Slashdot Mirror

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDH -10.html
At $769 for a drive it doesn't seem like quite a deal.. at a lower price, I sure would have wanted one, though.
But I imagine Sony wasn't thrilled at the prospect of being able to copy and manipulate Minidiscs filled with digital music files. They were probably trying to prevent the kind of freedom we have with mp3 files.

http://www.ne wsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/dept/cs/a26254-1999no v7.htm -"Say Goodbye to All That Videotape"

http://www.adobepremierewo rld.com/.getarticle/.433537609 - "Sony's Maxi Mini: HD Discam DCM-M1"

h ttp://electronics.cnet.com/cgi/crunch/FReview2.asp ?ptable=Camcorders&PID=1000357

MD-Data2 Blank

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001583620556586&r tmo=r3b92hXX&atm o=99999999&pg=/et/99/11/11/ecncam11.html

http://equip.zd net.com/digitalimaging/video/2aa6/overview_2aba.ht ml

http://beta.cdad.com/twice/art icle.cfm?InputKey=1150

http://www.e-town.com/news/article.jhtml;$sessioni d$H3JLEUYAAABO3UPZJE NSFEQ?articleID=1221#mdcamcorder (1st review)
http://www.e-town.com/news/article.jhtml;$sessioni d$IQWF23QAAABSTUPZJEFCFEQ?articl eID=1246 (2nd review)

http://fina nce.individual.com/display_news.asp?doc_id=PR19991 102NYTU083

http://www.watch.imp ress.co.jp/pc/docs/article/990901/ifa2.htm

http://www.watch .impress.co.jp/PC/docs/article/991008/Dsc01363.jpg

http://www.heise.de/newsticker /data/cp-29.08.99-001/

http://www.minidisc.org/sony_minidiscam

...blatantly ripped from minidisc.org

I posted this stuff a few weeks ago when someone asked about digital cameras.

Over at minidisc.org they have some good information about this camera, along with some external reviews. The thing does look very cool. Just hook it up to the net and you can do your webserving right off of it.

I posted this stuff a few weeks ago when someone asked about digital cameras.

Over at minidisc.org they have some good information about this camera, along with some external reviews. The thing does look very cool. Just hook it up to the net and you can do your webserving right off of it.

Yes, there is a MD camera. There are a bunch of links, so I suggest checking out this page at minidisc.org.

Zip disks are a bit on the "too big" side, but there is the Iomega clik! - there is a thing to hook it up to digital cams, but I have have no idea what it does.

I do recall seeing a device that was a hard drive that would work with most cameras. The drive would hold 99 rolls of "film". You hooked up the camera, started the device up, and it would pull the pictures off. It did not work with all cameras, but it would work with most of them.

As for the Superdisk, have you ever used one? It is the slowest damn thing I have ever seen in my life.

Yes, there is a MD camera. There are a bunch of links, so I suggest checking out this page at minidisc.org.

Zip disks are a bit on the "too big" side, but there is the Iomega clik! - there is a thing to hook it up to digital cams, but I have have no idea what it does.

I do recall seeing a device that was a hard drive that would work with most cameras. The drive would hold 99 rolls of "film". You hooked up the camera, started the device up, and it would pull the pictures off. It did not work with all cameras, but it would work with most of them.

As for the Superdisk, have you ever used one? It is the slowest damn thing I have ever seen in my life.

You could always get the Sharp MD-MT15S, which is a pretty cheap portable player/recorder. While it's not the smallest/lightest MiniDisc player out there, it's still pretty reasonable (retails for $199). You can get a Voquette adapter for it for $49.95 from Voquette directly, and it converts MP3s, streaming audio, E-mails, Word docs, etc. into ATRAC format (though their software only works under Windows).

