players is growing extremely rapidly, with the trend toward flash for higher and higher capacities (once the domain of HDs). 4GB flash Ipod is coming soon. Hi-MD is so low in Australia I don't see it going much lower. 5 bucks for a portable rewritable disc is reasonable. Sure, they can put it down to $2 but I doubt they would benefit from that (or sell more recorders). The media is cheap enough for the masses and there is no incentive for them to go much lower, I reckon (and Sony don't have much competition in this area, as I understand it). Capacity increases will probably come before any further price reduction. There's no question Hi-MD is cheaper, but I bet there's a sizeable proportion of the population that would be happy with 1 'big enough' flash card that they record on and transfer to the PC. Then delete & record again. Agreed. I don't understand why someone doesn't make a relatively cheap flash recorder that delivers for recording (and in MD's price bracket). Maybe the numbers just aren't there. Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious. Not sure... God I hope not I'd love to see a whole lot more competition than that (and I think there's room for many more Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese players). I always thought Apple would lose out to the real corps who are far more heavily into their hardware than Apple could hope to be.

hmm, at that price I just may bite. So they still have them in stock, do they?

First ask him what he plans to use it for. Then the answers are pretty simple. Each has notable strengths and weaknesses listed here, so no point repeating them again. 4GB Flash Ipods coming soonish, btw. Dunno if he wants to wait, but word is Apple could be buying up to 36% of Samsung's NAND flash output, depending on what sales are like later this year when they release it. The chances of Apple making a decent recorder are pretty slim, tho. Samsung also plans to release some new models in this half of the year. But again, no point if he can't wait a bit to suss out the competition. Personally I go "ewww" whenever I see a portable with a HD and/or a non user-replaceable battery (or flash card) in it, so nothing featuring those even raises an eyebrow.

Something is bothering me, though. What on earth is stopping someone from making a killer flash recorder on par with anything MiniDisc can dish out (and surpassing it). Except maybe on the per-GB cost department? But shouldn't the flash recorder itself be cheaper to make than a MiniDisc portable, to offset that? Especially just a 1GB flash recorder? ...and how many flash blanks would u need, anyway? You archive it all to DVD recordables on PC and transfer to/from the recorder easily and completely unrestricted. What I'm trying to say is what IS the hold up? Samsung stats (according to their recent conference call): MP3 player market in 2004: 65% flash-based 35% HD-based (obviously not including MiniDisc here, though it's uncertain it would even be a blip on the radar even if included) MP3 player projections in 2005: 70% or more flash-based based on some Samsung guy saying he expects the market in 2005 to be "less than 30%" on the HD side. Trends: By the end of the year they expect the 1GB-4GB market segment to be majority flash-based, with HD-based units being pushed up to 6GB-8GB+ portables. NAND flash is decresing in price by 50% per year and doubling in capacity each year, they say. Isn't the writing on the wall for the 1GB Hi-MD? Yes, rumoured capacity increases are nice, but... When do we see competitive recorders based on Flash, and why on earth aren't we flooded with cool recorder choices yet? The player market is showing us the way. Where be the recorders? I just don't know what the techical or cost hurdles could be.

http://www.sanyo.com/batteries/specs.cfm Very high chance he's right. One of Sanyo's major strengths is rechargeable batteries (and solar technology, and...and...) and they have been sold under different names, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Sony source from them. All in all, they make the best rechargeables.

http://users.informatik.haw-hamburg.de/~wi...r/MP3-risk.html Some discussion here. I stress, all unproven. But then again things like this take ages to prove. I have been interested in the effects of sound ever since finding out that CDs came out with a harsh cut-off at 20KHz years ago. Even though we cannot hear above these frequencies we can 'feel' them and they aid in 'relaxing' the brain. Pioneer even came out with Legato Link conversion in their CD players in order to recreate what wasn't encoded (with many asking how can they do that if it wasn't encoded to start with...). But yeh, they attempted it. Of course, data-reduction like it's being used today almost everywhere on almost every device (and broadcast standards) is far more complex than simply not encoding beyond a certain frequency. I just think the human ear has evolved over millions of years on natural sounds and flooding it with data-reduced sounds (not simply a sharp cut-off of some frequencies) is very bad. Same can be said for many other things in modern society that's contributing to modern problems (air, artificial lighting, traffic noise, etc). I don't view it as any different. In fact, I view it as worse because data-reduced music has no physical basis in nature. The way the sounds reach us is continuously optimised for space-savings and the brain's perception only. If we 'saw' the actual sound reaching our ears, a completely different picture would emerge. Hate to know what damage is being done to the ear itself from the 'unnatural' information hitting it. Just because our brains perceive it to be 'identical' it doesn't mean damage is not being done. Again, a theory.. no concrete stuff. I'd imagine it would be years before any conclusive evidence comes out, let alone being commonly accepted as true by Average Joe (much like smoking, mobile phones, etc). There's a LOT of important non-perceived data (masked, etc) not hitting our ears that's important for the proper functioning of the ears, is the theory, basically. I try to minimise the amount of lossy stuff I expose myself to. I love lossless codecs like FLAC, for instance. *Dreaming* -------- If only Sony would wake up and realise this would make their little 1GB machines doubly useful with no absolutely no quality loss and the admiration of many who already use this format to archive their recordings (average 12 albums per DVD). -------- *Wakes from dream*

There is also the (unproven) theories that having dynamically-thrown-out information (essentially doing the filtering our brains do before it reaches our ears) has health effects on hearing other things in the human body, which I happen to be a firm believer in. Too much lossy music (Dolby AC-3, ATRAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, etc) will have health effects we don't know about just yet. Regardless, I think the tonal information present in our recordings (both "heard" and "unnoticed") shouldn't be butchered for the sake of some limited storage space constraints, I reckon. I just can't accept that it needs to. There are alternatives.

