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Why Sony Should've Put Its Weight Behind Hi-MD
An anonymous reader writes "OSNews has an article making a case for Hi-MD: 'Currently, .mp3 players are all the hype. Everyone has one, and if you don't, you're old-fashioned. I do not have an .mp3 player. I tried to have one, but for various reasons it did not please me. I'm a MiniDisc guy. I've always been. MiniDisc has some serious advantages over .mp3 players, whether they be flash or HDD based.'"
It's not even about MiniDiscs. Do you feel the need to post a Penny Arcade strip on every fucking slashdot story, even when it's not really related?
Something that people seem to miss is audio quality. When the RIAA perpetuated the myth that mp3s are as good as CD quality (and killed Napster), its like everybody got stupid. IMHO, no matter what super-high and variable bit rate you use, mp3s sound like a PLATE OF ASS. Even at the lowest quality setting, the sound quality off a minidisc, though not perfect, is VASTLY superior to mp3s. ACC (m4a) approaches the quality of the MD audio, and also are much better than mp3s.
iPods are pretty fucking neat, no doubts. Forget the competition, you can't really take them seriously. iPods rule... and that's not an opinion. They dominate. But they can't record audio. They could, but Apple won't let them. I hope the linux projects get better... because I'd buy an iPod in a heartbeat if I knew that I could use it to get a high quality, uncompressed board recording from a live show, and transfer the recording back to my Mac.
It's really too bad Sony fucked the format. For all intensive purposes, a MD was a CD with .2 compression. The high and low end are separated for different compressions, and I think the low end is split again, so there are 3 different compressions going on in MD. Some really good ears have problems with the MD high end... but it never bothered me... certainly not as much as what mp3s do to high end. I wish they could have left that alone... let the thing be a small rerecordable CD, so no software other than the OS would be needed to transfer audio back and forth. I wish the linux crowd would adopt the minidisc format, and figure out a way to completely bypass sony's software issues. Even if the iPod could record, I'm pretty sure the converters are better in the MD. If I'm not mistaken, its the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit, which isn't negligable... often, descriptions explain about the threshold of human hearing... but I swear anyone whose listened to 16-bit and 24-bit side by side can tell the difference... 24-bit is much better. Don't take my word for it... go hear for yourself.
I think Sony's saving grace could be the plain old DVD. I know they had a 20-bit CD-like format, and currently have a 24-bit format... but... WHY ARE THEY INTRODUCING A NEW FORMAT??? Plain ol' DVD supports 24-bit audio. Most DVD players are still only 16-bit..... but... Why are we, as humans, such idiots?? DVD is here, but for some reason, sony sees the need to introduce yet another format just for audio... and then some OTHER competing format has popped up.... this is so retarded... we have a format that is just fine... but we have to introduce 2 more formats of IDENTICAL quality, and they are all incompatible with each other (there are players that will play all 3, though, but still, its pretty fucked up).
So here we are... the cassette is gone... DAT uses sucky VCR technology... and Sony is killing MD... and iPod can't record. Who the fuck is working at these technology companies??? Those sadistic bastards are driving me fucking crazy!!
The Admin and the Engineer
Huh? I have an iPod and I've never bought anything on iTunes.
Which raises the question of why you have an iPod, since the ability to play crippled iTunes music on it is the only concrete advantage it has. Other players let you play crippled music from other online stores. If you're not interested in any online stores that sell crippled music, then it comes down to price, features, and aesthetics. The iPod is more expensive than the competition and has fewer features.
So it comes down to aesthetics. And if you pay above market rate to get a pretty MP3 player, which you are then going to have to keep in a protective case in your fucking pocket and which you are therefore never going to look at, then you are what's typically referred to as a "tool".