Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Any MiniDisc people out there?

(1/3) > >>

superboyac:
Any of you use minidisc player/recorders?  I know they're not big in the US, but they are popular in other countries.  Anyway, the new HiMD format has been out for a while (which is cool...anyone who knows the advantages of the new format will understand).  A friend of a friend who is in Japan right now, just bought me the new orange HiMD unit that Sony released recently, the MZ-RH10.  You can only get the orange one in Japan.  It's so good looking.  Super sweet.

f0dder:
I used to have a minidisc player, MZ-something. I took it apart a month ago, since it was (*literally*!) held together by gaffer tape. It's a real shame that sony stopped the MD data drives, and that the MD walkmen are so limited (recording md->pc is at 1x speed, only pc->md can be done fast... at least last time I looked, a couple years ago).

brotherS:
I used to love MiniDiscs, I was the first one around here that bought one (got an additional mobile device later too), and back then (10 years ago?) it sure was great!

Now I'm only listening to the MDs I own, I don't record stuff to MD anymore. Since there are so many good (and cheap) mp3 players I doubt MDs will be able to attract lots of new users.

For those who never heard of this at all (you probably are out there): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc

superboyac:
fodder...you should check out the new HiMD format, let me give you a brief overview:

--The new HiMD discs can hold 1GB instead of the 650MB or so that were the old MD discs.

--With the new HiMD units, you can transfer from MD->pc at usb speed, they removed the restrictions they had before, where you had to just record from the line-out in real time.  This is by far the coolest feature.

--You can record uncompressed PCM wav files now.  Sweet!

--The new mindisc units look so cool, especially the MZ-RH10 (or MZ-M100 in the US), and the coming-soon MZ-RH1.  They both sport the ultra sweet looking organic-LED displays.  There's even one unit out that can take pictures, but it can't record, so I don't care about it.

--I almost forgot, the new HiMD units can play mp3's natively.  You don't have to convert to ATRAC anymore.  You can just put mp3's on the disc and play it.  YES!!  This and the pc transfering was what always kept me from getting a minidisc before, but with these restrictions gone, I am now a full-fledged MD junkie.

I know that minidiscs aren't a practical format because there are these big hard drive mp3 players, that put the 1GB discs to shame, but if you're talking about ability to record and listen to mp3's, minidiscs are a great option.  There are a couple of flash-card based player/recorders out there, but when you consider that the new HiMD discs cost $7.00 for 1GB and a 1GB flash card is at least $50, it's much more practical to get the minidisc.  Besides, there's something to be said about being able to slide those cool cartridges in and out of the player.

f0dder:
Hrm, the old MD's didn't have 650meg, more like 120 iirc? When talking about megabytes, people should mention the raw capacity; when mentioning recorded music length in minutes, compressed is fine. The recording feature sounds REALLY nice though, would make HiMD viable as a budget but decent quality recorder.

Hm, MP3 support... that rocks. I'll try to get the audio jack in my MuVo^2 fixed (possibly by switching it for one I salvaged from my old minidisc), and put off any media player purchase. I assume HiMD is still a magnetic media, which tends to be more stable than portable HDDs as in the large-capacity mp3 players...

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page