Its funny that you mentioned the obsolescence in 2011. When I was in broadcast school around that time, we were still using MiniDiscs to record all manner of things, mostly live air checks. It was a running joke that we were still using such uncommon tech, but the story was that the school bought all the machines hoping their relevance would stay strong professionally, kinda like cds but they obviously lost that gamble and we had to stick with the results. For what it was worth, they were really good and if they were more popular I'd invest in a good player/recorder.
True personal story time from a former broadcast engineer…sorry for the length of this in advance. It was August of 1999 and I was a much younger DJ / aspiring Engineer. The large company I worked for at the time was worried about Y2K…especially since most of our stations / studios had been converted to computer operations via Dalet Studio Automation. To say Dalet was junk is putting it rather mildly, but that’s a different story for a later time. To make a long story short, someone at Corporate HQ decided it would be a brilliant idea to buy two mini-disk machines for each station that could record and play out. They also wanted two machines in each production room. In the building in I was at in the southern US, there were six stations: four music FMs, a sports AM and an embarrassingly low-wattage talk AM. We also had three production bays. That meant wiring in eighteen pieces of new equipment. The plan was for each station to record enough programming to cover January 1, 2000 LIKE THERE WAS NOTHING GOING WRONG. Yup…Music, generic DJ talk and (most importantly to our big bosses in Chicago / Atlanta at the time) billable commercials. By the way: this was just in the location I worked at. The company I worked for had about 300 stations nationwide at the time. You do the rough math of how many of these paperweights were bought. Engineers at all the stations, along with the Corporate Engineers, argued this was a huge waste of time and money. There had been a company-wide Y2K test two months earlier and not one station had a problem. We had tested everything and it was fine. Still, in late August 1999, the mini-disk machines (and all the recordable disks to go with it) arrived at our loading dock. We did what we were told and had everything installed and ready to go. DJs were rotated into the production rooms to record what they had to (that extra work was good for morale right around the holidays…NOT). Three days before New Year’s Day, a full slate of commercials were recorded to mini-disk as well. Come midnight on 1/1/2000…everything continued to work just fine and the mini-disks machines were powered down. They were pretty much never touched again until they were removed six years later. I will say this: since these were the very high-end Sony machines, the quality was pretty good and would have worked well if anything had gone down. Still, it was a waste of time and money. BTW - that company I worked for is now fighting to stay out of bankruptcy court due to managerial mismanagement and questionable practices…go figure.
As a network engineer used to seeing lots of money and effort go into redundancy, I have to say - that doesn't sound like the worst idea in the world. Kinda would've been nice to have some music and ads on a backup medium in case of computer issues at ANY time. :-) Let the DJs fill in live though, no pre-recording necessary, IMO.
John Chisum - I know I'm replying to a 2+ year post, but your 'ditty" was pretty interesting nonetheless. At your last statement (I know what radio group you were working for by the Atlanta HQ reference, as my brother still lives in the area) it figures that's STILL VAILD IN '19 as they're in the process of being totally absorbed by a VULTURE FUND (that's what I call all equity and / or hedge funds from which almost no one survives on the long run)...
Minidiscs were very popular in France. I still have mine with almost 50 discs. It is a great pre-zoom H2 recorder, I used to have my compact Minidic recorder everywhere with me during my art school years with a sony mini mike. I liked it but I always found the sound too compressed, the sound sounds cold in this format and you can hear that many frequency are missing. But, yes, I think I'll buy a mini disc player one day to connect to my amp, I still like it.
WHAT thrift stores are you going to?! You always are finding cool stuff. The ones near me only offer used small appliances, shirts that were never fashionable, and copies of 50 Shades of Gray.
my dad had a stack of sealed mini discs,but no minidisc player, never knew what they were till this video , i used to think they were smaller floppy discs
Legit the only things even close to this cool I've found in thrift stores were a $5 toy piano that looked like a mini baby grand and an original copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from when it was first published.
My radio station was using MDs regularly until 2008, when we installed a computerized on-air/playback/recording system, at which point they were gradually phased out over the next several years...while we still have MD recorders in most studios, they're rarely (if ever) used nowadays. Incidentally, all our recorders are Tascam MD-350 systems, for those wondering.
You can rip CD's to ATRAC files on a PlayStation 3 at a bitrate of ~352kb/s, it says something about the system being able to process the audio better, you can also move the files on to USB drive.
The latest version of SonicStage 4.3 is old, it's from 2007, but it still works with Windows 10. So I can still transfer music from my laptop to a NetMD Walkman Minidisc. For a recordable format from the nineties the quality is pretty good. Much better than audio-cassettes. I still use it to record stuff from the radio. You can finds discs and minidisc walkmen for very little on Ebay.
Would love to see an episode on other oddity optical formats such as GD-ROM (used in Dreamcast), UMD (used in PSP) and even HD-DVD (unless that was already covered in a Format Wars episode)
I've got the Rolling Stone disc, in addition to 2 Alice Cooper albums released on the format (The Last Temptation & Classicks). Also have 2 working MD machines that I actually still use to playback discs and record bits and pieces for my pirate radio station. Like DAT, this format may not have been great commercially, but is still viable for recording, especially when I'm wanting to record something quickly and not have to mess with computers. Also a great way of archiving digitally, as you pointed out. In other words, a format that never got its just deserves and one that is still useful today, in certain applications.
