sony end mini disk player production.

[Paul Turner]

Even though I am a lampy, my days on the cruise ships were made easier by the good old minidisk, but Sony have now planed to end production of players. http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21297024

 

the public never got to grips with it and the iPod was the nail in the coffin.

[revbobuk]

Sony have to take a lot of the blame. The Sony player application was awful; getting music onto or off the players was impossible. You couldn't even use them to record live and then transfer digitally to PC - that wasn't allowed. They were so paranoid about digital copies that they crippled the player. Which is a shame, as it was such a nice format, and so versatile. Only the very last few players or the (expensive) pro desks which had the copy protection removed really showed what it would have been capable of.

 

I picked up a pro player in the Bush House auction - the Beeb clearly used the format heavily. A missed opportunity.

[GaryNattrass]

Still have two portable recorders and a hifi machine, most of my effects recording for film and tv was done on them!

[the kid]

I THINK we still have some pocket players at work, I know we have a marantz one, I tried to get it working but it decided to smoke :huh: .

 

I do prefer using laptops now but there is something nice about MD knowing that it wont mess up. We still back up major sound effects on MD.

[top-cat]

Sony have to take a lot of the blame. The Sony player application was awful; getting music onto or off the players was impossible. You couldn't even use them to record live and then transfer digitally to PC - that wasn't allowed. They were so paranoid about digital copies that they crippled the player. Which is a shame, as it was such a nice format, and so versatile. Only the very last few players or the (expensive) pro desks which had the copy protection removed really showed what it would have been capable of.

 

I agree, all copy protection efforts in the music world have been futile.

 

Generally speaking, all copy protection systems have really done is make life difficult for those who use music responsibly whilst not affecting those who don't! Quite the opposite of the purpose.

[Oldradiohand]

It's a shame it came out as a compressed format - even the HD version was pushed as giving longer rather than better recording. Could have been a really nice recording format, linear on blu-ray type discs. Oh, well. Hard drive it is then.

[paulears]

Just had a quick check and I've got enough to keep me going.

A Denon - 1/3 rack width recorder - great thing, been very reliable

2 1U Sonys - one reliable, one not

Tascam MD-301 - 2, been excellent.

Sony domestic 500 series. Great until they fail, which they did, often - cheap enough not to get too cross.

 

Best of all - HHB MD500 - portable, great quality, plenty of facilities, very reliable, great for location use - I have two, and they've been the most handy of the lot - and a great colour.

Somewhere I have a Sony portable, but no idea where it is

My son has a small hifi with built in MD

 

I've always found them very handy devices - and plenty of acts still tour with them, so I'm set up for a few years yet.

[the kid]

Tascams are great. Only stupid thing is not being able to use auto pause unless you have the remote.

[paulears]

Sony's too! A really stupid design flaw.

 

I no longer have it but I had a big 4U Tascam 801 for a couple of years and if you ever see one of these, snap it up. Loads of extra editing facilities, and a really good disk repair utility. If you delete all tracks by mistake, it would search the disc and recover any track not over-recorded. It would also rescue corrupt discs where you lost mains while writing the TOC. Jog and shuttle dial for accurate track splitting and re-assembly. Excellent beast, I wish I'd not got rid of it.

[TonyMitchell]

We still have an MD350 in one of our rec/playback racks, I believe Tascam discontinued that model a few years ago in favour of a MD/CD combo.

 

It gets used regularly at events where the client wants to be handed a CDR at the end of the job, where we also make an MD recording to keep in case there's a problem with the CD, or (moreoften) to make another copy if the CD becomes lost. Tend to keep the MD recordings for a couple of years then overwrite them.

 

Although we'll be adding two or three Tascam SS-CDR200s to the inventory this year, which will mean less outings for the trusty MD recorder.

[GaryNattrass]

The Denon radio cart type machines are also worth snapping up, we had a few of them at Teddington Studios!

[themadhippy]

Always thought sony missed a trick by not making a data version as a 3¹/₂" floppy replacment

[Shez]

I thought there was a data version - only held about 120 meg. Or maybe it was just all the films / TV dramas of the time who used them in that way as they looked futuristic and hi-tech... B-)

[Richard P-W]

There was a data version, 140MB and only took off in Japan. (I think)

 

Yamaha did make a 4-track Portastudio thing, using the MD-data format. I delivered one to Stafford Uni in the mid 90's.

 

Just done a headcount - Tascam 301, Denon DMD1300, a couple of Sony 520's, Aiwa portable with a dead battery and a Marantz pro-portable. More discs than I care to mention too, so I'm set for a while longer!

[MarkPAman]

I've still got my Sony Walkman style portable, and there's quite a lot of rackmounts of various sorts still at work. I don't think anybody ever uses them though. I'll have to put a list together.

 

It's a shame really, that they were never quite what we actually wanted. Fast file transfer and no compression would have seen them beat just about everything else.