Anyone with experience of Minidiscs???

[MooNoi]

Help!

I've bought a new Sony mini-disc as it is so much smaller and easier to use when travelling than a Discman.

It came with a little attachment that connects it to a PC so I can down-load songs from the internet on to a blank disc. Trouble is, I've got no idea how! Anyone know a simple way to learn this? Is it difficult? And what are good websites to go to for downloading FREE music? (I noticed Napster is being rebuilt or something). Thanks in advance for your help!

[Guest]

Download Morpheus from www.Musiccity.com

This is even better than Napster. Go to search and put in whatever type, name etc..of music you want. Be adventurous, I've got stuff I would never of dreamed of listening to.

All I have for transferring music from PC to Minidisc is a lead, place one end in the microphone socket of the minidisc, slect line in on the selector on the back, the other in line out of your sound board and then play the tracks you want. Ifn you record in Mono on the minidisc you get 148 minutes of music,they really are great things.

[short-time]

Yep, ain't they great. I've been sold on Minidisks since I bought my first setup six or seven years ago. They're a much better deal these days as the units and discs were very expensive back then. Down side is they do seem to have reliability problems. I'm now on my 6th unit and have had problems with most of them. One suggestion I have is to use the optical input for recording if at all possible. And if you don't have a CD player with an optical output - buy one! Don't waste your time trying to get a CD ROM drive to do the job.

(Sorry about the off topic post fellas, I know this belongs in another area.)

ST

[Straycat]

For a wealth of information on minidisc, check the following site:

Mini Disc Org

Straycat

[Roger]

Anyone know if its possible to link up a Minidisk player to a car stereo system?

[Guest]

well as a last resort you cold always get one of those silly cassete like things you plug in the tape deck and then put the jack in the headphones slot. You can even power it through your cigarete lighter socket.

[Sarisin]

Like others mentioned I really do love my mini-disc too. Great transportable music.

I was wondering why these things never caught on in the States (I don't know about elsewhere) while they do great in Japan, and so-so here in the LOS. For example, it is virtually impossible to find any prerecorded MDs in the US. True, it is better to use it to record your own tunes.

Great to use these things while exercising too. I have a home unit that can record directly from CDs, cassettes, and the radio. I have seen the new models that let you download and transfer music from the 'net, but downloading is very slow for me here in the LOS so I stick with the CDs.

[short-time]

Agree the Minidisk revolution never really caught on here in the US, although they finally seem to be gaining popularity. Poor sales may have been due to their initial very high price - I paid about $850 for my first system that included both a Walkman and a home deck. At that time blank disks were about $10 each which didn't help. Also, when the Minidisk was introduced it was in direct competition with the newly marketed DAT format (now dead except for studio stuff). That rivalry probably confused the small high end audio market putting a lot of people off. Lack of prerecorded (pressed) media may have also contributed to their poor popularity, although I doubt if Sony ever envisioned a real market for these. Anyway, America is basically a cattle car low end market and has little interest in superior technology when something is already available for cheaper that will do a similar job.

[Straycat]

quote:

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Originally posted by short-time:

Anyway, America is basically a cattle car low end market and has little interest in superior technology when something is already available for cheaper that will do a similar job.

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On the other hand, in contrast to the MD it's interesting to notice how the DVD market really is booming rapidly!

Low end market is prolly not the single answer here

Straycat

[short-time]

Straycat,

Yes, I agree and you make a good point. You know the consumer market here in the states is a fickle thing. The point I was trying to make was that having a superior product doesn't guarantee it will be successful. As a couple of examples, the original Sony Betamax videotape format was considered superior to VHS in performance, but is no longer available. DBX noise reduction was a huge improvement over Dolby, but consumers and manufacturers ignored it. DVD's are an interesting case as they are the replacement for the older analog laserdisc technology and are touted as being better, largely because they are digital. But are DVD's better? Guess it depends on how you define better. I own both and have been very disappointed with the picture quality of DVD's. The compression scheme used results in distortion and glitches that are so severe in some scenes that I'm amazed most people find the medium even acceptable. Same goes for digital satellite TV. But, if smaller is better, then the DVD wins hands down.

Kind of reminds me of something that happened not long ago when a salesman in a showroom was giving me a demonstration of wide screen TV's. His selling point was that it was so much better because it was WIDESCREEN. But when I observed the same picture on another older set and commented that the only difference was that the top and bottom portions of the picture had been chopped off to get the illusion of increased width; He acknowledged yes, but it was WIDESCREEN! Guess I'll keep what I have for the time being.

ST