I love(d) my minidiscs. I have a slot-loading Sony portable currently in use and a Yamaha 8-track gathering dust due to my attenuated recording needs (just me). Especially with the portable there’s something niftily star-trekky about popping in the little minidisc. It’s a completely self-contained digital recording/playback/indexing system that uses removable re-recordable optical media, and is not much larger than a full-sized iPod. Not for everyone, but a pretty awesome device nonetheless.
I haven’t been in a real recording studio in seven or eight years, but back then they were being used rather extensively in project and pro recording studios. My guess is they’re not used that much anymore and the format is truly headed for the dustbin. I read somewhere that the company that made the transports (Alps) stopped making the transports.
I think at this point CD offers the highest quality sound obtainable by consumers in a small, durable (for the most part), user friendly format, so I don’t think it’s going away any time soon. I can definitely see sales shrinking due to downloading, legitimate or otherwise, though.
Retail store CD prices well exceeded my threshold of what I’m willing to pay years ago. iTunes’ $9.99 an album is excellent pricing as far as I’m concerned - it takes away a lot of the agony of deciding whether or not to buy.
Also, you don’t need to buy a portable mp3 player to listen to downloaded music.
I don’t know, man. That’s kind of big to be carryin’ around.
I don’t know how much smaller you’re going to be able to get than something like an iPod shuffle. I mean how much smaller a package can you squeeze in a power supply, data storage, a control surface, enough amplification to power headphones, and data and sound ports? I anticipate being surprised.
There’s definitely room for improved audio compression schemes, of course (better sound, less space).
My prediction is that the next big shift will be eliminating the concept of a medium being the product. You’ll see companies selling the music itself as the product with the buyer deciding how he wants to receive and store it. The current MP3 market is the beginning of this.
Maybe it’s the purist in me, but I hope that if music ever becomes primarily downloaded instead of on a physical medium, that they make it available in lossless compression. Sure it’d take up more space, but hard drive capacity increases haven’t exactly stopped.
As for SACD/DVD-A, even if there isn’t even a noticable difference in sound quality (I seem to notice it, but I’ve never done a double blind test), there is the benefit of 5 channels instead of 2.
…so I post yesterday about my sweet, unused MD recorder. I finish up and head on home for the evening and lo, what does the wife ask? ‘Can you MD a new album I just bought?’ Coincidence? I say thee nay!
And yes, Mack I love the futuresque styling of carrying a bunch of MDs. It always feels like you’re just a little bit ahead of the rest of the pack, doesn’t it? (and yes, I know MP3 is more recent tech, but I’m talking about feelings, not facts ). I know you can carry more music on an MP3 player, but I still like being able choose what to take with me.
I’m inspired now, I think I really need to invest in a long-play MD recorder. You can record something like 620 minutes (?) at highest compression on an 80 minute disc.
Fishbicycle, I didn’t know MDs had taken off so solidly in radio stations, but now that you mention it, it does seem kind’ve obvious. (sorry, minor hijack here) Did radio stations retain eight-track technology long after it slipped from commercial view for the same reasons? Or am I misremembering things?
The format you are thinking of was a tape cartidge wound the same way as an eight-track, an endless loop, but there were either two tracks (one for mono audio and one for cue tones for automation) or three tracks (two for stereo, one for tones). There the resemblance to 8-track ends. The cartridge is driven differently. When you loaded it into the deck, the idler wheel came up from underneath, going inside a hole on the bottom of the cart, and tripped a clutch which unlocked the spinning tray, pressing the tape against the capstan, connected to the motor. In an 8-track, the idler wheel was part of the cartridge. The 8-track was the progeny of the 4-track cartridge format from the early '60s, which did not catch on with the public. Those 4-track carts became the format used by radio up until the turn of this century.
