Minidisc FAQ: MDLP (“Long-Play”) Mode Topics | Hacker News Reader

Minidisc FAQ: MDLP (“Long-Play”) Mode Topics

minidisc.org

57 pointssarusso37 comments

I got back into minidiscs a couple of years ago and I'm really enjoying the revival. Modern software exists to use the NetMD players with current computers and the software is actively growing in capabilities that never existed before.

A lot of md players have great DACs and headphone amps and sound great when paired with new headphones.

I love the convenience of streaming music but what md reminded me of was how much I used to enjoy making "mixtapes" to give as gifts. That blank minidiscs are available in a wide variety of colors and designs makes this even more fun.

Until recently, it was fairly inexpensive to pick up old md gear. Lately the prices are shooting up as more people get interested in md.

I’ve recently purchased a NetMD-capable player but admittedly have not yet dug around to see what software is out there. Would you mind providing a link to the one you’ve been happy with?

This is a weird topic to be on the front page, but since it is:

If you're into collecting MiniDisc stuff (or, like me, just never got the message that we were supposed to stop using it), the "MDLP" badge on recorders and players is what you want to look for for the best quality equipment.

Even if you never use LP mode, the MDLP-badged equipment come with improved versions of the SP codec, as well.

("Hi-MD" is the ultimate evolution, but not worth trying to use now, since while they still make blank MDs, they stopped making blank Hi-MDs years ago, and they now command absurdly high prices.)

Sony (or somebody else) still makes blank MiniDiscs?

Also, isn’t it possible to use HiMD mode on "SD discs"? I never had an HiMD recorder, but I remember reading that e.g. using the mass storage functionality was possible on legacy disks as well.

They do! Type "MDW80T" into eBay if you'd like to buy some shiny new ones.

Or directly form the sony.jp website: https://www.sony.jp/rec-media/products/MDW80T

I think the story here is that Japanese gov't and many companies still use the media for a number of reasons. Kinda like floppies still being used sparsely by the military.

I love that Sony keeps the optical formats alive. They "recently"(in 2018) released the one and only quad layer BDXL writable disc, with 128GB capacity. It's japan-only but the fact that it exists at all is a miracle. Even though the BDXL 128GB spec was written all the way back in 2010, no one bothered to invest in the chemistry and the production line for these, but Sony finally did, and they are still making them. I got a bunch imported from Japan, I just find it so cool.

HiMD gear is rare and expensive compared to the regular MD and MDLP stuff. Yes, you can use the HiMD format on a regular MD disc via a HiMD recorder, but then you can only use that disc in a HiMD unit. To me it's not worth it as the vast majority of available hardware is not HiMD. I have an MD boombox, component hifi, and a few portable players. I use them regularly. None support HiMD. If you want to get into MD you will find MDLP models and media easily and can jump right in. Not so much with the HiMD units and media.

Probably should mention that minidisc saw a big revival for the anniversary and the fact that NetMD has been almost fully reverse engineered (allowing for uploads from any NetMD unit). All you need is a NetMD unit, a USB cable, and a chromium-based browser (needs WebUSB, then go here: https://web.minidisc.wiki/ )

On the LP topic, that site allows for encoding higher quality LP2 to minidisc by using the PSP SDK's ATRAC3 encoder, which I guess was newer and improved than what the original Sony software used for minidisc burning.

Fun fact, Arnold Schwarzenwggwe in Last Action Hero has a mini disc player in his car. I always thst looked really futuristic.

Still bitter that Sony squandered some fantastic tech because they were so shit scared of audio and data mixing. I know the solid state stuff is miles better but the '90s teen in me who grew up watching animes set in 20XX with characters using MiniDiscs still romanticizes about what could have been.

Solid state is better for some (maybe most) things.

Racks of spinning rust still exist rather than SSDs because sometimes capacity is better than speed. I don't need my MP3s to run at multiple GB a second. Different tech still has its place.

I'm just bitter that MO (Magneto-Optical) never caught on outside of Japan. It was basically a non-proprietary Minidisc for data, which in practice was a way more reliable alternative to Zip disk (and more expandable as it went from 230 MB to 640 MB to 1.3 GB over the years)

MO disk: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52853106039_1192aab173_b...

Compared to contemporary formats: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52853320975_a02f7e15bc_b...

Back in the day, when I had a Minidisc player, I heard in Japan, there were Minidisc drives for PCs as data storage. I would have liked to have one of those, but if that was true, they didn't find their way to Europe. They were very pretty and I liked the haptics.

In the UK I had a minidisc drive in a PC I built, which I used for both data storage and for writing music to play on a minidisc player

The technology was so far ahead of its time, it felt like a real step forward

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD_Data

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzwtCBj5jEs

> ATRAC1 Type R

I love this. Please bring whimsy back to computing. VTEC just kicked in yo: http://minidisc.org/type_r_atrac.html

For everyone out there who wants to get into this wonderful world, I recommend visiting MiniDisc Wiki's Get Started Guide (https://www.minidisc.wiki/guides/getting-started) and its subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/minidisc/)

I was a bit annoyed with labeling options on pre-NetMD devices and built a little device to do it for me (https://www.tindie.com/products/fijam/gmdrec/). Went from just about knowing what a resistor is, through a couple breadboard prototypes to over 70 devices sold worldwide.