I have made music mixes on: Cassette: 1986-2000. Mini-disc: 1998 (once, which I later transferred to cassette). CDs: 2001-09, with a few in the years since. Digital playlists: 2010-present.
Back in the later 90's one of the best things I bought when I had DAT and MD machines was a M-Audio CO3 which was a format converter and also allowed you to bypass SCMS copy protection.
I remember using those minidisc recorders to record vox pops when I was an intern at a radio station. People were constantly stealing the little bastards to pawn them for drug money.
Used mini disc for audio production at the small radio station I worked at in 1999. Still used it for back up recording when cool edit pro would crash. The station had that exact Sony cd minidisc unit in 2002 along with that more professional hi end units. Tascam etc. my minidisc Walkman skips like a bastard now. Just can't throw it away yet. Probably have 40 discs in a box that I made in 2000. recorded 5 hour long Howard Stern shows,in "LP 4 " mode. Kinda cool that minidisc can do that.
Aaron Z seriously. I was a talk radio junkie back in the day and LP4 was my best friend. It was am radio anyway so fidelity was not an issue. Upgraded to a Sony PCM M10 then transferred all my old MDS onto there... but yeah, LP4 was amazing for the fidelity it could give you. Those original Howard Stern shows you have are absolute gold
i had a small collection of minidiscs back in 97-98. i recorded songs from my friends cd's onto them amd listened to them in my 93 civic with a sony minidisc deck. i was literally the only person in town with minidiscs. what sold me was the small size, the protective case and of course the ability to copy cd's and even rearrange the order of the tracks and delete sections of tracks. they were awesome.
These things cost a fortune here in the UK in the late 90s. For some strange reason when i was in my late teens I was sort of obsessed on them thinking they were the future. I bought a brand new "Kenwood' mini disc recorder for £329 (telling my parents it was £50), at the time i was at college and worked 2 days a week (in the local electronics store) so it was very extravagant even with staff discount. I soon realised it was pointless as my car used cassettes and all the music i bought was on cassette. I sold it on QXL which was an early version of Ebay for virtually nothing. I still think they were a good idea but too late and too expensive.
that tuner is a misnomer, the tuner itself was contained entirely inside the headphone dongle remote thing. The big thing was that this recorder was able to record that audio signal.
I got a NetMD instead of a MP3 player due to cost for Christmas 2004. It was a good format if you could get windows to work with the software. I convinced myself it was better since it had "infinite expansion"
I was so excited about MD at first but man was I disappointed when I bought my second device and ran into the DRM fiasco, I was trying to use it as a recorder for recording conversations and did get them recorded but there was no short way of getting around the DRM issue other than using the analog cable.
What do you mean no hits on that MiniDisc?...I believe RHCP's "Breaking the Girl" and Gangstarr's "Mass Appeal" were fairly popular. I also like "Nothingness" by Living Colour.
I have done my own testing with my HiMD MZ-RH910 FLAC vs 256 ATRAC3plus @256kbps (Hi-SP Mode) and even with good quality DACs and Headphones it is very hard to tell the difference. Of course UA-cam makes this test pointless as everything is recompressed. I love my MD player, I use it every day for my commute. I rip Tidal Lossless service with Toslink (Optical). I use SonicStage in a Windows 7 VM to change the track names after recording.
I got suckered into this MiniDisc crap in 1997. I bought a bundle that included a low end Walkman/portable player a home deck and 6 blank Minidiscs. I used it for a whole 3 months and never did so again. I ended up selling the portable unit on E-Bay for like 25 bucks in 2005. The home unit croaked. $499.99 down the toilet.
I find MDs to be quite attractive objects (I simply find them more satisfying to play than a CD) and a very good mixtape format due to the sound quality and the ability to re-order and edit tracks after you record them. My MD Walkman's headphone out SQ is quite impressive too. But of course I'm a weirdo who finds the obsolete alluring, I watch this show..
I remember the Sony connect attrac software. When support was gone all the music I had bought from there was useless in its native form due to the proprietary nature of Sony. I cursed a lot about this.
I gotta say, I still have those annoying audio issues (the sharp cutting-sounding noises) on my Discman from '99. But it really depends on the disc, if it's scratched or not.
also in my experience in archiving for a band, it seems like minidisc was best for taking a line in from a board rather cause if you wanna mic the room you'd be better of bringing a rig
I loved MD, Have the same sony cd md recorder, had a deck in my Honda Accord in 1999, and used the MD walkman. Loved making my own mixs before iPods were a thing
I can't get it to work, worked well on Windows 7 for me though. Wish it would work on Windows 10. Would love to get a copy of sonic stage 4.3, somewhere. I really like Minidisc a lot!
