Minidisc players

Like a computer floppy disk, and you can input track names. Requires its own hardware tho, unfortunately.

>How much can you download into one disc ?

Standard industry length of 74 minutes - just like a CD, tho' I've heard tell of long play discs now available

>Can you play them on your home or car stero ?

If you have a minidisc player

>Can you download MP3 tracks and CD tracks on the same discs ?

Absolutely, if you can record/send a signal out of your PC sound card and have the requisite RCA's/equipment to connect & record to. For digital sound you need a sound card that has a digital out, otherwise, it's analog all the way (which in my experience doesn't seem to make a difference)

How sensitive are they to drops bumps etc

No problems in my experience. Sony have 'anti-shock' cases etc etc. About the same as your portable CD player, probably better.

How is the sound quailty ?

It's digital! I'm no audiophile, so please correct me, but as good as CD to me!

Hope this helps. Anyone please feeel free to correct me!

usb is a type of computer cable often used to hook up printers and digital cameras to computers.

Has anyone mentioned their near-endless reusability yet? I'm not sure about this, but is it even possible to do on-the-fly MP3 encoding? In other words, are portable MP3 *recorders* possible? Perhaps they already exist and I'm living in the late 20th century. I could see how such a device (with easily swappable memory cards) might be even more appealing to the casual recordist.

strange that its only really popular in europe. i asked this japanese guy about it and he said that hardly anyones got them in japan. momus? confirm?

to be honest i dont love them. they are small, but the quality isnt great (very tinny) and mine fucks up a lot - doesnt jog like a cd, but just sort of stops for a bit. also my discs are fucking up and becoming unusable, maybe thru overuse but then they dont seem to last long (just under a year).

Maybe this your headphones/rest of set up? I am no expert but copies I make on my midrange stereo sound virtually indistinguishable from the original. And Mike Jones is a serious audiophile and he loves 'em (see above)

Please, Nick - I was acquitted of that. Just because I hang around outside KJ West One on New Cavendish Street doesn't mean I'm looking at the valves.

I don't get this tinniness business. Whatever's lost through the perceptual coding data reduction, it ain't bass.

Those of us with crap modems? I think I was in the lav when the MP3 revolution happened, sorry.

I think I might be MD chums with PJM & Steady M already.

Big Dave has a teeetering tower of MD players/decks, typical of a frustrated fighter pilot. He gives himself orders and makes radio static noises when he's recording stuff. Probably.

I can only listen to them on my minidisc player though obviously, through the hi-fi, but I'd dearly love to put them all onto CD.

Is this possible? (My md player doesn't have a usb port)

Longer answer...

Some Sony minidisc players have a mini-usb port, this means you can download from a PC with the nice sony software, but it does not work 'the other way'.

Best option you have is to record realtime via soundcard, and use the timings on the minidisc to 'chop up' the long wave file into tracks. I just got a nice little prog that will record a pre-programmed length (e.g. 24 mins), which means you can go away for 24 mins (or longer), come back, and spend 5 mins 'chopping up' the individual tracks based on the track timing and wave formation in yer PC window.

It was designed to prevent uploading, as Sony seem to be against that sort of thing.

I very doubt it will 'work' with Apple iMIC.

On the solid state/flash memory front there's the new M-Audio Microtrack which had me salivating when I first read about it. But too expensive in my opinion at around £250 to £300. It uses compact flash as well (I'd prefer SD) and its battery is inbuilt, iPod-style, which in itself is an instant deal-breaker for me (I will only use devices with removable batteries). Into the bargain it seems to have a number of issues, some of which have been addressed in firmware updates (but I'd prefer a product that was already pretty rock solid and not have to keep updating the firmware).

I have an MDF to listen to, from the Mooro stable.

I will have to have a good root round tonight.

(pj, self-imposed ilx exile over? welcome home)

http://www.flickr.com/groups/stephenpastel/

i r being so excited guyz, i am getting the mz-rh1!

http://www.mdcenter.nl/artikelen/mzrh1/index_en.php

this is the first MD to allow directly dragging files over to your mac with no need to "tape" it in real time (i believe).

now go on, tell me i'm investing in obsolete technology - i don't care!

> this is the first MD to allow directly dragging files over to your mac with no need to "tape" it in real time (i believe).

there was md based computer storage as part of the first wave (http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDH-10.html). couldn't use the same disks for music though because, i think, they were formatted differently. there were also four tracks available for home recording which were, again, formatted differently - 4 tracks x 37 minutes rather than 74 minutes of stereo.

> now go on, tell me i'm investing in obsolete technology - i don't care!

i still use my MZR30 for recording the occasional gig. is there another reasonable option for this? my mp3 player(s) will record straight to mp3 but i think that's more for dictation.

http://www.minidisc.org/images/sony_mzr30_scan.jpg

Blank MDs are getting pretty hard to find over here (Belgium) and I'm looking into getting something else for gigtaping as well. Probably the Edirol R-09 (about 400 Euro in Europe, 350 USD in the US (which is about 250 Euros right now) ) + maybe external mics and preamp (probably from thesoundprofessionals.com )

Something <a href="
http://www.amazon.com/Edirol-R-09-WAVE-Recorder-Black/sim/B000FPQFKO/2/ref=pd_cp_e_sexpl/105-1608035-6718063";>like this beast, koogs?</a>

Oh, you know what I mean.

Fucking Sony: "Recordings made via the computer (i.e. via USB) cannot be uploaded because with such recordings the distinction cannot be made between legally transferred music or music which has been purchased for example via the Connect Music Store.". (From Tracer's link)

from what i can tell that means if you recorded a CD onto a standard old minidisc at some point in the past, using USB rather than line in, you can't quickly "upload" them onto another computer. this seems like such an obscure path i can't imagine it being an issue.

note that any Hi-MD recordings can be transferred over to your computer with no problem.

also note that mac users can dispense with sony's atrocious "sonicstage" software for these transfers: "On the Mac the Hi-MD importer app simply lists all the recordings an allows drag and drop to your Desktop or other folder."

the main reason i got this over the zoom H4 or H2 is that from what i can tell, the sound quality is just better.

well, that, and sony's decades of experience with physical interfaces. i love the big record button/knob thing!

i use my minidisk primarily to tape interviews now, and its easy to upload them as WAV files to my laptop via sony's provided software, which i then dump into expressscribe and type away. i've also done this with the two (2) shows i've ever bootlegged. mine's an MZ-NH700, if that's any help?

yes alba. am more familiar with (ie have heard of) the M-audio thing on the same page but it wasn't ideal (expensive, compact flash storage, not much use as portable player.)

sony also good at low power / long battery life. their proprietary formats stance is dreadful though.

call me crazy, but it's never occurred to me to plug my minidisc player into my computer! why would i do that? can i turn, for example, old DJ mixes i've got on minidisc into mp3 or wav files? my (sony) minidisc player is like six years old.

you could, but you'd have to record them onto your computer in "real time" i believe.

yep, that's what i do, md line-out to pc line-in. wait 74 minutes, tidy up and normalise with audacity.

excellent news. Tracer, can I borrow this to rip the big pile of MDs I found whilst clearing stuff out?

yessiree. chip chop, lickety split!