MiniDisks future or flop?

Love2Learn · January 21st, 2003, 03:23 AM

I recieved a minidisk portable player for Christmas this year. It is an AWESOME device and I see some great potiential, buuuuut... A few things I was curious about is the fact that they have been out for about 3-4 years now and I havent seen them really take off yet. I would love to hear some opinions and theories about why it hasnt really lifted of the ground.. a few of my own is that it really doesnt have any internal computer players or "burners" if you will. Does it usually take a few years for a product to get off the ground? I am extremely curious for the fact that these MDs could replace CDs because of the portability and durability, I would love to start transfering my cd collection over now and get an MD home stereo player if that be the case... I guess what i am asking is Am I ahead of the game or left in the dust? I need your IMO.

(for those, like myself that havent seen an MD player here is a good site to find out what they are or more info on them http://www.minidisco.com )

-L2L

muno · January 21st, 2003, 03:36 AM

Dust.
MD's were most popular ~4 years ago.
They will never take off, losing the battle to CDs was bad enough strike for them, and newer solutions have evolved since then, portable mp3 players and whatnot.

My wife owns Sony MD player, but she rarely uses it. I would like to sell it when I still could get some cash for it, but she doesn't want to.

The players are pretty expensive and it's not a plug-n-pray operation to transfer files to the md.
-M

PyroSama · January 21st, 2003, 03:59 AM

What I want to know is why they dont make mini cd mp3 players for those 210mb that would be just as nice thier small yet afordible.

PyroSama

Love2Learn · January 21st, 2003, 03:01 PM

pyrosama - that is what is questioning me. The minidisks that i have are as small as those disks but have a protective cover so that they wont get scratched aaaannnddd they arent just 210 mbs they have just as much MBs as a cd does...
I maybe throwing a total crap theory out but because cds were out way before minidisks people are slowing technology down. People dont want to spend the money or time to invest in a better technology. Minidisks are obviosly the better technology than cds. Small, durable and inexpensive, sounds like the technology i want to invest in. just my .02 i would love to here more opinions about it.
Muno, I can agree that they are probably dust, but why? I cant see anything bad about them.

I have an MP3 player also and now i dont use it at all! My MD player I can run with and not miss a beat and i can swap music for the price of 1$ disk instead of a 24$ flashcard that doesnt have even close to the amount of MBs. Plus, the MDs have a built in case similair to a floppy but you cant even open up the sliding bay door. In my understanding that makes the MD even more protected. I guess what i am getting at is, in my situation i would love to see them become a hot item again, I guess i dont see the bad in the product and i am only seeing the good.

-L2L

PresterJohn · January 21st, 2003, 03:09 PM

>People dont want to spend the money or time to invest in a better technology.

not true at all. if a product has tangible new benefits in a cost-effective package, it will always sell.

there is a good reason why minidisks never took off. it merely introduced yet another standard to the marketplace w/o really offering anything new. thus, they became pushed out by mp3 players.

bill1971 · January 21st, 2003, 03:36 PM

L2L:
About 4 years ago,(maybe longer). I was looking to replace my aging tapedeck with a better one. Found out at that time that Sony had a deal whereby you send in any kind of tape player,(I had a cheap broken portable unit), and they mailed you back a check for $50 if you bought a MD deck. So that's what I did.
Final cost was just a few dollars more than a pretty good tape deck at the time. The pluses was that it was cleaner recording and playback, and that you could delete and shift songs around on the disk. Disks were more expensive than tapes, but you could find them on sale for about $2 ea.

I love the unit. I use it to record new music from my digital music channels from my cable co.

Also bought a refurbished Sharp portable record/playback unit to take on trips. Much smaller to carry on a plane than the larger CD players. Battery was rechargeable, and good for 4 hours or so.
And the sound was excellent. (The unit will actually fit in your pocket).

Since it's Sony technology, don't look for them to ever have MP3 capability. So you can't transfer MP3s ; however, I think you could play MP3 files on your PC and record as a standard wave from your line out, into the MD, (desk or portable) unit - although I've not done that as yet.

So the MP3 thing is the only bad that I see in the product, and all of the pluses are the ones you mention.
The technology will not take off. . .it will probably decline further.
But for the uses that I use it for, I wouldn't trade it.
I like it. Just my $0.02

Hope it helps.

- Bill

maface · January 21st, 2003, 03:53 PM

I had a Sony MD player I liked it

Heres a thread about MD players Thread

samwichse · January 21st, 2003, 03:57 PM

PyroSama

I have the exact thing you're talking about.

It takes those small capacity 80mm CD's, and I found it on a deal at computergeeks.com.

It was posted in steals and deals for 57$, and I bumped it 3 times over a week and a half, but no one was interested (no one but me bought one).

I love this thing. It's way smaller than a portable CD player, holds more music, batteries last longer (the disc only spins for about 1/10 of the song), and the ID3 text display on the remote is cool.

They're all sold out now of course, but here's the link to the geeks:
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=B54611-001

dunbar · January 21st, 2003, 04:02 PM

High density technology, use a popular sized disc, call it DVD/DVD-RW/DVD+RW, etc.
High density technology, use a smaller sized disc, call it MD.
older low density technology, use popular sized disc, call it CDR/CDRW/CDROM.
older low density technology, use a smaller sized disc, call it Gamecube game discs/business card CD, etc.

Just a full matrix of {recordable disc vs physical size}, but I wouldn't want one because SDRAM will likely reach the same density without needing power wasting Motors, Rotational velocity data errors, Vibration mounts, anti skip Buffers, short life Lasers, Lenses which get dirty, etc.

Love2Learn · January 21st, 2003, 04:02 PM

Sony has now come out with NetMD which does allow you to fit MP3's on the disks. it is great i can fit over 100 songs on a "smaller than floppy" size, and the MD player i got this year is smaller than a floppy disk itself (atleast the width and length)

as far as not offering anything new, the technology is twice as small as a cd in a protective case so that scratches wont get on them, and much more inexpensive than flashcards.

MP3 players are not "new" technology either... just a small "hardrive" (flashcard) or in the worst case senario you have no flashcard capabilities and have to have a computer to get more than 20 songs on it or have a big and bulky mp3 player.

>>there is a good reason why minidisks never took off. it merely introduced yet another standard to the marketplace w/o really offering anything new.

how many flashcard upgrades are there for how many MP3 players? if they have any at all? and how much do they cost?

I priced my MD player for about $129.00 and i got about 1,500 songs of storage for about $18.00 ( and i am giving much room because i estimated about 100 songs per disk in reality you could fit 150 + on their easy) so that totals up to $147.00. PLUS homestereos have a MD player making your disks playable there as well. Im just adding a few more facts that i know of off the top of my head. IMO i think that people missed the boat on MD players not the other way around.

-L2L