No not available unfortunately. Thank you for your continued interest in Sony products. Please note that the download service for SonicStage CP Software (SonicStage Ver.4.3) Update program will be discontinued from March 29, 2013 onwards.
This link absolutely works if you want SonicStage! It does work with Windows 10 & more. Here's link, just copy & paste: ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/Downloads/SO/A/SST/SOASST-01198207-UN.exe
The latest version of SonicStage does work in at least Vista, but you may have to run it in XP compatibility mode. I have the MZ-NF810 with mic and line/optical inputs, but sadly no optical out. However, I found that older players from the 90s will happily play recordings from it (SP only) with seemingly perfect reproduction, and can deliver bit perfect transfers via optical if the player supports it.
I use to recorded a lot of my gig's on a rack mounted Sony MD player and pre-amp with two pzm's that I either stuck on opposing walls or on the floor. always got great results.
My older brother used to have one of these back in the day! I remember thinking it was the coolest thing... too bad the technology didn't really get to develop much further than what it did.
Sorry you’ve had so many issues with MD. I use my Hi-MD portable even now, also the version of Sonic Stage I use works perfectly on my Windows 7 Pro 64. Also I only record digitally in either Hi-SP 256k or PCM. Thanks for bring up the technology again
Minsc and Boo Techmoan's intentionally been spending YEARS on his video because he feels it's important to do the format justice and cover all the variations - he actually confirmed recently on Patreon that it will be two videos released weeks or months apart due to the project's scope.
And the format that wiped out the cassette...? The microSD card. Though both had their advantages and disadvantages, DCC was backwardly compatible with analogue cassette. Neither survived. Also, good on the BBC for explaining lossy compression, using psychoacoustics to preserve only the sounds humans hear versus the I would say lossless compression but really uncompressed digital audio on a CD. But yes, had Sony been less protective of the MiniDisc format and just opened it up, it would have had a time where it would have been a convenient format for both music and data in the late 1990s to early 2000s (when memory cards would have taken over anyway) Perhaps if we'd seen albums released as read only, full size SD cards we might still have a currently supported physical format.
I have working SonicStage 4.3.01 on windows 10 machine and MZ-N710 and they works together perfectly, all I have to do was install MD driver in safety mode on computer,
I did buy a minidisc player in 2004 with FM radio "toggle" on the headphone cord and some blank minidiscs...then MP3 players became the standard...yeah I wasted my money. I downloaded music from my laptop
It just occured to me that SCMS on Minidisc in particular seems excessive. It is true that since DAT records audio samples as is, it is possible to 'clone' DAT tape bit-by-bit over digital connection, as there's no D->A->D conversion involved; This is what SCMS was designed to thwart. However, at least in theory, it may not be possible to clone a Minidisc - with digital connection, there's still no lossy D->A->D involved, but now there's lossy glorified FFTIFFT conversion happening. Results of [inverse]FFT depend a lot of calculation precision, and the fact that different versions of ATRAC may encode/decode stuff slightly differently is likely not beneficial to the recording quality and will cause generational loss. Therefore it doesn't really differ much from HQ analog copy with added benefit of copying track marks and, perhaps, track titles, automatically. Think "re-encoding MP3 file many times". Only way to make exact copy of a Minidisc would be to exactly copy data from one to another (think "dd"), but I'm not aware of any hardware/software that can do that.
SonicStage can be made to work in Windows 7 x64. I have two Hi-MD recorders (MZ-RH1 for use at home and MZ-NH700 for usein car or just as a portable) that I use semi-frequently and I can use SonicStage without a problem on Win7.
Ben, Sony Sonic Stage works perfectly on Windows 10. I've been using it for a year now with zero problems. Give it a try! I also got into mini disc after finding one at a thrift store. It was broken, but not to be defeated, I went on an eBay minidisc spree picking up 3 players, a bunch of new blank discs from Japan, and even spending a couple of hundred bucks to get a copy of Daft Punk's Homework shipped from the Philippines. I was planning on using the format as a field recorder, but then sobered up and realized I could do better on a phone nowadays (not that I would).
Am I the only one wondering why Sweet Lullaby is on that Rolling Stone disk. With all of those rock songs (some of which are complete fire:)), it seems odd that they decided to add a new age song. (It's an awesome song though)
There actually is a way to use SonicStage on Windows 10, but in my experience, it's more finicky than on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I find it easier to just install an older version of Windows in a virtual machine and run SonicStage on that.
I liked minidisc, after I got a recorder two of my friends did about 15 years ago... then all 4 recorders died, all of them sit in my pile of dead things. Not long after that miniDV bit me more then a few times with three layers of failure. Then I lost all faith in tiny consumer formats. Digital 8 is as small as I will go if there is a choice... and I don't like flash "ram" either for similar reasons. Data errors. Yet I "have to". Maybe I should go back to using 8mm video tape FM HiFi stereo as portable audio as I did in the mid 90's... though if I had more then 4 backup laptops with good recording maybe I'd use raw digital. Maybe I'm crazy but right now I have a thing for betacam sp AFM, 1/4" 2 track RTR @ 15 ips, 12" 45's and of course the D...i... g......t....l computer tower (although the search/seek/"jog" control is absolutely piss poor in general). What happened to new and better anyway?
