New Sony Minidisc Players

Andy_R writes "Sony's has announced it's new new range of Hi-MD players at the CES show. The range of players (which should hit the shops in April) will start below $200 for a device that can function as a USB hard drive as well as storing a claimed 45 hours of music. The twist is that the data is stored on a new type of removable 1Gb media, a development of the minidisk format, with blanks costing about $7 each. The BBC have some more details including backwards compatibility with old-style minidisks and an ominous mention of 'built-in copyright protection' but I can't find anything on Sony's official site yet." Another reader reader submitted some pictures and specifications (pdf).

Comments

What's the point?

[jargoone]

The reason I got a HDD mp3 player was because I was tired of carrying media around with me. mp3 CD players can be had for less than $100 for a good one. The media for this thing doesn't hold much more than a CDRW, and each "disc" costs about as much as a spindle of CDRWs. Couple that with the fact that in order to get the capacity of a 20G HDD mp3 player, you'd wind up spending just as much. And carrying discs around. Then add in DRM, in typical Sony fashion. Screw that.

I predict minidisc will continue to be Sony's ed-headed stepchild.

Floppydisk replacement

[radoni]

I always thought of MiniDisc medium as the potential to replace the floppydisk. Sort of a wet dream for MO medium in common use. Lack of a drive to read/write to MiniDiscs as computer storage, high prices, and availability of writable CD's killed this one, but i wouldn't be suprised if sony is able to jump on it with a 1gb format.

Minidisc audio quality vs. your avg. "MP3 player"

[klipsch_gmx]

I wonder how many people are turned off of personal digital audio players by the compromised sound quality of lossy codecs? The price per megabyte isn't nearly so attractive for those that prefer lossless quality.

When MiniDisc was new (and expensive), manufacturers targeted audiophiles while the advertising emphasized custom mixes and sound quality (even though ATRAC is also lossy). With "MP3 players," the emphasis is usually on quantity, not quality. Being able to accomodate realtime filters like DFX might be a way to find some middle ground.

I realize that most consumers either tolerate or are unaware of the fidelity loss, hence the continued dominance of the now inferior MP3 format. Still, I think that in order for this market to grow more quickly, it should educate consumers about the options available to them with these devices: CD quality if you want it, or OGG (etc.) if you want more tracks per MB.

Compatible with PC. What about Mac? Linux?

[aflat362]

"Hi-MD" uses the FAT file system, making it possible to use "Hi-MD" formatted MDs and 1GB "Hi-MD" discs as versatile media for recording PC data files, such as images and text. Furthermore, as portable, rewritable PC media, "Hi-MD" complies with USB format's Mass Storage Class, ensuring that simply by connecting a "Hi-MD" product to a PC it is immediately recognized as an external storage device.

What do you think, Mac, Linux compatible?

Re:why use MD if there are mp3 players...

[mashx]

Personally: 'Cos MD sounds better than MP3, I am not aware of any available MP3 recorders, especially not portable MP3 recorders. I use my MD as recording my (DJ) sets, and that is not just at home, but when I'm playing out.

However, I don't like the Sony MD, and have always had Sharp. If there is one thing that will definitely prevent me from using this is the DRM.

Last thing I need is to store more discs....

[addie]

Man, I hate moving. Each time, I have to lug my boxes of hundreds of CD's, it's just ridiculous. Thankfully my new iPod has changed all that.

So I ask, isn't this a step backwards? A 1GB disc for $7 seems like a good deal, but a HD-based digital music player with 40GB is already available... let's do the math.

[$7 (per disc) x 40 (GB)] + $200 (player) = $480

Which, while just over half the cost of a 40GB iPod at the moment, hardly seems worth it given the lack of convenience. Am I missing something? Why move back to a removable storage based system, something we've been moving away from for the last decade?

Re:Last thing I need is to store more discs....

[misterpies]

A few advantages of this system over iPods and the like:

1. lose (or break) your ipod and you lose all the data on it. lose/break your minidisc player and you've lost maximum 1Gb.

2. even with DRM, you can still lend/borrow friends' discs. Without needing a computer or a network.

3. You don't need a computer to take advantage of Gb music storage. Believe or not, there are many people who don't own computers and even more who do own them but only use them for web browsing and email. With an MD player, you can just feed in a signal from any audio source to record tracks. My sister is a musician and uses an MD to record tracks created on an analog multitrack tape recorder.

4. More hardware choice (in the long term) and easier hardware upgrades. Buy a newer player, use the old discs.

5. Less risk when transporting data. Walking around with a $7 minidisc is a lot less worrying than carrying a $250 player.

