Are there MP3 Players that use Minidiscs? 52
Delboy asks: "I was wondering if other people have thought that a Minidisc player would be a good alternative to a portable mp3 player? The thing that puts me off a mp3 player is the lack of storage, with a Minidisc it's practically unlimited, just carry more disks. Okay it's limited in the fact that it would take a lot more time to load it up with mp3's, but you have a very cheap storage medium and probably comparable sound quality. Comments?"
64Mb= £199(UK), 1 mdisk= £1.20(UK)...... (Score:1)
Yes, but this might be the data version of the MD. (Score:1)
http://hive.me.gu.edu.au/~csand/md/mdpage/min idisc/
For details on all the formats. They may be using the specialised MD for data to do this. the two are not compatible to my knowledge.
Good link for info: (Score:1)
http://hive.me.gu.edu.au/~csand/md/mdpage/minidisc /part_links.html#mp3
Good info on all things MP3 -> MD related. Winamp skins, User guides and info on products aimed at making it easier to copy MP3 to your MD. (as analogue of course) One link there for a USB to optical conversion, but read the warning about the advertiser's financial status. Also:
http://hive.me.gu.edu.au/~csand/md/mdpage/minidi sc/
This is the regular hompage (if you're too lazy to delete the extra chars in the URL) where you can find loads of MD tips and tricks, even hacks. This is 'THE' /. of the MD world.
Re:Why don't portable MD player have digital out? (Score:1)
Seems pretty stupid to me, but there you are.
Re:MD storage. (Score:1)
Minidisks are rock hard, at least with music on them, I don't know how reliable with data. (cos a little bit lost in the middle of an ATRAC stream isn't gonna make much difference)
Re:another question (Score:1)
-Danny
Sony's New Portable MP3 Recorder/Player (Score:1)
Re:Yes they do (Score:1)
The company that makes them is called Raite,
here's their [english] website:
http://www.raite.com.tw/edefault.htm
Links for data storage: (Score:1)
Try this out for a start. Links to different manufacturer pages too.
AND HOW ABOUT DIGITAL8/Hi8 tapes ... (Score:1)
Re:Why don't portable MD player have digital out? (Score:1)
Just heard about this in popsci... (Score:1)
Re:MD + MP3... (Score:1)
4gig MP3 player... (Score:2)
Hammacher Schlemmer [hammacher.com] has a large size MP3 player that while rather expensive seems nice.
It's only glaring failing I can see (without buying one of course) is that it uses Windows based software.
Maybe it will work under WINE.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
MP3 and MD work very well together (Score:1)
Many soundcards now have this output. Some have only coax digital out, but you can get converters.
Admittedly it is a chore to take the stuff out to MD from MP3 in realtime, but this only has to be done once, not every time you load up your player, like an MP3 player.
I usually carry my player plus about 5 disks with me (they are tiny) and I get to take my pick from the 70+ disks I own. That is over 80 hours worth of music I have access to without having to dock or download anything, and I also have the option to record from CD or live if I want to.
The sound quality is also better than MP3.
Re:4gig MP3 player...Glaring failing... (Score:2)
- BESIDES
the fact that it costs $800.The Tick - "Spoon!"
Re:AND HOW ABOUT DIGITAL8/Hi8 tapes ... (Score:1)
Re:MiniDisc MP3 (Score:1)
In blind listening tests with trained listeners at a recent perceptual audio coding conference, 192kbit mp3 was statistically undistinguishable from the source cd. Going to 256k only hammers the point in more - mp3 is good, but isn't at its best at 128k.
Problem is, you've probably not heard MP3s though good equipment, whereas MD players are mature products which have to compete on sound - most mp3 players compete on price alone.
Hugo
empeg
Already compressed (Score:1)
I guess that uploading songs to a minidisc usually is done in realtime (1x spin, in cdrom terms), and not very conveninent. Does anybody know of a way (presumably using some proprietary hardware) that accept transfer of a raw audio data stream (or similar) onto the MD?
MD + MP3... (Score:3)
However, Sony's put out MD Digital Cameras now, that use MDs as their storage medium (a HUGE number of still images or a small amount of motion video), and reportedly are looking at ways to use MDs in more devices, so it's possible that a digital music player based on MP3 (or something) could use MP3s as it's storage medium, though Sony's also putting out their memory stick players, so I don't know if they'd want to hamstring that business...
