Will there be a 3rd generation Hi-MD?

[danielbb90]

Oh yes. A Hi-md deck is very much on my wish/hope/dream list. I wish I'd taken advantage of the cheap MZ-NH1s going in the UK over the summer. They are back up in price again now. I was tempted away by the RH10 as my first HI-MD and although it is a great piece of kit, I think I'd like a NH1 too. I really really hope that there wil be G3 but I'm not holding my breath. In the UK even blank media is becoming really tough to get hold of at any sort of a decent price in small quantities. I can't afford to buy 50 at a time. But if G3 does materialise then I'll be up for a piece of that assuming they have ironed out some of the old issues.

Yeh, I took advantage of that! and I'm not regreting my MZ-NH1 since... besides the unusual Lip-4Wm thingy! why no aa battery pack...

-Higher resolution camera

-Larger, bigger OLED screen

-OGG Support

-AAC support

-Lower and lower price

-2GB Hi-MD

-4GB Hi-MD

.

.

.

.

-20GB Hi-MD

anyway 20GB Md's sound good!

[hobgoblin]

only way to do a 20GB hi-md would be to go the blu-ray route.

either that or scale the whole thing up so its the size of a cd, and that would negate one of the reasons to get a md player in the first place...

and my wishlist?

playback of mp3s without having to go the sonicstage route.

basicly allow me to drag and drop them using the os's native file browser.

no extra drivers, nothing like that at all. just usb storage media.

that way it would sell to just about anyone. linux users, mac users, you name it.

Edited January 8, 2006 by hobgoblin

[danielbb90]

only way to do a 20GB hi-md would be to go the blu-ray route.

either that or scale the whole thing up so its the size of a cd, and that would negate one of the reasons to get a md player in the first place...

why not do it the same way as a dvd? the 'clusters' on the back of it are just smaller (I think),if so just srink them again!

lol yeh ok maby not a 20gb but that was a nice idea!

with a 20gb md you could put a movie on it at extreamily high quality! Now that sounds good!

Edited January 8, 2006 by danielbb90

[hobgoblin]

smaller clusters is basicly what the blu-ray does.

smaller cluster requires shorter wavelength laser to read them.

from what i understand the dvd player uses a 2 laser setup to be able to read both dvd's and cd's.

the hi-md however uses a kind of lense trick to make the player able to use the same wavelength laser to read the smaller pits, while allso being able to read the older md format. this is why you can reformat the md discs into a hi-md compatible format.

but i dont think they can deploy the same trick again to increase the capasity much more. atleast not into the 20GB range...

[Spare Tire]

kanji support on all models.

Forget kanji support, what about unicode? I don't see what half the world would do with kanji and without unicode.

I don't care much about the recorders, just make good decks at home with all the unimaginable options you guys want, and make a really lean player that focuses on sound quality, durability, light and compact, with the longest battery life ever in any kind of players. That would own. All the other stuff are a bit trivial. I'm still using an old st-77 mdlp player and everything there still makes sense.

[danielbb90]

smaller clusters is basicly what the blu-ray does.

smaller cluster requires shorter wavelength laser to read them.

from what i understand the dvd player uses a 2 laser setup to be able to read both dvd's and cd's.

the hi-md however uses a kind of lense trick to make the player able to use the same wavelength laser to read the smaller pits, while allso being able to read the older md format. this is why you can reformat the md discs into a hi-md compatible format.

but i dont think they can deploy the same trick again to increase the capasity much more. atleast not into the 20GB range...

ah! well we can always dream!

[garcou]

NO,Hi-Md uses the same Laser Wavelength (λ=780nm) than old school MD or CD.

It uses another data organisation (HDD like) and DWDD (deplacement Wall...) proces to increase discs capacities.

On the contrary, MD VIEW and DVD uses a 655nm Laser Wavelength that is shorter but still red light laser

That's why a simple combination of data organisation (HDD like) and DWDD with MD VIEW or DVD 655nm Laser Wavelength should increase Md capacity to 5GB

A combination with blue ray laser should actually increase to 20GB!!

[hobgoblin]

ok, now im more confused then i ever was about how hi-md compares to md

if this was to correct my post, know that it was written based on what i recall, and in very general terms so as to try and get the message thru without drowning it in technobabble (something i have a bad habbit of doing at times, or so i have been told IRL).

still, higher capasity hi-md's have been discussed before, but i dont feel the need to dig up a thread...

