minidisc

[magillagorilla]

Anyone still use, collect, admire, MiniDisc?

I have a whole mess of discs, 30-40 (maybe more, I need to count). Mixed brand, TDK, Sony, Memorex, 74s and 80s. They have stuff on them but can be erased. They were headed to the garbage but I hate to throw away stuff that still works.

Free, you pay shipping.

[hech54]

I loved Minidisc....fantastic little format.

[magillagorilla]

yup, MD got a bad rap. I thought it was great. The MP3 reveluotion killed it quick. I always whished Hi-MD had come out 2-3 years sooner. It may have gained the acceptance of audiophiles. Later itterations of the ATRAC codec proved to be very nice sounding compared to MP3 at a similar bitrate. Then there was Hi-MD which did lossless 44.1k 16bit PCM. It's all old news now.

I did a lot of field recording with mine. Now the Zoom H2 kills it on all fronts.

The art of a mixed tape/MD/CD is lost. Remeber how much it ment when someone gave you a mixed tape? They spend hours selecting songs and recording them in real time, just for you. And you appreciated because you knew how long it took.

Now people share playlists, boo! What, aw thanks for spending 2 minutes making a playlist for me. Hay wait, you sent the same playlist to 15 people.

[Cornucopia]

Sony's business model had for MD to change at least 3 times and by then it was too late. The ORIGINAL Atrac was bad compared to MP3, and once MP3 came out, that put a bad light on MD which it never got over.

I agree about the Zooms - they're great!

Playlists still take a little time to copy the files to other devices, so there's a LITTLE bit of effort still involved. My daughter asked me just this weekend about "how to burn a MIX CD" and I had to teach her about the differences between Audio CDs and MP3 Data CDs and their relative compatibility...

Scott

[jman98]

I haven't messed with it in years, but I've still got a functioning recorder and at least 1 portable player along with various MDs I made myself from LPs. I gave very serious consideration at one time to buying a MD player for my car but Sony never could really get the price down enough for anything MD related and I never went through with the purchase.

[rr6966]

I had two car units at one time, and they were great. I still have probably 3 portables and two better deck units, they all work and still sound great! However, I retired them to save component rack space in my hometheater setup.

[Chopmeister]

The MP3 revolution didn't kill it, Sony's crazy decisions and all-consuming contempt for their customers did.

It was out way before the iPod, and could have owned the portable music player market if Sony hadn't mishandled it so badly. Other than the price (which was a bit high) they made two big blunders - excessive DRM, and a crappy codec. I would have purchased one *if* it hadn't been so DRM encumbered that I couldn't digitally transfer off something I had recorded on it (lectures etc). That and insisting on a codec that, despite Sony insisting was superior to all others, I recall came dead last in independent blind listening tests of quality.

If it was reasonably priced, not DRM encumbered, and used a decent codec then Sony, not Apple, might now be the king of portable audio.

[hech54]

I would have purchased one *if* it hadn't been so DRM encumbered that I couldn't digitally transfer off something I had recorded on it (lectures etc).

I owned(and still do - in America) Sony Minidisc Hi-Fi deck and transferring "digital to digital" to and from the Minidisc deck to my CD recorder was never a problem. Don't believe everything you read.

[budwzr]

The way Sony did DRM is an example of how greedy and controlling they are, given the chance. Chinese Saying: "The fox showed their tail".

And I still remember how Sony tried to shnizzle VCR recordings, and they were putting rootkits on your computer when you installed something from a disc.

[magillagorilla]

I always thought MD was to CD as cassette was to vinyl. MP3 was the death blow to MD. The format started off on a bad foot but it was never in line to hold out over iPod and other MP3 players. 1 MD was 80min an iRiver/Archos/iPod could hold 100 hours of music. They later came out with LP modes and then Hi-MD, too little too late.

The DRM was easily defeated. I had an external box that striped the anti-copy data from the signal. But I never had much desire to go CD > MD > CD, too much quality loss. I mostly used my MD for field recording, in which case, no DRM was applied. You could easily make a digital transfer via toslink from MD > PC.

Feild recording was the trick MD had over MP3 players. in the 1990s - early 2000s you had cassette, DAT or MD for your portable audio recording choices. Cassette was outdated and noisy, DAT was expensive (decks and media) and a power hog. MD fit square in the middle, digital recording, relatively inexpensive deviced and media, and hours of power.

