Spare Tire

Now that Hi-MD has PCM, the anti-shock memory should be quite larger to be at a decent time ahead. I wonder if they upgraded the anti-shock memory? If they did indeed upgrade the anti-shock memory to be more suitable for PCM, the fact that the MD will support bitrates from outrageously low to very high, i think it would be wise if they included an option to chose how much memory to use, or an option that would scale down the anti-shock memory when you use the lower bitrates to save on battery life. Anyone know anything about this?

Yeah, i hear ya about the hardware decoder/encoder. It wouldn't make sense to do it software in a small machine like an MD that wants to maximize battery life. I suppose a software hack would need to put a software somewhere: the anti-shock memory? ... Yeah, well it's quite impossible indeed. On a side note, now that Hi-MD has PCM, the anti-shock memory should be quite larger now to be at a decent time ahead. I wonder if they upgraded the anti-shock memory.

Hum, yes it probably has to do with the usb mass storage standart, yeah. Well, as you said, the machine needs a decoder most of all. Sometime back, there was an april fools of a dude that hacked into an N1, loaded some different software and made it play mp3. Something about an MD bootdisc :happy:. I guess it must be possible somehow. Well, i don't know. The point still being that it's even more obvious now that we have Hi-MD

I'm not so sure about that. Even in the old minidisc format, you had data MD. A solid support can hold any type of data. My hard drive is NTFS formated, and it holds mp3. Macs aren't FAT either, they hold mp3 too. Fat is just some type of table of content, right? Minidisc has it's TOC. Doesn't matter what you put on it. It was just as possible to hold mp3s on old mds. I don't know yet but i think you can use old minidisc, 80mins discs that aren't reformated to Hi-MD, to hold data (someone who has a unit can confirm this?).

What i said is that we should have a minidisc in every aspect, that ALSO supports mp3. 1. It doesn't matter if atrac is better than mp3, most of us when we use netmd convert mp3 to atrac so it gets even crappier. 2. I'd want support for both formats because if i could rip from a cd or record, i'd rip it into atrac instead of mp3. 3. It didn't matter too much when the disc was only the standart 80mins disc. Atrac made sense because of the fixed bitrate, because this much music, will fit in this much disc space, because this much time takes this much space. Now we notice that the Hi-minidisc doesn't mesure in time anymore, but in space, which means that the fixed bitrate doesn't really matter anymore. Besides Hi-MD will also hold data. SO.... as i said.... a minidisc that can read mp3 without the minidisc appelation. By not calling it a minidisc, sony wont have anything to say (right?).

If sony is too stuck up to implement mp3 support for minidiscs, then why doesn't the other companies like sharp or panasonic etc make MDs with mp3 capabilities? Okay, it's an old question, and we know the awnser: because sony holds the licence for the MDs and other companies can't innovate on the product. But, what if instead of using the name Minidisc, someone would come up with a machine they CLAIM to be an mp3 player, that just HAPPENS to use the minidisc format and is backward compatible with all the previous minidiscs, support for Hi-MD, net-MD, MDLP etc. In other words, it's just a minidisc that can read mp3 (and maybe other formats like ogg) BUT without the licenced Minidisc appelation. Now, i don't know if it's legally feaseble, but oh well... anybody thought of it?

Well, sharp DID leave the american MD market quite a while ago. The last minidisc sharp canada got out here was the MT877 (which i bought). Now they pull out from the european market. Kinda sad, but importing was the only solution here since the MT877 anyways so it doesn't hit me any harder. I just hope that they entrench in the asian market and don't pull out of the MDs altogether. It would be quite sad. And my MT877... j'l'ai cassé! :laugh: En fait non, Sharp c'est du bon stock.

Well, for one thing i know MDs are magneto-optic discs unlike CD-Rs that are only optic. The write process is different, i guess the material is different too. But has anyone checked if they're CD-RW last as long as their MDs? Because CD-RW are magneto-optic too. Oh and another thing, i think it's possible that an MD still plays even if part of it is damaged since it's an audio thing, the damaged parts make skips and stuff, but data cds screw up completly if some part of the data is lost. EDIT: okay wait, so CD-RW is NOT magneto-optic?

On old MDs, when you edited your disc too much sometimes the music skips because the music is physically fragmented and far apart. Now since HiMD can also store data and since i suppose you can defragment the disc from windows, can the same be done to audio-mds? And could the same be done to old school minidiscs (not reformatted)?

The one touch eject that every portable unit now has also requires power. The old slot in sharp 702 was slot in and it was simply a mechanical eject. A floppy drive is slot in and it's a mechanical eject also.

Why would it consume a lot of battery power?!? There was a quite recent panasonic player if i'm not mistaking that had a slot-in. I wonder if it had a better eject mechanism than those old sharp 722 that would break like nothing.

Okay, so it's not the first time Kenwood does a Sharp clone. What i want to know is that is it really absolutly positively an identical Sharp clone inside? As in the circuits and the fonctionnalities? It didn't matter back then on the old clones, but this time we're talking about an Auvi here! I want to know if they kept the Auvi digital amp or is it Kenwood's own digital amp? It could make all the difference in the world for me. I think the Kenwood unit has better looks than the Sharp original but i'd rather keep the sharp digital amp.