I never stopped using cassette. It's getting harder now. Down to my last two Walkmen... never liked MD, I didn't like digital downloads... I stream and record to tape...
SonicStage 4.3 will work with up to Windows 10 but you need the correct drivers which are hard to come by. Use Minidisc.org to help you find information and help.
wait a minute I had a few mini disk but it was from a promotion from Coca Cola and they had some good songs from good bands. but my mini disks never had that outer plastic shell. are they the same? and what about Nintendo game cube. that's a mini disk. right?
I don't think it is fair to say that MiniDisc "failed".. It was relatively successful in some countries and demographics. Perhaps not in the US so much. It was like Zip-drives, not widely popular but still somewhat successful... Speaking of zip-drives, Sony should've definitely made a PC version of MiniDisc -drives available, that would've boosted the success of the format dramatically. Back then the most popular portable mass storage format was 1.44 MB floppy discs. Relatively cheap and readily available MiniDiscs could've easily replaced them (and also CRUSHED Zip-drives!).
I remember zip drives when I was on the school yearbook committee in '98. Big clunky things that were superseded by the USB sticks, and jealously guarded by the girl who did the DTP work...
well from comparison test for music quality. with your own song there's no real difference. but with the real music the third test was a little bit louder and I am listening to this on a smartphone and a Bluetooth speaker so if this tells you anything.
Right when these came out I predicted they'd be the 8-track of the future. With recordable CDs these are really unnecessary, unless you really HAVE to have it be ultra-portable.
ok ben, i have an idea... have you heard of this program called Virtualbox? you can use it to run every os imaginable in a little window (or fullscreen if you prefer) alongside your main OS. i use it to run windows xp programs in windows 10, so if i can do it, so can you. and if you need any help (which i'm sure you will because i was also a noob with it) lemme know. let me know if you want me to send you my vhd file containing windows XP through email or some other method, because it's already pre-installed and has google chrome on it (in case you can't stand internet ex-glitcher). and since windows XP is no longer supported, it shouldn't be a problem to Microsoft, as with windows 2000.
Its funny that you mentioned the obsolescence in 2011. When I was in broadcast school around that time, we were still using MiniDiscs to record all manner of things, mostly live air checks. It was a running joke that we were still using such uncommon tech, but the story was that the school bought all the machines hoping their relevance would stay strong professionally, kinda like cds but they obviously lost that gamble and we had to stick with the results. For what it was worth, they were really good and if they were more popular I'd invest in a good player/recorder.
True personal story time from a former broadcast engineer…sorry
for the length of this in advance.
It was August of 1999 and I was a much younger DJ / aspiring
Engineer. The large company I worked for at the time was worried
about Y2K…especially since most of our stations / studios had been
converted to computer operations via Dalet Studio Automation. To say
Dalet was junk is putting it rather mildly, but that’s a different
story for a later time.
To make a long story short, someone at Corporate HQ decided it
would be a brilliant idea to buy two mini-disk machines for each
station that could record and play out. They also wanted two machines
in each production room. In the building in I was at in the southern
US, there were six stations: four music FMs, a sports AM and an
embarrassingly low-wattage talk AM. We also had three production
bays. That meant wiring in eighteen pieces of new equipment.
The plan was for each station to record enough programming to
cover January 1, 2000 LIKE THERE WAS NOTHING GOING WRONG. Yup…Music,
generic DJ talk and (most importantly to our big bosses in Chicago /
Atlanta at the time) billable commercials.
By the way: this was just in the location I worked at. The company
I worked for had about 300 stations nationwide at the time. You do
the rough math of how many of these paperweights were bought.
Engineers at all the stations, along with the Corporate Engineers,
argued this was a huge waste of time and money. There had been a
company-wide Y2K test two months earlier and not one station had a
problem. We had tested everything and it was fine. Still, in late
August 1999, the mini-disk machines (and all the recordable disks to
go with it) arrived at our loading dock.
We did what we were told and had everything installed and ready to
go. DJs were rotated into the production rooms to record what they
had to (that extra work was good for morale right around the
holidays…NOT). Three days before New Year’s Day, a full slate of
commercials were recorded to mini-disk as well. Come midnight on
1/1/2000…everything continued to work just fine and the mini-disks
machines were powered down. They were pretty much never touched again
until they were removed six years later.
I will say this: since these were the very high-end Sony machines,
the quality was pretty good and would have worked well if anything
had gone down. Still, it was a waste of time and money. BTW - that
company I worked for is now fighting to stay out of bankruptcy court
due to managerial mismanagement and questionable practices…go
figure.
As a network engineer used to seeing lots of money and effort go into redundancy, I have to say - that doesn't sound like the worst idea in the world. Kinda would've been nice to have some music and ads on a backup medium in case of computer issues at ANY time. :-) Let the DJs fill in live though, no pre-recording necessary, IMO.
John Chisum - I know I'm replying to a 2+ year post, but your 'ditty" was pretty interesting nonetheless.
