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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)

#41

Post by yftsui »

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…

Sony was really at its peak during early 2000s, MD was the crown of jewel, single battery supporting that kind of play back time with a spinning disc inside is really impressive. However in terms of market share, it is still behind tape and CD even in Asia. New albums released directly in MD is super rare, most of the time you need to have a CD, buy the CD version then record it to an empty MD. When I was a kid, only “rich kids” had a MD and a CD, majority were just using CD or even tape. Cheap MP3s started coming out around 2000 but never took off, then iPod and its mimics basically killed Tape, CD and MD all together.

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

#42

Post by vosper »

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…

> MiniDisc was a huge success for Sony, and was the winner of the tape-replacement format war in virtually every country - except the USA.

No, it wasn’t. Walkman, discman, ipod. _That’s_ how it went virtually everywhere

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

#43

Post by yftsui »

megablast wrote: post #39
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…

Pfft. Where is this true outside of Japan?? And don’t messed this up themselves by not allowing you to do a digital copy from md devices, since they’d just bought a music studio. Also, rather than use mp3 like everyone else, they created there own format.

In east Asia, it is true that it holds the high end Walkman market till at least 2003. People see MP3s as cheap plastic toys until iPod and iRiver took off.

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

#44

Post by yftsui »

vosper wrote: post #42
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…

> MiniDisc was a huge success for Sony, and was the winner of the tape-replacement format war in virtually every country - except the USA. No, it wasn’t. Walkman, discman, ipod. _That’s_ how it went virtually everywhere

Sony didn’t even care about iPod or MP3 for a few years after 2001, as it didn’t hit its bottom line, release of NW-E400 was the turning point, prior to that it is mostly MiniDisc.

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

#45

Post by lookalike74 »

arpa wrote: post #3

What really killed this format is the draconian copy protection that crippled the software for getting the tracks on device (for NET MD players). Other method(s) of getting sound on MD was essentially dubbing, like you would with MC. Other players removed the artificial barriers of getting your music on device, and it turned out that antipiracy measures are not a feature... which is a shame, because the feel and soun…

I bought an Aiwa mini-stereo with CD & MD that came with a portable MD player. The portable had a AA battery attachment, and I could go most of the day on the rechargeable and pop that on when needed. I bought 10 blank MD's to record and re-record with whatever I wanted, and that was all I needed for 3 years. It was great.

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

#46

Post by vladvasiliu »

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…

> MiniDisc was a huge success for Sony, and was the winner of the tape-replacement format war in virtually every country - except the USA

Well, don't know about "virtually", but in Europe I only know one person who had one, and I don't remember seeing any on the street / bus / metro.

I remember people having tape walkmans, then portable CD players for a short while, than massively switching to MP3 players when they became available, probably because CD players were extremely unpractical. I used to have an MP3-capable CD player, which kind of mitigated the problem, but it was still not great.

I remember looking at minidisc players at the time, and the MP3 CD looked much more practical to load with music and also much cheaper, so I went with that.

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

#47

Post by julik »

arpa wrote: post #3

What really killed this format is the draconian copy protection that crippled the software for getting the tracks on device (for NET MD players). Other method(s) of getting sound on MD was essentially dubbing, like you would with MC. Other players removed the artificial barriers of getting your music on device, and it turned out that antipiracy measures are not a feature... which is a shame, because the feel and soun…

This. MD was kind of a weird cross-over between a disk with a filesystem (which the iPod was in its first iterations) and a CD. And it sucked as both - it could not be used as a file system because you had to use Sony's proprietary tools to get anything onto it and off of it, _and_ it sucked as as a CD because the only equipment that could get data off of it would do it either real-time (too slow) or - at best - at 4x realtime. That while CD-R reader drives already could read at 32x realtime. The DRM also had a nice property that you needed a proprietary Sony app to get music onto and off of a MD, this app was horrible _and_ it was only available for Windows.

MDs did indeed stay in widespread use for professional sound recording where convenience was less important than reliability, they were quite reliable. This only turned around once flash storage started becoming fast and affordable.

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

#48

Post by salamandersauce »

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.

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

#49

Post by bigtex »

julik wrote: post #47
arpa wrote: post #3

What really killed this format is the draconian copy protection that crippled the software for getting the tracks on device (for NET MD players). Other method(s) of getting sound on MD was essentially dubbing, like you would with MC. Other players removed the artificial barriers of getting your music on device, and it turned out that antipiracy measures are not a feature... which is a shame, because the feel and soun…

This. MD was kind of a weird cross-over between a disk with a filesystem (which the iPod was in its first iterations) and a CD. And it sucked as both - it could not be used as a file system because you had to use Sony's proprietary tools to get anything onto it and off of it, _and_ it sucked as as a CD because the only equipment that could get data off of it would do it either real-time (too slow) or - at best - at 4…

I worked at Best Buy from 97-02 and don’t recall having a any prerecorded content for MD’s or if we did it was almost non existent. Your explanation is the correct answer as the onerous drm and Sony way of doing things limited the market appeal. I think they eased up the restrictions when MP3’s starting getting big but then it was too late.

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

#50

Post by ragingrobot »

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.

How much later? The experience I described was about 2000-2001, and it was far from seconds.

To be fair, encoding to MP3 wasn't exactly speedy on the machines at the time (compared to the present day), but converting to ATRAC was significantly slower.

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