Minidiscs use ATRAC compression. MP3 players are in every way superior nowadays, except maybe recording. Because people might reuse their existing UMD discs (gasp!) instead of buying entirely new discs from Sony!
Sony has quite a graveyard of failed proprietary formats: Betamax, Memory Stick, UMD, Minidisc (yes, it was relatively popular in recording use, but the fact is it was meant to be a commercial format as well, and by that criteria there's no other classification for it other than utter failure), and you can pretty much add Vita memory cards to that list as well. Is Blu-Ray the only successful format they've ever had?
They developed the CD (together with Philips), one of the most successful formats to this day, to be fair.
There actually is compression, but Sony has always claimed it was indiscernable. Frequencies too high or too low for human ears. Most hand held devices handle WAV or even lossless compressions though. So yeah, these were made obsolete about 10 years ago. For you collectors, if you want something really obscure, try to get the MD Deck that interfaced to your PC. I think they were even used for data storage. I think the problem with Minidisc in general, is that it is something that could and did work really well for Japan, but not so much the rest of the world. Japan's wonky laws on renting music (and crazy prices for CDs) basically ushered in an easy but high quality recordable format. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, you need to find/borrow a digital source to get the best out of the recording, and you couldn't do that at Cockbuster video. Add in the cost in the US (very high compared to Japan) and you have a one-region winner. Just my take... but it happens to be right.
In it's day Japan was in MiniDisc madness. Mini Disc as a recordable format was EVERYWHERE!!! There was no escape. The crazy thing was that not many portable Mini Disc recorders were made and out of those that were, Sharp easily ruled. However there were that many styles and colours of standard portable Mini Disc players that it was impossible to keep track of them. Everyone made them. They truly were the mid 90's replacement of tape in Japan. Every home stereo system had Mini Disc, car stereos had Mini Disc, your beatbox had Mini Disc. Mini Disc was a wonderful invention and the only true great Sony ever had IMO.
It would be neat in a retro kind of way but with MP3 players now it's a bit of an inconvenience. I have a 32gb iPod 3rd Gen in my car connected to the monitor and stereo for all my entertainment needs. The CD part of the stereo never gets used anymore. There's just no call for it.
Vastly superior to tape though. I am a little sad it didn't catch on in the west, it was a good format.
late 90s early 2000s they were mildly popular, but expensive and overshadowed as cassette walkmans were cheaper and still in use, cd walkmans were plentiful and convenient and of course mp3 players both cd and solid state // memory card which were again hella handy
I remember an old post, where I mentioned the possibilities of an MD, and what not. But it seems to me, I can not find that post. But the MD is/was a great format.
i think it was possible to record loseless on MD... it was one of the reasons i was iterested in it as a recording rig. this unless i'm completely mis-remembering
I remember the only way to get really decent quality was to record via Optical cable, 3.5mm just didn't cut it. I was blessed with a HIFI that had both optical in/out as well as a deck. I swear it was minidiscs that turned me into an Audiophile. My first player was a Mzn707 which at the time was the worlds thinnest and lightest player/recorded. Then when the drive died I switched to a NetMD player which was great but the SonicStage software was a nightmare with its check in and check out system. All good fun but I can see why they've gone by the wayside now. I may pick up another player one day just for the novelty of it. The discs are sexy and it's satisfying clunking them into the device before hitting play. The days of tactile feedback from electronics are long gone.
I was so happy the Playstation2 had an optical out I love a shoe box full of MiniDiscs, browsing through them, selecting a mix tape a friend gave you, with some cool tags scribbled on the label with a pencil, shoving that in your player, hear a faint humming as the motor speeds up, and then listening to quality music.
Dunno, CD-Rs got pretty cheap in the early 2000s when MD became something people would realistically consider buying. Of course, when it came to listening to music instead of recording it, it was a pretty damn simple choice for most people: CD players that could play MP3s.
Ah yes I forgot the mix tapes. I only knew one other person at school who used minidiscs. We both discovered a lot of new music by trading recordings.