At your last statement (I know what radio group you were working for by the Atlanta HQ reference, as my brother still lives in the area) it figures that's STILL VAILD IN '19 as they're in the process of being totally absorbed by a VULTURE FUND (that's what I call all equity and / or hedge funds from which almost no one survives on the long run)...
Minidiscs were very popular in France.
I still have mine with almost 50 discs.
It is a great pre-zoom H2 recorder, I used to have my compact Minidic recorder everywhere with me during my art school years
with a sony mini mike.
I liked it but I always found the sound too compressed, the sound sounds cold in this format
and you can hear that many frequency are missing.
But, yes, I think I'll buy a mini disc player one day to connect to my amp, I still like it.
WHAT thrift stores are you going to?! You always are finding cool stuff. The ones near me only offer used small appliances, shirts that were never fashionable, and copies of 50 Shades of Gray.
Mini-Discs were sold at stores near me till like 2007. I have a few of them for the novelty.
same here, i see people finding classic video games and systems and records, all i find are twilight books, and clothes that older than planet earth
my dad had a stack of sealed mini discs,but no minidisc player, never knew what they were till this video , i used to think they were smaller floppy discs
Here in Boston suburbs I find a lot of awesome junk. Retro games/tech all day!
Legit the only things even close to this cool I've found in thrift stores were a $5 toy piano that looked like a mini baby grand and an original copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from when it was first published.
I used MD religiously from about 2003-2006. It was a great format, especially among the music and recording geeks I hung around.
This is the show that reminds you in 20 years the young will think DVRs were stone age technology.
Depends of what they were smoking or something. Hasn't it always?
My radio station was using MDs regularly until 2008, when we installed a computerized on-air/playback/recording system, at which point they were gradually phased out over the next several years...while we still have MD recorders in most studios, they're rarely (if ever) used nowadays. Incidentally, all our recorders are Tascam MD-350 systems, for those wondering.
Funny you're posting this today, Ben. I just saw a MiniDisc a few days ago at the radio station at which I work.
You can rip CD's to ATRAC files on a PlayStation 3 at a bitrate of ~352kb/s, it says something about the system being able to process the audio better, you can also move the files on to USB drive.
Minidiscs are still used for some older broadcast recordings. We have some archived programs at the station on minidisc.
I liked the md format. Recording from the radio, editing out the adverts! I was making my own songs and mixing to md too...
Ok but hear me out on this idea: larger discs
What about NO DISCS? Digital music is the future.
iamoutofideas1 *Rolls out a cart of Laserdiscs.* How about ... LARGEST discs?
blocked
chrysanth. 「少女全能 And what about LARGESTER discs?
Hey hey, there are KIDS here (okay, so they are 50 year old kids)...
The latest version of SonicStage 4.3 is old, it's from 2007, but it still works with Windows 10. So I can still transfer music from my laptop to a NetMD Walkman Minidisc. For a recordable format from the nineties the quality is pretty good. Much better than audio-cassettes. I still use it to record stuff from the radio. You can finds discs and minidisc walkmen for very little on Ebay.
Would love to see an episode on other oddity optical formats such as GD-ROM (used in Dreamcast), UMD (used in PSP) and even HD-DVD (unless that was already covered in a Format Wars episode)
I've got the Rolling Stone disc, in addition to 2 Alice Cooper albums released on the format (The Last Temptation & Classicks). Also have 2 working MD machines that I actually still use to playback discs and record bits and pieces for my pirate radio station. Like DAT, this format may not have been great commercially, but is still viable for recording, especially when I'm wanting to record something quickly and not have to mess with computers. Also a great way of archiving digitally, as you pointed out. In other words, a format that never got its just deserves and one that is still useful today, in certain applications.
I have made music mixes on:
Cassette: 1986-2000.
Mini-disc: 1998 (once, which I later transferred to cassette).
CDs: 2001-09, with a few in the years since.
Digital playlists: 2010-present.
Back in the later 90's one of the best things I bought when I had DAT and MD machines was a M-Audio CO3 which was a format converter and also allowed you to bypass SCMS copy protection.
So minidisc is now retro tech? Damn I must be getting old.
I remember using those minidisc recorders to record vox pops when I was an intern at a radio station. People were constantly stealing the little bastards to pawn them for drug money.
Hope they got their orange aspirins okay. Headaches are a breeder.
If only Hired Stud: Will Travel was on Mini Disc.
Used mini disc for audio production at the small radio station I worked at in 1999. Still used it for back up recording when cool edit pro would crash. The station had that exact Sony cd minidisc unit in 2002 along with that more professional hi end units. Tascam etc. my minidisc Walkman skips like a bastard now. Just can't throw it away yet. Probably have 40 discs in a box that I made in 2000. recorded 5 hour long Howard Stern shows,in "LP 4 " mode. Kinda cool that minidisc can do that.
Aaron Z seriously. I was a talk radio junkie back in the day and LP4 was my best friend. It was am radio anyway so fidelity was not an issue. Upgraded to a Sony PCM M10 then transferred all my old MDS onto there... but yeah, LP4 was amazing for the fidelity it could give you. Those original Howard Stern shows you have are absolute gold
NETMD and SonicStage works fine on my Windows 7 Ultimate System.
