Minidisc Drives....or the lack of it. Join the discussion!

[Guest Anonymous]

Hello Everyone!

Does anyone know why there are no minidisc drives (MDD)? Recently I started to look around to buy an external storage device for my laptop and being a minidisc user one of my first ideas was to search for a MDD - but I couldn't find any such device on google or eBay. So I decided to come here and see if anyone knew if such a thing existed. I would think that being such a great media (small, extremely durable, very cheap, good size to storage capacity ratio, re-writable) most companies would jump at the opportunity to make such a drive but I suppose it's like a lot of great technologies that just don't get enough recognition (Beta max anyone?).

I own a Sharp MD MS-722H, which I bought way before minidisc's were "fashionable" and does anyone know if I can, say, connect the optical input of the MD to, say, the USB port on my laptop and transfer files? I'm only a novice MD user so I do apologise if my last question is completely ridiculous. By the way, is the722H a good player?

What I'm really confused about is why MD hasn't got the popularity it SOOOO much deserves. I mean some people STILL use cassettes and other's user CD-R's, CDRW's, DVD-R's and solid-state MP3 players to copy and listen to music when there's such a perfect and ideal media in MD. I haven't gone through this website from top to bottom and if the answers are already in there somewhere, again, I apologise but I would really appreciate if everyone could add their views! Thank You!

[Devilbunny]

In short: Sony did make some MD-Data drives. They didn't catch on.

My personal guess is that MD never caught on because it was too expensive during its window of opportunity (i.e., before CD burners became cheap and CD/DVD players started including the ability to play MP3's burned to the disc). Think about it: you could get a tape deck and a walkman for maybe $60 combined (with blanks costing as little as 50 cents) or an MD deck and walkman for perhaps $600 (unless you get the portable recorder, in which case you're in for maybe $300). Those blanks cost a lot more than 50 cents. And your car stereo plays the tapes, too. Don't forget the cost of replacing that.

Yes, tape would be expensive if you bought all-Sony gear. But there were cheap alternatives, and that made a huge difference. Plus, everybody already had a tape deck, and while they weren't good, they were good enough.

Nowadays the DRM limitations of MD make it infinitely less flexible than MP3 - which will play on any computer over 100 MHz, can be copied easily (and perfectly), and enjoys fairly extensive support among manufacturers of home A/V equipment.

(As the music industry is known to point out, they allowed CD recorders to be treated as computer peripherals rather than audio equipment, which meant that they didn't have to respect SCMS - a decisive advantage when it comes to digital music.)

I like MD; it has some distinct advantages. But I don't do live recordings that I can't transfer to my PC in native ATRAC (or even ATRAC3). I don't trade MP3-filled CD's with my friends. And those are big strikes against MD - after all, your iPod will let you copy a song off it onto your friend's computer, very very quickly, with no generational loss.