Finally, if this thing takes off then big price drops are likely. iPods are expensive because miniature HDs are expensive, and Apple's strategy has consistently been to increase capacity rather than drop price. But for most non-musically-obsessed people, who have been using walkmans and discmans happily for years, 1-2Gb will easily fulfill all their mobile music needs. (Apple has finally figured this out, hence the mini-iPod. But theyre still going after the premium market.) 1Gb MD players have the potential to be sold in Wal-Mart in a couple of years for double-digit prices. The disks will probably come down to under a dollar. Apple, to judge by the last 20 years, will never get into the low-margin, high-volume business that is Sony's specialty.

Instead of dissing this, you should hail it as bringing Gb storage to the masses.

Now, where's the real geek argument about whether sony measures GBs as binary or decimal powers?

brief moment in time

[Matey-O]

Computer technology is a series of advancements going from one technology to another until specific issues are solved. For the next two years (and past couple) the problem has been small portable storage.

(Case in point, an average $60 video card can drive a higher resolution, and higher refresh rate than most monitors can now support. Video is a solved technology, especially in light of the issues of the past -- EGA, monochrome high resolution)

I'm seriously jonesing because I can't justify the $200+ a 1gb+ device would cost *cough* iPod mini *cough*. On the other hand, I've got a spool of blank cd-r's and a _$30_ cd/mp3 player that'll play them.

So, 640 mb per $0.05 disk, and $30 for the player and a total library of 22 Gb (12 Gb of which I'll never EVER listen to) it's going to take a LOT of improvement in data density/cost to justify another device purchase.

reliability

[radoni]

you cannot beat the reliability of a magneto-optical drive (essentially what a minidisc format functions as). i don't trust an unprotected cdrom disc with my data for more than a few minutes, and a protected one will degrade over a few years. some of my early mp3 backup discs have already "faded" with time, despite being kept in their oldschool caddy trays.

years late

[happyfrogcow]

Sony is late and wrong on everything MD. having bought a MD recorder back in the day (why did they even bother making MD that could only play and not record?) i've always felt it could have been so much better. First of all, it takes however long the track is to transfer it too and from the computer or other device. Maybe it's different with the optical in/out, but i never had anything to plug that into. If they had made it a dual functioning device to begin with (ie, audio read/write AND data read/write with no data loss) it would have been more well recieved. they wouldn't have even needed to allow for both types on the same disc.

How cool would it have been to use a MD recorder as a portable tape drive? i think it would have been very cool. Small, protected discs with decent storage capacity.

Sony over-specialized this product to death. It was nice to use to record an occasional concert, and to record myself and friends musical sessions. It just could have had so many more uses.

You almost had it right, Sony. I'd still consider buying something new and less specialized (no DRM, no one-way USB, better transfer methods in general) from someone if it was able to use minidiscs as the media. I'm still wishing I or someone else was able to do some hardware hack to make the original MD recorders more functional along these terms.

The media cost for MD wouldn't be so bad if it had other uses such as data backup. how much to tapes cost these days? a MD is what, maybe a dollar each? expensive compared to CD's but cheaper than tapes i imagine.

Once again, Sony launch ANOTHER media format

[Wonderkid]

This new Minidisc announcement is more evidence of the fact Sony want people to spent their money on the media, not the device. It's an obsolete paradigm thanks to the iPod and excellent Flash based devices from companies like iRiver. What makes things even worse, is that the media for sony's forthcoming games machine, the PSP, is once again different. There is no media transparency. If they are going to use removable media, why not just stick to Memory Stick, a nice reliable solid state medium, where just 3 or 4 5gig sticks would hold the average person's lifetime music collection.

An open letter to Sony...

[jgerry]

Dear Sony,

I don't want your MiniDisc technology anymore. I'm not interested in your proprietary removeable media formats. Miniature hard drives are here to stay.

I've owned 3 MiniDisc recorders in the last 4 years. I thought you were helping me out by putting a USB port on your more recent NetMD devices, but you decided that you can't trust me to upload MY OWN RECORDINGS back to my computer via the USB port. Which has left me in the analog realm, forcing me to plug my recorder into the analog inputs of my sound card to digitize my music. MY MUSIC THAT I RECORDED MYSELF. This is unacceptable in today's all-digital environment.

I will not be purchasing any more of your products in the future. It's not for my lack of trying -- I loved the idea of a small, compact, recording device that I could carry with me anywhere. I bought 3 of them! But now I want more. Now I expect more. I want direct digital USB or Firewire transfers to my computer. And instead of meeting my needs, you've proffered another DRM-crippled, expensive, proprietary format that doesn't do what I want it to.

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll be looking elsewhere for my next recording and playback device.

Sincerely,

A disappointed (former) customer