Topic: Mini-Disc with TEETH

[Nick's Picks]

http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/4270

interesting...
new discs, 1gig
straight PCM...you got it!
talk about stealthy for 16bit , yowza.

that 1gig is sort of scary..but it could be done.

[Cooker]

when you said straight PCM, what did you mean? uncompressed? i got the impression it still uses ATRAC3.

[Nick in Edinboro]

Definately a step in the right direction, have to wait and see when more details are released.  I like the backward compatibility as well.

Hi-MD Walkman recorders incorporate the ATRAC3plus™ codec. The ATRAC3plus format is a high-quality audio compression technology that Sony developed to effectively reduce the size of audio files while preserving more of the sound quality.

Hi-MD discs are expected to cost about $7 each when they become available in April.

[Nick in Edinboro]

I also dunno if it's recording in WAV..  Sounds more like you could download a wav to it via USB but recording still utilizing that ATRAC.. again, more then a press release later down the line will probably explain it all

[Nick's Picks]

Yea... I guess I spoke too soon.
It says you can transfer .wav files to the MD, but I guess it doesn't say you can record straight .wav.

d'oh!
its early..not enough coffee in me.

[Nick in Edinboro]

No worries  I'm chuggin' some java right along with you...!

Since I'm not familiar with MD, is ATRAC3 new for the MD-HD or is that what is presently being used in MD?  I know they're algorithm has gotten significantly better over time, so perhaps if it is yet another revision of ATRAC it too will make better sounding tapes then before regardless if it is compressed or not.

[Nick's Picks]

ATRAC3 is what is used...this is yet a new version.

I still think it sounds good...and for years, I could swear it was as good as DAT..and it is, ... if your stereo sucks...as mind did back then.

Still...all dolby 5.1 is done in ATRAC.  Remember that when you are listening to the closing of Winteland and think its the greatest thing since butter in a tub.
though, that was done under tightly controlled conditions and not some schmuck w/an MD deck recording the master reels.

[George]

Yeah, if they employ a new step up from Type S Atrac (Atrac3=MDLP), this can be killer.  With SP you can get like 7 hrs 55 mins of recording time on one disc...if it employs SP recording.

[Andi]

will the new MD disc be playable/recordable in the older players or would you have upgrade equipment to get the higher capacity

[marc0789]

md = crap, crap, crappity crap.  

[F.O.Bean]

md = crap, crap, crappity crap.  

i like the phlow of that,a crap, crap crappity crap, crap, crap, crappy doo!!!

soundz like rappers delight(in my head)

[thoman8r]

Unless these can indeed record to wav (and I saw no indication in the article that they could), I don't see these as anything great.  At a price point of $200, even the entry level model is only slightly less than a used Sony D8 or a JB3.  And the tapes are more than 2x as much as a DDS 90m.

[dklein]

I think the only thing that's going on is they're gearing up to compete with hard drive based units like the iPod, Archos, Jukeboxes, iRiver etc.

Previously, even if you dropped to quality to the lowest level, a mini disc could only hold a little more than 5 hours of music.  

larger disc capacity + better compression = 45 hours

Sony seems to have to much invested in content to do anything that makes high quality recording and transfer easy at the consumer level.

[RJPass]

http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/4270

Dude, this sounds kick ass, and i love it, as an MD taper, im buying this fucker.  Lets just hope this is as good or better than the JB3, or even the DAT, and we can finally get some respect as tapers from the DAT heads  =P

[dklein]

Still...all dolby 5.1 is done in ATRAC.  Remember that when you are listening to the closing of Winteland and think its the greatest thing since butter in a tub.

I think you may be confusing AAC with ATRAC.  Both are lossy but AAC was designed to be a successor to mp3 and is widely used for the audio in DVDs.

[thoman8r]

I think the only thing that's going on is they're gearing up to compete with hard drive based units like the iPod, Archos, Jukeboxes, iRiver etc.

I agree that's what they're trying to do, but I don't really see consumers finding this a viable alternative.  A $200 base price for a 1 gig player (since it comes with a disk already) is way too high.  If you think about it logically, you'd need to be 9 more disks at 7 bucks a popl to have the same storage capacity as the 10 gig ipod.  That's $263 compared to the much nicer $299 iPod.  Plus it's more expensive than the Dell 10 gig ($249) and a few of the other ones you mention.  Maybe it's just me but I don't see anybody - either the general public or tapers - buying these things.

