Could someone please tell me what the advantages of a minidisc player are over an MP3 player, and what teh advantages of an MP3 are over a minidisc player?
Minidisc - marginally better sound quality, and you can carry a large number of discs to have a greater playlist for long trips.
MP3 - tend to be smaller. Absolutely non-skip. Extremely handy if you have a large collection of MP3 songs already. You need a PC if you want to be able to manage your collection efficiently. Unless you’re looking at a CD or hard disk based MP3 player, you’re very limited as to how much music you can carry with you - a 128 Meg MP3 player will carry @2 hours of good quality recording.
I tend to take my Minidisc player with me if I’m off on a trip, with a stack of minidiscs. I’ve got an MP3 player which I use if I’m biking, skating or running.
The biggest advantage of getting a minidisc player is that the discs themselves are far less expensive than Smartmedia/Compactflash cards, and MUCH cheaper than Memory sticks. This means that you can record many, many hours of music on minidisc for the price of about half an hour on an Mp3 player.
However, the minidiscs themselves are slightly larger (although, in my opinion, at that size, they’re hardly “bulky”). Additionally, since they have moving parts, you may experience skipping. Note: In my two years of owning a minidisc player (during which it’s been put through a lot of jostling), it’s never skipped. So I think that’s a negligible risk.
The advantage of an Mp3 player is that the unit itself is significantly smaller, and most probably get better battery life. However, unless you want to invest several hundred dollars in multiple memory cards, you have to re-record new music onto it every time you feel like changing the music arrangement. Unless you’re really picky about your music, this shouldn’t be a problem.
“re-record” sounds like a big deal, but all you need to do is connect the MP3 player to the PC (usually via USB) and copy the MP3 files. Of course you need to be at your computer to do this, and it is still more trouble than swapping MD disks.
The main reason I got my MP3 player (Rio 500) is that it can play back audiobooks and radio show recordings downloaded from Audible.com (NOT free, but much cheaper than buying tapes). It’s convenient to be able to store a complete unabridged book in the MP3 player. Not all MP3 players can play back Audible files though, since they use non-standard file formats.
In my opinion (yeah, I know, wrong forum), the main reason to choose mp3 players over minidisc is that minidisc is proprietary to Sony.
mp3 is very portable, in the sense that you or your buddy, or just about anyone on the internet can play it. Yes, it’s technically proprietary to Fraunhofer, but practically, it’s not.
I daresay that most people making the decision that you are will already have a sizeable mp3 collection on their home computer.
Let me chime in and say that Mini Discs are WAY superior than MP3 files. One of the cool things about mini discs is that you can input text to the “file”. Not only that you can edit, move, and combine songs in various orders. It interfaces with a stereo. Something I’m not sure that MP3 can do. I’ve got the home version, car version and a portable MD player. Not only are they better than MP3, they’re even better than homemade CDs. Mini Discs are HUGE in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and are very popular in Europe. The only people who don’t “get” mini discs are usually Americans. Mini Discs are they only replacement for cassettes. All other formats pale by comparison.
Follow-up question for SPOOFE and Gnostic, because I’ve been considering an mp3 or MiniDisc purchase for a while:
I used to work out on the treadmill with a CD player. The skip-protection feature was fine within each track, but it would refuse to change tracks; that is, the skip-protection it wouldn’t read ahead to the next track, only within the same track. Do portable MiniDisc players have this problem as well, or will they read ahead across the entire disc?
I used to use a Denon component MiniDisc recorder/player when I worked in radio; my morning-show partner and I used to record all of our drop-ins, music, bits and IDs on them, and I was always very happy with the sound quality and editing features.
Pldennison are you saying that when you were on the treadmill you had to actually push the forward button on the CD player to get it to move? If that’s so, it’s just another reason why I don’t have a “portable” CD player. CDs are really made for the home stereo. They don’t work well in the car or jogging. I suppose those CD recordably thingys work, but who would want that? Oh wait I forgot, they are popular in America.
I’m not sure if they read ahead across the entire track like you said but I have never heard one skip or act like a CD might. If you’ve used one before then you know it’s more satisfying than sitting in front of a computer downloading files.
what about an mp3 CD player vs the previously mentioned options? do they skip about as much as any normal CD player? as long as you are able to burn the cd’s, storage space isn’t really a problem, right?
Ok, so one difference between the two that I haven’t heard mentioned is something that I’ve occasionally had occasion to take advantage of:
Almost all the music I have is in the form of a very large mp3 collection. When recording from the computer to a mini disc player, you can’t do any sort of high speed dubbing. So if you want to put 2 hours of mp3s onto a minidisc, it will take you 2 hours to do it.
On the other hand, with a mp3 player, you are only restricted by how fast the transfer method (be it parallel or USB) you are using is. So occasionally I’ve had to leave for somewhere in half an hour, and I have these new mp3s that I want to listen to on the way there. I don’t have the hour necessary to record them onto a minidisc. But it is simplicity itself to transfer them onto my mp3 player, and it takes less than 10 minutes.
The newer MiniDisc (MD from now on) recorder/players by Sony are very small and comparable to MP3 players I have seen. They are about the same size as the actual disc and about as thick as 2 or 3 discs. Size should not be the main issue keeping you from buying one nowadays.
Newer MD recorders by Sony come with Digital and Analog PC Links that let you record from your computer, and this includes those pesky MP3s you speak of. In fact, if you don’t mind waiting for it to record in the first place, you can input any sound media you want through the optical or miniplug inputs. I’ve also hooked up a microphone and recorded on the MD on the fly.
If you’re not against MP3 trading online, you probably won’t be against recording music onto your MDs either. You can carry an optical link or even a miniplug setup and record from any portable CD player you want. The optical ports are harder to find on a CD player so you might prefer the miniplug setup but optical offers the digital connection that makes recording all the easier. So your friend is listening to a song on his CD player and you like the song, you can record it right there. That’s if you into that kind of thing, that is.
I’m not sure about the high speed dubbing thing, though I’m sure it’s in the works.
If you don’t mind sacrificing sound quality, you can record in Mono for double the recording length (about 150 mins) and the newer models have another mode that lets you record four times the length of a normally recorded disc (about 300 mins).
MD players have at least 40 second ESP now but I’ve had them skip before.
MP3’s have distinct advantages too but other people are more qualified to discuss them. I have been hooked on the MD for years so maybe there’s a slight bias. Ah well.
I just bought a factory return MP3-CD player cheap on eBay. Granted, it’s much larger than any straight MP3 or MD player, but I can get close to nine hours of music on a CD-R. It’s got 45 sec skip protection; I’ve been using it mostly in my car, and have driven over some rather crappy roads. I’ve yet to hear a skip. Not bad for less than 50 bucks and the cost of a CD-R.
Sony has a minidisc player that can function as an MP3 player exactly. Know a girl at work who uses it since she commutes.
The cost was comparable if not the same as a regular MP3 player when I was last at CompUSA, Best Buy, and even Target. Because of that, I’d go with the added functionality even if minidiscs will probably never take off like CDs have.
[homer]stupid proprietary intellectual property rights ruined my BETA format[/homer]