Edited January 9, 2006 by hobgoblin

[MDGB2]

Nearly 8 hours of Hi-SP music is more than enough for me anyway.

Drag 'n drop without limitations/DRM would be sweeeeet.

[Spare Tire]

That's why a simple combination of data organisation (HDD like) and DWDD with MD VIEW or DVD 655nm Laser Wavelength should increase Md capacity to 5GB

A combination with blue ray laser should actually increase to 20GB!!

I don't think he meant it was impossible, he meant that it's impossible to do it and still keep the same laser pickup to keep it backward compatible. Sure you can do what you just described, but then it wouldn't read the old MDs.

Anyways, i don't care about larger capacity. Beats the purpose of having removable media. Except for live recording purposes, i don't hear the difference between SP and PCM in casual portable listening.

Edited January 9, 2006 by Spare Tire

[ZosoIV]

Some of us "old-timers" don't even use MDLP or Hi-MD - who really needs three days worth of crap on one disc, especially when they are so cheap? (Of course, I don't use MD for portable listening/recording anymore, either, so I can see the other side's point.)

I'd personally like to see a reasonably-priced Hi-MD home deck and $2 Hi-MD discs before larger capacity ones are introduced, as I still use MD at home like a tape deck. I have a feeling that home recording, though, is a dying hobby, making such a product unlikely.

[garcou]

I don't think he meant it was impossible, he meant that it's impossible to do it and still keep the same laser pickup to keep it backward compatible. Sure you can do what you just described, but then it wouldn't read the old MDs.

Anyways, i don't care about larger capacity. Beats the purpose of having removable media. Except for live recording purposes, i don't hear the difference between SP and PCM in casual portable listening.

As DVD (655nm wavelength) recorders are able to read/record CD (780nm wavelength), I don't see why it wouldn't be able to read old MDs.

Higher capacities would be interesting for video camcorder. (Although 1GB MD can hold 3Hours of good divx/mpeg4)

Edited January 10, 2006 by garcou

[pata2001]

I doubt there will be any future HiMD units outside Japan.

My wishlist:

-Unicode compliant on software, remote, and unit.

-Faster transfer rate

-Drop the glossy fingerprints collector surface, and bring back metal finish.

-OLED 40ELK remote.

Oh, how about a HiMD version of the E10, with an OLED display on the unit?

[Silly35]

Wishlist for future(?) Hi-MD recorders :

- A "RECORD" button on the 40ELK remote (like some SHARP remotes). It would be great for recording without manipulate on the unit.

- A better battery life ( about 300 hours like JVC ?)

- I would like they develop a videocam recorder based on the Hi-MD.

Some extras on SonicStage :

- A fonction to bookmark the tracks with sonicstage. (a checkbox in the tracklist is easy to add in the interface!!!)

Long life to the Hi-MD devices !

[hobgoblin]

As DVD (655nm wavelength) recorders are able to read/record CD (780nm wavelength), I don't see why it wouldn't be able to read old MDs.

well i recall reading that current dvd players pull of the cd read trick thanks to having two laser emitters, one for the dvd wavelength and one for the cd wavelength. it was in connection to a blu-ray/hd-dvd discussion where the question of backwards compatiblity came up. someone commented that as there is allready some issued with dvd players having two lasers, he wonderd what kind of engineering issues there would be to stuff yet another laser emitter in there.

if this is true, then think about trying to stuff two or more lasers into something the size of the avarage portable minidisc player...

-Faster transfer rate

i hope your aware of it but i repeat it anyways:

the media puts a physical limit on the transfer speed.

i dont know if they do two passes to erase and write but in any case, as it needs to be heated to a specific temprature before anything can be written, it will allways be slower then even a hardrive, forget about flash level speeds.

[pauljones52]

To reach higher capacitys, the recorders would most likely have to drop support for current minidiscs. 2nd gen HiMD's cant record directly to minidiscs in the old legacy mode, signs than sony is dropping old MD support and moving to larger capacity discs maybe??

[hobgoblin]

given recent trends i would say that they are dropping minidisc alltogether...

