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blinks · May 5, 2003, 02:13 AM

i gust got a minidisc playre/recorder (mz-n707) for my birthday and i hope that their is some way to get them to work together, otherwise i'm stuck in real time, this type of thing should'nt happen anymore. i know that sony compeats agenst mac with their viao line, but everyone knows that viao is a pc-ish mac. so all of you smarter people(than me) need to help me get this MD rock'n with my mac. thankx allot

Yoda's Erotic Piggyback · May 5, 2003, 02:21 AM

You poor sucker. Why you want a MD player?

Langdon · May 5, 2003, 02:54 AM

Originally posted by Yoda's Erotic Piggyback:
You poor sucker. Why you want a MD player?

That was of no help to anyone.

The problem with MiniDiscs is that the most popular software is proprietary and never ported to the Mac. It also won't be to my knowledge.
It's Sony.... They suck. There is no way to transfer digitally to a Minidisc from any Macintosh. Sorry, but you are stuck.

maxintosh · May 5, 2003, 07:24 AM

Originally posted by Langdon:
That was of no help to anyone.

The problem with MiniDiscs is that the most popular software is proprietary and never ported to the Mac. It also won't be to my knowledge.
It's Sony.... They suck. There is no way to transfer digitally to a Minidisc from any Macintosh. Sorry, but you are stuck.

Ditto. Sony is all about proprietary formats. Drives me freakin' crazy.

Yose · May 5, 2003, 10:37 AM

My brothers and I each got a Minidisc for christmas, the m505 I think. It wouldn't work on my mac so I took mine back, then my brothers after using it on their pc's took it back because it was just cumbersome and "bleh".

The store was pretty unhappy to have to refund close to $900CDN in product.

Oh ya, the manager of the Sony Store asked me if I wanted to buy a "real computer" when I was taking mine back. What a dummy.

Yoda's Erotic Piggyback · May 5, 2003, 10:58 AM

Originally posted by Yose:
My brothers and I each got a Minidisc for christmas, the m505 I think. It wouldn't work on my mac so I took mine back, then my brothers after using it on their pc's took it back because it was just cumbersome and "bleh".

See that is exactly why I ask why you wanted one in the first place? Why not get an iPod, it is only a little bit more.

Powaqqatsi · May 5, 2003, 11:10 AM

Originally posted by Yoda's Erotic Piggyback:
You poor sucker. Why you want a MD player?

Because the sound quality is superior. And the iPod weighs too frickin much and the batterylife completely sucks.

Yoda's Erotic Piggyback · May 5, 2003, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Because the sound quality is superior. And the iPod weighs too frickin much and the batterylife completely sucks.

Oh please. Minidisc's compression is almost exacly the same as MP3's. Not to mention my MiniDisc gets the same battery life as my iPod.

I am selling my MiniDisc as I rather have 3000 songs then 100.

MisterRogers · May 5, 2003, 11:23 AM

Thought I'd chime in. Used to a bigtime MiniDisc user. Bought the first Sony model (huge!), had it in my car, updated over the years to various sony players and recorders. Generally did so because I perceived a better sound than mp3. Then I got an iPod, and started to rip with Lame. Did some serious A/B listening of the two. It boiled down to this for me. atac (and its newer variants) gave a generally consistent compression, but lacked seperation, with little transparency in the highs. I liked the way Lame encoded mp3's sounded better. So I switched. I'm one of those who have been eagerly waiting for AAC for over a year. It sounds better then both mp3 and atac. I've reripped, and enjoying having top notch sound and all my tunes accessible. If you want to go MiniDisc, I could make you a real good deal on one of the better recorders, a good player, and tons of discs. Just let me know! Btw, yes, earlier MiniDisc recorders only recorded in realtime. For a couple of years, you've been able to get digital transfer to a minidisc recorder from a mac, it was just in realtime. Sony has somewhat addressed this with MiniDisc net, but realtime was worth it to me as long as it sounded better.

Eug · May 5, 2003, 11:27 AM

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Because the sound quality is superior. And the iPod weighs too frickin much and the batterylife completely sucks.

No it isn't. The sound quality is similar to MP3 at similar compression levels, and the weight of a MiniDisc doesn't include the bazillion discs you have to carry around.

Anyways, in North America, MiniDisc was dead before it even came out.

i gust got a minidisc playre/recorder (mz-n707) for my birthday

Can you still take it back?

Yoda's Erotic Piggyback · May 5, 2003, 11:42 AM

Originally posted by Eug:
No it isn't. The sound quality is similar to MP3 at similar compression levels, and the weight of a MiniDisc doesn't include the bazillion discs you have to carry around.

Anyways, in North America, MiniDisc was dead before it even came out.

What he said. I got one years ago before the MP3 craze. It isn't one of those NetMD ones but it was a awesome alternative to discmans when I got it.

It was useless when 128 Meg MP3 players came out a year later though.

Powaqqatsi · 06:44 AM

Originally posted by Eug:
No it isn't. The sound quality is similar to MP3 at similar compression levels, and the weight of a MiniDisc doesn't include the bazillion discs you have to carry around.

Well, to my ears it isn't, at all. When you compare it, to what MP3 bitrate do you comare it ? 256 ?
You don't need to carry a lot of MD's it depends on how long you are travelling. MD is the perfect as portable music.

Originally posted by Yoda's Erotic Piggyback:
Not to mention my MiniDisc gets the same battery life as my iPod.

Your battery's probably dead... or you have an old MD. My MD gets 26hours thankyou, and your iPod...10-11 max.

