Anyone ever seen a MD drive? the discs hold 650megs! link!

Zeeliv

Golden Member
Oct 10, 1999
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How is a MD any more prone to that kind of thing than a CD, Zip or floppy? I really don't think it is.
 

pyr

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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it would be nice to be able to copy songs directly to a MD on a computer... oh ya.... sweet indeed, no more realtime recording.
 

Redwingsguy

Diamond Member
Jan 6, 2000
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no no the data and music md are kinda like 2 diff medias, the data can only hold data and the music can only hold music :) but maybe one day they will make a minidisc media that does both! Then MD users from around the world will rejoice at the defeat on MP3 users! :D
 

GregGreen

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2000
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don't they only hold 140 megs? i believe it uses some sort of compression codec to fit 74 minutes of audio on one
 

pyr

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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what i really mean is it would be nice to be able to copy the music over as data instead of having to record in realtime. you could just drop the music track onto the disc and pop it out and play it.
 

Rogue

Banned
Jan 28, 2000
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I don't understand why MD has not replaced that decrepid piece of $hit known as a floppy drive yet!? Everytime I resort to copying or reading a file from a floppy drive, I get pissed off at how slow and ancient that technology is. It's time for the floppy drive to die. As long as an MD drive for a PC is bootable, I'm game. Zip drives pretty much suck too.
 

Redwingsguy

Diamond Member
Jan 6, 2000
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greggreen, thats the normal audio ones and they are apromiately 185megs, but these are special Data ones! lookie the link at top!

pyr that would be great but then they'd also have to put a mp3 decompressor type thing on the player too, which would get confuseing cuz then you can only put mp3's on instead of say midi or wav unless there was also an encoder onboard too! But then in that case you'd have to run it through the encoder! :)
 

dcdomain

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2000
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Man... wish I lived in Japan. These things are around in Japan. I would say that MD's are actually better than CD's. You can't scratch them because of their casing, and everything is so jam packed that when you drop them, nothing breaks or falls out of place... believe me, I've dropped plenty of md's so far...

I remember looking into this stuff when Sony came out with an MD based digital video camcorder. I spoke to a representative at the PC Expo in NY this past summer, and asked if Sony was planning on coming out with a digital camera using MD's as storage. Basically he gave me some bullsh*t excuse saying that there's no need and that the memory stick will do just fine.

Damn memory sticks cost a fortune! What's the difference between that and CF or SM? I'd rather grab CF since it supports the Microdrive... anyway, that's just my little rant...
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
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Most MDs only hold about 1/5th of a CD. Makes sense since MD is usually a 5:1 compression for audio. But there are different sizes for the technology of course.

But... I'll take my 250 MB zip drives any day.
 

Redwingsguy

Diamond Member
Jan 6, 2000
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EUG look at the link in my first post! :) It has a picture, the disc reads, Rewritable Minidisc data2 650megs!
 

jimmygates

Platinum Member
Sep 4, 2000
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As much as I want the floppy to die, it is the only thing in my system that functions without a problem. Don't need to install drivers, don't need to worry about compatiblity, don't need AMD approved PS....it just works...:p


NOW WHY CAN'T THEY MAKE THINGS AS EASY TO USE AS A FLOPPY? ;)



-Jimbo
 

Gunbuster

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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If Sony had come out with a MD walkman that played mp3's off a data MD they would have owned the market.
 

dcdomain

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2000
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HOLY SCHIZNATZ... man, I've known about these things for a long time... but I never put two and two together! Damn GunBuster, that's a great idea.

Beatmania, how would that be too bulky??? I mean, yeah MD makers gonna have to stuff the MP3 decoder and what not in there, but eventually, it'll be as small as the stuff coming out now...

 

beat mania

Platinum Member
Jan 23, 2000
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I'm only speculating, of course, since there isn't one (in production, at least)

1st, the data drive is pretty big, you need to fit at least the motor and laser mechanism into something remotely portable.
2nd, its transfering at 8.5x regular MD, and data density is 4.6x times, so that can only mean more power, less battery life.
3rd, you have to have mp3 and atrac decoder, which may or may not be on the same chip, and even if its the same chip, it'll still be bigger.
4th, encoder for mp3.
5th, you'll need to have widespread use of MD data drive, otherwise people won't buy it because they can't put their mp3 on it (unless you have a computer interface, which probably would be firewire to make it small, and you'll need space for THAT, and the interface logic...)

Result: I'm envisioning something bigger than a MD and mp3 player combined.

 

xtreme2k

Diamond Member
Jun 3, 2000
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I am thinking that this MD holding 650MB actually uses the DVD technology (the thinner laser)


 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
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<< EUG look at the link in my first post! :) It has a picture, the disc reads, Rewritable Minidisc data2 650megs! >>



Yes, I know, but my point is that this technology is not very common, because it's not the usual MD format. Furthermore, since 250 MB zips and 650 MB CD-RWs are already entrenched, even if Sony licenced the technology and shipped the product, I somehow doubt it would take off in North America, unless Sony and others really pushed it. Somehow I don't think Sony is going to do that even though I wish they would since 1.44 MB floppies are basically useless, and so far only some PCs can boot off a zip. Some people in the computer industry have wanted the 140 MB (or whatever they are) sized MDs in our computers for years, but weirdos at Sony just refused to allow it.

Now it just seems too little, too late. If it was over a GB, then it would be a different matter.