I visited the studio of a radio reading service recently and they still had a Minidisc player in one booth
i had a small collection of minidiscs back in 97-98. i recorded songs from my friends cd's onto them amd listened to them in my 93 civic with a sony minidisc deck. i was literally the only person in town with minidiscs. what sold me was the small size, the protective case and of course the ability to copy cd's and even rearrange the order of the tracks and delete sections of tracks. they were awesome.
These things cost a fortune here in the UK in the late 90s. For some strange reason when i was in my late teens I was sort of obsessed on them thinking they were the future. I bought a brand new "Kenwood' mini disc recorder for £329 (telling my parents it was £50), at the time i was at college and worked 2 days a week (in the local electronics store) so it was very extravagant even with staff discount. I soon realised it was pointless as my car used cassettes and all the music i bought was on cassette. I sold it on QXL which was an early version of Ebay for virtually nothing. I still think they were a good idea but too late and too expensive.
The FM remote and most processing is actually done in the box on the remote cable. That's why you cant access FM without the original remote.
that tuner is a misnomer, the tuner itself was contained entirely inside the headphone dongle remote thing. The big thing was that this recorder was able to record that audio signal.
Do a video on TBN and other Christian TV channels!
Strawberry Station released an album on MiniDisc in 2019.
I got a NetMD instead of a MP3 player due to cost for Christmas 2004. It was a good format if you could get windows to work with the software. I convinced myself it was better since it had "infinite expansion"
Stephen Greer i was wondering how this comment was posted yesterday
but then i remembered patreon is a thing
Patreon is a wonderful thing.
I was so excited about MD at first but man was I disappointed when I bought my second device and ran into the DRM fiasco, I was trying to use it as a recorder for recording conversations and did get them recorded but there was no short way of getting around the DRM issue other than using the analog cable.
What do you mean no hits on that MiniDisc?...I believe RHCP's "Breaking the Girl" and Gangstarr's "Mass Appeal" were fairly popular. I also like "Nothingness" by Living Colour.
I have done my own testing with my HiMD MZ-RH910 FLAC vs 256 ATRAC3plus @256kbps (Hi-SP Mode) and even with good quality DACs and Headphones it is very hard to tell the difference. Of course UA-cam makes this test pointless as everything is recompressed.
I love my MD player, I use it every day for my commute. I rip Tidal Lossless service with Toslink (Optical). I use SonicStage in a Windows 7 VM to change the track names after recording.
My MiniDisc Walkman has one of those remotes but it's not hardwired to headphones, which is extremely helpful as it didn't come with headphones.
A true music geek would appreciate the minidisc
Can you do background music system formats like the 3m cantata, or the seeburg system for an episode?
My dad has tons of these! I always assumed they were common as a kid since there were so many lying around the house.
The only ones I've ever seen belonged to my aunt.
I got suckered into this MiniDisc crap in 1997. I bought a bundle that included a low end Walkman/portable player a home deck and 6 blank Minidiscs. I used it for a whole 3 months and never did so again. I ended up selling the portable unit on E-Bay for like 25 bucks in 2005. The home unit croaked. $499.99 down the toilet.
I find MDs to be quite attractive objects (I simply find them more satisfying to play than a CD) and a very good mixtape format due to the sound quality and the ability to re-order and edit tracks after you record them. My MD Walkman's headphone out SQ is quite impressive too. But of course I'm a weirdo who finds the obsolete alluring, I watch this show..
MiniDisc also had very few pre-recorded content ever released (6:16), most of them being from Sony's music publishing label. (8:02)
I remember the Sony connect attrac software. When support was gone all the music I had bought from there was useless in its native form due to the proprietary nature of Sony. I cursed a lot about this.
I gotta say, I still have those annoying audio issues (the sharp cutting-sounding noises) on my Discman from '99. But it really depends on the disc, if it's scratched or not.
also in my experience in archiving for a band, it seems like minidisc was best for taking a line in from a board rather cause if you wanna mic the room you'd be better of bringing a rig
I loved MD, Have the same sony cd md recorder, had a deck in my Honda Accord in 1999, and used the MD walkman. Loved making my own mixs before iPods were a thing
soundstage 4.3 works pretty well on windows 10
I can't get it to work, worked well on Windows 7 for me though. Wish it would work on Windows 10. Would love to get a copy of sonic stage 4.3, somewhere. I really like Minidisc a lot!
Kitten Care check sony insider fourm, should be one of the first results when you google sonicstage 4.3, you'll have to make an account to download it
No not available unfortunately. Thank you for your continued interest in Sony products.
Please note that the download service for SonicStage CP Software
(SonicStage Ver.4.3) Update program will be discontinued from March 29,
2013 onwards.
