Is Hi-MD on the way out?

[g52ultra]

Real USB charging is standard on second generation units, like the MZ-RH10..

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I understand that the USB charging on 2nd gen is does not fully charge the battery. What has been your experience of this?

[Christopher]

I don't have a second generation unit, but I'm sure someone will answer this for you.

[MZ-1]

The USB "charging" is not intended for a full charge though a partially drained battery could be "topped off". The manual explains this on page 62.

Paul

[Hombre]

I've playing with my new turntable today, all day. After reading this post it dawned on me. MD is goin' the way of the Vinyl album/turntable. I could not just go to any store and buy a good turntable. In some areas you might have to do mail order or on-line to find one. I had to travel two hours (135 miles) away to get mine. I also went to six stores yesterday that had previously carried MD's and Players; they are all on clearance or the store has got rid of them entirely. I forsee in the future it will require the same amount of effort to buy Player/recorders and disc as I do for Vinyl and Turntables. Vinyl still exist and there is a market for vinyl but, not a big one. MD is not goin away it's goin' underground

[Syrius]

Look at the bright side: While the masses will be paying for and downloading lossy DRM'd compressed files, we'll be recording and uploading PCM files as many times as we want, without DRM.

To be honest, I never liked the idea of following trends. (Any guess why my avatar is a cartoon german shepherd? lol)So everyone and their grandma has got an Ipod. Big deal. Gimme my Minidisc or gimme death.

[tekdroid]

Look at the bright side: While the masses will be paying for and downloading lossy DRM'd compressed files, we'll be recording and uploading PCM files as many times as we want, without DRM. 

To be honest, I never liked the idea of following trends. (Any guess why my avatar is a cartoon german shepherd? lol)So everyone and their grandma has got an Ipod. Big deal. Gimme my Minidisc or gimme death.

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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.

[tommypeters]

There are a few Flash recorders, and while they still are either too expensive, not good enough, partially flawed - there may very well soon come one that "fits the bill". But for many people who travel and both will record and play music in that time - maybe a few weeks - there's only a Hi-MD or a HD based unit to choose between and the HD based units seldom have any high quality settings.

[doomlordis]

"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..."

These stats are only for MP3 players, you have to remember that they are only a small part of the market for portable audio.

Ok the cheapest 1gb sd cards in UK stores/online are about £35 - £40, £18 next year , £9 the next then in 2008 they may be the same price as a Hi-MD disc (providing that HI-MD dont get cheaper - they will) - i think its fair to say that by 2008 a Hi-MD disc will cost £2 probably less.

I think we will see a 2gb disc as it is possible and whats possible is usually done.

Also cheap SD cards are great but useless to me if they cant be paired with a quality recording device, something flash players are yet to offer.

I think the flash player market is full to the brim with cheap crap, bad build quality paired with dull sound. High quality recording units are not in the picture for these companies they just want to sell players.

The demise of Rio is a sign of things to come, i think the MP3 player market will level out with 2 or 3 main players, that may be Sony (Recent jap sales very good) it may be Iriver (although i think they will go under within one year - H10 a disaster) , creative i see hanging around in the flash market for a while, unless Apple release a device with a screen they wont dent the flash market. In the End i think Apple ,Sony and Creative will be the biggest players for flash players.

Edited August 29, 2005 by doomlordis

[tommypeters]

i think its fair to say that by 2008 a Hi-MD disc will cost £2 probably less.

In the End i think Apple ,Sony and Creative will be the biggest players for flash players.

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I've seen that in Australia Hi-MD disks can be had for AUD$4.95 - which incidentially equals £2.00.

[petitrois]

first I would say that I'm the most unfortunate taiwanese guy living in France given that my european model mz-rh10 comes without a LCD remote (what a surprise for me!)- any mentally normal people in Taiwan would ask for a Jp model with LCD remote.

In Fnac (the biggest cultural/hi-tech chain store in western europe) where I buy my rh10, they don't have many stock of the 2nd generation of hi-md from Sony- every ten days or so when the 910s or the rh10s arrive they are sold out almost immediatly.

Some of the buyers are like me, simply the archiver of daily life pieces who wants to record different sounds, conversations and manipulate the recordings, the others (they are many) are most of them people into their music band and look for high-quality live-music recordings. And believe me, people who are into these specific purpos exist, of course they are few compare to the sales figure of flashplayers or HDplayers but to be honest, I still cannot find any other decent machine to replace the reliability, facility, quality, flexibility of a (Hi-)MD player.

I had a MZR900 who got retired recently to be only a player (the recording just doesn't work anymore after 4 1/2 yrs decent service), I then was tempted by the flashplayers and HDplayers with recording function but finally still chose Hi-MD because I'm not convinced that other options can offer me good recording quality and flexible manipulations.

I'm agree with 'the MD recorder is declining' compare to MP3 things but there're still solid supporters who care about a MD recorder as a 'recorder' afterall.

[tekdroid]

These stats are only for MP3 players, you have to remember that they are only a small part of the market for portable audio.

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.

Ok the cheapest 1gb sd cards in UK stores/online are about £35 - £40, £18 next year , £9 the next  then in 2008 they may be the same price as a Hi-MD disc (providing that HI-MD dont get cheaper - they will) - i think its fair to say that by 2008 a Hi-MD disc will cost £2 probably less.

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.

I think we will see a 2gb disc as it is possible and whats possible is usually done.