I have 3 MD portable recorders and 2 home decks. I never got Hi-MD, the price never came down enough. There is still something nice about having a physical cartridge in your hand, it felt like cassettes but sounded better. I guess it's nostalgia for phisical media.

[hech54]

The way Sony did DRM is an example of how greedy and controlling they are

Crying about Sony's DRM in this thread is useless and stupid since this nonsence:

I couldn't digitally transfer off something I had recorded on it

...has been proven complete bullshit by an owner of a Sony Minidisc recorder/player.....me.

So please get off of the "evil Sony" crybaby shit and get back to the subject of Minidisc.

[Cornucopia]

@hech54, MANY of the less expensive units had NO means of digital input (only Analog Mic/Line in) and either Analog-Only output or NONE AT ALL (except headphones).
At the time, I'm sure Sony was thinking that wasn't a big deal, but they didn't see the ALL-DIGITAL future in the way history was going, and so, missed the writing on the wall.
You were fortunate to be able to afford a Home Deck, where those problems were mitigated, but that's not the experience of the vast majority of MD users, and precisely one of the main reasons MD didn't migrate well into latter day usage.

Even with TOS-Link, it's a realtime stream transfer, not a faster-than-realtime file-based transfer. Too slow - another nail in the coffin.

Scott

[budwzr]

Well, that poster two clics up, is quite rude, and using profanity too.

Anyways, I'm sure Sony invented MD because it could be locked down since they are a media company too.

[bigass]

I was a big Minidisc user back in the day. Bought one to use as a master mixdown recorder when I was recording onto cassette 4-track. Then I started using it in radio journalism instead of the work-issued cassette deck.

I have a few dozen discs that I've been meaning to get backed up to digital. Sadly, both my Sharp MT32 recorders are pretty much dead. I've borrowed a Sony machine from a local journalism school and hope to get all the important stuff copied over the old-fashioned way -- out from the headphones, in to my audio interface.

As others have said, the big thing I'd love is an easy way to dump them digitally. But, yeah, there's that one sony machine that makes it possible.... I'm not about to buy one of those.

[magillagorilla]

I had an archive of about 60 MDs of original field recordings. I looked aroung for a Sony Hi-MD with USB. They allow direct faster than realtime ATRAC > WAV transfers to PC. The decks cannot be had for less that $400, even used.

I used to have a Creative Sound Blaster with a toslink input. I would just run a cable from my Sony deck in to the PC and get a digital to digital copy. That was 8-9 years ago. The card didn't work on my new Windows 7 machine.

To archive the rest of my MDs I did something a bit more creative. I have an iRiver iHP120 (MP3 Jukebox) which has an optical input. The player/recorder is modified with a 3rd party firware called Rockbox. I was able to playback the MDs on my Sony deck and record them to WAV on the iRiver via toslink. It worked out very well.

I don't intend on using MD for recording anymore as it is an inferior format. But it's still fun to play with. I keep a few decks around and give the discs a spin now and again. There is just something so tactile and pleasing about the format. While it's sonically inferior to 320kbps MP3 it has a unique color/tone that I also enjoy, nostalgically, not in a critical listening way.

I think the whole point of the format was missed. It wasn't supposed to sound better or equal to CD. It was clearly ment to replace analog cassette. In my opinoin, MD is superior to cassette in sound quality and functionality.

For that matter, I think DCC (digital compact cassette) was an absolute brilliant idea as it was backwards compatible with cassette. I never played with one, I think they were popular in Europe.

[budwzr]

I used MD a lot when I was a musician. Reminds me of the good old days. Here's a tune I wrote. There's some "custom" sampling in there too. The song deconstructs towards the middle so you can hear the special effects.

[Chopmeister]

@hech54, I'm not sure what I did to make you so upset, I thought I was discussing the Minidisc and memories of the format.

I recall fairly clearly, from when I looked at purchasing in the late 90s, that the Sony consumer Minidisc machines did not provide direct access to the data on the disk. The S/PDIF digital interconnect, which I assume people are referring to when they say they could copy material off digitally, only carried data in the linear (PCM) format. You could connect this to a soundcard with an S/PDIF input - but you didn't get a perfect digital replica of what had been recorded - and there was quality loss. From memory, it had to be done in real time as well. Plus, they used SCMS to make replication even more difficult. None of the consumer grade machines provided direct access to the digital data on the disk which, ultimately, is why I passed on the format.

