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Hello Orgers! I wanted to share an article about the MiniDisc and the format benefits.



Why I'm sharing this with you is that I think this technology is absolutely great. I don't usually promote big business products, but in this case I want to share great a format, tool this is and how it benefits the music lover!

I'm also sharing this with all ya'lls because I hope that the format doesn't die off like others have. There really isn't much talk about them in the mainstream media or music stores. Even the local electronics store salesman don't really explain the benefits of an MD.

If you've ever noticed them at your local audio store and just kind of glanced at them, never really knowing what they're good for, well here's the rundown.

Personally, I think it's an awesome format, and you'll read why in a bit.

From my experience, I used to just glance at the decks and MD Walkmans myself just thinking it wasn't a "cassette player" or that it was some wierd technology that would be obselete or a failed format like the DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) of the early 90's.

But in my quest to have something that allowed me to RECORD in CD quality in realtime in a small portable package that wouldn't break the wallet, I found the MiniDisc.

I wanted something that recorded without the hiss of tapes and without the waiting for tape to rewind and so forth. That's right, I said no hiss. Digital audio!

It's also very much like a CD, except it offers SO MUCH more!

Think of the MiniDisc recorder/player as a mini-CD-burner! And think of the actual MiniDisc discs as little rewritable CD's that act like computer hard drives but aren't as dorky or bulky. But they're only for audio, think of the MiniDiscs as a digital replacement of the cassette.

By the way there are car stereos (made by major car audio makers) that play MD's and even pro-audio equipment that use MD's for track mixdowns ala Fostex cassette trackers and DAT tape, etc. which makes this an awesome solution for musicians. Use them to sample natural sounds or any sounds with a mic on the go!

Oh did I mention that it can record from a microphone input or Line in from another CD or record player in CD quality!? No degradation?

So if you've ever been curious about MiniDisc format and the MD Walkmans then and read on!



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The history of the Minidisc, a Japanese invention ahead of its time

by Richard Donovan , April 2003

Taken from http://www.japanvisitor.c...views.html

Around the world, CDRs (writeable CDs) and their pricier cousins rewriteable CD-RWs are all the rage, it seems. You can buy them for a song (as it were), slip them into your computer’s CD writer, and burn your own music mixes in a matter of minutes. Sounds great, very ‘21st century’—except that the technology to do much the same thing, on a disc half the size, with more features, has already existed for more than a decade! It’s the MD, and I don’t mean your local (tune) doctor.

Minidiscs, or MDs, are like the hip generation Xer to the baby-boomer CD, but surprisingly their origins lie in their venerable grandfather, the audiotape. If we compare CDs and tapes, the latter have two advantages over the digitally enhanced discs: they are more compact, and they can be recorded and re-recorded on.

(History)
In the early nineties, Sony, the creators of the original Walkman, noticed that tape sales were slipping from their peak in 1988. They wanted to make something to replace them. CDs were first released in 1982, and were superb at reproducing sound due to digitalisation and high sampling rates, but they were a read-only medium, and their size, while far more compact than their vinyl antecedents, was still a little too large for truly portable applications. (Despite the best efforts of Discman manufacturers, portable players hang rather clumsily on the hip—and resist being stuffed into even the most voluminous pockets!)

Sony had already made the MO (magneto-optical) Disc in 1988 as a writeable alternative to the CD, but it had not proved very popular. (These days it still exists in Japan as an alternative to the CD-RW in computing.) They decided to harness the same hybrid technology for MDs. While CDs only use a laser beam for encoding, ‘Magneto-optical’ data storage employs both a laser to heat microscopic points on the metallic disc, and a simultaneous magnetic field, to alter the binary data. There, that was simple, wasn’t it? No need to go into more detail….

(Technology Explained)
Next the boffins squeezed it into a disc 64mm (2-and-a-half inches) in diameter and encased this in a slightly larger, squarish plastic shell for protection. They invented a signal-compression technology called ATRAC (standing for the vaguely ungrammatical and virtually incomprehensible ‘Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding’) to enable them to fit about as much CD-quality music as a CD contains—namely, 74 minutes. (These days, you can also buy 80-minute MDs.) To complement the disc’s inherent portability, they built revolutionary anti-shock technology into players to ensure skip-free sound.

