---FRYS HAS MINIDISC, MZ N505 WITH "NET MD" FOR 149!!!!!!!!

[wildta]

does anyone now a rough estimate of how many mp3's can actually fit on this?
cuz on a regular cdr i can usually fit any where from 150-175 songs, depending on the size and bit rate of the song of course.

 

[Nefrodite]

yup, the more facts you know about minidisc, the less of a "hotdeal" it becomes


and no mic input? gah.. then again they don't let you transfer the recorded files directly back to a computer anyways


wildta,

you can't copy mp3s directly onto minidisc, sony insists they be recompressed into attrac. optimal size/quality is at about 130kbs attrac which is about 2 hours only per disc. recompressing compressed audio = ick. if you want to preserve your 192kbs/256kbs or vbr mp3s at near full quality you'd then need to use 1x capacity minidisc which isn't muhc more then an hour


basically think of it as digital cassette, because thats about the functionality sony is limiting it to

 

[randomlinh]

well, to the majority of the public, the recompression won't be all that noticable. BUT, that's not where sony's problem lies.. have you used the software? Blah.. don't get me started. I just happen to really like MD.. so i'll deal with it.. but if they are trying to get customers.. they aren't doing a good job.

 

[megatron]

This unit DOES NOT have a mic input, just check out the specs from this site (minidisco.com). It only has a line in which is digital and analog. It is not the "plug in power" for a mic(thanks douggie) By the way, Minidisco.com does have the gold unit available as well for the same price of $149.95. Not sure how much shipping costs though....time to get rid of my old Aiwa MD Recorder import!

 

[LiQiCE]

Couple of notes on these new NetMD players. One, I haven't used them yet, so don't assume everything I say holds true for these newer units.

The Sharp review I've read of their NetMD player was less than spectacular. It sounds like the Sony unit (That being the NZ1 not the cheaper MZ-N505) is better overall with the Sharp winning out for live recordings. I've used one of Sharp's older non-MDLP units and I really preferred its menuing system and overall sound (bass is much more pronounced and overall better sound than the Sony MZ-R900, also the amp on the Sharp portable was stronger than the amp for the Sony MZ-R900). From what I've read on the Sharp NetMD unit, the same holds true still. The Sharp's major drawback is it can only record in 1x at standard MD, 8x at LP2, and 16x at LP4 where as the Sony claims to be able to do 4x at standard MD (dont know if this is really accurate according to reviews I've read); 16x at LP2, and 32x at LP4.

Now personally I'm no audiophile, and I don't own spectacular headphones or anything (my best set of headphones is the $80 Sony MDR-E888LP)... But I've recorded audio from a CD onto an MD at LP2 and the quality is very very good. I'm sure if I listened carefully I could tell the difference between the source and the LP2 recording, but when I'm on the go (and I'm guessing thats what most of you guys use your portable players for) I can't hear the slightest difference between LP2 and the original CD source. LP4 is noticeably worse, but LP2 is pretty good. And being able to hold 160 minutes of audio on 1 disc, roughly 2.5 hours is pretty damned good if you ask me. Especially when you consider that you can easily hold 4 MDs in your pocket or even more if you carry around a backpack like I do. Don't assume that 132Kbps MD is going to sound almost like a 128Kbps MP3. ATRAC3 is a completely different compression scheme than MP3 and just like Microsoft claims a 64Kbps WMP file can sound as good as a 128Kbps MP3 file ... I believe a 132Kbps ATRAC3 recording can and DOES sound a lot better than MP3 at 128Kbps or even MP3 at 192Kbps for certain recordings. This is from my personal tests using a Sony MZ-R900 and a CD source (all digital, no analog recording). I have nothing against MP3 though, I have tons of my CDs encoded in MP3 on my computer and on CD for my MP3-CD player in the car. But the NetMD solution is really nice if you want a small footprint removable media-type player/recorder. For college students on the go, this is especially nice since you can easily fit the MD player in your pocket and a couple of discs. Just trying to help remove some of the confusion for anyone who is thinking of buying a NetMD unit and thinking it may sound crappy at "only" 132Kbps...