[MDGB2]

Just stick a dual laser in.

One for old skool, one for Hi-MD!

Fantasy right?

Only thing I could think to coming close to replacing MD would be recordable UMD, but this has been covered in many threads.

Edited January 12, 2006 by MDGB2

[pata2001]

i hope your aware of it but i repeat it anyways:

the media puts a physical limit on the transfer speed.

i dont know if they do two passes to erase and write but in any case, as it needs to be heated to a specific temprature before anything can be written, it will allways be slower then even a hardrive, forget about flash level speeds.

Oh, I'm aware allright. That's why this is called a "wish list." I'm probably one of the not so many people who are actually amazed that Sony can pack an MO drive in such a small package, and runs on battery power. Still, actual MO drive technology has moved beyond sub USB 1.1 speed. Sony themselves has made an MO drive that can do 5MB/sec transfer rate.

Edited January 12, 2006 by pata2001

[hobgoblin]

but that drive is probably hooked into a 12v power connection. usb can only deliver 5v at best.

so i would say that its not a wish list (a wish is to something that can be done) but rather a dream list...

[Killroy]

Just stick a dual laser in.

One for old skool, one for Hi-MD!

Fantasy right?

Fantasy, right!

Remember, that the magneto-optical MDs need to be simultaneously accessible from both sides by the optical laser pick-up/writer and the magnet. Thus, a MD-unit with two read/write head pairs would require a new type of disc with two access areas and sliders, and this would make the units incompatible with the current format of the disc shells...

Cheers - Killroy.

[Spare Tire]

well, if you could make the two lasers small enough and put them side by side, it would fit into one hole. Not that i support this kind of thing.

[bobt]

How about a small redesign of a stadard minidisc that would allow the window to move both ways, allowing the minidisc to f;ip over effectiviely doubling it's capacity. I used to flip albums, and tapes, why not minidiscs??

Bob

[tekdroid]

How about a small redesign of a stadard minidisc that would allow the window to move both ways, allowing the minidisc to f;ip over effectiviely doubling it's capacity. I used to flip albums, and tapes, why not minidiscs??

Bob

wouldn't work on MD 'cause both sides of the disc surface are actually utilized for recording; 1 side the magnetic head to change magnetic orientation, the other side the laser to heat the spot so the magnetic head can do its magic. It would require a total redesign of MDs themselves as well as the units.

[bobt]

Thanks for the insight, seem to remember that now, hate shifting these paradigms.

TTFN

Bob

[The Low Volta]

...allowing the minidisc to f;ip over effectiviely doubling it's capacity. I used to flip albums, and tapes, why not minidiscs?

even if this had been possible, for me it wouldn't really change a thing... It's not the problem I can't carry enough gb's with me (I honestly don't think I will ever need more than three in one sitting and two extra discs are easily carried IMHO) but the problem is that I can't continuously record in PCM long enough which isn't helped by a flipable disc (= exactly the same as putting another one in for this situation)

[hobgoblin]

wouldn't work on MD 'cause both sides of the disc surface are actually utilized for recording; 1 side the magnetic head to change magnetic orientation, the other side the laser to heat the spot so the magnetic head can do its magic. It would require a total redesign of MDs themselves as well as the units.

well i theory it could actualy work, if one could only heat one write side at at time. but that means you have to put some sort of insulator between them. i wonder how thick it would make the disc.

rember that the material is magneticaly inert when not heated to a specific temprature...

[slobjones]

[My feeling is, that MD will move towards the professional/prosumer category, as demonstrated with the MZ-M100/M10 series and Mac-upload.]

No way if you're expecting professionals to follow the industry to Hi-MD. Not with Sony as the only manufacturer and ABSOLUTELY NOT with proprietary software that limits your ability to transfer audio files quickly back and forth from disc to PC.

I've been using my Sharp MD for several years to capture audio (occasionally for radio), and I'd love to move up to an all-digital unit that lets me record 16-bit uncompressed audio and transfer files quickly to PC for archiving.

I thought Hi-MD would be great -- until I starting reading about the SonicStage software. I don't care how bad or good the software may be. If I need a proprietary program to transfer my files -- and I've read that SonicStage gives you only one shot to transfer an audio file before it locks that file out -- then forget about it. I'll use some other technology.