Dunno, from what i saw it seem as if it was just passivly shining a normal laser onto the disc. A true writing would imply modulating the magnetic field too right? Well, i don't really know what i'm saying but i think it's somewhere near that... I guess it must be something between a normal read and a real write... :wacky: Maybe if we used old discs the battery life would be longer?? Anyways, they better be doing something about that battery life because as it is it's a third of the old units. That's inacceptable, even mp3 units now have longer battery life than this. I went with minidisc back then because it's battery life was kick ass but now i don't see why i would opt for minidisc when even mp3 can do better. I hope Sharp can extend that battery life a bit more with their 1bit amp.

Is it me or Hi-MD units have a battery life notably shorter than old MDs? N10: play: 17/20/24 hr record: 8.5/11/14 hr NH1: play: 8/14/16 hr record: 5/7/8 hr Both run on LiIon. Sharp DR400: play: 33/44/51 hr record: 8/13/18 hr R910: play: 30/38/42 hr record: 12/17/21 hr running on gumstick 1400mAh NH900: Battery life PCM/Hi-SP/Hi-LP: play: 5/8/10 hr record: 4/5/6 hr Battery life SP/LP2/LP4: play: 9/10/12 hr record: 5/7/7 hr running on gumstick 1000mAh Well, it's hard to compare 1400mAh and 1000mAh, but if we multiply the specs of the NH900 by 1.4, it's still pretty damn low compared to the old MD units. And it's wierd that the internal LiIon units actually run longer than the gumsticks now. What's up with this? Does it have anything to do with the new way the discs work?

So what's the difference between a player and a download only recorder if both have USB and a recording head?

Can players be used as storage devices? I guess not. Then they should make it noticably cheaper than the recorder right? If they keep up the price proportion like in the old days, that would suck ass. Perhaps minidisc players should dissapear altogether and be replaced by download players. Yeah.

Well, actually a CD or DVD can also be erased and written very quickly (if not faster than a floppy, god knows those things are slow like hell). It's just a question of software. If you can access a floppy as easely, it's because window is running it that way, while as CDs and DVDs need independant softwares to burn them. Direct CD lets you drag and drop if the CD is already formatted that way. Floppies come already formatted (usually).

Yeah, that protruding knob sure looks ambiguous. I think it must have some functionnality, they wouldn't take up that much space for nothing. But i don't know. I don't like units having a big AA battery buldge in the back either. In those pictures they never show the back of the unit.

Bass makes me puke on real speakers because of the vibration on my body and stomach; but on headphone, it isn't a problem. I think the headaches must come from discomfort. I dropped my stock cans for EX-71 with the right size buds and it released the strain. Another possibility is that your cord length is too short and makes you cock your head on one side or to the front. You don't really notice it but after a while it makes you puke.

Aside from the limitation on the number of groups, does anyone know if there's a limitation of the number of tracks? In older MDs, i think it was limited to 255 tracks, i'm not sure if i read it right somewhere. Well, i suppose that there isn't really a limit for the drag and drop file storage but i wonder about playback.... 255 would still be a bit small for a 1gig disc.

Where are you in Canada? Which city?

If you want isolation from outside noise, i'd recommend Koss' The Plug v.2. They aren't as costy as sony's EX-71 and in my opinion isolates better. I often take the train to go to school and i needed something to cut out the noise. I tried The Plug and i could take the volume down two notches than i would normally have it with normal buds. But i wanted more isolation and i bought EX-71 thinking it'd be better. I was wrong! 40$ (canadian) over Koss', i think it's not worth it. The EX-71 does isolate somewhat, somewhat less than Koss's The Plug, and on top of that i think it's less powerful. To have my EX-71 as loud as my The Plug, i needed to put it one or two volume notch above. EX-71's bass is more solid and dense, The Plug was a bit mudy but in all it doesn't really matter since i listen in the train and The Plug gives a more powerful bass. On another note, the Plug's foam isn't very durable, after i while it'll crack and split and they are a bit too big for my ears. I heard over the net that there was a crack for The Plug's foam, you could replace it with some other stuff that would make the bass response incredible. I never tried though. The EX-71 has smaller more confortable foams (they're not really foam either). I imported mine from japan and they had three bud size, but i think the north american version only has two (the two bigger size). Perhaps i'm wrong. If you want to get the EX-71, get the japanese version, it's SL and wouldn't be excessively long for those who has a remote on their MD.

You can always record in atrac3 with an atrac3+ recorder. Well i think you can. I don't think atrac3+ will give you much an amelioration, coded wise. Except for the non-loss mode, the rest should be about the same thing. It's the size of the disc that matters.

Don't forget to convert your american bucks and canadian bucks into something that can be compared...

A while back when net-md just came out i think i saw a sony laptop equipt with a minidisc drive. But being net-md, all you could do with it was to listen to music. With the introduction of the hi-md with it's capacity to store data, i think now's a good occasion to make a real drive out of this. I wonder if there's gonna be a laptop with this thing. Compared to a DVD-RW, i don't think there's any point in making hi-md a real drive though, it storing less data, being slower and of a not very standart format. As for it being slow, i wonder if should they make it an internal drive they could go with something faster than usb1. But if it's just the physical limit of the disc then we're screwed. The small size could be a very interesting aspect if we make it a floppy replacement since it's even smaller than floppy. There are plenty of 12'' laptops in the ultra-portable category that would really benefit from having a drive. Some of them have nothing internal at all!