And you can get a high-quality deck so you don't need to hook up your computer or iPod to your amp AND get better sound.

I was thinking about getting an iPod too last week but I dumped the idea in favor of a Sony MZ-E10, which weighs a nice 55gram instead of the iPod's 154gram (maybe a bit less or more). The iPod isn't portable enough for me. 154gram is a lot when it's in you pocket. Especially in the summer when you wear lighter shorts.

And I'm very eager to go out and buy that new MZ-E10 and try out the nice class-D amp it has. Oh and the remote with LCD is indispensable and much better then the huge remote on the iPod.

I don't want to sound like an iPod hater, because I'm not. It's a fantastic machine, I even tought about buying one like I said before. But for me the MiniDisc is superior.

Nathan Adams · May 7, 2003, 09:18 AM

Here's a guide to Mac and MiniDisc, that I wrote for the MiniDisc T-Station:
http://www.minidisct.com/forum/showt...threadid=13794

And yoda + eug, atrac compression is MUCH better than mp3. don't try and kid yourselves.

Powaqqatsi · May 8, 2003, 02:16 PM

Originally posted by Nathan Adams:
And yoda + eug, atrac compression is MUCH better than mp3. don't try and kid yourselves.

damn right

Eug · May 8, 2003, 04:40 PM

And yoda + eug, atrac compression is MUCH better than mp3. don't try and kid yourselves.

Well, to my ears it isn't, at all. When you compare it, to what MP3 bitrate do you comare it ? 256 ?
You don't need to carry a lot of MD's it depends on how long you are travelling. MD is the perfect as portable music.

Yep, 256 of course. Considering that ATRAC is usually 285 kbps, it wouldn't make much sense comparing 128 kbps MP3.

Both ATRAC3 285 and MP3 256 are excellent, but MP3 is a helluvalot more convenient.

playby · May 8, 2003, 04:56 PM

compression isnt the only factor when determining the sound quality of a player. the amp on the sony mzr 900 is much more powerful than the ipod's. the ipod sounded flat in comparison, even when playing uncompressed aif files. (original 10 gig)

i'd dump my md player for an ipod in a second though.

Eug · May 8, 2003, 07:34 PM

Originally posted by playby:
compression isnt the only factor when determining the sound quality of a player. the amp on the sony mzr 900 is much more powerful than the ipod's. the ipod sounded flat in comparison, even when playing uncompressed aif files. (original 10 gig)

Very true, of course. I've done my MP3 testing using a DVD player with a digital audio out (letting the receiver do the D->A conversion), else with a computer and nice headphones.

You could do testing with the new iPod's line out as well.

But I wouldn't be surprised if the amp'd sound from a higher end MD player were superior to the iPod's amp'd output.

motti · Jul 10, 2003, 06:31 AM

I too sold my portable MD player which never lasted more than 3 hours to buy an ipod, but i still use an MD deck at home.
I saw that the new G5 have an optolink (TOSlink) port, could I connect the MD deck to that port?

tooki · Jul 10, 2003, 11:47 AM

That should work.

And with Detour, you should be able to route only iTunes' sound to the audio out, so that you can record music without worrying that the computer will beep in the middle of a long recording.

Re: battery life
Yeah, Sony has battery life nailed. My Sony Discman gets 37 hours on one pair of alkaline AA's, and their latest MiniDisc units run for several days, uninterrupted, on one charge. (Far more if you use a AA battery.)

ATRAC3 is, IMHO, better than MP3. There are never any audible artifacts, and, in fact ATRAC3 now uses floating 16-24 bit encoding, achieving what some audiophile magazines have described as better than CD audio.

tooki

Hash · Jul 10, 2003, 12:00 PM

Well, the only problem with minidiscs for me was how to transfer my mp3 to MD.

I ended up buying USB-optical audio converter and recording through optical connection from mac. The sound quality wasnt that bad. Though I am not an audiophile and probably cant judge well the sound quality.

tooki · Jul 10, 2003, 02:59 PM

Again, if you're using OS X, you can use Rogue Amoeba's Detour to route just iTunes to the optical audio, leaving everything else to go to the regular audio, so that there's no chance of getting system beeps and whatnot on the MiniDisc.

tooki

Hash · Jul 11, 2003, 02:10 AM

Sounds to be an interesting app... so it routes audio to different output channels, if i got it right? I dont use MD much anymore (since leaving JR trains behind

) but that would be very nice indeed to have clear sound without noise from the system..i had to wait for 1 hour until the real time recording from itunes to a standard MD was over without using mac to avoid beeps and etc

COmie JOe · Jul 11, 2003, 11:16 AM

Geee, thanks sony

thank you for makeing all these wonderful technologies that compeate with standards:

Beta
ATRAC
DVD+R

Nathan Adams · Jul 12, 2003, 12:18 PM

Originally posted by COmie JOe:
Geee, thanks sony

thank you for makeing all these wonderful technologies that compeate with standards:

Beta
ATRAC
DVD+R

you really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

Beta - if you're implying against VHS, Beta came before VHS, it was the standard briefly, before VHS was introduced to compete (and win)

ATRAC - MD came out in 1992, and was obviously in development for some years before hand. There was no MP3, AAC, or any other computer compression format that one would call "standard". And at the time, MD was never intended to interface with a computer. So your claim there is ridiculous

DVD+R - the was NO standard for recordable DVD. each of the competing formats were developed pretty much simultaneously, and left to fight it out in an open market.