Dave

[DaryanLenz]

I certainly respect what you are saying, but how is this a viable alternative to a jb3?  About the same number of recording hours, but without removeable media, and the biggest kicker, no atrac.  I don't care what they say about how good it will sound, compression is compression and certainly degrades signal performance and fidelity.  I wonder why they don't just come up with a flac encoding technology or something, and ditch the atrac stuff all together.  

D

[mattb]

Unless these can indeed record to wav (and I saw no indication in the article that they could), I don't see these as anything great.[/quite]

From minidisc.org:

Common to Hi-MD recorders:
Records to Hi-MD (1GB) blanks and normal MD blanks reformatted to 300MB.
Provides PC uploading of mic-recorded audio.
Functions as USB data drive (FAT format filesystem).
Linear PCM and ATRAC3plus recording at 132, 105, 66, 64, or 48kbps.
Included software: SonicStage 2.0 and SimpleBurner

So that makes it look like you can record to uncompressed wav. Pretty cool IMO. As far as price is concerned it's pretty spendy to start but like everything else it will get cheaper. They are also reporting that it will support USB uploading of mic recorded material. What I don't know is will it hold you to using the (most likely crappy) Sony mic input, or can you also make line-in recordings to wav and upload those too.
I see some potential here. It might be a fantastic stealth setup, and their battery technology is really pretty amazing when you comapre it to DAT. You get SLA-like performance without hauling that brick around.
I wouldn't write it off just yet. I kind of like MD for a playback medium because it's so nice and small, cheap, and gets great battery life. I am glad I don't use it to record anymore!

Matt

[mattb]

Whoops - didn't to close that quote. Quote/quite, potato potahtoh...

[dklein]

ahhh yes, but Sony has a long history of throwing good money after bad and trying to make their proprietary format into the format

hmm...let's see...off the top of my head:

dead - Beta, Digital Compact Cassette
dying - Digital 8, MicroMV (both video formats)
will die - SACD, MD

I'm sure there are others.  Not to say that Sony isn't a great innovator - they made some fantastic contributions - PCM, CD, s/pdif are most relevant to this group.  

I think the CD format gave them a taste for what happens when YOU come up with the adopted format.  Royalties like crazy.  It's just that they don't know when to give up!

[F.O.Bean]

or think about us and make a hd recorder

fuckin waste of $$ in my eyes

[F.O.Bean]

ahhh yes, but Sony has a long history of throwing good money after bad and trying to make their proprietary format into the format

hmm...let's see...off the top of my head:

dead - Beta, Digital Compact Cassette
dying - Digital 8, MicroMV (both video formats)
will die - SACD, MD

I'm sure there are others.  Not to say that Sony isn't a great innovator - they made some fantastic contributions - PCM, CD, s/pdif are most relevant to this group.  

I think the CD format gave them a taste for what happens when YOU come up with the adopted format.  Royalties like crazy.  It's just that they don't know when to give up!

well put

[thoman8r]

Unless these can indeed record to wav (and I saw no indication in the article that they could), I don't see these as anything great.[/quite]

From minidisc.org:

Common to Hi-MD recorders:
Records to Hi-MD (1GB) blanks and normal MD blanks reformatted to 300MB.
Provides PC uploading of mic-recorded audio.
Functions as USB data drive (FAT format filesystem).
Linear PCM and ATRAC3plus recording at 132, 105, 66, 64, or 48kbps.
Included software: SonicStage 2.0 and SimpleBurner

So that makes it look like you can record to uncompressed wav. Pretty cool IMO. As far as price is concerned it's pretty spendy to start but like everything else it will get cheaper. They are also reporting that it will support USB uploading of mic recorded material. What I don't know is will it hold you to using the (most likely crappy) Sony mic input, or can you also make line-in recordings to wav and upload those too.
I see some potential here. It might be a fantastic stealth setup, and their battery technology is really pretty amazing when you comapre it to DAT. You get SLA-like performance without hauling that brick around.
I wouldn't write it off just yet. I kind of like MD for a playback medium because it's so nice and small, cheap, and gets great battery life. I am glad I don't use it to record anymore!

