Say goodbye to Hi-MD

[vova]

After much soul-searching and deliberation, I have decided to bid adieu to my 600D and put it on Ebay. I haven';t really warmed up to this gadget. The main complaint is its sound - something is missing there, even SP and LP recordings sound much miore alive on my old NetMd unit. I discovered it quite accidentally - I misplaced my Hi-MD and had to pull my trusty NetMD out of retirement. An rediscovered that it sound pretty damn good, never mind that the buttons don't work.

Add to that some Hi-MD annoyances - like it takes forever between the time you push the play button and the time it starts playing. It pretends to be a USB drive - but can it be any slower?

So what's the next step? No I am not going to prostitute myself with an iPod. That little computer is just too sterile and impersonal for me. A Sony NW HD1 player is an intriguing possibility, and would be a quite compelling little package if they add mp3 support and drop the price. The is a fly in the ointment tho - no jog dial! Way to go SOny - putting a jog dial on a 1 gig Himd, but no dial on the 20 gig hd players, so it's click click click all the way

[campekenobi]

Do what you must.

I just got the nh900 and have nothing to compare it to, so I'm completely happy with it.

Technically all hi-MD players may be considered entry-level at this point anyway... not many people today are raving about the FIRST MD player model.

Let's hope in a year or two there will be better players, better buttons, and most importantly, COOLER LOOKING DISCS!

[ihavecomputer]

i've got a 900 myself -- perhaps upgrading to the 900 for the digital amp would have made a difference for you.

[xispe]

campekenobi: the coolness of the discs isn't everything. Their availability in the stores is much more important to me! ahahah

[DJ_THE_CROW]

this is the end of hi-md, i still cannot buy any hi-md media here in germany, and there is still no way to record in mono in hi-md mode, therefore i cannot double the playbacktime, even if all of the songs i have are all in mono, the sonicstage thing will always convert those into stereo, what a bullshit, i cant even choose the SP-Mode with mono...... and my MZ-NH 600h has only 3 + 3 mW output power, this is just too less.... i have normalized and even optimized (volume peak inceased to average maximum), but its still not enough, and the equalizer has a built in AVLS-systen, the does not allow overclocking...... so good bye hi-md.......

[campekenobi]

campekenobi: the coolness of the discs isn't everything. Their availability in the stores is much more important to me! ahahah

What's a STORE? Oh.... the LOCAL thing. I buy EVERYTHING except food off the internet, so as far as I see it, discs are everywhere.

[jadeclaw]

@ DJ_the Crow: Discs you get at Saturn. That's where I got mine.

Because of the playing time, Sony decided to leave out the mono mode in Hi-MD-mode. Plus, when you record a true mono signal to Hi-LP / LP2 / LP4, the sound quality improves compared to a stereo signal as the difference channel contains no data, leaving all bandwith to the summary channel.

Of course, that leaves out the 500/520...

Mono is still available in SP-Mode, but you have to record via Line-In. (The european NH-600 has Line-In)

SonicStage doesn't has Mono, never had and possibly never will.

Speaking about the EQ, it works on the digital side, so the volume has to be reduced to prevent clipping. Remember, Fullscale IS Fullscale...

[Fat Tires]

What's a STORE? Oh.... the LOCAL thing. I buy EVERYTHING except food off the internet, so as far as I see it, discs are everywhere.

even toothpaste and underpants?

[campekenobi]

ok, but I'm sure you know what I mean..

[Fat Tires]

I did, I was just teasing.

[hobgoblin]

sony can still save the himd format. but what they need to do is to relase a player with true native mp3 playback. preferably one that allows for drag and drop upload of mp3s without the need for sonicstage. this will make himd THE ipod killer (alltho i start to hate the use of that expression).

[aeriyn]

this will make himd THE ipod killer.

not with the limitation on magneto-optical write speeds.

I can fill my iPod Mini's HDD completely full of 4GB in less than eight minutes. To fill four 1GB Hi-MD discs would take somewhere around the neighborhood of two and a half to three hours.

native MP3 playback won't save MD as a listening format. the only thing that would honestly save MD from eventual obscurity is an increase in interest by professionals or amateur musicians who would use it to record.

md/hi-md is just too slow compared to hdd players which can utilize the full speed of USB2.0/Firewire.

removable media portable audio is pretty much a thing of the past. PCDPs still hang around, but everything else is pretty much history. MD, DCC, DAT... all soon to be mere memories.

