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Topic: Minidisc - should I get one? (Read 5734 times) previous topic - next topic
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Minidisc - should I get one?

I wanna buy a good portable audio player, and I can't make up my mind between MiniDisc or CD walkman with mp3 capabilites (not intrested in MP3 players)...
can any1 provide a link where MD's are discussed and analayzed or maybe compared 2 other portable audio players....
and of course any suggestions from u guys r welcome 
...

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #1
A while back, I was watching this program.  It was talking about the biggest flops in the IT world.  Amongst the biggest flops was the MiniDisc !!!

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #2
i'd buy an iriver portable cd player which can play mp3s at the moment and will play ogg vorbis files in the future.

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #3
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i'd buy an iriver portable cd player which can play mp3s at the moment and will play ogg vorbis files in the future.

@ Xenion

Is that true for all iRiver portable cd players?

Does iRiver make a 8cm cd version?

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #4
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Is that true for all iRiver portable cd players?

Does iRiver make a 8cm cd version?

Odds are (and remember to take this with the requisite grain of salt!) that at least most of the iRiver CD players will soon be OGG Vorbis compatible, but for safety's sake I would recommend at least an iMP-250. The iMP-350 and higher (SlimX) line should easily be able to handle this, but we won't know the lower limits of compatibility until either iRiver or Xiph are willing/able to explain which board was used for Monty's testing, and whether it was for an older, newer or future model.

  iRiver does not make an 8cm CD player - yet. About nine months ago there was talk of their doing so, so the idea may still be alive... but it has not yet been marketed.

    - M.

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #5
I think that CD walkmans with mp3 capabilites are better than MD (considering that most of them can support OGG files). Using 8 cm discs players the dimensions are about the same of a MD and the quality of the sound is very good.
Il valore di un uomo, per la comunità in cui vive, dipende anzitutto dalla misura in cui i suoi sentimenti, i suoi pensieri e le sue azioni contribuiscono allo sviluppo dell'esistenza degli altri individui.

A. Einstein in "Come io vedo il mondo"

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #6
i have a net-md player and i am satisfied with it...if i transfer ogg -> MD i have to decode ogg files first but that doesn't matter to me

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #7
MD is great, especially if you have a net MD enabled one, although i dont, i have 2 soundcards so i can record MD from one soundcard (via optical out and foobar kernel streaming) while doing other things with the other soundcard.

the quality of the SP mode is good for all the uses i use the MD for (running, in car use, walking through noisy cities, etc) and really even when listening closely i dont hear many artifacts, of course i have a Sharp MD which reportedly uses a different DSP than sony.

anyhow, its also nice to move, re-arrange, and delete tracks with random access, and record a track at a time easily... also it can record lectures or concerts given the proper mic.

All in all i suggest it a lot.

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #8
I love my MD, and my housemates love theirs.
The portable recording is nice, and the cheap media (though expensive compared to writable CDs) is nice.
happiness comes in brown paper bags.

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #9
Yes, spase, all those features you mentioned can not be done with a portable mp3 cd player.

Actually, if Sony and co. would just ditch ATRAC for OGG or something superior, the MD format would be perfect.

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #10
One thing you should be aware of if you go for a netMD is that the interface software supplied by sony is pretty appalling - and there are no alternatives. It implements some kind of copy limiting to 3 copies of each song, but this is quite easily circumvented. Also, it is not possible to upload songs from a mindisc via your computer - so you couldn't use them as a backup, or to transfer personal recordings. Its been disabled in the hardware, thus is impossible to get around. Seems Sony have removed an useful feature in their efforts to stop piracy.

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #11
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Actually, if Sony and co. would just ditch ATRAC for OGG or something superior, the MD format would be perfect.

Keep in mind that MD devices must be able to encode in real time. For that reason, a more efficient format might not be an option - it would require stronger hardware, which would make devices more expensive, not to mention compatibility issues.

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #12
My experience with MD -

I faced this very same question last November (2002) and went for a NetMD minidisc. The overall combination of sound quality, minute size, convenience for transferring songs, long battery life and the ability to record on the road made my decision clear. The downsides have been that everything you record on it ultimately must be in ATRAC (so from mp3, mpc, ogg you are always transcoding), the Sony software is a bit buggy and it keeps track of how many time you can transfer a song before you must re-encode to ATRAC again. After 3 times you must get the original CD and encode it again.

I have a Sony MZ-N1. The whole unit is approx the size of about three MDs in thickness, including the battery, which lasts me for about 35 hours of playback from a 3 hour charge, incredibly convenient. Of the three recording modes, SP (292 kbit) is excellent, but I use mainly LP2 (132 kbit) to get 160 minutes of playback per disk, and the quality is still very good for everyday listening. If I listen very carefully through good headphones, I can pick the odd artifact, but not in real world listening environments that portables are normally used in. The LP4 (66 kbit) is woeful (the music sounds very watery and fragile) and while some use it to cram 4 hours of music in, I stick to LP2 and carry an extra disc. If you use the Sony software it allows you to transfer in SP mode over the USB port, but the quality is actually LP2, so if you want to only use SP, you must record in realtime, which is another reason why I don't use it.

On the software front, there are alternatives to the Sony stuff... There is a sweet freeware program called m3u2sb, which you drag your mp3s and oggs onto, set up your play list, and it then automatically decodes your tunes into WAVs, mounts the music as virtual CD's using either Nero or Daemon Tools, and then lets you use one of Sony's earlier simple programs (without transfer logging!) to record these at 32x (with my MD) onto disc, complete with the tags transferred as titles.

