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The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

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Re: The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

#61

Post by imperistan »

gertrunde wrote: post #8
LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

They say history is written by the winners, but when it comes to technology, history is written by Americans. MiniDisc was a huge success for Sony, and was the winner of the tape-replacement format war in virtually every country - except the USA. It was so successful that Sony is still making blank MiniDiscs today. (Though they are not sold there, Americans can type MDW80T into eBay if they'd like some brand-new Mini…

It was heavily used in radio as well, almost ubiquitous for recording outside interviews etc for later broadcast.

True. I’m Dutch and have encountered mini discs only in my radio work in the early 2000’s

Re: The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

#62

Post by JKCalhoun »

kiksy wrote: post #38
ragingrobot wrote: post #15

I still have several portable MD players I bought new in the early 2000s. At the time, even on high spec PCs, the software was slow as hell to convert music to their proprietary format. MP3 wasn't speedy, but it wasn't nearly as slow as converting to ATRAC. I remember it taking on the order of hours to copy a CD to MD. The quality was better than MP3 so it was worth it in the end, but an annoyance nonetheless, and pr…

One of my friends had a later NETMD and I remember that only taking seconds to convert and copy MP3s to disk. The software was horrible though.

If you have a Net MD player today, head over to this much nicer Web front-end for ripping your mp3's to MiniDisc:

https://stefano.brilli.me/webminidisc/

Re: The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

#63

Post by JKCalhoun »

thom wrote: post #19

During the brief period of my youth that I was in a band, we recorded on MiniDisc. Being able to do 4-track digital recordings was pretty cool, in a way I didn't really appreciate back then beyond rewinding being less of a hassle.

Wait, there existed a 4-track MiniDisc recorder? That sounds awesome.

Re: The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

#64

Post by [deleted] »

bennyp101 wrote: post #17

I still have mine in the attic (lives in my cable/bits box that has moved with me for 20 years ..) I'll try and dig it out later, see what I was listening to then! It served me well during my GCSE's! But when the iPod Nano came out, and I could fit a load of songs on it, and physically fit it in the 'watch' pocket of my jeans - the minidisc went in the box and never came out.

[deleted]

Re: The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

#66

Post by jagger27 »

chungy wrote: post #6
summm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony did this to themselves multiple times. Because they always had done other division they wanted to not cannibalize, or some Not-Invemted-Here. E.g them too long using memory stick instead of sd cards.

Quite honestly I don't think SD was even a big thing yet. I remember clearly complaints about Sony not just using CompactFlash, in contrast.

CF versus MemoryStick seems like a weird comparison. Sony was big on miniaturization back then and CF would have been a complete non-starter.

Re: The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

#67

Post by TacticalCoder »

trollied wrote: post #65

Sony really messed up by not also targetting MD as a floppy drive replacement.

This... I was an early MD adopter for music and I remember trying to find info as to how to use these for data but it wasn't possible. Funnily enough I totally forgot how I would record them: I know I'd transfer my songs from CDs to minidiscs, but I forgot how.

At approximately the same time, on my Mac, I was using the Iomega ZIP drives, ranging from 100 to 250 MB if my memory serves me correctly. These always felt heavy and bulky compared to the minidiscs.

The form factor of the MD was really cool and kinda still is.

Re: The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

#68

Post by ghaff »

nradov wrote: post #57
ghaff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony has to be a case study in something. They had pretty much the Apple stores of the day (though not at nearly the same scale). You'd browse the one at the Metreon in SF to see the cool consumer electronics (as well as some pretty nice laptops for the time). Now? They're pretty much one of the many more or less interchangeable electronics manufacturers. Many categories of which where Sony was a premium (mainstream)…

Sony is a case study in the consequences of focusing on individual hit hardware products rather than sustainable, adaptable software platforms.

That's almost certainly part of it. The Japanese electronics (and camera) makers have always been pretty bad at software--at least above the firmware level. That didn't used to matter so much but now so much about software and ecosystems (or platforms as you put it).

Re: The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format (2020)

#69

Post by TacticalCoder »

salamandersauce wrote: post #48
LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

They say history is written by the winners, but when it comes to technology, history is written by Americans. MiniDisc was a huge success for Sony, and was the winner of the tape-replacement format war in virtually every country - except the USA. It was so successful that Sony is still making blank MiniDiscs today. (Though they are not sold there, Americans can type MDW80T into eBay if they'd like some brand-new Mini…

Not everywhere. UK was the second best selling region after Japan. And while you can still buy new blank MDs, you can still buy new tape and tape decks too. They all suck but you can. In Canada I never saw one outside a store, never saw a prerecorded MD album even in a store. I knew a lot of people who had portable CD players before MP3 players took off.

Indeed. I was in Belgium and was a MD user but they weren't that big in Belgium. France neither IIRC. I was into it because I had family in Japan bringing me the goodies on every visit (blank discs, portable players, etc.).
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