[campekenobi]

MD, DCC, DAT... all soon to be mere memories.

So they said about vinyl records 15 years ago... all the techno artists I listen to still cut on wax ONLY. Very big in Europe still.

[aeriyn]

So they said about vinyl records 15 years ago... all the techno artists I listen to still cut on wax ONLY. Very big in Europe still.

Not even close to the same thing. MD is different. It doesn't fill the same niche that vinyl does. It can't fill the niche Sony wants it to fill (portable audio) because there are other products (iPod, Rio Carbon/Karma, Creative Zen, etc) that fill the same niche and do a much better job at it.

The only niche that MD fills is the amateur recordists' niche, and Sony's overzealous use of copy protection is disgruntling their one single base of customers for MD products. But they still use MD because there's nothing else to use that's at the same price point. CF recorders work better but are much more expensive. DAT is cumbersome and clunky. Not much else you can use.

Why do you think Sony is so stridently pushing their HDD players? Why do you think they finally included native MP3 support on their Network Walkmen? They're finally learning that their tactics don't work. MD is doomed to a fate of niche-market obscurity. Hi-MD, even with native MP3 support (which may or may not happen) will never be able to compete with the iPod or any other HDD player for many reasons, but the fact that it takes forty five minutes to fill up a disc is enough of a reason not to buy for most people.

[campekenobi]

1 If it is so doomed (which you're probably right) why do you bother using it and talking in this forum?

2 Technically there could be someone on this planet still buying 8-track tapes on Ebay and playing them... so if I'm the only one using MD in 10 years, so be it... i LOVE these little discs.

3 The software/interface may change by some smart hacker, or Sony finally giving up, a last straw to try to sell all their remaining inventory of MD players.

[Christopher]

She doesn't use MD anymore. :rasp2:

And we'll see about the 45 minutes to fill up a disc business when I get my NH900 with a REAL computer.

[aeriyn]

1 If it is so doomed (which you're probably right) why do you bother using it...

I don't, anymore. Got sick of the slow transfers and SonicStage. I really do miss the discs, though. Some were really hot looking. :grin:

... and talking in this forum?

Because Chris likes it when I do. :laugh:

And we'll see about the 45 minutes to fill up a disc business when I get my NH900 with a REAL computer.

Bah, it's not your PC. It's the limitations of how fast magneto-optical can write data, which is to say, slower than an 8x CD-ROM drive.

[atrain]

Bah, it's not your PC. It's the limitations of how fast magneto-optical can write data, which is to say, slower than an 8x CD-ROM drive.

actually a fair point there, on a reasonable computer the transfer process per song takes almost no time at all. the real bottleneck is the write head moving across the disc at a slow speed, at least compared to the ipod/generic dap.

whether this irritates you is a personal thing. i like removable media myself but i'm looking beyond md for my next player, i may well buy an hd3.

btw i have used 3g, 4g & minis & i don't like them much. awesome looking excellent interface but they don't make me go wow, i want one. too streamlined? too simplified maybe? don't have the constant battle against the software?

[Christopher]

Of course it's the write head, but CPU bottleneck does exist in certain scenarios. I am genuinely interested in seeing how well this "100x" preforms on a nForce3 250GB Asus board with a gig of native 2-2-2-5 DDR400 for Sonicstage to handle, as well as the conversion time. I guess I could go check the conversion time thing now..

Another thing I am curious about..what if I had a WD Raptor hard drive? I wonder what Sonicstage would be like.

[Christopher]

Okay, it took less than three minutes to convert Bjork's entire Medulla CD to 256kbps ATRAC3plus and save to hard drive. Uhm, awesome? :happy: I'm still weary of the transfer to Hi-MD part, so I guess I'll test that when I get the unit. Don't be surprised if I split these slightly off topic replies into a new thread, btw.

edit: Seriously listening to Hi-SP for the first time via Darth Beyers and it's not too bad. Muted in some ranges, it feels, but extremely adequate for portable use.

[aeriyn]

The differences between codecs are infintesimal at such high bitrates.

[atrain]

excuse the ignorance, but what speed is the WD raptor, 7200? faster?

[Michael_Walker]

whats gonna kill Hi-MD is SONICSTAGE and sony's infinitely crappy support of it. I use the Hi-MD (600) for recording and i am quite happy with the unit, despite the obvious limitations of pissing around with workarounds to get my recordings out it.