(Mo' History)
Amazingly, Sony was able to unveil their MD technology in 1991, and commercialized it in 1992. Consumers in Japan greeted it with almost immediate enthusiasm, but westerners have remained sceptical for many years. A confluence of issues led to this geo-cultural divide. First, the original incarnation of the ATRAC compression algorithm sometimes made MDs sound inferior to CDs; while this was improved, the stigma remained in some people’s minds. Second, as Time magazine mused in September 1997, Sony may have confused westerners already in the wrenching process of changing from vinyl to compact disc in the early nineties. Sony admitted it had misplayed its marketing, failing to emphasise that MDs were not a replacement for CDs, rather a portable complement to them. Owners were expected to make music compilations from their existing CD collection, for use on the run.

On the other hand, Japanese consumers, who have always been ‘early adopters’ of new technologies, had started to make the digital-audio transition earlier than their western counterparts, and thus were in more of a position to appreciate the merits of the portable format. Further, MD discs and players have been prohibitively expensive in the US, while this has not been the case in Japan, their country of origin. While MD discs have sold for as much as $15 each in the States (around 1800 yen), and now sell as cheaply as $3 (per disc) (360 yen), in Japan you can get them for around a dollar. Recording units, too, have sold much more cheaply and with much greater availability in Japan.

MD players outsold portable CD players in Japan from 1998 on, and the format hasn’t looked back. I have never seen a Japanese use a Discman on public transport, but MDs are rampant. Their remote controls allow people to change tracks and volume with a discreet touch of a button—something of a necessity when you’re standing packed in with rush-hour commuters and can barely move a finger.

In the same year that MDs were taking Japan by storm, Wired magazine in the US predicted the imminent demise of the format; ironically, while the UK version of the magazine has departed this world, MD is in the ascendant. The last two years have seen the introduction of new features that, along with reduced prices for hardware and software, have apparently caught the eye of wary purchasers in the US. One of the reasons Wired dismissed MDs is that they claimed the real portable alternative to CDs was players using MP3, the digital compression format that allows people to download music from the Internet and play it back on tiny portable units with no moving parts, or record it onto CD-RW.

However, MDs have considerable advantages over these formats: the media is much cheaper than the removable flash-memory cards used in MP3 players, allowing the user to record many albums and choose which to carry with them; and MDs are not only much smaller than CD-RWs, they also allow non-linear editing (recording over certain tracks, or altering the position of tracks, for example), which CD-RWs do not support.

And MDs are now taking on MP3 players directly, with the 2001 release of NetMD recorders. These allow users to download ATRAC audio tracks (but not MP3s) from their computers onto a minidisc using a USB cable, at speeds several times faster than real time. So far Sony has released half a dozen units capable of downloading tracks, and other MD manufacturers are following suit. However, one drawback is that using Sony’s proprietary software severely limits what users can do with tracks, as well as the number of times the same track can be downloaded to an MD.

Downloading using NetMD is so fast because it utilises the other recent innovation in MDs—MDLP, which arrived on the scene in 2000. "LP" stands for Long Play. LP2 mode records tracks at twice the compression rate (and twice the speed) of normal ("SP") tracks; LP4 does this at four times the rate and speed. There is an accompanying loss of quality (LP4), much like LP or EP mode on a VCR, but LP2 is quite acceptable for general-purpose playback (actually there is really is not distinguishing from standard and LP2!), while LP4 is fine for voice recording. Thus you can fit two whole albums on a single MD in LP2 format, further enhancing the portability of the minidisc.

While the MD has yet to become as ubiquitous in the US as its Walkman tape predecessor was, its ‘cool’ index is on the rise, despite the fact it’s been around for some 12 years now! With its Japanese production base and innumerable fans finding attractive ways to rejuvenate it, it may well become, belatedly, the international standard in portable audio that Sony had hoped for it.


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Must visit sites for the MiniDisc info:
http://www.minidisc.org
http://www.minidisct.com
http://www.minidiscussion.com

Blank MiniDisc Gallery:


http://www.t-station.net/md_blanks.html

Read how people use their MD's at:
http://www.superspud.com/md

For pre-recorded MD's:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/e...41-2738252

ATRAC info in Flash:
http://www.sonystyle.com/...flash.html

now that's what i call a decent thread!

