Sony to end MiniDisc production

I still have one from about 15 odd years ago - not sure if it still works. I'm surprised these things didn't take off in a big(ger) way, especially as the disks are physically protected from damage. This was at a time when mp3 players were coming out with 32MB of storage which was pretty pointless.
 
This was a great product at the time, but Sony screwed it up by not allowing it to play mp3's.

With better insight and management this product would have been a great success, and the iPod might have been stillborn.
 
lomcevak said:
I still have one from about 15 odd years ago - not sure if it still works. I'm surprised these things didn't take off in a big(ger) way, especially as the disks are physically protected from damage. This was at a time when mp3 players were coming out with 32MB of storage which was pretty pointless.
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32MB = at least 32 min of audio, at 128 or even 112 kbps Joint Stereo. That's not really pointless. Creative Nomad 1 had 64MB of storage and USB 1 connectivity, that was over an hour of music. It was however solid state.

Of course you could also use a portable CD player. If you had a 2x or 4x CD burner you could copy CDs onto that.
 
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Jola said:
This was a great product at the time, but Sony screwed it up by not allowing it to play mp3's.

With better insight and management this product would have been a great success, and the iPod might have been stillborn.
Click to expand...

Solid state would beat it regardless. Better management would not help. Besides they needed to copy protect music, as Sony also publishes music.
 
Space_Chief said:
Solid state would beat it regardless. Better management would not help.
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Wrong on both counts.

Solid state was hopelessly small and expensive at that time, it wasn't even an option - doubt that you would have been able to put one song on any flash memory installed in any player. Which is why Apple also did not even look at flash.

The MiniDisks had a capacity of 200MB, a lot for that time.

And, BTW, the only difference between Apple and Sony in terms of success was the management, ie SJ who could make decisions and force them through, and Sony who had competing divisions who would not cooperate.

So it blows my mind that you could say that the management would make no difference, it was all about the management.

Space_Chief said:
Besides they needed to copy protect music, as Sony also publishes music.
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Another management mistake, Sony couldn't see the forest because of all the trees, getting involved in the music business and then banning mp3's from their systems almost bankrupted the company, and they are still suffering for it.
 
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Click to expand...

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Management is relevant but only in a trivial sense, in this scenario. Why? Well management could scuttle any project. Sony's CEO and board could also be caught enjoying enjou kousai with jk's leading to shame and mass resignation. But in the relevant sense, Sony's mini disc format was becoming obsolete by 1998. And it's curious why the rich Japanese public still continued with Mini Discs for so long. After all they were affluent, more so than their Western counterparts. I think it was a cultural, patriotic thing. Also their music was not DRM'ed.

Still solid state is key. By 1998 you could fit 32 minutes of high quality 128kbit stereo music on the entry level Rio and Nomad (Samsung Yepp player). Flash card expansion could mean you could carry even more music with you. By 1999 you had 64MB versions and as USB flash drives came down in price, by 2003/4 we had 256MB and up flash storage sold reasonably cheaply. I mean maybe these were the iPod Touches of the day, but iPod Touches are not exactly unpopular, nowadays, despite their expensive price.

Solid State killed the MD.

Given all else being equal, flash replaced both disc, and harddrive made disk pointless too. When the Nomad Jukebox came out with 6GB of storage in September 2000, there was no need to carry around tons of little discs for those who really needed to have so much music with them.
 
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A friends dad had one - not a portable one, one connected to the hifi - he used to copy his LP records onto Sony minidisc. He said the sound quality was superior to CD Audio. He had a pretty expensive hifi. I couldn't tell the difference though. It still sounded like he was playing an LP record...

It was a niche product for people who had ears which hear stuff most of us miss... People who stuck to vinyl and said CDs were inferior...
 
murray654 said:
A friends dad had one - not a portable one, one connected to the hifi - he used to copy his LP records onto Sony minidisc. He said the sound quality was superior to CD Audio. He had a pretty expensive hifi. I couldn't tell the difference though. It still sounded like he was playing an LP record...

