why didn't the mini-disc take off?

[Koing]

Originally posted by: brxndxn
If Sony didn't have its arrogant head so far up its own ass, the Minidisc would have replaced the floppy long ago.. 168mb ain't too shabby considering how long it's been around. Hell, 168mb in minidisc size would still be halfway useful now.

No wait.. minidisc is only a music format. If it holds music, it can't hold data!

Well MD's can hold 'data' but it was 'slow'.

NetMD let you transfered music via USB to the NetMD machine. BUT the early software and the n00bs out there couldn't get there stuff to work. I stayed away as I was 'sceptical' also and didn't want the hassle. BUT my mate has his system up and running and has had no problems. I still prefer the MD/ NetMD sound to my iPod. More Clean and heavy.

But yeah the MD's not supporting Mp3 natively didn't go down well . BUT the MD's have always worked with ATRAC. It's like sticking divx on to a DVD and getting it to work in a DVD player. IT WON'T WORK as the DVD player works with mpeg2 and not divx natively. So you have to 'convert' it.

But Sony should be selling a mp3 player (natively) in the future and I will get that if it has a decent remote like my MD ones and a battery life that stays when I have the dam thing shut off for a weekend!

<- $2k spent on MD's over the past 6yrs

MZ R30,
MZ R50,
MZ E900

MD over 40+

 

[tami]

i still like my sony wega, so some sony stuff is good enough for me.

as for why i think the sony minidisc didn't take off: it never was a standard for many people. i live in nyc, and everyday i'm on a subway, i see another person with some new gadget or toy. ipods are it today.

at the same time as minidiscs came out (or maybe slightly afterwards), there were 256mb RIOs that were much smaller and displayed ID3 tag listings. that was the cool thing. i prefer to have more songs than fewer -- so i bought a riovolt that could read my 650mb-700mb CD-Rs as soon as it came out.

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock
Proprietary data formats get owned, if they had made it available to others it might have done better

Fvckin' A.

 

[TMPadmin]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock
Proprietary data formats get owned, if they had made it available to others it might have done better

Same mistake as Beta Vs VHS. Beta was superior in all way just didn't have the availablility. MD's could have been the best thing since sliced bread, replace floppy, even replace CD's. I jumped on early - before they were able to play MP3's. I should have known (Sony).

 

Too expensive, slow recording, and not enough storage on a disk when they were in the market.

Recording was the best feature of the minidisk. I used my every week to record my live sets.

 

[knyghtbyte]

MD could never have replaced CD, ATRAC recording quality isnt good enough.....
ok if you listen on a average run of the mill stereo you probably wont notice
but when you got a proper Hi-Fi (as in a few thousand $/£'s worth) then MD sounds compressed and enclosed)

I only use a portable for around 25 mins each day to and from work, im not too worried about the quality as im on a train thats noisy, so i use an MP3 player, MuvoTX 256mb, holds more than enough music at a decent recording level (most tracks 192k if i recorded, or 128k from online) and the elasticated band you get with it fits nicely around my wrist (tried it on my upper arm, so tight i almost fainted from lack of circulation...lol). If i wanted a bigger portable i would get something with 20Gb and put tracks on there at the the highest recording level possible, still get a couple dozen albums on there.



(btw, on the VCR front, the best machine was actually out before the Betamax, it was the Phillips 2000 series........the tapes were double sided, like a normal audio tape, so you got 8 hours of proper full quality recording on it, and the recording quality was absolutely fantastic, of course when in school one day the program the teacher is showing us stops and i say turn the tape over it might be on the other side led to gales of laughter with me not understanding as i had never used any other machine.....hehe)

 

[nakedfrog]

I'm gonna go with price as a main factor. That's the only thing that stopped me from getting one for a long time, and now they're pretty much unnecessary.

 

[geno]

This is never a formula for success: "technically it seems to be a fantastic solution..."

None of Sony's proprietary crap caught on really.

 

[apoppin]

you guys simply DON't GET it.

The minidisc DiD take off . . . . technically it IS a fantastic solution...
:shocked:

. . . . just not in the USA . . . . the technically challenged prefer the INferior MP3 format
:roll:

 

[VTrider]

Originally posted by: SampSon
Too expensive, slow recording, and not enough storage on a disk when they were in the market.

Recording was the best feature of the minidisk. I used my every week to record my live sets.

I still use my Sharp MD 722 for all sorts of digital recording. I do however use an mp3 player now instead for listening on the go.

 

[Koing]

Originally posted by: apoppin
you guys simply DON't GET it.

The minidisc DiD take off . . . . technically it IS a fantastic solution...
:shocked:

. . . . just not in the USA . . . . the technically challenged prefer the INferior MP3 format
:roll:

Ditto.

Very popular in Europe and Asia.

Koing

 

[zerocool1]

Originally posted by: ndee
You can only record 1x(in real time) IIRC.

actually its on the upwards of 32x...there is a minidisc drive that's like $400+ and scsi

 

[overclock]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock
Proprietary data formats get owned, if they had made it available to others it might have done better

Just look at Apple and their market share of the computer world. Something like 5%. IBM licensed their product and look at what the world uses. Too bad IBM doesn't make computers anymore (relatively speaking of course). When you're up you're up. But what goes up must come down.

 

[IHYLN]

it didn't help the fact the player upon release MSRP'd at $699

 

[0roo0roo]

always a step behind. back in the day yes, it was 1x..and analog only recording bs. that was ok before cd burning came around and let us mix with ease and speed. then the proprietary format when mp3 was defacto choice for most... and now.. u can carry around one unit with loads of songs..who wants to carry around an extra pocket full of diskettes. japanese management and sony music f*cked them all the way. the early flash based digital music players were kewl from sony too..cept hobbled by format again. they lost the chance to dominate. their nanny knows best and fear bit just screwed them

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: zerocool1

Originally posted by: ndee
You can only record 1x(in real time) IIRC.

actually its on the upwards of 32x...there is a minidisc drive that's like $400+ and scsi

that came along way too late.. and the 32x speed is for the lower quality i believe.

Originally posted by: apoppin
you guys simply DON't GET it.

The minidisc DiD take off . . . . technically it IS a fantastic solution...
:shocked:

. . . . just not in the USA . . . . the technically challenged prefer the INferior MP3 format
:roll:

eh it was japan that was technically challanged. the pc and net adoption rate lagged behind the us for many years.

 

[dc]

and then they leaped far ahead of us.
/me cries for 100megabit or even gigabit connections.