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Price of Minidiscs in Australia?
Luke Butcher asks: "I recently moved back to Australia and I'm appalled at the price of blank Minidiscs, here. In the UK they range to about £1 per disc and the US about $1.60 This equates in both cases to roughly AU$3. Over here the cheapest I can find them is $4.50 and average prices are $5-6. I have tried to get blanks sent from the US and UK from several online sites only to find them not able to deliver to Oz, when they can quite happily ship DVDs and the like. I have done some searching and am unable to find anything explaining this "phenomenon", other than it looks like a blatant price fixing situation. I can find no reason why consumer demand would play a part, I wouldn't mind betting all such discs are produced in Asia, so this also rules out transport costs. Perhaps someone out there can provide an explanation as to why we in Australia pay more than double the normal cost blanks."
Such taxes are common elsewhere, perhaps Australia has them too. The neat thing is that the tax is then usually given to private companies. I just love supporting corporations with my tax money, getting nothing in return.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
i can't remember the brand name but you can get them in i think JB hi-fi. they have jewl cases which is pretty cool as well.
Standardize or bugger off!
It's never really taken off here. Yeah - you can buy players. But the only actual discs tend to be imports - you won't find them on sale in places like HMV or whatnot.
Perhaps you shouldn't pull shit out of thin air.
Australia has no blank media tax.
Go back to Canada.
Plain and simple: The demand for mini-discs is Australia is virtually non-existant.
You had to ask Slashdot to be told this? Idiot.
Australia is behind in almost everything from US and UK. Japan is infront of both of them. The reason is the amount we are willing to pay.
Everything technological is more expensive here. For example the laptop I just bought, in the US i could have a dvd/cdr (instead of just cd) and double the HDD, double the ram. For about US$300 less then in Australia (I converted properly). Plus the laptops are made in indonesia.
The market in australia is not as big, not as technological (only about 1 in 40 IT students have a laptop) and therefore stuff is more expensive.
Buy a CD player, and quit whining.
ah yes, you make me laugh and spray morning coffee from my nostrils.
Remeber that Sony owns minidisc technology. They can (and I suspect do) charge whatever they want for it.
I'd rather have an MP3/OGG player than a minidisc player. Even a CD player and a CD burner.
Just a thought... Does the US call them minidiscs or minidisks? If so, that might be your problem... Different spellings in different countries.
Post that is wrong, modded as "informative".
Post with fact, modded as "flamebait".
Moderators: Still on crack.
The few people in Australia with Mini-disc players tend to be rich Asian kids. The units are generally only for sale in specialty audio stores, and importers.
The media is also not sold at many stores. And where it is sold it's expensive. Why? Because there is no demand for mini-disc media. Why is there no demand? Because mini-disc is unpopular.
They are totally unpopular. Very, very few people use and own Mini-disc players. People that are interested in portable audio generally would avoid a NetMD, and instead spend the extra couple of hundred dollars for the extra storage space of an mp3 player like an iPod. And then they get the bonus of not having to cart around a disc for every 74 minutes of music they'd like.
Perhaps you should open your eyes sometime, because mini-disc players are not at all popular in Australia. If you think otherwise, then Sony's advertising has been damn effective on you.
It's 19 million.
10% GST.
I doubt it's popularity. More likely is that there's duty payable, and that that's what is pushing up the price.
"lossy"
Indeed, ATRAC is a lossy compression format, but it is superior to mp3 and a few others, although there are no doubt people who disagree, people who agree, people who think that only CD quality is acceptable and others who think CD is too crisp and that vinyl is king. You can't win.
Marking "lossy" as a reason for the supposed cost of MDs doesn't address it. It's certainly no worse than high bitrate mp3.
I've seen them for around $1 at JB-HIFI. Bought 'em too ...
This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.
I have an iPod. I watch out for people wearing headphones each day to check out what they're using. This happens to be something that interests me (once you've spent $1100 on a music player, they quickly become interesting).
I also travel into the CBD each morning and out of it each night via the train, and get around on foot and on trams during the day. (All inside Zone 1, so don't push any of your "cheap suburb" crap onto me).
Almost no-one has Mini-disc players.
The majority of people that are listening to portable music have either CD players, tape players, or tiny radios.
Look, I don't care about your high school age friend and what they happen to be using to listen to music (even though I'm still just inside the age bracket you mentioned). I don't care if three or four of your friends happen to have Mini-disc players, because they are not everyone in Australia.
There is virtually no demand for mini-discs here, because no one uses them. If you'd like to show me otherwise, come to the next Slashdot Meetup and show me some Mini-disc users. Although I've missed the last two meetups due to picking up people from airports for nodermeets, and because of being at work a few hours too long, I'll be at the next one. Really. I'm sure...
JB Hifi's in the Brisbane Street mall, sell them for $20 for 10 disks.. which is not a $1 a disk ($AU)
The minidisc players themselves are NOt that popular in australia, although sony has started a marking campaign to boost the sales of minidiscs and accessories.
I get the feeling that Australia is where Sony and other MultiNats are sending their excess stock when they cant sell.
I belive australia DOES have an IT market, but the problem is.. its so very expensive. I dont know why, and im not going to pretend I know why, but someone is making a big proffit.
Back to the topic, people are taking up the minidisc format, but it is not as frequent as other countries.
On the upside, is ther ANY way you can use these suckers uneder linux, the Windows software is TERRIBLE.
You think the price for MiniDiscs is exorbitant in Oz? You oughta try buying a decent tech mag in Nigeria or Cameroun. .net Magazine is available in the UK for £ 4.49 an issue; I bought my last copy from the newspaper vendor for the equivalent of £ 16 an issue. Accessories and reading material -- it's scalper's prices all the way out here. Sigh!
So. I feel your pain....maybe you oughta switch to CD-RW or CD-Rs instead.
"More music, less talk."