I miss those MD days. I still have a few of TDK's Bit Club and XSIV series blanks, the classic RXG's and a Maxwell that glows in the dark.

Same: MDs were so cool for their time. I have japanese family and MD was big there, so every time my brother would visit me, he'd bring back fancy tech. One year the fancy tech was lots of MDs and two MD players.

Everything about it was so cool: the form factor, they were satisfying to manipulate, the portable players were cool. So were the "full sized" players/recorders you could hook up to your HiFi / stereo stack.

I'd rip CDs to MDs and for years and years MDs were my goto medium for music (nowadays I rip CDs to FLAC files and sent these FLAC files to a DAC). The discs were often good looking too (sadly I never had these glowing in the dark ones!).

Reference to Techmoan is de rigeur:

https://youtu.be/kU3BceoMuaA

Especially any of you kids who weren't around when the MiniDisc craze swept the world like a wildfire gone berzerk.

At least in America it didn't really though. I was in my twenties in the 1990s and would have been in the target audience but nobody I knew had an MD player and you'd only rarely even see the players in stores. I know they were big in Japan but in the US people either still used their 1980's cassette players (Walkman and the like) or, if they cared about portable sound quality, a portable CD player like a Discman. I still think the MD format is cool because it seems so cyberpunkish, though.

It's a really good example of how history is written by Americans. MiniDisc was a huge hit nearly everywhere except the USA, but it is now remembered as a "failure" because it didn't catch on there.

There was a window of a few years in the UK, Europe, and Asia where you could not get on a bus or train without seeing someone listening to MiniDisc.

What finally killed it was the iPod.

Weird to see this here. However, I happen to be a minidisc user/collector and really enjoy the format. I make a mix tape nearly every week. I know how archaic this is, but I find the process and the results to be very gratifying.

I often compose fun little melodies while noodling around on the electric piano. So I always have my Sony MiniDisc deck hooked into my mixer, ready to record. It just takes two button presses to begin recording---convenient and reliable. And with subsequent playback, I can also play along with what I just recorded.

For ham radio, all my radios are connected through a line mixer and play through an Onkyo MiniDisc bookshelf system to amplify the audio. Again, it's two button presses to record anything I'm listening to.

I really love MiniDisc. It's a wonderful format.

I have a Sony MZ-R700, still working perfectly. I haven't made real use of it in the last 20 years, but back then it was one of my most important/used piece of "everyday tech".

Minidisc lover here - I bought my first MZ-R50 in 1998 and a quarter of a century later I still occasionally use it.

With secondhand players getting expensive now what are the odds of somebody bringing out a new one? I'd pay good money for something that's backwards compatible, has the same chunky metallic look and feel and comes with a few new features.

You'd be better off with an 00's portable CD player that supports MP3 playback. Much easier to manage music on something that isn't a complete technological dead end.

It will most likely not satisfy the same nostalgia for those people that are still into this medium. For anyone who isn't into MD yet - sure.

If you get a NetMD Minidisc player, you can just plug it into your computer with USB and drop files over using a Chrome web app https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC-8IGkdDxw

This actually seems EASIER than burning CDs.

Maybe I'm better off... until I try to put it in my pocket. Unlike a portable CD player, my 00's portable MD player is tiny! The footprint is not much larger than the discs themselves.

Regarding music management, I've never seen any portable CD players that have any music management features, unlike MD recorders that have all sorts of music management features. However, that's not really relevant in either case as I manage my digital music library on my computer. With modern software, copying tracks to MD or CD is essentially the same: connect the device to usb and drag'n'drop the tracks.

The CD-R audio recorders that came out in 1997 made MD obsolete even before computers got involved.

I was already burning audio CDs with my Atari Falcon 030 before 1997 IIRC.

Portable CD players are a lot more clunky than a portable Minidisc player though, they're huge for one, and IIRC Minidisc tended to be better at shock resistance. They did fill a niche as a cassette replacement for a while.

While MD was real neat for the time, the first revision of the format didn't sound as good as a good quality cassette recorder with a high bias tape and Dolby B, especially with transient broad-band signals like cymbals and snare drums. Later on they fixed this to some degree but the issue was compatibility hell. A couple friends of mine had MD portables and while they were neat I was never really tempted because as a Linux user at that time, there was no way to get music onto them. I also had blown a big wad on a professional cassette Walkman.

> Later on they fixed this to some degree but the issue was compatibility hell.

This isn't really true. Later versions of the SP encoder are compatible with all decoders, in other words, except for MDLP and Hi-MD, discs recorded with Type-R or Type-S will still play even on the very first MD deck.

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