My suggestion is to buy one of the MD-MT15S's for $89.95! That's the best deal ever. If you go to the MiniDisc.org website, there is a link on how to get this from MobShop (formerly ACompany.com) to get the players for $89.95! Basically, there is a promotional code that takes $50 off the price, and if enough people buy one, it goes down to $139.95. That, plus the $50 off for the promotion, plus free shipping makes it a $89.95 MiniDisc player. They have gone through two successful cycles already (I just bought one from the second cycle), and they have another one going on right now. I was going to get a MP3/CD player, but for the price, I couldn't justify it. Since I can get an add-on that will convert my MP3s to ATRAC format, and discs are only ~$2 a piece, it's a very nice cheap alternative.

See MiniDisc.Org for a list of sources. There's also a page on MD data devices.

See MiniDisc.Org for a list of sources. There's also a page on MD data devices.

Probably the SONY Discam. Here some links to more info it:
SONY's spec sheet, a page from MiniDisc.org, and a ZDNet Review.

Most MiniDisc players - which also use SCMS when doing digital recording from CD/DAT/MD/etc, also have a "test mode". Many of these allow you to switch SCMS on or off. See http://www.minidisc.org - be aware tho, you want to read instructions carefully, test modes allow you to do things like re-align heads, fiddle with rotation speeds etc. It can be *extremely* easy to screw up your MD player/recorder beyond all recognition.

It's convenient, genious. Minidisc isn't solid state, CD isn't solid state, and yes, you can get a MiniDisc to skip - 40sec. skip protection doesn't do much good when you run cross country for an hour.

There are ways to prevent MD players from skipping while jogging or running. While I haven't tried any of them myself, there is a list of ways to prevent skipping at http://www.minidisc.org/md_jogging.html .

Both those are power hogs, while Rio batteries last forever.

Sony recently released an MD portable (the MZ-E95) which can (supposedly) run for 77 hours with an external AA battery. I don't know how long a Rio lasts, but for most purposes, 77 hours of music is much more than enough.

Rios are smaller.

The latest MD portable player/recorders are barely larger than a MD (in length and width). Rios aren't much smaller.

The quality is not worse; it's all a function of bitrate. At 128kbps some wierd noises occur, but I can't tell 190kbps from a CD, period. If you were cursed with more discerning ears, sorry.

With crappy headphones or speakers, MP3s sound the same as MDs or CDs. But with high-quality headphones/speakers, the difference is clear (at least to most people I know).

This "pluggable" MP3 player for the Gameboy reminds me a whole lot of the Handspring "Springboard" MP3 player from Innogear. The MiniJam Player uses the same approach as this Gameboy product uses of inserting a module with a DSP, stero-out, and memory; and leaving the "host" hardware to do management functions.

I might actually buy the player from Innogear: I just love those buttons on the top (ala MiniDisc)! It is just too bad they had to go with a proprietary flash memory spec. Bummer.

For the MiniJam spec in PDF, click here.

-AP

For a stereo signal it's 292162.5 bits/sec. ATRAC compresses 512 incoming 16 bit samples (1024 bytes) into one ATRAC ``sound group'' (212 bytes) giving an audio compression ratio of 4.83:1. Here is the math:

44100 samples/sec (incoming single channel rate)
/ 512 samples/soundgroup (giving 86.133 soundgroups/sec/channel)
* 2 channels (giving 172.266 stereo soundgroups/sec)
* 212 bytes/soundgroup (giving 36.5K stereo bytes/sec)
* 8 bits/byte (giving stereo bits/sec)
= 292162.5 bits/sec.

How does ATRAC compare with MPEG compression? At what bitrate would an MPEG file be equivalent to a song compressed with ATRAC?

ATRAC is 292kbit/sec, giving ``CD like'' audio fidelity. MPEG Layer 1 (i.e. PASC) gives transparent CD fidelity audio at 384kbit/sec, Layer 2 (i.e. Musicam) and Layer 3 give ``CD like'' fidelity at 224kbit/sec and 128kbit/s respectively. A user has compared ATRAC and MPEG Layer 3 and rates ATRAC far better.

