New Sony Minidisc

Sony has unveiled the spec for its next (and rumoured to be last) generation of mindisc walkman player/recorder - and it looks pretty good:

If only Sony had not got itself tied up to a record company, and over-excited about protecting digital rights, its Walkman might hold the position of preeminance that iPod holds now. The minidisc, which was around long before mp3 players, is an enormous missed business opportunity.


This entry was posted on March 23rd, 2006 and is filed under Blog Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

 
« France and iTunes.
FT Arts Podcast »
 
 

3 Responses to “New Sony Minidisc”

  1. Matt
    24. March 2006 at 11:10

    Looks interesting. Pity we’ve more-or-less kicked all the minidisc use into touch at the Beeb. Lossless recording on solid-state kit like the Marantz PMD660 is the way it’s going. That way the audio doesn’t go through several different types of compression on it’s way through to DAB radios. I’ve played with the new digital recorders and they’re pretty good - the Marantz has solid XLR connectors to ensure that nice solid noise-free connections to mics. The other great advantage is that the audio is available instantly as a file for editing rather than having to be downloaded or played-in in real time.
    Matt

  2. Hugh
    24. March 2006 at 11:43

    The Marantz is highly desirable, but costs about £400, and more for flash storage.

    A Sony Hi MD costs around £150, and each 1 gig disc is £5. Sony does, belatedly, allow you to transfer your own recordings onto the PC via USB. As podcasts are compressed MP3s anyway, I don’t have to worry about DAB type audio quality. It still amazes me that many podcasters add extra compression to their recordings because they think it sounds better that way!

    One day, when I’m making tons of money out of podcasting, I’ll splash out on a Marantz and use it for all our recording, including the stuff we do direct onto the computer these days.

  3. Michele Scasso
    2. April 2006 at 17:18

    That’s great! I cannot live without my Hi-MD recorder.
    It can record from whatever source (TV, cassette, VHS, DVD, reel-tape player, turntable, PC….) in whatever quality from PCM, to 48K (45 hours of music)….

    It’s just a fantastic format more versatile than any mp3 player!!!!

    http://minidiscplace.blogspot.com

Leave a Reply