Screw Sony -- I bought a Sharp because Sony players were overpriced, lacked features and were unreliable. I don't want a Sony Hi-MD.

[The Low Volta]

just a quick update slobjones: the one-time-only upload restriction is gone now

[hobgoblin]

still, you cant just drag and drop files over. you still need specific software to transfer the files...

[MDGB2]

Yep. Why not the ability to just plug the unit in as an external device, then drag an drop audio files through explorer?

Result!

Edited January 16, 2006 by MDGB2

[doomlordis]

Yep. Why not the ability to just plug the unit in as an external device, then drag an drop audio files through explorer?

Result!

Hi,

Interesting news from a friend last night, he has just returned from Malaysia where he met a Sony Buyer (buys metals for Sony) who told him that they were currently buying to build new minidisc players for release in May - he did not know if it was a hi-md or not (he didnt know what a hi-md was). This may be correct as my contact described to me the rh10 "has a screen like the hd1 and the whole front of the unit is glass like" that was months before it surfaced.

Hope hes right!

[tekdroid]

Hi,

Interesting news from a friend last night, he has just returned from Malaysia where he met a Sony Buyer (buys metals for Sony) who told him that they were currently buying to build new minidisc players for release in May - he did not know if it was a hi-md or not (he didnt know what a hi-md was)

Hope he means recorder, too

It has to be a Hi-MD device since it would be suicide for Sony to continue the old lines, I think. I wonder if this means the recorders will be metal themselves, or just the internals he is buying metal for. As long as no silver paint is being sourced for the plastics, things should be fine

Nice leakage!

So many more popular products (like mobile phones) get juicy bits of info leaken out before release. We need more of this stuff for MD.

[alrose312]

Hi,

Interesting news from a friend last night, he has just returned from Malaysia where he met a Sony Buyer (buys metals for Sony) who told him that they were currently buying to build new minidisc players for release in May - he did not know if it was a hi-md or not (he didnt know what a hi-md was). This may be correct as my contact described to me the rh10 "has a screen like the hd1 and the whole front of the unit is glass like" that was months before it surfaced.

Hope hes right!

...big news! this deserves its own thread!

[slobjones]

[Yep. Why not the ability to just plug the unit in as an external device, then drag an drop audio files through explorer?]

It's so obvious, and yet manufacturers like Sony jump through hoops NOT to provide essential features to users. Sony isn't selling products to the RIAA, it's selling to consumers -- US. You screw your customers, you don't get any customers.

Absent this feature, I don't buy Hi-MD. I'll get a $60 flash media combo MP3 player/disk drive/voice recorder.

[MDGB2]

It's so obvious, and yet manufacturers like Sony jump through hoops NOT to provide essential features to users. Sony isn't selling products to the RIAA, it's selling to consumers -- US. You screw your customers, you don't get any customers.

Absent this feature, I don't buy Hi-MD. I'll get a $60 flash media combo MP3 player/disk drive/voice recorder.

I'd like to see Hi-MD move more towards home recording (decks!).

However, I've got a small mp3 player for use at work, its pants but it cost £8. it will be replaced with a Hi-MD portable if drag n drop was included...

Edited January 17, 2006 by MDGB2

[rei-gouki]

The problem with colour screens: often they are hard to see in bright sunlight. The MZ-NH1's remote, for instance, is superb in the sun (largely due to goold ol' 'primitive' LCD technology .

*Regular oldskool LCD visibility in the day.

*Adequate visibility at night with backlight.

Best of both worlds, and I hope that doesn't change.

Yea. That's one of the things I miss with my old mobile phone. The new one's kinda faint, but I would suppose that though all the colours are effectively washed out by the sunlight, a high contrast theme would probably make it reasonably readable, keeping the offer of colour screens on the table. That said, as mentioned, battery life goes out the window rather quickly.

I had assumed that OLED was much less power hungry than plain LED... and presumed that it was comparable to LCD in power requirements... though I'm starting to think I should check it out properly - anyone who knows already, feel free to pitch in.

