Essay On The Early Days of MiniDisc

[Webmaster]

Emma Stratton's Minidisc essay in The Morning News captures the aura and optimism of Minidisc's early days.

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/opi...s/minidisco.php

[mmp64]

All I can say is - MD ain't dead yet... still plenty of life left.

[bug80]

Nice article, but it doesn't really answer the question asked in the introduction. In fact, it doesn't answer any questions at all.

[indeego]

Nice article, but it doesn't really answer the question asked in the introduction. In fact, it doesn't answer any questions at all.

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well, this is what "essay" (-> essayer) stands for

[fdcjnr]

I think it was well written. And unfortunately, for most people the iPod is the way, the truth and the light. But then there are those who appreciate the finer things - sound and build quality, recording convenience and options; innovation. Those people - us - will always know better. The whole world doesn't always have to agree on everything. It would be birng if it did!

Cheers,

Frank Di Cosmo

[skyther]

And unfortunately, for most people the iPod is the way, the truth and the light.  But then there are those who appreciate the finer things - sound and build quality, recording convenience and options; innovation. Those people - us - will always know better.

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I definately don't agree.

Sound - You can find 30+30mW output and quality Wolfson DACs in only 1 portable lineup

Build - Plastic vs metal, nuff said

Options - iPods come in a wide range of sizes (thumb, mini, full), flash + HD media, Hi-MD gives removable media options in 1GB discs

Innovation - The ones who came out with the (touch) scroll wheel + easy-to-use GUI first... I guess they're more innovative?

[zerodB]

I hear MiniDiscs are still going strong in Hong Kong and Japan, but in the U.S. they are marching to wherever the BetaMax went. Today, a hundred MiniDiscs sit in a shoebox in my closet. They contain priceless music archived for eternity, and until I move to Hong Kong, I will continue to lug them through each phase of my life in the off-chance that I meet a kindred soul with a player that still works.

Hmmm... It seems like she's never heard of NetMD or HiMD... or online etailers like audio cubes for that matter as well.

Correct me if i'm mistaken, but wasn't Sony selling more MD units then ever in North America with the introduction of NetMD? And aren't the sales figures increasing steadily with Hi-MD? Sure it's barley enroaching onto ipod territory, but I don't think this article really does justice to the way MD is (slowly) marching foward today.

[atrain]

kris said that himds sold more than ipods over the christmas period, where was that the uk? this reflects imo, the imporvment in himd over netmd but also the market penetration of the ipod - lees may have been bought because the porspective market already owns one.

[pata2001]

With the way Sony is doing things with HiMD (MP3 playback, data drive), I think there's still some life in MD/HiMD.

[skyther]

^ It's definately coming back, but there's still room for lots of improvement.

[bobdibest]

I have to agree, I love MD, it still has life but only if sony listen to the customer.

How about a 'PSP' which has no gaming functions just the screen size and disc drive intended for HiMD for music, picture and video playback (and obviously recording via a computer)? that would be sweet! Essentially a HiMD walkman that is the size of the PSPs screen!

If Sony don't add video playback before Apple they can almost sit back and watch the format fail! Ill say it till it happens, Sony need a HiMD/UMD hybrid disc drive for recording and playback of both formats. Have a bottom range model for recording and playback thats cheap with no colour screen and intended for those who have PSPs and wanna burn UMDs to playback on the PSP, then a top range model like the one mentioned above intended for those without a PSP who wanna watch movies, view pictures and listen to music on HiMD (and UMD if they desired)

Plus its only in the last year or so MD has slumped in the UK before that I remember all my university friends having an MD walkman!

[shigzeo]

Plus its only in the last year or so MD has slumped in the UK before that I remember all my university friends having an MD walkman!

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as this is concerned, i must agree. just a year or two ago, ipod was on the outter fringe and in sweden and japan, everyone carried a minidisc. as for that, sweden is ipod territory or mp3 flash/hd player territory and japan? mixed bag. himd, i may be the only one i know who has actually bought one. even the store clerk said the sales were very slow. why is there reason to upgrade to himd if your old sharp or kenwood is still spinning disks? especially as the new models carry a price tag to make the older ones pale by 2 or 3x.

i love the recording equipment in the md recorders, but download of less than 1mg per sencond? how does that compare to ipod of near 10mb on firewire? as well, osx is not even an afterthought. some of us upgraded away from windows to ease our minds and in the process were cut exclusively away from any form of "convenient, high speed usb-transfers". gimmic is far from ideal and well, md may have just never made ideal except in as a previous poster said, in our hearts. i love it, but it will not compete especially now with any flash/hd based player as a player alone.