There were apparently "professional" decks that weren't crippled in this manner - but (again from memory) they were very expensive, and I never saw one in a retail outlet in this country. When I tried to buy one, the Sony dealer confirmed that they existed, but refused to discuss selling me one.

[hech54]

There were apparently "professional" decks that weren't crippled in this manner - but (again from memory) they were very expensive, and I never saw one in a retail outlet in this country. When I tried to buy one, the Sony dealer confirmed that they existed, but refused to discuss selling me one.

Ridiculous. My Sony deck was definitely NOT one of those high-end $1000 MDS(?) model number units. It was a basic, home stereo minidisc recorder/player that recorded both analog and digital to and from my Pioneer CD recorder. I would record from LP or cassette to Minidisc, edit, arrange....then transfer digitally to a CD to my Pioneer recorder....never any sign of this DRM nonsense people speak of. Analog to Minidisc, then digital out of the Minidisc to a digital recorder had ZERO DRM nonsense.

[jman98]

Chopmeister - As hech54 points out, if your source was analog you definitely could send out a digital copy from minidisc to a digital recorder such as a standalone CD recorder. It was only if your minidisc was made from a digital source (DAT or CD) that SCMS kicked in. There were devices that were sold at the time that stripped out SCMS but they were hard to find and most consumers didn't know about them.

[bigass]

Analog to Minidisc, then digital out of the Minidisc to a digital recorder

In PCM, SPDIF, in real time, yes?

[magillagorilla]

You are all correct. Analog recordings to MD = no SCMS. Digital recordings to MD = SCMS. You could not record a CD via tosslink to MD then copy the MD or transfer the MD via toslink to a CD. Unless you have a SCMS stripper, which I did. A little box called a CO2 which also converted any SPDIF in/out ABUI, COAX, TOSLINK to any SPDIF in/out ABUI, COAX, TOSLINK. That's still a handy box even though the SCMS kill feature is no longer needed.

If I remember though, the SCMS stripper also removed stuff like track markers. No free lunch I suppose.

And yes with MD transfers via SPDIF/TOSLINK happens in real time. I believe standard ATRAC was 292kbps. So expanding it to PCM 44.1k 16bit likely caused no data loss. All the damage was done during the ATRAC data reduction. It would be like taking a 7Mbps MP4 file and rendering it to RAW AVI. It will look the same as the original.

Sony makes decessions based on business logic. They started developing MD in the late 80s and released it in 1992. MP3 hardly existed and if I were Sony I would not have wanted to pay royalties. Also MP3 did not have any DRM baked in. Record companies and outfits like Microsoft were not going to back a format with no DRM. Remember the original business model was to sell prepressed music on MD. What label would allow that without DRM? Plus, Sony had other utility for ATRAC, like Playstation sound.

I don't understand why people bash Sony. They are just trying to do business within the constraints of the media echosystem. Apple is really no different. There are propritary restrictions I don't like about both companies. But if I don't like, I don't buy and consumer demand always wins. Look at Sony, they have cameras with SD slots now because the consumer hated Memory stick. Apple uses standard PC components after years of propritary crap. Likely a move to shave cost. I remember when they caved and put USB on their machines, as Apples backed firewire was the less popular external connector.

[themaster1]

I bought a JVC minidisc recorder/cd changer/radio hi-fi system around 2001 , boy that was the shit i could record radio in high fidelity so i made tons of compilations, it had incredible speakers and stylish, high-end feel front panel. Never had the pleasure to use toslink though always analog, same on my portable jvc md recorder

[jman98]

I don't understand why people bash Sony. They are just trying to do business within the constraints of the media echosystem.