Anyways, can't wait to see some 2nd generation NetMD units. If Sharp can produce a good unit, I may just have to jump on the NetMD bandwagon

 

[Milkyman]

The problem with netMD is Sony's DRM system where you have to "check in " your songs. According to a review at www.minidisc.org songs you transfer onto a disk via netMD interface cannot be modified ie, track marks, deleting, WITHOUT the desktop software. The earlier post about the Type-R thing is referring to higher quality recording system that are in these new units that used to only be available in their MD decks.

 

[yogurt]

A lot of people think of MD in terms of MP3; in my opinion, that's a mistake. An MP3 player works well with my MP3 files; will an MD player work well with my MP3 files? That's the wrong question; it should be more along the lines of... An MP3 player works well with my audio/songs; will an MD player work well with my audio/songs? After all, what we really care about is the audio/song, not the fact that it is encoded as an MP3 or ATRAC or ...

For example, Wildta asked how many MP3s fit on a minidisc. This suggests that the storage capacity of a minidisc is measured in terms of bytes. Minidiscs are actually marketed with the storage capacity measured in time units - the two most common (possibly the only ones) being the 74 minute MD and the 80 minute MD. One factor affecting this is how the sound is encoded on the MD - the original ATRAC spec will give you the rated length, but the "newer" (2 year old or so) MDLP technology will encode 2 or 4 times as much sound on the same disc - quoting minidisco.com,


<< LP2 will record twice as much audio (i.e. 148 minutes on a 74 minute disc and 160 minutes on an 80 minute disc); LP4 will record four times as much audio (i.e. 296 minutes on a 74 minute disc 320 minutes on an 80 minute disc. >>



Edit: it turns out that the storage capacity of an MD can be stated in bytes (roughly 160 MBytes, minidisc.org FAQ). Note that this doesn't help to answer Wildta's question, though; we cannot assume that the size of an MP3 encoding and an ATRAC encoding will be comparable. Similarly, we cannot assume that the quality of an MP3 encoding and an ATRAC encoding will be similar. Some of you take this to mean that ATRAC is much worse; it is interesting to note that all of those in this forum who have used MD believe it to be high quality, yet those of you who disparage MD seem to have no actual experience with MD.

 

[douggie]

<< This unit DOES have a mic input, just check out the specs from this site (minidisco.com). By the way, Minidisco.com does have the gold unit available as well for the same price of $149.95. Not sure how much shipping costs though....time to get rid of my old Aiwa MD Recorder import! >>



No, it does NOT have mic input. My friend is using one. It only has line in. The N707 does, but it's not available yet.

 

[DongTran]

<< The N707 does, but it's not available yet. >>



N707 is available. Circuit City has em in stock, at least the ones in San Diego and SF do. $229 comes with rechareable battery, charger stand, and a little pleather case...

 

[Nefrodite]

the reason minidisc is measured in "time units" is because sony doesn't want you to use the files for other purposes. They never wanted the files transfered to computers really.. not freely atleast. They wanted to limit minidiscs capabilities to a cassette like level because they were afraid of piracy. its not hard to answer wildta's question, he simply wanted to know how much music would fit. Just use average size songs at average quality

 

[yogurt]

Sony released minidisc to the world in 1993, as a replacement for cassette tapes and to complement CDs (source). In 1993, how was the capacity of tapes and CDs (for the purpose of recording audio) measured? Should Sony have ignored that and chosen a different unit? How many portable audio (think tape Walkman) customers back then stored audio as computer files - heck, how many of them even knew what a byte was?

While I agree that Sony kept the computer related aspects of their new technology hidden from the users, I disagree that they did so because of piracy concerns. Keeping all that hidden meant they didn't scare away any users; as far as the user was concerned the new devices operated very much like the old devices, with all the benefits being "under the hood".

 

[RudeBoie]

I'm currently debating whether to get this or the Rio VoltSP250.
Any votes?

I pefer the size of the MD but like the remote and pure functionailty of the RioVolt (remote, AMFM/etc). And this MD can't record live either.......

 

[SirDante]

I've owned a MD recorder for 6 years. But recently I got the iRiver SlimX and haven't used the MD again. MD is good for live recordings which I don't need.