gl6600 Posted May 23, 2003 Report Share Posted May 23, 2003 Hi, I have been researching the different types of models of MD's and what they can do. If there is one thing i now know about MD's its that that whole deal is very very confusing and complicated. I'm not a big computer person, so it is hard for me to understand the majority of what im reading about MD technology. I'm looking for a device to record live lectures, burn music from a computer, and preferably load live recordings to a computer. There are so many different types of MD's i don't even know where to start. Which brings me to my question............ ..........why should i get a mini disc player at all???? a couple of my friends have mp3 players, and they seem to be fine. What advantages does a MD have over a mp3 player???????? Thank you, ---Gabriel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gl6600 Posted May 23, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2003 oh, and to add one more thing: any thoughts on the Ipod by MAC??????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJ Posted May 27, 2003 Report Share Posted May 27, 2003 The iPod is a nifty little device, but as with any harddrive-based players (like the Archos & Creative Labs jukeboxes), it may crash and take all your music with it. Also (so far) it doesn't record unless it's hooked up to a computer (this will change within the year, I believe). The MD functions basically like a tape recorder, but with the added bonus of a CD-like random access: you can skip tracks, etc. What it has over tape and CD is its editability--don't like a song? Erase it and use the space for a different song. Move songs around, split them up, paste them back together...MD doesn't have a problem with it at all. You can connect your MD to any sound source and it'll record it. Ask your friends if their MP3 players will record/edit/erase tracks by themselves, or do they need a computer? How easy is it for them to expand the memory in their MP3 players? All you need to do with MD is buy more blank discs for US$1.50/ea. I get long-winded, so here's the breakdown: MD is better because... - it's a stand-alone recording device - its sound quality is generall better than MP3 - its media (the discs) aren't affected by magnetism, as tapes/flash memory are - it will not crash; if the MD recorder breaks, pick up another and rest assured your music is still on the discs you recorded - it is very hearty; the discs can be pretty well abused and will still work fine - for all the recording/editing options, it's cheaper than an MP3 jukebox (like the iPod) or a flash player - familiar controls--if you can run a tape recorder, you can grasp the MD - better battery life: the Sony MZ-N707 gets about 48 hours worth of straight play time from a single LR6 (AA) battery. - wow factor MP3 is better because... - you don't have to shuffle discs around; all your music is in one place - better interface with the computer - no copy protect--you can freely trade music with friends (MD's copy protect is defeatable, but requires fiddling) - wow factor I'm sorry the lists are so mismatched, but I'm not familiar with harddrive MP3 players/recorders. For the needs you listed, MD is perfect except for the copying from MD to computer, at which point you only slow down a little--you need to connect you MD to your computer's sound card and record the disc in real time through an analogue connection, as though you were recording to your computer from a microphone or something. The results are just fine, but we're not talking lightning fast transfer, here. If you can live with that, grab yourself a Net MD recorder, but make sure it has a microphone input (the red input jack). I'd suggest the Sony MZ-N707. Anybody willing to pull for the MP3 players? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reni Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 Well, as someone who owns both an ipod and a MZ-N707, I can't exactly "pull" for mp3 players, but will reply to some points in this thread. The main reason I still own an MD recorder is just that -- I like to record things and so far hard-drive based players can't do this. I also have to say that my MD recorder seems more "solid" than my ipod, both in construction and in exterior feel. And one more thing is that my N707 was less than half the price of my 15 gig ipod. Having said all that, however, I find I almost never use my N707 anymore when I just want to listen to music. The main reason just being convenience -- I don't have to decide beforehand what I'm going to listen to for the day. Before as I was walking out of the house I would select a couple of MD's for that day and listen to those. But with my ipod I just know that I have all my music with me so I just pick that up and go. Yes it's true that you can't combine or delete tracks on an ipod when you're away from a computer but because of the large number of songs I can store at once, I don't really care about this at all. If I don't want to listen to a particular track, then I just don't put it on my playlist. As far as the sound quality goes -- I rip all my mp3's at 320kbps and I can't tell the difference between this and my MD's ATRAC compression. Even though I've ripped my mp3's at this high bitrate, I still find I've only filled half my ipod. As for the battery life -- I only get around 7 hours of playback but this is more than enough for me. I just recharge it every night or every other night. Having said all that though, I still feel like MD is more of a fully mature technology (conversely, I feel that MD innovation has dead-ended and may have reached the end of its evolution but that's a post for another thread). I trust that recordings I make on my N707 will be around whereas if I was recording onto my ipod I'd always be afraid that the hard drive would crash before I could transfer the files and my recordings would be lost forever. As far as the interface goes -- the ipod is as easy to operate as the N707. In fact, I think it's easier to operate because of the larger display -- menus are easier to scroll through when you can list several options at a time. Both units are really great when it comes to intuitive user interface. (I also have to say other mp3 players do not have as great of an interface -- I had an Archos recorder and I returned that thing within a month because the interface was so kludgey.) So to address the original post -- if you want to record live, I would stick with MD for now. That's what I'm doing, anyways. But I am keeping a close eye on the ability of mp3 players to record. Like BJ, I agree that this ability will probably be incorporated within the calendar year. --Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daijoubu Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 Have fun reading...LOL http://www.minidisct.com/md_is_better_than_mp3.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJ Posted May 31, 2003 Report Share Posted May 31, 2003 Very fun. Outdated in spots, and just a tad biased, but fun to read. Guy posted from my hometown, too! I'll have to look him up... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anodize*skyther Posted June 2, 2003 Report Share Posted June 2, 2003 think of it this way (from a sound point of view)... MP3 was introduced as a format used to store audio on computers at reasonable file sizes for common people like you and me who can't afford to store a few hundred megs of .wav files... well maybe we can NOW but MP3s came out when the largest hard drives were just over a gig in space... hence MP3s were developed from a computing technology point of view with the common goal to compress audio files to take up much smaller amounts of space... ATRAC/MD however was developed solely for music listening purposes, something that would replace the cassette corder and be very similar to the CD in functionality and sound quality, hence ATRAC being aimed to achieve CD-quality while being able to fit the same length of audio into a much smaller disc... Because of that, audio features (esp. recording) are what makes the MD superior over the common MP3 player... the ability to manipulate and edit the audio stored in a MD instead of just copying ripped MP3s into a MP3 player Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reni Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 Skyther is correct in that MD allows you the ability to combine or edit the order of your tracks while MP3 players have no such capacity. I have to admit, however, that I never utilized these functions on MD recorder. Do people out there actually reorder their MD's or combine/divide their tracks? --Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJ_Palmer Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 I use combine and divide and move quite a bit. For recording from the radio divide (and delete) is invaluable for getting rid of unwanted adverts, chat etc. I can then move similar tracks together and for classical music I can combine different movements together seamlessly. Couldn't live without this editability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reni Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 Ah, that makes sense. I never record anything from the radio but I can see how it would be useful for that case. --Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.