las wrote:
>
> Hi all.
>
> I just thought about something. If MDs had come out BEFORE CDs, I wonder if
> CDs would have caught on as well?
Yes, it would have. CD caught on because it had a significant and
revolutionary difference over any other existing format at the time:
Random Access. It also had improved sound quality, although I don't
believe that's why the masses flocked to CD. I'm pretty sure the reason
CD was readily adopted is one of convenience. Being able to skip from
track to track and NOT have to FFWD or RWD is a huge convenience. MD
offers that, and if it came before CD, then the tiny 2.5" disc in a
cartridge form-factor would be the standard of today, rather than the
large 12cm open disc.
> What advantages does the CD have over an MD. If any, the only argument can
> be that it does not use as much compression (any with a limited background in
> recording will tell you that all recorded music has some compression in it).
Had MD come out before CD, there would probably be an option not use
compression, as we would have some kind of high-density MVD "Mini
Versatile Disc" by now. The high density MVD could be used for "HDMD"
or "SAMD". Of course, MVD would also have been used for MVD-Video.
> The fact that HDCDs and such don't seem to be catching on tells me that it is
> NOT improved sound quality that makes people choose the CD over the MD. OK,
> this is a 180 degree of my prior thinking.
Correct. People chose CD over MD because CD already had a large
installed userbase. No prerecorded MD's, that was a biggie, very FEW
people actually like to record. Also the convenience difference is
negligible to the general population. I personally think the big open
12cm disc is inconvenient and needlessly fragile, but others would
disagree, citing that the benefits of MD are not worth the additional
cost in both media, hardware, and time to make their own recordings.
> The MD should have been conceived with the possibility of a future MD ROM,
> rather than incompatible and very slow Data MDs. They should have also made
> the data storage capabilities of the MD greater. Even if they had to make
> them 2 sided the way floppy discs are.
>
> Nah!! 140 MB is still more than a ZIP drive. The fact that Iomega is still
> in business after all of the defective products they threw at the public
> amazes me. They lost a class action suit big time over none readable Ditto
> tape drives (I think that there were Zips involved too).
I doubt MD-ROM would have caught on unless it was cheaper, and equally
as fast, if not faster than the Zip. However, it seems to me that as
CD-RW drives are getting faster and faster, and CD-RW discs are getting
cheaper and cheaper, the need for a Zip drive and even floppy drive are
much less. BUT had MD come out before CD, they probably wouldn't have
ever bothered to come out with a 12cm disc, so CD-ROM wouldn't exist.
We WOULD have MD-ROM.
> The public seems to find video quality more important (or noticeable) than
> audio. Look at the way DVDs caught on and are overtaking VHS (don't give me
> the, "then why didn't Beta make it over VHS because Beta had a better
> picture"? First off I never found that to be factual and I owned both.
> Second, the video quality was relative to the tape speed and Beta just ddi
> not have enough tape on it to run fast enough to offer a better picture than
> VHS).
>
> Convenience and familiarity most be factors with DVD too. People just feel
> comfortable with CDs. I don't understand it. You'd think that when they
> introduced DVDs they would have had them in a protective shell (but they
> wanted the players to be compatible with CDs and CD ROMs).
Actually, it's not the video quality of DVD's that's driving the masses
to DVD. I believe it's mainly the convenience factor, the same reason
CD caught on in the first place. The CD form factor that DVD uses, is
FAR more portable than gigantic VHS tapes. Rewinding takes forever, so
long that some people bought standalone VHS rewinders. DVD brought
random access convenience to video, something we never had before.
That's why DVD is catching on. I know many people don't care about the
video quality so much, because I have an Apex DVD player page at
http://Psych.tripod.com/apexdvdplayers/index.html and I get a TON of
email. Many people tell me they have old TV's with no composite video
inputs, and they want to run the DVD player through their VCR's RF
modulator. Just the fact that these people are sticking to their old
TV's and wanting to run the video and sound output through their VCRs
tells me video quality isn't a #1 priority.
> MD has IMHO already peaked in the US (not much of a peak at that) and will be
> around for a long time (thanks to the internet and international means of
> obtaining MD from Japan I guess Sony feels that there is still enough of a
> market to offer a limited number of models in the US and introduce some of
> the newer technologies (like LPMD).
I agree, I feel as though MD's peak was in 1998.
The problem with MD is it only offered negligible convenience over CD,
and significant disadvantage in that you couldn't buy all your favorite
music on MD. American society in general doesn't find recordability to
be nearly as important as availability of prerecorded titles. Other
countries find recordability to be more important, so that's why MD is a
bigger success in Europe and Asia. If you're not going to make mix
discs, there really is no benefit to switching to MD.
> I place a large part of the blame on Sony and greed. Then never promoted MD
> correctly and did not drop the prices to acceptable levels in the US. They
> also needed to make simpler, more user friendly models for the general
> public.
I think even if they promoted MD, the lack of prerecorded titles would
have prevented its acceptance in the US. Since MD offers little
additional benefit in convenience to the typical US consumer, what Sony
should have done was use MD to exploit the fast growing movement towards
downloading free music (MP3's). MP3 is BIG. Everyone has heard of
Napster. Those MP3 players are EVERYWHERE, even David Letterman was
talking about MP3 players (he calls them "Napsters"), and how he has two
of them. I've been an MD fan since adopting the format in 1996. I even
saw the potential for the format's growth when I put up the "MiniDisc
Appreciation Page", where one of the primary focuses was on using MD as
an instrument for storing MP3's. I put that page online 5 years ago!!!
I saw the big MP3 revolution coming long before anyone at Sony did
anything about it. And even to this day, MD to PC integration is pretty
lame, and hardly any more convenient than it was 5 years ago. In
contrast, manufacturers have made it more and more convenient and easy
to download MP3's to one of those MP3 portables, or copy MP3's to
CD-R/RW. They've made it so you can burn a CD-RW full of MP3's now,
throw it in a DVD player or car stereo, and play the MP3's as-is without
any conversions to .WAV or anything. Seamless, simple, and easy. Sony
could have so easily gotten MD to that point had they been serious about
it 5 years ago.
> I don't believe that the majority of the public could give a damn about
> titling and find the editing capabilities of MD beyond their needs. They
> should make "idiot" models at a very low price that allow you to record and
> record over, just like a cassette.
I would say that the majority of the public really couldn't give a damn
about recording in general. At least not the kind of real-time
recording that MD offers.
> Move, delete single track delete, delete all, etc. are just too much for a
> public where their VCRs blink 12:00...12:00....12:00.... all of the time.
> The fact that so many people own computers (yes Shawn, even old people like
> me) and can surf the net and load programs is beyond my understanding.
>
> I think it just shows that if you really want to use something and feel the
> need to use it you will take the time to learn how to do so.
I don't think MD lacks popularity because of its learning curve.
I think it lacks popularity because it doesn't offer any additional
convenience over CD for the masses. Many people like the small size,
but not being able to go to a music store and buy a prerecorded title is
a major inconvenience. The current implementation of MD is much more
inconvenient to use to store MP3's than today's MP3 players or CD-RW
drives. For most of the people out there, MD just isn't convenient
enough.
Shawn
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