But SONICSTAGE software that mysteriously stops working every few weeks, wont uninstall cleanly, and cant be downloaded as an installer package ( i have to download 40 megs EVERY TIME, no thrills on my slow connection )

that REALLY SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!

Too bad SONY doesnt give a damn, eh?

[aeriyn]

"Sony" and "computer" just don't mix. It's how it's always been.

[thepootleflump]

You could be right that Minidisc has had its day apart from a niche market; Sony obviously thought it was worth investing in updating the format so it can't be all bad news otherwise they wouldn't have bothered.

I still like MD because it isn't solely restricted to people that listen to music on the go but people who also want to listen to hi-fi; on my system it still sounds great. Spending a couple of hours listening to music with a book or magazine is a great way of relaxing and doesn't involve hunching over a PC listening via substandard speakers. I couldn't really imagine plugging an iPod into my hi-fi and fiddling with the controls. There is something about the permanence of having the music saved on a disk with a life of 50+ years compared with having it saved on a hard disc with a life of who knows what, yeah it can be backed up but with MD there is no need.

As for the media, I'm not concerned about the lack of Hi-MD media when standard disks are so cheap and widely available, and with no Hi-MD decks available I’ll stick to standard MDs for now.

[Christopher]

Michael_Walker, if you keep crapping on threads you're outta here.

excuse the ignorance, but what speed is the WD raptor, 7200? faster?

10000 RPM, but it's a high preformance serial ata interface. Here's another sata drive with 16mb! buffer being compared to it: http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.as...ondmax10&page=5

Run some searches, you'll see how amazing it is.

[aeriyn]

Spending a couple of hours listening to music with a book or magazine is a great way of relaxing and doesn't involve hunching over a PC listening via substandard speakers.  I couldn't really imagine plugging an iPod into my hi-fi and fiddling with the controls.  There is something about the permanence of having the music saved on a disk with a life of 50+ years compared with having it saved on a hard disc with a life of who knows what, yeah it can be backed up but with MD there is no need.

I couldn't really imagine using an iPod as a home unit either. :laugh: My iPod is purely for portable audio, and my computer is for no audio at all save for games.

At home, I use good old fashioned linear PCM compact discs. :grin: My new Cambridge Audio CDP is lovely and it sounds very nice. Well, will sound nice again once I get my headphone amplifier fixed and functional again. Damn TLE2426 rail splitter smoked and it no worky now. -.-'

I suppose MD is of much greater use to you because you listen at home as well as on the go. I never did; at home I just listened on my CD player with the original (or a burned) CD.

[thepootleflump]

I prefer to backup :smile: CDs using the minidisc format, price isn't much different to a good brand CD-R and they're smaller, nicer to look at, more durable and sound the same.

For joe public I can see why a hard disk format might preferrable.

[aeriyn]

I prefer to backup  :smile:  CDs using the minidisc format, price isn't much different to a good brand CD-R and they're smaller, nicer to look at, more durable and sound the same.

For joe public I can see why a hard disk format might preferrable.

Those must be some expensive CD-Rs. :laugh: Last pack of MDs I bought averaged out to around 2 dollars a disc, while the TDK CD-Rs I have are a spindle of 50 for 15 bucks.

[Fat Tires]

^^I'm with aeriyn on this one. I love MD, but the cheapest I've ever gotten them for is about a buck a piece, while I spend about $20 for a 100 CDRs.

[thepootleflump]

We can get them a little cheaper than $2 a piece in the UK but then the dollar is sinking like a stone at the moment :wink: should be fun when I go over to the states next year since the dollar is so weak :smile:

I agree that CDs would be somewhat cheaper but I'd still rather have a Minidisc than a crappy ugly CD-R and to someone who is not running a Chinese pirate factory its not a great deal of money. :cool:

[aeriyn]

We can get them a little cheaper than $2 a piece in the UK but then the dollar is sinking like a stone at the moment  :wink: should be fun when I go over to the states next year since the dollar is so weak :smile:  

I agree that CDs would be somewhat cheaper but I'd still rather have a Minidisc than a crappy ugly CD-R and to someone who is not running a Chinese pirate factory its not a great deal of money. :cool:

lol... CD's uncompressed though and I can play them in my Cambridge, or any CD player handy.

Damn our dollars for becoming so worthless. The money in my pocket is becoming less valuable as we speak. It sucks. X.x