Matt

Ah, good info, +T for hunting it down.  I'm still not sold on it though, a 1 gig disc size means for most shows at least 1 or 2 tape changes still.  I would hope in additional to a line-in their would be an optical-in as well so you could use an outboard pre/adc

[Cooker]

ahhh yes, but Sony has a long history of throwing good money after bad and trying to make their proprietary format into the format

hmm...let's see...off the top of my head:

dead - Beta, Digital Compact Cassette
dying - Digital 8, MicroMV (both video formats)
will die - SACD, MD

I'm sure there are others.  Not to say that Sony isn't a great innovator - they made some fantastic contributions - PCM, CD, s/pdif are most relevant to this group.  

I think the CD format gave them a taste for what happens when YOU come up with the adopted format.  Royalties like crazy.  It's just that they don't know when to give up!

i guess we can add those wacky 3" CD-Rs, Memory Stick, and those new DD CD-Rs to those lists too. But that's always been Sony's MO - jack up prices on TVs so they can balance out the costs of losing the format wars....

[Scuba Jeremy]

As a strong backer of MD, I see this as a step in a good direction. It still employes ATRAC3 (which I think is one of the worst versions of ATRAC, btw), but there's one piece of gold in that entire article:

>> For example, with the new upload function musicians or note-taking students can use the mic-in feature on several of the models to make a self-recording on the device and transfer the content back to the PC. <<

Bingo. We got it fellas - NetMD UPLOAD through the USB!! No more having to buy a seperate home deck and digi soundcard. The larger capacity disc is nice, but the USB upload is the greatest innovation for MD yet.

I'd say that competing with other recording HD or CF based portables makes sense on one level - they're portable. But this talk about total number of songs you can fit on one disc makes little sense to the MD user - when you run out, you can just pop in another disc. Bam, problem solved. And these discs are great, you can't scratch them, they're much smaller than CDRs, and even if you use a little extra compression, they sound pretty good.

Now the only problem here is that for some reason, Sony has always spearheaded the MD product, and then Sharp comes along and perfects it. The only Sony product that I enjoy listening to my MDs on is my in-dash Sony MDX800REC player/recorder. And I never use the MDLP modes for anything I listen to.

Will I buy into this? Probably not. My entire setup is based on the older MD standard, before ATRAC3, so I'm not inclined to buy a portable that will record discs that my home and car decks won't play. But for the newbie, I think this is a fantastic device, and should strongly be considered alongside the JB3 or IRIVER.

On a side note, are these discs going to be the technology that Sony built it's Universal Media Disc (UMD) for the Playstation Portable (PSP)?

[Scuba Jeremy]

 I would hope in additional to a line-in their would be an optical-in as well so you could use an outboard pre/adc

Pretty sure most (if not all) Sony portables have had line/optical in since very early on, I just hope it's not removed in this device.

[Cooker]

Universal Media Disc (UMD) for the Playstation Portable (PSP)?

sounds like 2 more proprietary duds!!!  I think using DVD (and CD) based technology for the existing playstations was one of the smartest moves sony has made to date.

[Scuba Jeremy]

Yeah, but could you imagine trying to play CDs or DVDs on a device the size of a cell phone? A new format needs to be used, or at least improve an old format (like MD....) to fit your needs.

And will the Playstation Portable be a dud? It's not even out yet, but I think it should do better than the most recent high end portable systems. At least with the PSP, you won't have to remove the systems battery to swap games. Alas, nothing will ever top the Sega Nomad.

[thoman8r]

Will I buy into this? Probably not. My entire setup is based on the older MD standard, before ATRAC3, so I'm not inclined to buy a portable that will record discs that my home and car decks won't play. But for the newbie, I think this is a fantastic device, and should strongly be considered alongside the JB3 or IRIVER.

Why would somebody buy this over the jb3 when they are at similar price points?

On a side note, are these discs going to be the technology that Sony built it's Universal Media Disc (UMD) for the Playstation Portable (PSP)?