--
Frustrating (Score:1)
We're in year 2000, and probably there are many small devices that can store a lot of information, like chip-sized HDs. I understood IBM developed one.
So why are all the companies so cheap? Why can't they create an MP3 player with 1gb storage space? We are past the Commodore64 days, for god's sake.
Re:MD storage. (Score:1)
MD storage. (Score:3)
Re:MD storage. (Score:1)
Re:Frustrating (Score:1)
Mine should be here tomorrow :) It's not that small and portable as the other 32/64mb MP3 players, but far more portable than even the smallest Biblo laptop.
another question (Score:1)
Re:MD storage. (Score:1)
Portable MP3 CD players? (Score:1)
Does something like that exist?
I've read about at least one DVD player that can also do MP3 CDs.
Re:Yes they do (Score:1)
Portable cd's with the ability to play mp3's have been demonstrated by companies like thomson but noone is selling them
there is a sharp recorder that kind of does it (Score:1)
There are minidisk replicators and recorders that can write at 4X speed which is probably not more than 200 kb/s so.
Probably the best solution is to get a soundcard with a digital out and record your mp3's that way.
voquette (Score:1)
Re:MD storage. (Score:1)
Re:Yes they do (Score:1)
Tape (Score:1)
Re:MD storage. (Score:1)
For the enthusiast there are MD players for computers (MD-Data) they are not compatible with MD-Music though. (Since it's proprietary I doubt that we'll see anyone changing that too unfortunately.)
The MD-Data discs are mainly sold in Japan though, I don't know if you can get them in the US/Europe. Using MD for cameras is a great idea though, bigger cheaper and not very large. Great stuff!
Many are saying... (Score:1)
Compact Flash may be the ticket (Score:1)
For me, the perfect mp3 portable would be about the size of a walkman and have at least 30GB of storage. We'll see how long it takes for technology to catch up with those requirements.
it can be done (Score:1)
portable cd player and mp3's (Score:1)
cd player that can read cd-r and cd-rw disks
and will play mp3's as well and normally you can
get about 170 songs or more on one cd
MD kicks it. (Score:1)
the lowdown on minidisc mp3 players (Score:1)
I recently purchased a sharp minidisc player. What I have learned thus far hasn't been impressive, but it's wirth mentioning.
Minidiscs are like cd's in that they store data digitially, except that it's compressed using an algorithm called ATRAC. My player uses atrac3.5. Anyway, the compression is done in realtime by a processor inside of the player/recorder. Most agree that ATRAC is an exceptionally clear algortihm, and presonally, I can't tell the difference between the original cdda and the encoded version.
So that gets us onto the question of why. Why would one want an MP3 player that uses minidiscs?
1. More data - MDs hold substantially more than a compactflash card or whatever MP3 players use
2. The option of realtime recording (I'm sitting in my piss-boring french class copying tunes off the girl who sits behind me's discman)
In doing this, several tradeoffs will be made:
1. MP3 players, in their current form, are absolutely skip-proof, being that they are completely solid state and such. Abandoning solid-state media will always open the door to skippage.
2. Higher power consumption - it's undeniable that making something spin and reading it with an optical pickup will consume more power than simply reading/decoding data off of a flash card.
3. Size - all the MP3 players I've seen are VERY small.
So then, I step back, and I look. In my opinion, it would definitely be worth it. All this would take is to make a MD player with an embedded mp3 decoder. It would probably be wise to keep an atrac en/decoder around too, for realtime recording. The MD player would have to be able to read some sort of filesystem, but MP3 players are already doing that, so really, ho hard can it be?
The more I think about this, the more I think of some Sony gadget I saw that had the words mp3 and minidisc in the same title, maybe it's already been done. Might be a bit pricey, but definitely worth it...
Uhm, Why? (Score:1)
Why don't portable MD player have digital out? (Score:1)
I am interested in using a portable MD for field recording, but I have never seen one with digital audio out (only digital audio in). Why is this? It does me no good if I need to re-sample in order to get my audio onto hard disk. Is there a reason for this lacking that I don't understand?
Percival.
It plays mp3 format? (Score:1)
Re:MD storage. (Score:1)