Whoa there cowboy....
>To get on topic. What do you see the future of MDLP as? This is just
>my humble opinion, but outside of Japan I really don't think it will
>catch on. It's a matter of too little too late. To me MDLP seems to be
>a desperate attempt by Sony to compete with the extremely long playing
>time of an MP3 CD or player.
First off. MDLP is what long play was to home vcr's. Nobody ever raved about
it, but eventually we all ended up using it. Recording 8 hours of video on a
4 hour tape? Pretty cool. Same with MDLP, people want more music together
with less space. It will make it big, especially for MD enthusiasts and
people who want practical solutions. And besides, MDLP remains an option,
not a must have. And so what if an MP3 cd player can play 10 hours of music?
It can't record music by itself, and the media is bulkier and in some
aspects more fragile. Besides, MD equipment looks nicer and more futuristic.
Hehehe. Now for part two...
>There has been enough criticism (unjustified in my humble opinion) the
>loss of sound quality do to ATRAC as it is. To further increase that
>loss seems pointless to me.
Most modern Minidisc players/recorders really ARE indistinguishable from
ordinary cd. This has been proven in high quality testing labs. The whole MD
quality versus Cd quality thing really is wearing thin. There are a few very
rare cases where the atrac compression has gone bad, but they are, like I
said very rare. Atrac compression compared to mp3 compression is heaven
sent. Mp3 compression (anything under 160 kbps) lends itself to distorting
music. This is very clear when listening to a song with very high treble
sounds. The effect also known as the "bubbly" sound also gives problems.
When playing mp3's through a high end system, you can clearly hear the
bubbly sound in the background. This can even be heard with some commercial
mp3 encoders. If you do a nice digital copy of a piece of Dance, or
classical music, to minidisc, you won't hear the difference when comparing
it to the original cd. That leaves room for MD technology to actually
downgrade the quality of the music, thus fitting in more music on one disc.
MD long play mode 2 is actually almost comparable to standard atrac, which
is still pretty good quality. MD long play mode 4 does leave noticeable
artefacts, but is still perfect for every day to day use. Ask yourself: Is
compression quality really everything when it comes to normal use? If a
person records a mp3 from his pc to MD (analogue or digital) the noise
artefacts heard on the song comes from the mp3 compression. In that case
MDLP 2 or MDLP 4 is perfect. Why use standard MD bit rates when a lower one
will suffice without loss of quality. Also remember that unless you have a
VERY expensive pair of earphones, the frequency response also affects the
quality that you actually hear.
Md recorders have come a long way. Look at the Sharp Mt-77 for instance. It
can easily hook up with your pc, for digital mp3 to md transfers, and even
allows you to label your disc's from the pc. It can basically do what most
mp3 players can do, but the media is cheaper, when compared to solid state
music players.
>I wonder if MD would have stood a better chance if Sony had "gotten it
>right" the first time around and not released the Mini Disc until it had
>the quality of at least their ATRAC version 3.5.
The next step for the Minidisc market, is to start bringing out
players/recorders that also uses MD High Density discs. These discs can
store around 640 megabytes, while a standard MD only holds 160 megabytes.
Now imagine MDLP combined with High Density minidiscs. In theory such a disc
could hold 300 mins of standard atrac compression, and 1200 mins of MDLP 4
music....In theory anyway. That will give you close to 20 hours of music.
Just my 2c worth.
Gerard Naude
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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