No, the UMD will be a 1.8 GB optical disc.  You can check out the specs for the PSP at the link below.

http://www.pspinsider.com/hardware/0004.shtml

[Scuba Jeremy]

Much smaller.

[pfife]

It looks like you can transfer your files from it to a PC via USB though, so that's a good improvement over previous model MDs:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3378627.stm

[George]

Quote from thoman8r:

Why would somebody buy this over the jb3 when they are at similar price points?

My response: Simple, the MD units are tiny and have removeable discs, which make it a very viable solution, plus i image the MD units will be somewhat durable compared to the jb3.  

We, as tapers, may not see this new MD format as a viable option, but many people who like to lug some tunes when out and about may love it.  Well, i'm wondering if this new MD format will support higher capacity discs.

[joemango]

Looks good to me, if for no better reason than a way to upload old MD recordings via USB.  It also acts as a USB data drive natively, so you can transfer without the aid of some crap "jukebox" program.

But the biggest kicker is that it records straight PCM (WAV) without any compression as well!  So I guess that would be about 100 minutes per disc at 16 bit 44.1KHz. looks like the MD flippers will have to go to longer shows if they want to keep flipping

If you want to find out more, go to www.minidisc.org and look in the news column on the left.  Looks like they have found the real successor to DAT.

[pfife]

If you want to find out more, go to www.minidisc.org and look in the news column on the left.  Looks like they have found the real successor to DAT.
Looks good to me, if for no better reason than a way to upload old MD recordings via USB.  It also acts as a USB data drive natively, so you can transfer without the aid of some crap "jukebox" program.

But the biggest kicker is that it records straight PCM (WAV) without any compression as well!  So I guess that would be about 100 minutes per disc at 16 bit 44.1KHz. looks like the MD flippers will have to go to longer shows if they want to keep flipping

There are people debating these statements in the open forum area... from what it sounds like, the uncompressed recording is not for sure yet...

[Judderbar]

As a current MD user it looks good, but I'm a bit concerned by the 'mic recorded' part of "Provides PC uploading of mic-recorded audio".  Does that mean that if you've used line-in, or outboard A/D, it'll block an upload?

And for me in the UK, I like the idea of removable media - I got 'caught' (dobbed-in by some do-gooding arseholes) once, with the result that the venue security took all my discs (fortunately only 3), before getting a video camera to take pictures of my gear and me and then kicking me out... I think the law does prevent them from taking the equipment since that would be theft - but I do wonder what would happen if I was using a HD recorder and got caught again - would I have to be able to prove that I had erased everything before they let me go... or would they confiscate the thing and find their own way to clear the data...or just not give it back...

[Sean Gallemore]

ahhh yes, but Sony has a long history of throwing good money after bad and trying to make their proprietary format into the format

hmm...let's see...off the top of my head:

dead - Beta, Digital Compact Cassette
dying - Digital 8, MicroMV (both video formats)
will die - SACD, MD

I'm sure there are others.  Not to say that Sony isn't a great innovator - they made some fantastic contributions - PCM, CD, s/pdif are most relevant to this group.  

I think the CD format gave them a taste for what happens when YOU come up with the adopted format.  Royalties like crazy.  It's just that they don't know when to give up!

i wish the 7pin was on that list

[dklein]

Yeah - I wish a lot of stuff was on that list.  Everything they do has to be different and proprietary.  I needed a cable for a video camera - it's basically a 1/8" connector with audio/video RCAs on the other end.  I get one - only getting mono sound.  Turns out Sony has to take the standard connector that every other manufacturer uses and make the pin length  on the 1/8" plug just a few mm longer so that only THEIR cable will work.

They always go to the extra effort when there are perfectly acceptable, standardized solutions already in place...

[pfife]

ahhh yes, but Sony has a long history of throwing good money after bad and trying to make their proprietary format into the format

hmm...let's see...off the top of my head:

dead - Beta, Digital Compact Cassette
dying - Digital 8, MicroMV (both video formats)
will die - SACD, MD

I'm sure there are others.  Not to say that Sony isn't a great innovator - they made some fantastic contributions - PCM, CD, s/pdif are most relevant to this group.  

