Sony hits a grand slam!

[sputnik found]

Sony hits a grand slam! Announcing Hi-MD (spec) a new Minidisc format based upon a 1GB MD medium and existing MD media reformatted to 300MB. Hi-MD equipment features uploading to PC (yay!) for mic-input recordings and raw PCM as well as ATRAC3plus encoding at 132, 105, 66, 64 or 48kbps. Hi-MD recorders also function as USB data drives.

links:
http://www.sony.co.jp/Products/Hi-MD/
http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/4270
http://www.minidisc.org/keep/Sony_Hi-MD_Spec.pdf
http://news.com.com/2100-7353-5137127.html

Me needs to start saving for one, to replace my 2yr old MD recorder/player.

[Anders]

I personally think that MD technology is a good one, and was quite before its time when released. However, I think this development might be too late. Surely cheapish portable, compact, music players capable of reading from DVDs cannot be too far away? Combined with relatively cheap DVD writers, this could be hard for Hi-MD to compete with. Then of course there are MP3 players to compete against as well.

[BoB_DoG]

if they release Hi MD head units for cars I'll be happy.

I reckon its a good idea, as it uses fairly cheap media, its rewritable, and its based on a format that is innately user friendly. You dont have to use 1x transfer (as I do on my old MD Deck), and if they sort out better PC sync software it would be great.

Why spend more on an Ipod that has 20gig capacity, when you can get s**tloads of songs on 1 Minidisc, and change that minidisc as often as you like. It sorts out the problems of having to carry around 20 minidiscs with you, but if you need to (and you have a big enough record collection), you can.

I think it will be good. maybe not really successful, but really good

[Anders]

I think it will be good. maybe not really successful, but really good

I agree. It is an impressive move forward for the technology.

Personally, I would rather have a music player capable of reading DVDs because you can fit much more onto a DVD than an MD. I suspect that blank DVDs will become much cheaper than blank MDs could ever be. A plus for Hi-MD is the fact that the media is physically quite small.

[Nox]

would be a good replacement for floppy disks...

Nox

[Knoxville]

Is this the same technology they're planning on using in the psp?

I've always liked the idea of minidiscs but they've never taken off in the way they should imo.

[5lab]

new disks are $7 a pop thou - thats more than a dvdrw isnt it?

[oshta]

....and if they sort out better PC sync software it would be great.

- yeah, thats the "make or break" if you ask me, and it says there using sonicstage - so its going to be "break"

[Aaron]

yeah, thats the "make or break" if you ask me, and it says there using sonicstage - so its going to be "break"

Agreed. Sonicstage (and MusicMatch) is the most appalling piece of software ever written and Sony gives absolutely zero support for it.

It doesn't matter how good the hardware is if it's backed up with crappy software. I think I'll stick with my iPod (until the battery goes ).

[Swafe]

so if they can hold 300mb, does this mean old minidisks can hold data now ? and mp3s?


why didnt they do that at launch ! minidisks wud have owned all

[Jonny M]

MiniDiscs did hold data at launch, just to get around piracy issues, the data format was incomplatible with the music format, so you couldn't put a music disc in a data drive and rip all the tracks off of it.