Personally I feel a touchscreen would be superfluous and horrible not to receive real tactile feel. And costly. A good remote would be far more worthwhile.

hmm... I would grant that tactile feel would be something important such as rollers and turn wheels. I personally would like to see that kept - nothing like fiddling with it in your pocket and still know what's what. The point of the touchscreen was purely to cramp user friendliness into a small amount of space by making it dynamic. I would note that a stylus may be necessary to make it useable. A good remote would throw this feature a lot closer to the superfluous category, but wouldn't negate it, IMO.

Actually we did, but they never took off here. You could buy them in the early years of MD's release.

ok... I never saw them at all and a couple of guys I spoke to early in my MD life (... 1999?) said they didn't see it either. One of which picked up a player only unit on the cheap... then realising he couldn't get anything to listen to and was entriely reliant on a friend's recorder to make the media for him. Thus I had thought that it was strange to see player only units at all in Australia. Must have been a really short run.

... Though in some markets (such as Australia) it's apparently true that they won't be selling the units any more. Which is really a shame if Sony are to be believed on this and they aren't just saying that to move stock

Last financial year Sony sold:

1.92 million MD units (of all kinds, apparently)

The year before:

3.36 million

Maybe reading ubersoft has made me excessively cynical about big companies, but I think I'll just lay it into the Marketing department for that decision, anyway. Whilst the logical argument is would be that the expenditure on advertising the MDs in Australia would outweigh the profits, I'm thinking they probably sunk themselves on this given that I haven't seen any ads about MDs in years.

I think Sony got caught by lower-than-expected demand for Hi-MD due to people switching their preferences to HD and flash-based units for listening on the go, and that's part of the reason why we can still see so much Generation-1 Hi-MD stuff in the channel (and finding some sweet deals on them, too)

I agree they really got caught out. Perhaps that's why we are experiencing a sudden removal of a lot of the gripes in SS 3.4

Forget kanji support, what about unicode? I don't see what half the world would do with kanji and without unicode.

Come to think of it, kanji is present in unicode. You can have it both ways.

I don't see Sony applying unicode without Jap or kanji support, of course. As it currently stands, I believe kanji is only available for entry via the Japanese version of SS, but basically available to all models with a bit of hacking. I'd like to see kanji (or for a more global view, any language) available for entry in any SS 3.5+ (seeing as 3.4 is out and hasn't been reported to be able to do that). Model support is somewhat secondary as it's currently considered cheatable.

A touch screen, or perhaps it would be more useful if it requires the use of a stylus similar to a tablet or something, would allow character recognition for title entries. No need to rely on SS for your titles and you don't need to scroll through the alphabet (or whichever lettering system you use) for titling.

To reach higher capacitys, the recorders would most likely have to drop support for current minidiscs. 2nd gen HiMD's cant record directly to minidiscs in the old legacy mode, signs than sony is dropping old MD support and moving to larger capacity discs maybe??

Based on what I read of the specs, they could still read MDs. Not having the ability to encode legacy formats has little it not no bearing on the media. The limitations are inherent in the laser so to move to a higher capacity media would mean they collectively drop MD and Hi-MD as the laser wouldn't support it.

Just stick a dual laser in.

One for old skool, one for Hi-MD!

Fantasy right?

Only thing I could think to coming close to replacing MD would be recordable UMD, but this has been covered in many threads.

As mentioned, recordable MD uses MO technology. MO technology is not, and I don't think it will ever be, compatible with multi-layer discs. UMD is a dual layer media by default and the laser uses a shorter wavelength, which may impact on it's ability to heat the magnetic layer.

And regarding the dual laser... a quick and dirty would be to "69" the layout of the laser and drive units if they can't be reduced in size enough to fit next to each other in a regular MD portable. There'd be minor caddy design issues, but shouldn't be too difficult to overcome.

Edited February 12, 2006 by rei-gouki

[dex Otaku]

I had assumed that OLED was much less power hungry than plain LED... and presumed that it was comparable to LCD in power requirements... though I'm starting to think I should check it out properly - anyone who knows already, feel free to pitch in.

Last I read, OLED is no more efficient than LCD, but more efficient than LED.

The real reason to use OLED, though, is that you don't require a backlight as it's [obviously] self-emitting. LCD+backlight = less efficient than OLED.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. OLED can be hard to see in direct sunlight, as can colour [almost always backlit] LCD [more intelligent designs will let you turn off the backlight and have a "lightpipe" that uses ambient light to backlight the display instead].

