Why Sony Should've Put Its Weight Behind Hi-MD 519
An anonymous reader writes "OSNews has an article making a case for Hi-MD: 'Currently, .mp3 players are all the hype. Everyone has one, and if you don't, you're old-fashioned. I do not have an .mp3 player. I tried to have one, but for various reasons it did not please me. I'm a MiniDisc guy. I've always been. MiniDisc has some serious advantages over .mp3 players, whether they be flash or HDD based.'"
Sorry, but no... (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
SonicStage is really bad. (Score:5, Informative)
It's seriously one of the worst pieces of software I've ever used. I ended up creating 1GB audio cd images of my mp3s and then ripping them using a less offensive piece of Sony software. But eventually, it got to the point that I just stopped making new disks and got tired of the ones I had. The NetMD player ended up in a drawer for many months until I gave it away and bought a Rio Karma.
I read a few reviews before purchasing but I figured the software couldn't be THAT bad. I was wrong. The battery life and the price of media were amazing though and it was a nice little piece of hardware for the $130 I paid.
As an aside, the player skipped whenever I kept it in my shorts pocket, it wasn't as bulletproof as I thought it would be from reading reviews. It skipped way more than my Karma but the Karma's harddrive eventually died so I maybe I unwittingly vibrate like a paintshaker or something.
The death of minidisc (Score:2, Informative)
1) At the time, you had to record a Minidisc from a CD at 1 to 1 speed over an optical cable. No way to rip to a PC and transfer. You could rip an mp3 at 8 to 1 speed.
2) Because you had to record from a CD, playlist management was a pain.
Until the iPod, MD was still competitive because
1) Flash players relied on memory cards which were expensive.
2) HDD players ate batteries and had crappy runtimes. And they were heavy too.
The iPod was the first HDD based mp3 player that had a combination of acceptable battery life, form factor, and easy playlist management.
He makes a semi-decent point about saving the format by using it with PSP. Sadly, having a recordable format would run counter with Sony's fear of piracy so that idea is really a nonstarter.
Re:Only applies to ipods... (Score:5, Informative)
I decided to get a recorder that recorded to Compact Flash, the Marantz PMD660. Great unit.
Re:Only applies to ipods... (Score:4, Informative)
This article is crap. iPods have flash storage in one incarnation. So, don't think a hard drive is sturdy enough? Buy the flash model. Space? The author admits a MD hold less than 350 MB. That's half a regular CD. Smallest iPod -- the 512 MB shuffle. More than that single MD disc -- and a MD player can only hold on MD disc at a time. Want to swap out that disc to increase your library? Do the same on an iPod -- hook it to your computer and you have a universe of music you can put on it. So, using the same logic behind the statement "MiniDisc offers unlimited storage space" means an iPod offers infinite storage space. Recording add-ons are available for the iPod (if you want to use your iPod for that). Battery life? Well, this article certainly does not do a scientific comparison. MP3 playback? Sony's history is to not really allow a device to play back MP3 without significant inconvenience. That has not changed, as the article author readily admits. It goes on and on, not coming up with anything meaningful to put in the MD column. Sony has put its weight behind MD and it has had some okay success in the past (especially overseas). Its present is mostly a consequence of these vested users. But people are all moving to flash or hard drive based music devices because of the very real world advantages in price and convenience due to storage space economies of scale and easy computer integration. Sony's solution is proprietary, in the bad sense of that word. And, by now, hopelessly out of date.
MiniDisc is not the iPod killer you are looking for.
1 Gb is good enough for me... (Score:5, Informative)
I can also live with about 128 kbps mp3s or even 96 kbps for some songs and I can fit enough albums on this thing to keep me happy for weeks, then I change them around. If I need space to transfer files, I just delete the music folders and use it as a jump drive.
I think the people are buying iPods just because their friends have iPods and they don't know that there other such "toys" out there with a different set of features that might work better for them.
Sorry I bought my HiMD (Score:5, Informative)
I've also tried to use it for playing music when I am at the gym but again the soundstage software makes it hard to import the music tracks I want.
Overall the device is mediocre for all it's published uses. This is because of the software and interface.
Re:Some people just don't get it.... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a former MD addict and this guy's an idiot (Score:5, Informative)
1) CDs suck. There's a reason why we stopped using 5-1/4" floppies. 5" media is just too large. It doesn't fit in your hand. It doesn't fit in your pocket. Carrying a large number of them is about as fun as lugging around a coffee can.