I think the CD format gave them a taste for what happens when YOU come up with the adopted format.  Royalties like crazy.  It's just that they don't know when to give up!

i wish the 7pin was on that list

Back in the day, and maybe still, the plug on their AC adapters/cigarrette lighters cords for their discman(s) were some proprietary size as well...


That suckled, but I think it is either extinct, or irrelevant nowadays for most of us...

[BobW]

"Stepping up in the line, the MZ-NHF800 model has an AM/FM/TV/Weather Band tuner remote, making favorite radio and TV programs and on-the-fly editing just a click away"

I still think that they are missing our little market niche.
But wait, I could record that South Park episode during the set break !
Dang ! Not enough battery.

BTW, if this thing DOES record PCM ...1GB = 90 minutes at 16/44.1 .....almost plausable.

If Sony wanted to play with us, they'd have come out with "ATRAC7  lossless   compression."  They simply are making strong marketing decisions to not create a device that could hinder record sales, IMHO. They will specialize in products that mass market consumers will buy and bearly learn how to use.

 

[1st set only]

is atrac only found within the MD player? there is no such thing as a atrac file is there?

[BobW]

is atrac only found within the MD player? there is no such thing as a atrac file is there?

I'd have to open a book, but I recall something about multiple frequency bands and think that that would mean some hardware would need to be involved.

Details  which I'm too bleary to read:
http://www.minidisc.org/aes_atrac.html

[taperkat]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/01/11/sony.minidisc.ap/index.html for more.

i'm already going to get the import when i'm going to Singapore this summer... for fucking sure

[Tim]

I don't care what they say about how good it will sound, compression is compression and certainly degrades signal performance and fidelity.  I wonder why they don't just come up with a flac encoding technology or something, and ditch the atrac stuff all together.  

flac is compression...

[Scuba Jeremy]

Somewhat off the topic, as I am a MiniDisc fanatic myself, I wanted to mention this Japanese concept that I would love to see in America. It was something like a mix between a vending machine and iTunes. You could walk up to this kiosk, put a dollar in or slide your credit card, insert a recordable disc, and buy a song when you're out at the mall or leaving a movie, something like that. You would use a touchtone screen to select your song, and it would download it to your disc. It would never work here, since only about 7% of Americans even use MDs, but the idea struck me as just awesome. When/if I ever travel to Japan, I'll be bring a few blanks around, just in case.

[splumer]

Actually, Beta's not dead. It's still a widely-used pro video format. TV news uses it a lot, but DVCam is supplanting it.

[Sean Gallemore]

the lurker lives no more! j/k

why get one of these when the gemini looks so scrumcious

[Fish Tank Z]

Battery life.

The GMini probably runs 10 hours max. The Hi-MD recorders will be able to do 20 hours on an AA without breaking a sweat.

[Crimson]

As far as stealth goes: rock the hi-md.  my testicular fortitude won't hold dat-gear for an entire TOOL tour

[George]

I don't care what they say about how good it will sound, compression is compression and certainly degrades signal performance and fidelity.  I wonder why they don't just come up with a flac encoding technology or something, and ditch the atrac stuff all together.  

flac is compression...

Lossless compression, that is  

[chase]

When/if I ever travel to Japan, I'll be bring a few blanks around, just in case

when i went to japan 3 years ago, everyone had MDs.  people don't drive everywhere like us lazy americans, so MD is awesome for them since they have to walk/bus/train most places, especially in tokyo.  i also bought a sony MD while i was there for much cheaper.  if you guys could see the electronics district (akihabra) you would literally bust a nut, it's pure insanity.

[Sean Gallemore]

Battery life.

The GMini probably runs 10 hours max. The Hi-MD recorders will be able to do 20 hours on an AA without breaking a sweat.

let me know the next time you are gonna record for 20 hours straight (still have to change discs ) and I'll grant you that point

[zhianosatch]

As far as stealth goes: rock the hi-md.  my testicular fortitude won't hold dat-gear for an entire TOOL tour

time for a work-out regimen!