Actually there was a MiniDisc drive for the PC and mac. There's a page on it at Minidisc.org

MD is far from dead. The media's getting cheaper and more people are using it every day. Check out minidisc.org for info.

I can't begin to tell you how convenient it is to have a portable digital recording device. Yes, that's right RECORDING device. It amazes me that noone ever mentions this in their comparisons to the MP3 players. Show me an MP3 player that you can take to a concert, or into the studio, or out into the world to record with. Uh, they don't exist? Right.

And FYI, MD data discs have existed for a very long time. We use them in our 4-track Tascam minidisc recording deck. They're available in any decent music store.

Here are a few links for converters/strippers/buffers, etc.

http://feste.mae.cornell.edu/st reeter/md/elektor.html
http://www.stack.nl/~leon/spdif/
http://www.fet.uni-hannover.de/ purnhage/dat/spdif.txt
and
http://members.tripod.com/~Psych/co ax-ttl-md.html

all grabbed from http://minidisc.org

ATRAC encoding (used on MiniDiscs) sounds a helluva lot better than any other lossy audio compression I've heard, I wonder why they didn't review that?

In fact, on my system at home (Cyrus Amp Pair, Apogee DA-1000E, obscenely thick cabling, and home-assembled ear-tuned speakers), I find it hard to discern between the MiniDisc and the original! (Ok, this is definitely flamebait in the audiophile crowd but I can probably get away with it on /.)

This is good because MP3 quality sucks anyway. I was really worried about seeing MP3 potentially kill off CD sales as I personally can't stand the bad quality of tracks which have been MP3 encoded. I'm glad they've decided to suicide. MiniDisc is where it's at, you can digitally record MP3z if you have to.

Seriously, Folks, MD kicks the utter living crap out of MP3 right now its not even funny. That may change in the future (few years from now) but as it stands now, Minidisc is the way to go, not MP3. (But you can even record MP3 onto MD, very easily)

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out www.minidisc.org.

Ah, this is a little off-topic, but an extremely small MD recorder would be good for you (perhaps, read on)

That is truely where MD shines - good hardware.
There is a lot of BAD ASS kit that is being released in japan. Go to http://www.minidisc.org to read up on the latest japanese units.

With regards to getting an extremely small recorder: The sony MZ-R55 is the one to buy. The price is around $350 msrp ($275 discounted street price?) and it is the top-o-the heap recorder at the moment. It's even pretty easy to get a hold of one.

With regard to recording at concerts:
Depending on the type of music you are recording (this applies particularly to symphonic music) using binural microphones (a tiny stero pair that can be clipped to your ears) can yield remarkable fidelity. You should check out this article.

Cheers!

Take a look at minidisc.org and Minidicso for see some prices...

...and get a MiniDisc recorder. This is one of the things that MiniDisc is really good for.

I've extolled the virtues of MD many times here, especially when the Rio comes up. In short, the sound quality will be far better, and you'll be able to stuff way more music in your pocket.

Check out http://www.minidisc.org/

• An e-mail from the RIAA stating why it allows CD to Minidisc copies and not CD to hard-drive/MP3 copies. (They collect money from the Minidisc manufacturers to offset potential illegal copying!)

• The last paragraph of this article shows how perverse the whole situation is:

  The issue here is not really one of tape piracy. If the music industry really wants to stop its CDs from being copied digitally, it can easily put "flags" in the digital signal that would prohibit all copying. However, a 1989 study by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment found that about one-quarter of all pre-recorded music purchases were made after the consumer heard the artist or recording on a home-made (pirated) tape. It turns out that a little piracy, if it's not overdone, is good for the music business.

• this is also confirmed in this interview with Geffen's director of technology:

  Easton: So you're saying that we're better off, that a record company may be better off with people out there pirating audio off the 'Net because that could conceivably increase your sales . . .

  Griffin: Yes . . .