Also cheap SD cards are great but useless to me if they cant be paired with a quality recording device, something flash players are yet to offer.

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...

In the End i think Apple ,Sony and Creative will be the biggest players for flash players.

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.

[e1ghtyf1ve]

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.

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I've been thinking about these questions as well. What follows is my opinion only.

Actually, the players aren't quite there yet either. Companies like iRiver etc. are relative newcomers. Sony and Sharp have had literally decades to refine their proprietary circuits including D/A A/D converters, amplifiers and so forth, and they apparently are not willing to share secrets with the Koreans. Sony has contributed substantially to the "fine art" of digital audio recording since the 70's. MD technology itself has been much more refined over the years and the differences are audible.

However, more casual digital audio player consumers listen to the latest loud noise than, say, solo violin, I'd wager. Differences in playback (let alone recording) quality are thus lost in all that racket. So MD will probably remain in its niche, where it belongs. (Sony tacking on "MP3 Digital Audio Player" on their Hi-MD machines cracks me up. )

Listening to my own flash recorders, I'm thinking that we've got a long way to go, baby. Let's not mince words: it's pretty ghastly sound, actually. Ear fatigue sets in, and the fun is over fast. A top notch analog cassette recorder sounds better. It takes more than just programming ARM assembly MP3/Ogg/WMA decoders to get true audiophile sound. The support circuitry has to be there, too, and that's where the flash player/recorder manufacturers have to work on before they can become competitive in the audio quality department.

Do I have a case of sour grapes? You betcha. I spent far too much money on overpriced junk. Live and learn!

Cheers

[MZ-1]

For me, a recent RH10 purchaser, HiMD is on its way *in*!

When flash player/recorders reach 100 GIG, I might be interested.

Paul

[migt]

The truth is, most people care more for the price tag more than for the sound quality. I find HDD player (and flash even more so) a compleatly limited format. I mean, 60 GB is not that much, it's only ~90 hours in wav, and I'm not very fond of using 128kbps mp3. One thing I heard from a guy just after I bought my MZ-NH1 last year, almost made me cry. He looks at it, with the pitifull look you normally give the $20 64MB flash players, and says: "Oh, why did you buy that, you should've bought an i-POD. It's so good, I can put over 10,000 song in it, and it sounds better than CD-Quality". Just how I'm I supposed to explain to a person who believes so blindly in commercials, that he can't distiguish between a "only for subway or bus" player and a top-of-the-line Hi-MD?

[Breepee2]

I find HDD player (and flash even more so) a compleatly  limited format. I mean, 60 GB is not that much, it's only ~90 hours in wav, and I'm not very fond of using 128kbps mp3.

This rules out about every portable audio player out there.

By the way, you can always create Lame MP3's with the preset extreme, which is a very safe bet. Or find a player that supports FLAC to increase space.

One thing I heard from a guy just after I bought my MZ-NH1 last year

If you are so concerned with audio quality and space, why did you buy an MD-recorder? I sports the playback of one of the worst codecs to be had on portable audio gear, and when you'd use PCM, you'd have to drag 60 1GB discs along, to at least get the same space as that HDD-player you were talking about.

If you like MD, that's fine (join the club ), but please do so based on real facts. Otherwise you'll be just like the MP3-flash-crowd: "it's better cuz it just is".

[doomlordis]

"I sports the playback of one of the worst codecs to be had on portable audio gear"

What are you basing this criticism of Atrac on? Not Hydrogen Audios old ABX i hope (a test not designed to identify how good a sample sounds but how accurate - quite different). Artifacts in Atrac are less annoying to my ears.

[Breepee2]

What are you basing this criticism of Atrac on? Not Hydrogen Audios old ABX i hope (a test not designed to identify how good a sample sounds but how accurate - quite different). Artifacts in Atrac are less annoying to my ears.

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Of course one can always have a personal preference for the characteristics for a specific codec.

I base it on the big Hydrogen ABX of last year (with Atrac3+, Lame, Vorbis, Musepack and I though also AAC). If so many people clearly consider Atrac3+ to sound worse than it's concurrents, it probably doesn't.

Note that all codecs but Atrac are constanly improved, and Atrac is not (every once in a while there's a big 'improvement' which requires everyone to buy new equipment).

[migt]

If you are so concerned with audio quality and space, why did you buy an MD-recorder? I sports the playback of one of the worst codecs to be had on portable audio gear, and when you'd use PCM, you'd have to drag 60 1GB discs along, to at least get the same space as that HDD-player you were talking about.

If you like MD, that's fine (join the club ), but please do so based on real facts. Otherwise you'll be just like the MP3-flash-crowd: "it's better cuz it just is".

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I could buy 60, 80 ,or even 150 Hi-MD, if I need to. Isn't that a real fact? Plus, I can sort recordings, without the risk of having everything wiped out at the same time. Hi-Sp sounds very good to my ears, and I preffer it to most mp3.

and when you'd use PCM, you'd have to drag 60 1GB discs along, to at least get the same space as that HDD-player you were talking about.

Maybe some of the peaople who own HDD players could answer me this question: can you listen all 60G in one session? One (or two, at most) Hi-MDs are enough for me for several days.

[migt]

BTW, I have a question that has been bothering me for quiet a while. HDDs are delicate stuff, so what happens when you drop a HDD player? Or does it have some special protection stuff?