[joemango]

Fuck Sony and their crap-assed inventions.  Like:

The floppy disk drive
The DAT
The Trinitron TV
The CD
S/Pdif
The Walkman

</sarcasm>

I can't believe you people are poo-pooing the very company that made our hobby POSSIBLE in the first place!!  Give them some slack!  If you don't like MD compression, don't use it.  That doesn't mean other people shouldn't.  If a show was going to go unrecorded and a MD taper showed up with a rig, he is in my book a hero.

I've since eschewed the MD format for a Nomad JB3, but I'll probably buy a Hi-MD to transfer a bunch of my older MD recordings digitally.  Plus that way I have a backup 16/44.1 recorder in a pinch.

[BobW]

Fuck Sony and their crap-assed inventions.  Like:

The floppy disk drive
The DAT
The Trinitron TV
The CD
S/Pdif
The Walkman

</sarcasm>

I can't believe you people are poo-pooing the very company that made our hobby POSSIBLE in the first place!!  Give them some slack!  If you don't like MD compression, don't use it.  That doesn't mean other people shouldn't.  If a show was going to go unrecorded and a MD taper showed up with a rig, he is in my book a hero.

I've since eschewed the MD format for a Nomad JB3, but I'll probably buy a Hi-MD to transfer a bunch of my older MD recordings digitally.  Plus that way I have a backup 16/44.1 recorder in a pinch.

Did Sony invent any of this or just buy the rights and make money from them ?

They also "invented" the Walkman battery door, the analog section of the D7/8, S-link, SCMS, and all of the other things mentioned in earler posts. My 35" Trinitron died 2 years after plunking down $1000 for it, long past it's less than standard 90 day warantee.

And don't miss the Serial Copy Management "feature" that Hi-MD will include.  I love to give data bits of musical information to copy protection schemes that don't apply to my use of a product.

IMHO, Sony's market is not us.
If they called the shots, a taper's section would not exist.
They wanted to market prerecorded DATs with SCMS.
CDs overtook it, plain and simple.
We inadvertently benefited from what they would call "their loss."

Sony is not your Uncle, trust me.
It is a very, very big foreign interest taking US jobs and dollars abroad.

[joemango]

Did Sony invent any of this or just buy the rights and make money from them ?

They also "invented" the Walkman battery door, the analog section of the D7/8, S-link, SCMS, and all of the other things mentioned in earler posts. My 35" Trinitron died 2 years after plunking down $1000 for it, long past it's less than standard 90 day warantee.

And don't miss the Serial Copy Management "feature" that Hi-MD will include.  I love to give data bits of musical information to copy protection schemes that don't apply to my use of a product.

IMHO, Sony's market is not us.
If they called the shots, a taper's section would not exist.
They wanted to market prerecorded DATs with SCMS.
CDs overtook it, plain and simple.
We inadvertently benefited from what they would call "their loss."

Sony is not your Uncle, trust me.
It is a very, very big foreign interest taking US jobs and dollars abroad.

No, but my uncle used to work for sony.    Yes, they invented (developed) quite a lot of the CE toys you use today, or at least made them better.  They also made some that were technically superior, but weren't so popular (Betamax, which came out BEFORE VHS, was a better format than VHS, quality wise).  Some others I didn't mention:

The portable transistor radio
Home video reel-to-reel (my grandpa had one, the CV-2000)
The portable transistor TV
The CCD chip (the "eye" of a camcorder)
The Betacam (the first camcorder)
the 3.5" floppy
The Li-Ion rechargeable battery
The JumboTron

And don't give me that "buy american" crap, either.  You and I both know that if we wanted to keep foreign product out of the tapers' section, there would BE no tapers' section.  Tascam, Sony, Casio, Creative Labs, HHB, Schoeps, DPA, Neumann...  can you think of any American made DAT's or HD recorders that don't cost as much as a CAR? Can you think of ANY, period?

Don't forget that SCMS was a reaction to Congress' pressure on the Consumer Electronics industry to keep people from copying CDs or DATs perfectly over and over again.  They could have just made DAT analog in only, but that would be besides the point of having a DAT int the first place.  Do you remember (or can you?) how LONG we waited for DAT, once they announced they had made prototypes?  YEARS, because of this very issue.  Don't blame Sony for SCMS, blame Jack Valenti and his buddies at the RIAA!!