This is in danger of digressing from the original post, but since you asked...
I see 2 reasons why people bash Sony.
1) Their quality is not what it used to be. 10+ years ago if you bought Sony you knew that you were buying something that was going to last. That hasn't been true for a while, but for some products Sony is still fine.
2) Sony has a dual personality that causes it to make consumer unfriendly decisions. Part of the company wants to produce products that consumers find useful and want to buy. This is entirely logical and in fact you'd be crazy to not run a consumer electronics business that way. The problem is that another part of Sony is the media conglomerate. That part of Sony views ALL consumers as the enemy. You as a consumer are a thief to Sony. Sony believes that 100% of public wants to "steal" their media (ie. music and videos) so they adopt very hostile, anti-consumer policies. This is why Sony sells BluRay players (the electronics guys want to make money this way) that cannot be made region free (the media guys don't want to allow this). This is why some Sony DVDs and BluRay use Cinavia disc protection and before that it was ARCCOS. Remember the infamous Sony rootkit on audio CDs? Disney is one of the more paranoid of the big media companies against people "stealing" their stuff, but there are lines that they have yet to be willing to cross. With Sony, there does seem to be nothing that they won't do. So yes, it makes perfect sense that some consumers react negatively to Sony's insistance that everybody is a thief.

[budwzr]

I don't understand why people bash Sony. They are just trying to do business within the constraints of the media echosystem.

No, that's not correct.

You must be too young to remember the US Supreme Court case in the 80's? Where Sony sought to end ALL recordings on VCR's? And wanted to turn them into VCP's instead?

And then a few years later, they were caught installing DRM software in the background when you bought one of their interactive discs, they were called "rootkits", similar to spyware. Sony invented the whole spyware concept.

[magillagorilla]

Kinda lile Apple tracking where you've been to sell it to advertizers or Google tracking your internet movement for targeted marketing. Crafty little Buzzards.

I'll add this; I don't think open formats are always a great idea. I guess you have to take the good with the bad. Look at how powerful Linux is, it's open, but it's so splintered and hard to use the average person doesn't mess with it. Google swooped in and started standardizing Linux (Adroid) now everyone is using it.

Standards have to be set in order to foster progress. As in any standard, someone will always complain about it. Someone at some point has to declair what they are sticking with then build on top of it.

Shady or illegal business practice is a problem from which I doubt any brand name electronics maker is free and clear.

[Cornucopia]

@Budwzr,
You've got it turned 'round - Sony was the Defendant in the Betamax case. Universal City Studios was the Litigant. At that time, they WANTED to allow recording (and not be sued). The judge ruled in Sony's favor, mainly by using the "Time-shifting" technicality. Most people today ASSUME that means recording anything off-air is fair game. It isn't. It's only fair game if it is A) UNENCRYPTED/ FREELY BROADCAST (or Home Movies/PublicDomain stuff) and B) You only keep it long enough to use the time shift you need and THEN YOU DELETE IT.

@magillagorilla,
Standards=Good, Opensource=Good. Standards+Opensource=Best (probably/certainly better than Standards+Proprietary/Costly/LicenseFull).

Back on topic: MD had it's short-lived moment in the sun. History was just moving to fast for it to have the logevity it could have had.

Scott

[budwzr]

Hahaha, oh really? Well, they probably regret that now, because everyone thinks it's OK to record for fair use.

I never really researched that, and it looks like somebody fed me some baloney a long time ago and it just got stuck in my brain like an urban legend.

But the rootkit story is true, No?

So can "time shifting" be applied to streaming rentals? Like so long as you keep your subscription current, it shouldn't matter if some content is stored offline, because I think you can place-shift too, right?

[jagabo]

But the rootkit story is true, No?

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

I checked out the minidisc format when it first came out. I listen to a lot of solo piano music and it sounded poor with that. The hiss would breath with the notes. I don't know if it improved any over the years but I never looked at it again. I eventually got a DAT recorder. That was a decent device.

[budwzr]

But the rootkit story is true, No?

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

WOW! I didn't know all the details. Very interesting article.

OK, I went off topic. Back to MD.

The worst thing I remember about the portable player was what a hassle it was to connect to a computer, and this bloatware would load up, and it only used one AA battery so it would go kapoop fast.

[El Heggunte]

I checked out the minidisc format when it first came out. I listen to a lot of solo piano music

Good boy!

and it sounded poor with that. The hiss would breath with the notes. I don't know if it improved any over the years but I never looked at it again.

Yes, ATRAC became better than it was, but then, it was already too late ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus, and even Lossless ATRAC Given that Sonic Stage "does not exist" , the only viable way to encode to high-bitrate ATRAC3 (up to 352.8kbps) is through the discontinued RealProducer 8.5 Fortunately (or not), ffdshow can decode ATRAC3, even if this is sampled/played at 48kHz