This link absolutely works if you want SonicStage! It does work with Windows 10 & more. Here's link, just copy & paste: ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/Downloads/SO/A/SST/SOASST-01198207-UN.exe
The latest version of SonicStage does work in at least Vista, but you may have to run it in XP compatibility mode. I have the MZ-NF810 with mic and line/optical inputs, but sadly no optical out. However, I found that older players from the 90s will happily play recordings from it (SP only) with seemingly perfect reproduction, and can deliver bit perfect transfers via optical if the player supports it.
Can we applaud how he didn’t get nailed by either a certain Music Distribution Company or SD for this video?
I use to recorded a lot of my gig's on a rack mounted Sony MD player and pre-amp with two pzm's that I either stuck on opposing walls or on the floor. always got great results.
10:50 Well the newest Windows machine I have is Vista.(probably time to upgrade)
I had a minidisc player for a while in the early 00s as it was cheaper than an Ipod at the time. SonicStage really was an awful piece of software.
I had a mini disc that came with a Little People toy from McDonalds.
There was a lot of Mini disc in Chinese.
Minidiscs are cool still here in UK.. Still very much a 'thing' '...I also have a hacked version of sonicstage that works on Windows 10
I used some kind of Sony software to put music on my N707 Walkman in Windows 10...
Old technology is cool, like classic cars. Plus it's what I grew up with.
I still use minidisc and its fantastic..
My older brother used to have one of these back in the day! I remember thinking it was the coolest thing... too bad the technology didn't really get to develop much further than what it did.
Sorry you’ve had so many issues with MD. I use my Hi-MD portable even now, also the version of Sonic Stage I use works perfectly on my Windows 7 Pro 64. Also I only record digitally in either Hi-SP 256k or PCM. Thanks for bring up the technology again
tfw you beat techhmoan to it
Minsc and Boo Techmoan's intentionally been spending YEARS on his video because he feels it's important to do the format justice and cover all the variations - he actually confirmed recently on Patreon that it will be two videos released weeks or months apart due to the project's scope.
MinoTheShow that's great news. Can't wait to hear Techmoans take on the format.
I've taken five years to get to part five of my main bike video series because crap simply happens.
And the format that wiped out the cassette...?
The microSD card.
Though both had their advantages and disadvantages, DCC was backwardly compatible with analogue cassette. Neither survived.
Also, good on the BBC for explaining lossy compression, using psychoacoustics to preserve only the sounds humans hear versus the I would say lossless compression but really uncompressed digital audio on a CD.
But yes, had Sony been less protective of the MiniDisc format and just opened it up, it would have had a time where it would have been a convenient format for both music and data in the late 1990s to early 2000s (when memory cards would have taken over anyway)
Perhaps if we'd seen albums released as read only, full size SD cards we might still have a currently supported physical format.
I used mine with a keyboard & no special cable, long time ago now...
I have working SonicStage 4.3.01 on windows 10 machine and MZ-N710 and they works together perfectly, all I have to do was install MD driver in safety mode on computer,
I still have the Sony JA555ES top of the range machine...very large and heavy
I did buy a minidisc player in 2004 with FM radio "toggle" on the headphone cord and some blank minidiscs...then MP3 players became the standard...yeah I wasted my money. I downloaded music from my laptop
It just occured to me that SCMS on Minidisc in particular seems excessive.
It is true that since DAT records audio samples as is, it is possible to 'clone' DAT tape bit-by-bit over digital connection, as there's no D->A->D conversion involved; This is what SCMS was designed to thwart.
However, at least in theory, it may not be possible to clone a Minidisc - with digital connection, there's still no lossy D->A->D involved, but now there's lossy glorified FFTIFFT conversion happening. Results of [inverse]FFT depend a lot of calculation precision, and the fact that different versions of ATRAC may encode/decode stuff slightly differently is likely not beneficial to the recording quality and will cause generational loss.
Therefore it doesn't really differ much from HQ analog copy with added benefit of copying track marks and, perhaps, track titles, automatically.
Think "re-encoding MP3 file many times".
Only way to make exact copy of a Minidisc would be to exactly copy data from one to another (think "dd"), but I'm not aware of any hardware/software that can do that.
I own a Hi-MD Walkman MZ-NH1. Sounds really nice only issue is the goddamn battery in my unit is dead like they are nearly $90...
I have a Yamaha MD-8. I love mine but 37 min per disc. Is the only reel drawback.
SonicStage can be made to work in Windows 7 x64. I have two Hi-MD recorders (MZ-RH1 for use at home and MZ-NH700 for usein car or just as a portable) that I use semi-frequently and I can use SonicStage without a problem on Win7.
Ben, Sony Sonic Stage works perfectly on Windows 10. I've been using it for a year now with zero problems. Give it a try! I also got into mini disc after finding one at a thrift store. It was broken, but not to be defeated, I went on an eBay minidisc spree picking up 3 players, a bunch of new blank discs from Japan, and even spending a couple of hundred bucks to get a copy of Daft Punk's Homework shipped from the Philippines. I was planning on using the format as a field recorder, but then sobered up and realized I could do better on a phone nowadays (not that I would).
