ghersh

this is my perspective and probably the perpsective of many of those using MP3. I think minidisc is a great technology. Compact high-capacity re-writable and removable media, sort of one of a kind. ATRAC? well, it's Sony proprietory compression scheme, and I prefer to stick to the open standards such as MP3 and AAC, both are extensively developed by many companies, you really pick and choose you encoder. But that's beside the point. Suppose ATRAC is much better than either MP3 or AAC. I still wouldn't touch it with my bare hands for a very simple reason: you can't treat ATRAC file as a regular file. You can't simple move it between different devices. You have to jump thorugh the hoops using Sony-supplied software. And that *is* the major reason I just don't care about what Sony is doing. Even if Sony introduces native MP3 support, unless they make it clear you don't have to use their proprietory software to manipulate those file, I won't be interested, and I'm sure many other from MP3/AAC community won't be interested either. Those living in ATRAC ghetto simply don't know / don't understand / don't appreciate the advantages of using the encoders of your choice, and working with sound file as if it were just the regular files. And as to the open standard, look what's going on with AAC which is really hot. You have encoder from Apple (iTunes), you have encoder from Nero, or FAAC, and several other companies are jumping the badnwagon. So: Sony should take their minidisc technology, add the native support for MP3 (yes, I did see the announcements that that's coming) and AAC, and give the user completely unrestricted means and ways to manipulate and move those files to/from their minidisc recorder/player. Well, we'll see if it ever happens.

I agree 100%. As I've said in my recent posting, I don't care about ATRAC and don't consider it the best compression technique. Incidetnly, at 256KBps all encoders are pretty much the same. This is around 128-160 where differences start showing up, and this is where MP4/AAC is the best. It is also the only defined standard for multimedia. So - having MP4/AAC supported on Minidisk players will immediately attract fairly large group of users, including myself. Why? Simply because Hi-MD is absolutely superb media. It is removable, high capacity, and the player draws very little power, thus the regular batteries are fine. What is the current situation with non-MD players? Flash memory and other flavors of solid state (like CF or SD) are still too expensive. Hard drive based players are cost efficient in terms of price per MB, but they draw too much power, and another serious problem is that when hard drive crashes, everything you have is gone. That's why I consider Hi-MD format extrmely attractive. yet I'm not going to give up on MP3 or MP4/AAC. Another important point: with MP3 and MP4/AAC, you have a large choice of encoders and decoders, supported on multiple platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac. Most are freeware. Pick and choose whatever you want, and the platform you want. Do you have this luxory with ATRAC? No. It is only windows-based, and it is only Sony. With MP3 and MP4/AAC, the specs are well documented - hence the available variety of encoders and decoders. Note that those are official specs. Not something developed internally by Sony, something it can change willi-nilly, not particular caring about its users. Of course, the abilty to move the files unrestricted between the player and PC (or MAC) is a must. This is what 'the rest of the world' does. The most important feature of Hi-MD is its FAT structure. it's no longer limited to specific ATRAC format, but is capable of handling any arbitrary data format. It will be a shame not to take advantage of this feature and still limiting itself to ATRAC only. Finally, you either open MD to allternatives encoding/decoding formats, or MD will be limited to the small group of afficionados who consider ATRAC the best and willing to live with whatever you get from sony, and with no hope of commercial success.

The most important feature of Hi-MD is *not* its high capacity, but its FAT directory structure, which makes it general-purpose media capable of dealing with some arbitrary data, not only ATRAC files like its predecessor. This in turn opens the possibility of using Hi-MD for any type of compression, not necessarily ATRAC3. I *really* hope either Sony or Sharp or someone else will implement some alternative decoder on Hi-MD player. If Sony is so paranoid about DRM, why not to implement MP4/AAC? The same level of security. I strongly believe implementing alternative encoding/decoding formats will really bring the Hi-MD media to the masses. In my particular case, I'm very much interested in Hi-MD as a media. However I absolutely have no interest in ATRAC, in any flavor. I've done some MP3 and moving to MP4/AAC as it's superior format and allows practically artiifact-free encoding at the average rate of 200Kbps. Being able to download MP4/AAC encoded material to Hi-MD and then play it back with MD player (without *any* transcoding to ATRAC) is a kill. I will get such a player without a second thought, and I"m sure many others will too.