[NorthStar]

Honestly, I think that as long as people like us keep buying, using, and critiquing MD devices, there's still some life left to be had in the medium. Plus there's the fact that it's just in a class all it's own. I happen to live in the US, a place where the MD is struggling, but I still turn heads whenever I pop my n510 out, and after I tell them what it is and what it can do, even iPod users tend to be interested. There's just something about those little discs that catches people's attention.

The Minidisc medium, and it's devices, aren't perfect by any means. I love my recorder/player and my many cool looking minidiscs, but I can still see the flaws. From the SonicStage program and it's copy limiting properties (not to mention it's bugs!), to lossyness from atrac3 conversion (though I don't really have that much of a problem with this codec... as much as I like my mp3's, lp2 conversion suits me just fine), these things have their setbacks. All of them can be pointed right at Sony... for some strange reason they seem to love mis-managing this product. Why would one worry about how many times someone will copy a music file when competing (and higher selling) products don't limit the user at all in regards to that? Why would they sell lower priced units without line in/mic in support, when those are some of the biggest selling points and strengths these things have (the ability to record from various sources, not just the computer)? Why would they limit select markets from certan products (take the new MZ-RH10 that just came out... four colors to chose from in Japan, just one color here int the states... my wife wanted the blue one, and now I have to look at inflated prices if I want to import???)) Why come out with this new Hi-MD stuff if you aren't coming out with decks that support those discs? Where are any new minidisc boomboxes or car radios?? Using car kits get's annoying after a while. The list goes on... I'm sure you guys could come up with more essential questions, as you have been in the game much longer than I have.

Still, despite these problems, the minidisc has chugged along... mostly because of the diehards that still use them, and becaues they find ways to get around the many mismanaged produced short comings. Forums and sites like this also keep it alive, because of the constant flow of information and mutual feelings that's shared among users over the MD. I honestly think that's what's kept MD from going the way of Betamax years ago. It just keeps going... and who knows, maybe Hi-MD will freshen things up a bit. But it all depends depends on how Sony manages things. And they haven't done a good job so far.

I think it's way past time (if this hasn't been done already, and if it has, keep doing it), for everyone to send a deluge of their gripes and opinions at Sony over this. A few people here and there complaining about these and other issues is one thing, but a large mass of people letting them know what's up is a whole different situation. There's no reason why Sony can't do this right and please the customers who continue to use MD, they just need the right motivation. They were already motivated by lack of sales, the popularity of mp3 players, and user gripes to make the two latest models mp3 playable (even though it's not totally to our liking), so that means they can bend under the right kind of pressure. This could be the perfect time to let them know what we want... who knows, we might get something good out of it, like being able to copy discs without resorting to tricks, or eliminating that whole "check in/check out" thing (yeah right, I can dream...).

Just something to consider. Still though, because we all feel so strongly about MD that we discuss it's potential, it's problems, and it's future willingly, I think it still has some decent amount of life left. How much more might be up to us.

- NorthStar

Edited April 24, 2005 by NorthStar

[Fray Adjacent]

I agree with Northstar on all of that...

MD could be GREAT if Sony would get behind it and really push it. I'm talkin loosen up the restrictions, boom boxes and car decks. What's the real mystique of removable media if you can't take it somewhere else and play it in another device? I want to be able to copy MP3s to a disc, and take it to my car and listen to it there, then eject it at work and put it in my portable player and listen to it at work.

[Syrius]

I can't understand how Sony, who bombarded us with lots of advertisement for the PS1 back in 95, and for FF7, can't get the idea that they need to run a freaking 15 sec spot on TV to tell people about MD.

I wonder what it would have been of the PS2 with that kind of mentality. Maybe we need to start a hoax that Hi-MD can be used to guide missiles, the way they did with the system.

[shigzeo]

Regarding LP2, I was an avid user of it for some time before last year, I believe in December. I had been using my iPod mostly on the train etc and my MD very rarely because of a funk in the recharger. After listening to iPod's native mp3 playing on a very very beautiful 30mw amp, my Sharp MD-DR7 sounded a bit faint, but I cannot say I do not like the sound.

But recently I purchased some nice headphones and a headphone amp by audio technica and was not surprised to find that just as those dubious reports that linked ogg, mpc, mp3, itunes aac and LP2 together, my LP2 was just running on the side of windy. Very windy in fact. I cannot at the moment say which I prefer, a 128kbps MP3, coded by who knows what codec or LP2. This was not a shock because when I use my SG11 to record from my computer, LP2 very rarely is used. But, for about 2 years, LP2 was my key to getting 147 minutes off my old scratchy SONY Neige disks. Shame.

As for the essay chiming about recording fun, I have not had more fun that walking with earphone looking mics around town or in school and playing back the whole affair on my hi-fi. I would swear I was still at school, looking at some girls playing football or buying milk tea. It is a fun but fading world we live in.