Blogcritics: Comments on An Ode to the MiniDisc (And a Blurb About Radiohead Too!)

Comment by Anthony Conroy

Wed, 3 Aug 2005 02:31:51 EDT

I have always loved Minidisc right from day one, I think typically the kids of today are not looking for near CD quality sound and seem to be perfectly happy with mp3 / i-Pod, hence the gradual decline of MD. Here in Melbourne Australia most stores are just not supporting MD anymore even though they assure me that they can obtain specific items on request!but that's now way to sell something!I feel that this will eventually see the product vanish altogether very soon,they claim there is little demand for MD. One large Supermarket chain which stocked Sony MD blanks in the 5 pack, was clearing them at A$2.99 a pack needless to say i drove round to as many outlets as i could snapping up whatever they had left!One Hi-Fi dealer was clearing the high end Sony MDS -JA333 ES gold machine for a fraction of it original price ,Judging by the pile they had Sony must have been keen to get them out the door !Its not hard to see the writing on the wall,Quality is something that is not so fashionable these days,Mp3 is where it's at for most, but i for one will cling to MD for as long as i can.

Comment by san

Mon, 7 Apr 2003 12:46:07 EDT

I don't listen to much music radio, but there are news programs I would like to be able to listen to on a portable device. A minus for the iPod there. I'd love to see a portable satellite radio. The Olympus recorder has removable memory media, so technically you could archive your recordings on the memory cards, but at astronomical expense compared to blank MDs. I don't do a lot of recording, so the risk of data loss is acceptable to me -- at least until it actually happens. I have a Palm i705, but frankly, I've had no success in keeping notes on it. I'm torn between the digital and analog worlds right now. If somebody would make one of these little gadgets with accurate natural handwriting recognition and all the other datebook features, I would likely find it invaluable. Until then, I keep numerous notebooks.

Comment by Steve Rhodes

Mon, 7 Apr 2003 03:30:46 EDT

And an iPod doesn't have a radio. That the MD can hold music too was just an added benefit. And there is some comfort in having an interview recorded on an actual physical medium. I just have visions of something happening either to the memory in the device or a hard drive crashing (which happened to me recently) and losing everything. The ability to mark sections of a recording is also really helpful. I can use my new Treo 300 to take notes indicating what is in each section of the interview. When I bought the treo, I thought I would be able to use to take good notes. But it isn't possible to type fast enough on the tiny keyboard to do that (though at least everything is legible).

Comment by san

Sun, 6 Apr 2003 22:47:42 EDT

Hey, you could have a bought an iPod for that price! Of course, no recording for interviews. I have an Olympus digital recorder for that -- fortunately, it will transfer recordings to my Mac. I dropped another $150 or so on the recorder; you're definitely ahead in the total-dollars-spent category. I still love my iPod, though. And it's lamentable the NetMD feature won't work with a Mac.

Comment by Steve Rhodes

Sun, 6 Apr 2003 21:07:28 EDT

Partly because of Victoria's posting, I just bought the new MZ-NF810CK NetMD. My walkman finally died after about seven years of dropping it, so I was going to buy a new one. The minidisc model I got has a AM/FM/VHF radio tuner and I can record interviews with it (the difference between it and the cheaper 610 is it has a microphone jack though it doesn't come with a microphone unfortunately). I'll post a review at some point. Right now I'm charging the battery, so I've only listened to the radio. There are also some interesting issues aroudn NetMD, the software which allows MP3s and other audio to be copied from a PC (not a Mac) to a MD via USB with lots of restrictions and no way to upload.

Comment by san

Sat, 5 Apr 2003 22:38:43 EST

What's the low end on the iPod now? $299? Maybe $199 before too long. I really enjoy mine. I have more music than will fit on the iPod but iTunes makes it easy to swap sets on and off the player. But, for the record, before the iPod, I loved my MD more than any other music player I've owned; and I started with an original Sony Walkman, purchased in Japan when I was a kid, about 3 months before they were even available in the States.

Comment by Victoria Pitt

Sat, 5 Apr 2003 17:22:55 EST

Yes, it got leaked w/out the band's permission. Yes, that is illeagal... so is file trading on the net of bands that have released their music. That is just the way life is these days. It's irrelevant and besides the point. I don't think there is much anyone can do about this right now. I can understand Radiohead being ticked off at someone internally, I would be as well. As for the Ipod... LOL I am unemployed at the moment... now if they would drop the Ipod to say $199, I might be in the market for one... but for now, minidiscs are cheap for me and allow me to have my tunes when I am working out.

Comment by andy

Sat, 5 Apr 2003 16:25:10 EST

my question would be, how did the album leak before it was on the final mix and unmastered? What would tick me off being Radiohead in that situation would be that someone who has access to an unmixed unmastered copy of the album had to leak it. That means someone they work with or someone they know who they gave a rough copy to leaked it. It's gotta be a betrayal of trust in a way. Also, it doesn't matter if you think it would help the artist or not, the album got leaked w/out the band's permission. That's illegal.

Comment by Steve Rhodes

Sat, 5 Apr 2003 15:42:43 EST

One area where minidiscs have caught on is among journalists. They are better than cassette recorders for recording interviews because you can mark segments of an interview and jump right to it when you want to transcribe. They are cheaper than DATs if you want to create pieces for radio. Art Chimes writes about using a MD in Kosovo.

Comment by san

Sat, 5 Apr 2003 13:11:39 EST

I went through a couple of MD players before I bought an iPod. I liked the format, thought it was a hassle to enter track names, etc. Though more expensive, I think the iPod is far superior to the MD. The MD just missed its market here, and probably missed it forever due to the advent of music players like the iPod. Radiohead: I think they are mad primarily because the work is unfinished. What if it was just horrible, but they still could turn into something great for the final release? As it turns out, it's good stuff, but I think the root of their distress was that they were not yet comfortable with releasing it.