2) CD player with optical out + MD with optical in = perfect sounding copy of a CD in a compact, sturdy package.
3) Human beings covet. They want pretty shiny objects they can hold and line up like conquests on a shelf. While some might argue their directory listing is just as sexy...it's more likely to make eyes glaze over than pop out.
4) It's nice to be able to loan someone part of your collection or make that mix tape without handing them a $300 player (remotely authorizing their computer is again, vastly unsexy as a gift)
5) My high-end MD in 1997 looked better and was smaller than any other audio player, and that includes that newfangled Rio thing that had just come out.
6) Boy, did I love being able to record long classroom lectures without losing key parts while my classmates swapped tapes.
That said, this is the year 2006 and this guy has to be a complete idiot for not realizing that the MD has an incredibly superior replacement:
FLASH MEDIA.
Your average SD card or even CF card makes an MD look like a brick. MDs are not as indestructable as this yahoo would lead you to believe. The door eventually gets flukey just like 3-1/2" floppies did. I mean, it's a moving part and (especially on compact players) takes a lot of force to slide back and forth. Once the door is bent or starts catching, you end up either removing it and fearing that you've essentially rendered the point of having a media caddy useless, or losing your $1-2 investment.
Flash media, meanwhile, is ROCK SOLID. For crying out loud, someone shot a bullet through one and still pulled off the data it. And, MD will never win awards for access times. MD was fine for a linear activity like playing a CD, but jumping tracks is also just like a CD...you wait. The only thing Sony could be doing with Hi-MD is switch to a packet-based system...which is going to be murder on fussy drive mechanics.
Yes, flash media is expensive. But you can fit the equivalent of 8 or 9 MDs on a $35 flash card. True, a 1GB MD costs a lot less but this is the same song as Zip, or Jaz or SyJet or any other removable media. And how well have they worked out? A few years from now, a 1GB removeable media will seem as antiquated as a floppy disc. Meanwhile, flash capacities will continue to grow.
The only missing part of the equation is larger selection of players where you can remove the flash media. This is how they all started out (Rio etc) and honestly, I don't know why they have fallen out of favor. It adds maybe a few dollars to the price of a couple hundred dollar player. It can do the exact same magic, but with the all the advantages I described in the above MD praise.
So I think this guy needs to wake up and smell the present. I still think my 400 MDs look pretty as hell, and evey now and then I'll relax somewhere with my faithful Sony. And if I ever need to record 300 minutes of speaking, it's still the only thing I use. But the music that's on those 400MDs is now held on a portable hard drive and whenever I have a need to share it, I just copy it over to a USB thumbdrive. If I was still a Sony guy, it would be a MemoryStick. Maybe someday Apple will decide to bless a certain form of flash media like Sony has with the PSP but until then, my target platform is still the laptop.
So, while I can appreciate the romance involved in the MD, it's over. There are smaller, faster, sturdier and ($/MB) cheaper options. He can tilt against windmills if he wants to but, I'm ready to look forward to 8GB, 16GB and 32GB flash devices.
-JoeShmoe
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Re:1 Gb is good enough for me... (Score:4, Informative)
It has a base of 1Gb storage which is expandable using sd cards (so really its got unlimited storage), it has fm radio and works as a usb storage drive for both the onboard 1gb storage and for the connected sd card...
I have 3 sd cards which have each have different types of music on them and i have music that i listen too more often stored on the base flash drive
The SD cards beat the HELL out of sonys HI-MD as there are many many different sizes depending on what you want and they are solid state...
linky for those interested
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1208)-SDMX2-
Re:A good mp3 player to record with? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Surely most here can agree... (Score:5, Informative)
WTF?
Proprietary: Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent: [reference.com]
From the aac licensing faq [vialicensing.com] If you want to make or listen too an AAC track, you have to pay the toll (directly or indirectly). While the license is reasonable & non disriminatory - it is most certainly a proprietary format.
Re:1 Gb is good enough for me... (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, the dynamic playlist generation in iTunes is by far one of the coolest features I've seen in software for an mp3 player. I can flag all my "most played songs" or flag all of my highest rated songs for a playlist. Want to rate your music? Create a dynamic playlist of unrated music. These playlists get updated everytime you sync your ipod to iTunes as well.
While this was a cool feature, I still intalled Rockbox http://www.rockbox.org/ [rockbox.org] on my ipod so I could use it as a portable hard drive and just copy my music to a folder.
Re:Windows only! Soon to die. Big downsides. (Score:3, Informative)