BearBoy Posted January 23 Report Share Posted January 23 I guess it had to happen eventually but Sony have announced the end of Minidisc manufacturing Quote Notice regarding the end of production of Blu-ray Disc media, MiniDiscs for recording, MD data for recording, and MiniDV cassettes Thank you for your continued patronage of Sony products. We will end production of all models of Blu-ray Disc media, MiniDiscs for recording, MD data for recording, and MiniDV cassettes as of February 2025. There will be no successor models. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our many customers for their patronage to date. LINK Bit of a sad day but surprised it lasted as long as it did. They outlasted blank Blu-rays too! Now, do I need some more MDW80Ts 🤔 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted January 23 Report Share Posted January 23 We’ve got enough stock haven’t we? Please tell me we have - or that you just pressed ‘go’ on Amazon Japan 🤭😆 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted January 23 Author Report Share Posted January 23 Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've got enough to be going on with. Although I did have a quick peek on Amazon.co.jp after seeing the news. Fortunately/unfortunately, none were available for delivery to the UK 😄 I imagine this news might push up the eBay pricing a bit though? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted January 23 Author Report Share Posted January 23 I keep meaning to do a proper stock take as my spreadsheet's out of date but a quick rummage through some boxes in my office turned up 370 sealed blanks 🙄 I don't think I need to start panic buying more 🤔 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted January 23 Report Share Posted January 23 😆 ’spreadsheet’ - and I thought I was a disc nutter 🤣 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted January 23 Author Report Share Posted January 23 It's a sickness 🤣 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted January 23 Report Share Posted January 23 You mean we could have bought MDW80T direct from Sony for 2GBP each? https://pur.store.sony.jp/rec-media/products/MDW80T/MDW80T_purchase/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted January 24 Report Share Posted January 24 Ha! I was buying 1GB disks for that in the day 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted January 27 Author Report Share Posted January 27 On 1/23/2025 at 10:06 PM, kgallen said: You mean we could have bought MDW80T direct from Sony for 2GBP each? https://pur.store.sony.jp/rec-media/products/MDW80T/MDW80T_purchase/ I've got a feeling I looked into that once and they didn't deliver to the UK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted January 27 Report Share Posted January 27 2 hours ago, BearBoy said: I've got a feeling I looked into that once and they didn't deliver to the UK. No, you’re right, seems not. I messed about a bit creating Sony accounts in JP and UK and got nowhere! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted January 27 Author Report Share Posted January 27 That's probably for the best 🤣 I also double checked today... 🙄 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted January 27 Author Report Share Posted January 27 On 1/24/2025 at 6:39 AM, sfbp said: Ha! I was buying 1GB disks for that in the day 🙂 Would have been a good investment looking at what the 1GB discs go for these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted January 28 Report Share Posted January 28 It was! How many minidiscs does one have to use in order to save money? (I still remember eating lots of Shreddies when I was about 9, to get various kitchen cutlery. I still have the Prestige sharp Vanadium/Steel knife to show for that effort). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted January 28 Author Report Share Posted January 28 Surely the more you use the more you save? Or something. Maybe I should be buying more blanks. Just to save money, like 🤔 Love the fact that children used to be able to send off for knives from the back of breakfast cereal. The mind boggles 😂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted January 29 Report Share Posted January 29 Well, the children did the cereal-eating, and the parents sent off for the knives, forks and spoons. The cutlery was not that special and because it had wooden handles was destined to die when my parents got their first dishwasher ("Remember your Swanmaid is a dishwasher, not a waste disposal unit" capped by "Remember your Stephen is a waste disposal unit, not a dishwasher"). But the knife cost about 2 shillings as well as a number of coupons from the cereal packets, and (clearly) was made of sterner stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted Sunday at 10:14 AM Report Share Posted Sunday at 10:14 AM Shreddies and Shredded Wheat were also a staple of my childhood.. I don't remember what send away offers I got though.. Not sure it was cutlery! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cgi_ Posted Monday at 11:12 AM Report Share Posted Monday at 11:12 AM Sad news indeed. Over the past few years I'd been getting friends and family to visit a Yodobashi store whenever they were in Japan and buy MDW80T discs for me. They were just there on the shelves and worked out at a bit under 2 euros per disc. I have a feeling that it wasn't so common knowledge that they were so readily available there! You could even email them in English and manually arrange an international order (I didn't ever try it though). Well, now that time has come to an end. A friend is currently in Osaka for business and I had him visit a Yodobashi store as usual, but they're now limiting purchase to 3 discs per customer per day! They're strict about that also, they want to maintain some availability for as long as they can. Prices haven't gone up much yet. Well, at least I'll get perhaps a dozen more this time around as he'll drop by the store every day he's there and get a few more. I have a small stockpile now, but more would have been nice. In November it was still possible to buy as many as you liked. On the other hand, I also regularly enjoy using another obsolete Sony format - MiniDV tape. Those (as detailed above) were also discontinued this month, but there doesn't seem to be the same stock concern as with Minidiscs. There were some 5-packs on the shelf when he visited the store, and he could order as many as he wanted to the store for next day pickup. Probably better it's this way round, as there's basically no concern with using Minidiscs over and over so long as you keep them clean, but MiniDV tapes are typically going to start to give you dropout problems after a bunch of passes. I don't think MiniDV has much love in Japan unlike Minidisc. However in the west (at least in Europe), it's now pretty trendy among the younger generations to shoot on MiniDV (and Hi8, VHS, early 2000s compact still cameras and such). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted Monday at 09:12 PM Author Report Share Posted Monday at 09:12 PM Wow. Interesting that they're rationing stock. I've probably got enough spares to keep me going but I wonder if this will have a knock on effect on the, already inflated imho, prices people are asking for blanks on eBay and the like? Nothing like a bit of fomo to get people to spend more than is sensible... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted Monday at 09:15 PM Author Report Share Posted Monday at 09:15 PM 9 hours ago, cgi_ said: Probably better it's this way round, as there's basically no concern with using Minidiscs over and over so long as you keep them clean, but MiniDV tapes are typically going to start to give you dropout problems after a bunch of passes. I suspect this is one of the reasons sealed MiniDisc blanks have never got to the crazy prices decent quality sealed cassette tapes go for. That and the fact that one MiniDisc is exactly the same quality audio wise as the next. No point in paying a premium trying to get better sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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