So my point is, you would not have even heard of DAT unless SCMS was part of it.

The DRM on the Hi-MD is likely to prevent you from ripping a CD to MD (using USB) and then distributing it.  JUST like SCMS.   With SCMS you get to make at least one perfect copy.  So make a backup of your CD.  Big f'in deal.  

The SCMS is one of the features that draws the line between consumer (d7/8) and Pro (da-p1, etc) audio.  Notice the price range difference.  If Sony marketed a Hi-MD without SCMS, it would be a rack mount unit and cost $1000.

Anyway....  My point originally was this:  Sony has made some mistakes.  So have many CE (Consumer Electronics) companies.  But instead of just doing what everyone else is, they consistently come up with new categories of products and create markets for themselves.  Sure, I've had 2 MD car players go south on me.  I've had just as many Pioneer and Alpine units go bad too.  Toys will break.  Including Sony's.

My kit doesn't have any Sony product in it right now.  But there's room.

[BobW]

I actually would probably use an Cuban MD if it was PCM and ran over two hours.  But I wouldn't use an Iraqi MD Recorder  

I definitely think that we're going to have to "agree to disagree" about Sony.
No sir, don't like 'em.

As far as foreign equipment, I have noticed that there isn't much to find with a made in America label. There are differences in how top-level corporate cash gets spent.  I wish we had a better way to know which companies have better US employment, environmental, and US-reinvestment records.

The  SD and Fostex HD recorders cost about as much as my first Volkswagen bug (it was called a Type I back then). I'm not sure if either can be labeled "American-made."  But then again, neither was my VW.
If the HardDrive machines are, then both are about 10% of the price of a typical car today. Granted, still pricey compared to a $250 MD, but it is an 'apples to oranges" comparison.

I guess the bottom line is I do not think that the Hi-MD will be an answer for lossless taping, but there is hope. Somehow ya gotta believe that if Sony wanted to keep a DAT-equivalent product in their inventory, they could have.

[Scuba Jeremy]

Sony seems to do just fine keeping up with the consumer demand. It's not as if Sony does not have any other format for digital playback, but they know that MemoryStick(ha) can't handle long recording time.

One thing to keep in mind is that 90% of the Sony products that would interest us are consumer grade products in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I love my PCM-M1, but the rest of my Sony stuff is just consumer grade gear. And even their consumer stuff isn't bad. I love my in-dash MD recorder. Great for those un-announced radio interviews.

Why does it matter to everyone what newbies use to tape with? Shouldn't we be happy that newbies are taping at all? I've always told newbies that starting on MD is not a bad idea, helps to get used to the idea of setting levels, watching for tape flips, mic positioning, etc. Step up to something else when you're ready, and in the process you find out how great MD is for casual listening.

I'm pretty tough on my media sometimes, and I'll tell you, I haven't scratched an MD yet.

[joemango]

I'm willing to bet that they can stretch their new disc writing technology to larger (data) sized discs.  The DWDD technology looks very cool.  It allows them to pack more data in with the same laser that they currently use.  So who's to say that they won't come out with a 2 GB or more possibly 1.5 GB disc in the future?

I'm more than sure that HD recording is the way to go, long term.  I have a Nomad JB3 that I love.  But my gadget jones has been kicked in by this new MD format, even if for no other reason than using it as a portable data drive.  1 GB is a buttload of data for a form factor like MD.  You could presumably put a whole MPEG4 movie on it, assuming the data transfer rates are good.  It works as a USB storage device so just about any computer that can use one of those (like a PDA, Hmm?) would be able to grab stuff off of it.

Jeez, my bonus is already spent.

[joemango]

Holy shit..  I just realized something...  


Think of this config:

PDAudio in a Toshiba PDA, with a Hi-MD as a data drive.

If the Hi-MD can write at any faster than  562 KBytes/sec (probably) it can handle a 24/96 stream.

1GB=31 minutes at 24/96... shit.  But if the PDA could FLAC on the fly, you could get an hour.

Still, 1 GB= 62 Minutes at 24/48, possibly more with FLAC/SHN.  But I dunno if anyone has a streaming FLAC yet.  (That sounds naughty.)

Just a little diarrhea of the mind.