I preferred your theme best, even in the crappiest mode it's still suitable for the weird stuff that shows in your videos ;-)
Another random cassette haul ep sometime in the future, if the closeout was anything to go by...? O.o
Am I the only one wondering why Sweet Lullaby is on that Rolling Stone disk. With all of those rock songs (some of which are complete fire:)), it seems odd that they decided to add a new age song. (It's an awesome song though)
There actually is a way to use SonicStage on Windows 10, but in my experience, it's more finicky than on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I find it easier to just install an older version of Windows in a virtual machine and run SonicStage on that.
I liked minidisc, after I got a recorder two of my friends did about 15 years ago... then all 4 recorders died, all of them sit in my pile of dead things. Not long after that miniDV bit me more then a few times with three layers of failure. Then I lost all faith in tiny consumer formats. Digital 8 is as small as I will go if there is a choice... and I don't like flash "ram" either for similar reasons. Data errors. Yet I "have to". Maybe I should go back to using 8mm video tape FM HiFi stereo as portable audio as I did in the mid 90's... though if I had more then 4 backup laptops with good recording maybe I'd use raw digital. Maybe I'm crazy but right now I have a thing for betacam sp AFM, 1/4" 2 track RTR @ 15 ips, 12" 45's and of course the D...i... g......t....l computer tower (although the search/seek/"jog" control is absolutely piss poor in general). What happened to new and better anyway?
I know a guy in OZ who records to Beta Hi-Fi. I tried using VHS Hi-Fi but not all the decks will work with no video.
would be nice to see the waveform on an oscilloscope (optical cable vs phono cable)
asdfg dot me slash osci
Sony made the RM-D11P keyboard remote commander to input titles etc onto MD's
I thought you were going to have Musical March in September like a certain Cinema Snob?
I never stopped using cassette. It's getting harder now. Down to my last two Walkmen... never liked MD, I didn't like digital downloads... I stream and record to tape...
Anything that can still record analogue should be kept. Not bad but strange.
SonicStage 4.3 will work with up to Windows 10 but you need the correct drivers which are hard to come by. Use Minidisc.org to help you find information and help.
What is the name of the second test song, the one with the woman singing?
Great series.. Just as good as LGR, UXWBill, and Gaming Historian's history videos!
wait a minute I had a few mini disk but it was from a promotion from Coca Cola and they had some good songs from good bands. but my mini disks never had that outer plastic shell. are they the same? and what about Nintendo game cube. that's a mini disk. right?
Me my opinion Sche Nope, those are miniCDs
Wrong, Gamecube discs were a proprietary format based on mini-DVDs.
rope gang smokke weeeeeeds
You forgot Gescom's MiniDisc album. It was the world's first and only MD exclusive album, if memory serves.
Mini disc was quite successful in the UK tbh. See Tech Moan's channel for more information on this
30somethingmanchild exactly, thats the man ! This reveiw sucks
I don't think it is fair to say that MiniDisc "failed".. It was relatively successful in some countries and demographics. Perhaps not in the US so much.
It was like Zip-drives, not widely popular but still somewhat successful... Speaking of zip-drives, Sony should've definitely made a PC version of MiniDisc -drives available, that would've boosted the success of the format dramatically. Back then the most popular portable mass storage format was 1.44 MB floppy discs. Relatively cheap and readily available MiniDiscs could've easily replaced them (and also CRUSHED Zip-drives!).
They did, but it was a flop: MD Data.
I remember zip drives when I was on the school yearbook committee in '98. Big clunky things that were superseded by the USB sticks, and jealously guarded by the girl who did the DTP work...
Techmoan did the exact same topic at exact same time lol
well from comparison test for music quality. with your own song there's no real difference. but with the real music the third test was a little bit louder and I am listening to this on a smartphone and a Bluetooth speaker so if this tells you anything.
You need to download the unofficial NetMD x64 driver in order to make it work on modern systems.
Learned Bennie is preferred spelling ❤❤❤
what is the song used in the "worst" section?
You should get your own website and upload the files in RAW there..
Lutz Peyton He does have a website.
13:44 why was your minidisc made in Austria?
Ben: the MZ-NF610 itself does not have a tuner, the remote sold with the unit (which is gigantic, BTW, I have one) contains that tuner. Sony logic.
Right when these came out I predicted they'd be the 8-track of the future. With recordable CDs these are really unnecessary, unless you really HAVE to have it be ultra-portable.
you could load xp on virtual pc on windows 7 then install the software...
ok ben, i have an idea... have you heard of this program called Virtualbox? you can use it to run every os imaginable in a little window (or fullscreen if you prefer) alongside your main OS. i use it to run windows xp programs in windows 10, so if i can do it, so can you. and if you need any help (which i'm sure you will because i was also a noob with it) lemme know.
let me know if you want me to send you my vhd file containing windows XP through email or some other method, because it's already pre-installed and has google chrome on it (in case you can't stand internet ex-glitcher). and since windows XP is no longer supported, it shouldn't be a problem to Microsoft, as with windows 2000.
Hey Ben, we should do a video together
Steely Dan!
What about Dan of Steel?
funnily enough, Pretzel Logic came on just now.