Now we're talkin'. Linear PCM recordings for longer times and Hi-MD video. Hmmm, intriguing! Hopefully coupled with half-decent bug-free, non-mp3 crippled, third-generation gear I guess that would be asking too much. Woulda thought they'd keep 1GB MiniDiscs for a while yet, so I would be surprised if they release higher capacities so soon. Not that they're not needed, of course. Many would love capacity increases. I think Sony has to increase mindshare, and this is a way to do it.

Ms Partridge should familiarise herself with Preferences in iTunes. Shame that technology cannot help a clueless user. What I find most amusing is people paying top-dollar for crappy lossy files. Some nice surprises instore for them if they think it's all smooth sailing. Right now it's about incompatibility...err, 'innovation' and companies striking while the iron is hot, hoping to enforce some 'standards' in a new market. Good on 'em. It doesn't mean I'll be biting. I think an informed public is the most important thing, and that's always lacking (on the whole). Things like compatibility will burn many people, and so will generational loss as they try to convert their lossy files to another format (assuming they even find out they can be converted). Makes the CD sound like bigtime progress (it is...)

Depends on your definiton of 'superior'. I'm no great fan of the iPod or the current Hi-MD units (still looking for a good excuse to buy one, but sadly, haven't found one yet, mostly due to software DRM restrictions. High-frequency roll-off of mp3 playback is also inexcusable and that arrogance will never be rewarded by me). But if you look at the average consumer's point of view with the iPod, I think we can get closer to understanding its runaway success. The iPods are EASY to use. The devices don't roadblock the user with needless restrictions (some areas notwithstanding..). The devices are, overall, enjoyable to use and navigate and hold many more songs than a MiniDisc. I think Sony has a LONG way to go when it comes to the out-of-box experience of Hi-MD. It simply deserves to be selling less and to be relatively unknown. In other words, Apple's iPod being the market leader is not surprising to me in the least. Of course MiniDisc has its unique features that no other format offers. I just think it's a shame that Sony simply doesn't let the format shine as it should, and they are paying the price (along with the users).

The lack of testing of the units amazes me most of all. This slipping out into the public is embarrassing on so many levels, I can't begin to describe it.

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MD for video cameras? I doubt it. Seems too much of an audio format to me, given its limitations. They do have XDCAM pro camcorders and Professional Disc for Data (PDD) for enterprise backup, and Blu-Ray for (apparently) everything else. All seem to be using the new-gen 23-50GB cartridges: XDCAM linkage: http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Professional/mark...17.html?m=10017

...and with that, Sony relegates a promising format to a niche of an already well-established niche.

48GB is not so hard to fill up with CD-quality uncompressed linear PCM files (as god intended) :cool: But why stop at music? One format for everything also sounds nice. Surround sound, video, audio, data back-up, with each different device only 'using' what it sees and is designed to run. That would be nice. There is no such thing as too much storage, IMO. If anything, it will bring in more advanced quality formats to the masses as opposed to some of what we're seeing now... I just hope that one day we can stop making sacrifices with sound (mp3, atrac, ogg, etc) for the sake of a little convenience, due to high media costs, size and/or portability. That day is slowly coming... Then sound (and video, and data storage, and whatever) can go forward into higher resolutions and capabilities with virtually no 'cost' and be used for everything from audiophile systems to portables equally, not constrained by our current storage, size and cost limitations. There will be plenty of new formats overtaking MiniDisc if MD doesn't move forward. Sony knows this. Their competitors know this. That's why we see major new formats every few years. Everyone's interested in leading the next big wave of cool tech that catches on with the public. 1GB on Hi-MD sounds pretty tasty compared to what came before, especially now that linear PCM is in the bag. But it will be positively primitive and severely lacking in the not-too-distant. Storage is moving quickly.

http://www.sony.net/Products/MO-Drive/ProD.../faq/index.html Q. Is this Blu-ray Disc technology? A. No. It has been specially engineered for professional use. Q. Why wasn't Blu-ray Disc technology used for these professional drives? A. Because professional users require higher transfer rates than those available with Blu-ray Disc technology. You'll also notice it's 23.3GB storage, as opposed to the single-layer 25GB or double layer 50GB in Blu-Ray. It also can't read CD or DVD, so far from standard, even tho some of the technologies used are similar.

Seen these yet? http://www.sony.net/Products/MO-Drive/ProDATA/ 23GB per disc with blistering transfer rates. Not cheap, tho. Do I want one? Hell yes.

then you want DVD-RAM. It's native drag-n-drop, non-linear, 4.7GB per disc, cartridge or cartridgeless. 9.4GB double sided discs (4.7GB per side) also available. You can play stuff off the disc while writing to it, just like a HD or zip drive. You can edit straight off the disc with no burning applications on your OS needed at all. Panasonic and LG both have combo drives using the format and the blanks are not that expensive considering you get 4.7GB and Hi-MD only gives you 1GB. I'm sure you won't mind that the drives read and write regular CDs and DVDs too (in the traditional way...). You will never look back...