Slashdot Mirror
MiniDisc Drives for the PC?
scHarvey asks: "I recently purchased a portable MD player so that I can take mp3s with me where ever I go. I know that the MD format had almost died out until the popularity of MP3s and the cheapness of MD discs brought it back pretty strong. My curiousity was sparked though by the thought of having an internal MD-RW1 in a 3.5 drive on my PC. Has anyone else ever thought of this, and is there a product out there that one can buy off the shelf? I know the discs are a little more expensive than standard CD-RWs, but they are also smaller and in a permanent protective case, and I thought this might be a cool idea."
And I found this web site http://www.maya.cz/minidisc/minidisc/equipment_bro wser.html It lists 6 different minidisc drives from Sony and Sharp.
Perhaps MD will be CD-Rs as 3.5" floppies are to 5" in floppies.
Ian Zink
Unlike some other technologies (*ack*DVD Region Coding*ack* CSS *ack*) SCMS is in line with fair use. You can make as many copies as you like of a piece of digital media that you have purchased (or borrowed, or traded or whatever), what it prevents you from doing is making copies of those copies. Second generation copies generally aren't within the realm of fair use rights anyway.
SCMS is also a technology that it fair to musicians. Compliant players do not add copy protection to recordings made from an analog source (microphones, guitar amps, etc.) so the musician is free to make all the digital copies that they need for distribution. You still probably wouldn't want to do mass duplication on consumer grade equipment, but you could if you wanted to.
Another bonus to SCMS is that it doesn't impact the quality of the sound. The only way in which the sound fidelity of a recording is reduced by doing a digital transfer to minidisc is in the compression used to get the small form factor. I find the ATRAC compression scheme to be quite good, CDs copied digitally to minidisc sound much better than (so called "CD quality") 128kb/s .mp3s or FM radio. I generally can't tell the difference between CDs and MDs in a moving vehicle while I really can tell the difference between a minidisc and FM radio (this is mostly due to the fact that radio stations boost the bass signal to make music sound good on shitty radios. It adds a bunch of noise and distortion that makes it sound awful with a good amp).
Overall, I would say that SCMS is a good and fair compromise between citizens and content owners. I don't object at all to being prevented from making copies of copies since that isn't fair use anyway. The only thing that I do object to is that DVDs set the no copy bit on their soundtrack so that you can't make a digital recording of a DVD soundtrack onto a minidisc. Then again, that's the fault of the DVD producers and we already know all about them.
________________________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
I'm a huge fan of Minidisc. Now that the new MDLP format is out people can store 320 minutes of music on an 80-minute Minidisc. However, the method that is used to write the audio data to a minidisc is *not* the same as writing to an Audio CD. An Audio CD can have file references to the audio data itself (CDA, anyone?). However the TOC on a Minidisc is just an offset to a point on the disc containing the audio datastream. It's not compatbile with FAT, or any other file storage format, so storing MP3's on a minidisc simply isn't possible in their native format.
:-) And if you want to play MD's in your car, there is an FM audio adapter you can plug most (if not all) MD decks into and listen to the player via your car radio.
Yes, MD Data used to be available (as others have said here it was called a MO disk) but the disks were a different format (not compatbile with audio MD discs) and the drives were 750 dollars each. Combine that with the fact that MD data only holds 170MB of information and you can see why the format isn't around anymore (Sony doesn't even service the drives anymore, IIRC).
However, with a soundcard and a digital output, it *is* possible to record your MP3's into any decent portable Minidisc recorder. I have a Sony MZ-R900 and I can record up to 5 hours and 20 minutes of MP3s for about 1.50 USD a disc. Try getting 5 hours of MP3 on an MP3 player for only a buck and a half...
Hope someone finds this information helpful.
perl -le '$_="6110>374086;2064208213:90<307;55";tr[0- >][ LEOR!AUBGNSTY];print'
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/results.tpl?acti on =full&cart=9903370874831392&--eqskudatarq=MD8&Crit eria=Results
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
I haven't seen any MD drives for computers, at least not ones compatible with the audio format. However, you can get smaller CD-R media in 3-inch and business-card sizes. The looming problem there is that slot-loading CD drives have started to catch on.
When Minidisc first came out, there was a data version. However (get this) the audio and data disks were different and not interoperable. You can still go buy a MD Data disk, if you want, at Minidisco. However, they're $13.49 each!
I remember seeing MD data drives a LONG time ago. But I haven't seen one marketed in years. There is still no really easy way to title audio disks without buying one of the expensive decks. Bah humbug.