It was a niche product for people who had ears which hear stuff most of us miss... People who stuck to vinyl and said CDs were inferior...
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Sound quality was very good compared to MP3. Still got mine (non portable), but hardly use it these days. Just too lazy to change discs every so often, whereas with MP3s, I can leave my HTPC running whole weekend :)
 
Dan C said:
Sound quality was very good compared to MP3. Still got mine (non portable), but hardly use it these days. Just too lazy to change discs every so often, whereas with MP3s, I can leave my HTPC running whole weekend :)
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ATRAC's original 292 kbit/s bitrate was designed to be close to CD quality acoustically.
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Perhaps. However, ATRAC was still a psycho-acoustic lossy format, like MP3. It's basically a higher bitrate MP3 with hardware support on the MD h/w encoder/decoder side. By 2006 or 2007 flash and HDD based MP3 players could handle FLAC, AAC and 320kbps MP3, and they came with 40GB+ HDDs. Besides, let's be honest, in the type of environments portable MD media was used and using the type of cheap earphones, you were unlikely to hear a difference between 128kbps MP3 and a 292kbps ATRAC file. (Not to mention that the dynamic range of the original CD was usually terrible, as mastering was usually done to make everything sound cooler - i.e. louder with a narrower dynamic range.)

What's the advantage of a non-portable MD system over CD Audio (Red Book)? None, I think. The sound quality of PCM WAV 16bit 44.1KHz will be superior to MD. The disk was smaller, but more expensive. And there was copy protection. And recording on a 2004/5 PC with a good Sound Blaster AWE64 card could get you even 24bit 96KHz DAT quality audio.
 
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Space_Chief, you are talking BS because you are mixing up different generations of products.

You are comparing products with at least five years of technology between them.

The Rio was not even a glint in anybody's eyes when the MD player was already on the market.
 
murray654 said:
A friends dad had one - not a portable one, one connected to the hifi - he used to copy his LP records onto Sony minidisc. He said the sound quality was superior to CD Audio. He had a pretty expensive hifi. I couldn't tell the difference though. It still sounded like he was playing an LP record...
Click to expand...

Of course it sounded the same, it was a recording of an analogue media. ! :wtf:
 
Jola said:
Space_Chief, you are talking BS because you are mixing up different generations of products.

You are comparing products with at least five years of technology between them.

The Rio was not even a glint in anybody's eyes when the MD player was already on the market.
Click to expand...

Of course the MD preceded flash based players. I never said otherwise. I never said that PMPs (Portable Media Players) were competitors for the MD right from its inception. Duh, only a fool would say that, as it's untrue. But they overlapped with the MD for many years, at least from 1998 onwards. And the late 90s/early 2000s MD were still popular especially in Japan.

Irrespective of the management the portable media player replaced the MD. The PMP was the future and it was the thing which made the MD obsolete. Sony could have advertised the heck out of the MD and made recording deals with studios (including own) to sell music in MD format - duh - like in Japan - where MDs were popular - my Japanese friends all had MDs back in 2004/5, when I was already using an iPod or Creative Zen. But ultimately even in ethnocentric Japan, the MD died as every keitai could play MP3s in 320kbps which sounded as good and having many GBs of flash storage meant you did not need an MD player and have to carry around cartridges with you.

No matter what Sony could have done, the PMP would have killed the MD, even in Japan. PMP were so much superior. Same sound quality (for the headphones, environment and music type). Solid state meant 6 seconds gap less playback could not compete. Easy to load music. No DRM. No need to carry heavy discs, and if you want more storage, carry little memory cards, which were much smaller.
 
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Jola said:
Of course it sounded the same, it was a recording of an analogue media. ! :wtf:
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It recorded in ATRAC format, which is a lossy digital format.

MiniDisc was announced by Sony in September 1992 and released that November for sale in Japan and in December for the USA and Europe.[2] The music format was originally based exclusively on ATRAC audio data compression, but the option of linear PCM digital recording was later introduced to attain audio quality comparable to that of a compact disc. MiniDiscs were very popular in Japan but made a limited impact elsewhere.[3]
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LD (Laser Disc) was an analog format.
 
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