A more major difference though, IMO, is that OLED will work at pretty much any temperature, whereas LCD's characteristics change dramatically, including contrast change and "speed" .. try using an LCD at -20C and you'll see what I mean. You have to actually wait to the display to catch up.

The point of the touchscreen was purely to cramp user friendliness into a small amount of space by making it dynamic. I would note that a stylus may be necessary to make it useable.

One thing to say about touchscreens: look at Sony's current line of consumer video cameras. 5 years ago I would have recommended a Sony video camera to anyone [having used them and others since the early 1980s] but now.. not a chance. Their entire current product line uses touchscreens. Why is this a problem?

Let's say you want manual exposure control - have to use the screen.

Manual focus? Use the screen.

Play controls? Use the screen.

&c...

Now, try to imagine doing handheld shots where you don't want to stop the camera in order to tweak a setting. Try to imagine the difficulty in holding the camera still -and- keep your eye on the shot while having to go through menus and settings on the touchscreen at the same time. It's next to impossible. I know several people [including a college department who bought a caseload] who subsequently returned their newer Sony cameras because the interface hindered their use so significantly.

No, with HiMD and MD we don't [usually] have to worry about holding the unit still to get a good recording, but it's just an example of how applying one interface in favour of another [touchscreen menus over actual buttons] can lead to unforseen problems when actually using the equipment. A parallel example of this was the move from switches and buttons to menu-driven interfaces. Which would you rather have? Instant access to exactly the control you need, or only one control and having to waste time navigating options [sometimes only to be told that "you can't set that" because the unit's in record or not]?

More than that though is the fact that their touchscreen controls, i.e. the interface design, is absolute crap. A lot of us complain about the quirks of having to use the menu interface on current netMDs and HiMDs. Given Sony's track record with touchscreen interfaces, imagine the existing menu quirks amplified about tenfold, and you'll see why I'm firmly against the idea. That's not even mentioning what you already did - not being able to use the controls blind, like reaching into your pocket, finding the play button, and knowing you pressed it. Tactile feedback is a valuable thing.

I wish they'd go back to actual buttons and switches, and ditch menus for most functions altogether [keeping menus for things like titling, perhaps]. I liked being able to hold the record button for 2 seconds of the MZ-R37 in order to put it in manual levels mode, for instance. Or being able to turn the unit over and change the mic preamp's sensitivity or AGC mode simply by flicking a switch while the unit is still running. Or, for that matter, when it's not.

Come to think of it, kanji is present in unicode. You can have it both ways.

Unicode is definitely compelling, but there's a reason to stick with smaller character sets.

As an examplex compare the TrueType files for Arial and Arial Unicode.

Arial: 335kB / Bold: 282kB / Bold Italic: 222kB / Italic: 203kB

Arial Unicode: 23,566kB

While low-resolution bitmapped fonts are much smaller than TrueType fonts, the scale issue still apllies. I think that pretty swiftly explains why they don't use it.

[atrain]

No, with HiMD and MD we don't [usually] have to worry about holding the unit still to get a good recording, but it's just an example of how applying one interface in favour of another [touchscreen menus over actual buttons] can lead to unforseen problems when actually using the equipment. A parallel example of this was the move from switches and buttons to menu-driven interfaces. Which would you rather have? Instant access to exactly the control you need, or only one control and having to waste time navigating options [sometimes only to be told that "you can't set that" because the unit's in record or not]?

More than that though is the fact that their touchscreen controls, i.e. the interface design, is absolute crap. A lot of us complain about the quirks of having to use the menu interface on current netMDs and HiMDs. Given Sony's track record with touchscreen interfaces, imagine the existing menu quirks amplified about tenfold, and you'll see why I'm firmly against the idea. That's not even mentioning what you already did - not being able to use the controls blind, like reaching into your pocket, finding the play button, and knowing you pressed it. Tactile feedback is a valuable thing.

outside of personal electronics field a similiar thing has happened with BMW's iDrive system, they took a whole cabin layout of switches, radio, st-nav &c and put it all in a single screen & wheel combo, similar to what i'd imagine apple are trying to do with computer keyboards...

anyway it's been slated across the motoring globe & continues to be years after it's debut