I keep my CDs archived as high quality MP3s (aps and ape), and by going this way, I can record disks whenever I like, without having to get around Sony's copy protection schemes, and have the benefit of high quality MP3s for other DVD players, PC use, etc. I'm just waiting now for the author of this beaut utility to include MPCs, and everything will be sweet.

At the end of the day, you need to determine what you must have in a portable, and get what meets them all best. If you wish to record digitally in the field away from the PC, have a small form factor, long battery life and high speed transfers from your PC, a NetMD capable MD is a great option. If you must have native MP3/Ogg directly on the device or the idea of transcoding freaks you out, you probably need to think CD-MP3 or some other type of device.

I hope this helps.

Den.

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #13
i'd get the Panasonic discman... i was with this chick who was shopping for a discman, and we found one that played CDs AND MP3s... not only that, but 32 to 320kbps MP3s! and as for quality? i'd trust Panasonic over any other mainstream brand out there (especially at $50)... i have a Panasonic from 97 or 98 that's still kicking strong!

just make sure it's Made in Japan  hehe 


oh, and as for AAC/OGG in portables? i'd give it a year or so... =\ they still need to mature a bit

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #14
If you live in Norther Europe places like Great Britan or France a Mini-Disc system may be a semi viable option. They are one of the very few places MD caught on and still exists. Outside of them don't hold your breath or impair yourself. If you live state side finding MD equipment is not only hard. It is near impossible!!! If you don't need it to record on the road or some such get an MP3-CD playe. An I-river, TDK MOJO, or one of the cheap panasonic ones. MP3 especially Lame is a far superior codec to MP3 IMO,


Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #16
aniv3: just do a search on the word "ATRAC".


Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #18
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My experience with MD -
[...]
I hope this helps.

Den.

Great. I would like to link to your posting from the Audiocoding.com Wiki page about Minidisc and ATRAC, if you don't mind. Or maybe even better quote the whole thing?
ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen
BLUEZZ BASTARDZZ - "That lil' ol' ZZ Top cover band from Hamburg..."
INDIGO ROCKS - "Down home rockin' blues. Tasty as strudel."

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #19
Quote
can any1 provide a link where MD's are discussed and analayzed or maybe compared 2 other portable audio players....

There's an excellent site about MiniDiscs on the web:

http://www.minidisc.org/

Read their FAQ and use the search function, e.g. for "Realaudio", then you'll also find listening tests including other compression formats.

Quote
and of course any suggestions from u guys r welcome 


Besides all the information that you've already got in this thread, I'd also like to point you to the Philips Expanium portables, because they are able to play either AAC or mp3PRO files from 12cm or 8cm CDs as well as normal MP3 and uncompressed audio too, of course. They cannot record anything on-the-fly, so for that purpose you would have to choose either MD or some harddisk based portables.
ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen
BLUEZZ BASTARDZZ - "That lil' ol' ZZ Top cover band from Hamburg..."
INDIGO ROCKS - "Down home rockin' blues. Tasty as strudel."

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #20
Quote
Quote
oh, and as for AAC/OGG in portables? i'd give it a year or so... =\ they still need to mature a bit

??

Yeah, an year ago. :-P

We have portable AAC players since 2001.
http://www.audiocoding.com/wiki/index.php?...MP3%2FAAC%2FOgg

Philips? RIO (who makes them, anyways?) and few others (cd media based players)? that's hardly mature IMO =( if Panasonic does MP3 on a $50 player that's when you KNOW something's mature. i'm sure Philips may be fine, but all my friends buy Sony/Audiophase/other shitty non-made-in-Japan CD Players that break within the year. hell, i had a Sony that lasted 2 months, and a Philips CDRW that broke within 2/3rds of a year. My Panasonic (regular discman), OTOH has been beat and battered since 97 or 98 and is still running just fine. call me a bit overly wary of certain brands, but a novice buyer like me is turned off by being burned with poor past performances

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #21
thx 4 all the info and suggestions... It seems 2 me that a cd-mp3 player is the right choice 4 me...
in terms of the time u can cram on one cd - I think that cds r better - it seems that ATRAC in LP4 will result in a substantial loss of quality...
I really don't care about recording on-the the fly or the order of the songs... that's not a factor...

Unfortunately where I live I cannot get a TDK or Iriver cd-walkman, and besides I have about a 150$ credit in the local  Sony store - so I think I'll go with one of Sony's CD Walkman with mp3 capabilites...
can any1 tell me his opinion bout them?

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #22
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Philips? RIO (who makes them, anyways?) and few others (cd media based players)? that's hardly mature IMO =( if Panasonic does MP3 on a $50 player that's when you KNOW something's mature.

Hummm... I personally disagree that maturity depends on brands. But it's your opinion...

And I never heard from someone having problem with his Expanium because it's fragile or something.

Besides, just because you had ONE good experience with Panasonic doesn't mean they are always good. Same thing goes for your bad experiences with Philips and Sony.

Edit: BTW: Philips is made by... hrm... Philips.
(I.E: AFAIK, it's manufactured by themselves, not some OEM third party)

Minidisc - should I get one?

Reply #23
MP3 player, of course, is absolutly a better choice over MD. MP3 is an open standard which let many companies to manufacture this type of product and thus price is competitive. Also, many mp3 players can support more features and formats such as AAC in the future by upgrading the firmwares.

Moreover, mp3 players can be found easily around our environment: many new hi-fis now support mp3 playback; PC cannot play MD directly while it can play MP3 with many choices of free players. Thus, while mp3 gives u so great convenience, mp3 portable player should be ur choice.