Very interesting information. I didn't know too much about the format, but now...I feel EDUCATED!!!

Thanks for the hook-up!!

FlyingCloudPassenger said:

A MiniDisc player is actually an option with the factory stereo in the Mazda Miata. For whatever reason, though, you can only get it with the low-end base model... the MiniDisc player is not compatible with the Bose audio system in the LS version. I don't know why--the modular radio/CD head unit (into which a tape player or MD player can be inserted) is the same on both versions, except for the Bose logo being printed on the units destined for LS cars. The tape deck is certainly compatible. The difference between the two systems is solely in the amplifier and speakers.

matt said:

How interesting. You'd think that the MD is such a specialty and unique item that it would be something offered in the more exotic/higher end Miata.

I would point that out to them and ask them was up. I'm actually looking for a MD car stereo. Althought I like carrying around my Sony MD around, it gets a little bothersome in the car.

I replaced my tape adaptor with a wireless radio signal adaptor and at times I get crystal clear sound and others it sounds like a bad FM station. Doesn't do justice to the MiniDisc audio.

But that Miata thing, hey at least it's an option! That's nice to hear. That car manufacturers actually offer and MD stereo instead of getting one yourself, third party.

Kenwood makes a real nice one, Sony of course makes them, maybe Aiwa since they make MD portable players/recorders too. I also think Kenwood makes a MD CHANGER box which is kind of neat.

Keepin' me thread alive...

I am a convert already.

But keep preaching.

i've had minidisc for almost 6 years and i love it.

No, minidisc sucks.

It has 4:1 audio compression, which is shit considering MP3 format will give you more like 12:1 and the quality is still adequate for portable listening.

Additionally the minidisc compression is private standards owned by Sony. So you won't get minidisc drives for your PC, or minidisc reader tools for your PDA or whatever.

Get an MP3 player like an iPod instead

Yeah!

It it doesn't shuffle, when u're walking or running!

Pellwormer said:

are we still talking about minidisc?

noepie said:

Love the way yer filthy little mind works

Too bad about that hetero part though

gooeythehamster said:

you can't win 'em all.

ian said:

BUT the ATRAC format is waaay superior to the MP3 format. Once you copy from a CD to a MiniDisc or MD to MD, without a analog type connection, using an optical connection, you get a perfect copy of the CD track.

Also, I think there is something in that ATRAC format that actually enhances the sound, something in the audible sound being filtered or pin-pointed so the human ear hears what it suppose to hear, in effect, filtering the best parts of the sound.

Who cares if you don't get a MD drive for your stinking PC!

I love the hardware feel of the MD, outside the be-all PC. It's simpler, and the mechanics churning are kind of cool.

iPods are overrated, sure their nice, but, NOT as versatile.

A MiniDisc recorder and player can record with a mic, high end even (well, not pro level but...) and you get great recordings. Connect it to a mixing board to record a live performance of you band!

Record from any audio source, anywhere, on the fly editing of music! Move songs around. Erase them individually WITHOUT a Mac or Windows huge machine. TITLE each and every track!

Versatity and music keeping OUT of the convoluted PC world. But if you want to use an MD with a computer to teransfer your music (which you can do now with an MD recorder/player) from your PC to your MD, it's definetly possible, it's called the Net MD.





.oOo.
[This message was edited Fri May 23 14:16:39 PDT 2003 by FlyingCloudPassenger]

Sony has a history of supporting failed formats way past their prime...no different here.

and the multitrack MD recorders are MD Data machines, not MD Audio. sound quality on the MD Data units is supposedly better than ATRAC.

twonabomber said:

I heard or read somewhere that MD sales are on the rise in the US.

Yes there are two types off MD discs, the MD Audio and the MD Data, thing about those multitrackers is that they don't support MDLP, which would of been kind of cool in some instances, like recording your band/performances live, etc. MDLP stands for MiniDisc Long Play and it's similar to a VHS tape recording time being doubled. So an 80 minute MD is made into a 2:40 minute MD. The quality is still great and close if not near undistiguishable to a CD. Much like MP3's.

Anyway, Sony is going to use the ATRAC format on their future portable Playstation, the PSP, which is Play Station Portable, to handle the audio...so it's not failed yet, like the Betamax.

noepie said:

Oh, well...never compared 'em as well...