Re: MD: Data storage through byte-tone conversion?
. Today you can get a 120MB USB SuperDisk drive $150. This is about the cheapest we see audio MD recorders available today. Granted the SuperDrive media is about $10/each. Hi Rick. Why bother with either. Although the initial investment may be a little more, you can buy an internal CD writer (probably in the $200 to $250 range for a decent one) and buy either CDRs (about 50 cents each-I actually got a spindle of fifty 80 minute ones at Sears for $24.95) or for about $2 you can buy a CDRW. The disadvantage of the CDR is that it is a one shot deal if you need to update the data on it once the disc is closed, you throw the old disk away. But you get about 650 MB on a standard disc. The CDRW can be used just like a mini disc as far as rewriting goes, but because of formatting, I think that it gets a little less then 600 MB. Right now a so called CD "Burner" is probably the cheapest way to record in terms of MBs per dollar. If they come out with a way to get the price down on Compact Flash Cards (at $80 for 32 MB I don't think that anyone is going to be buying them to start building a music library) it would blow everything away. The Smart Cards, Compact Flash or the new Sony stick are s fast. SanDisk sells a little USB card reader and accessing files off of it is instantaneous. So I personally don't see an amazingly great future for the MD. It's unfortunate because I believe that the MD has so much over the CD. Size, durability etc. But flash memory has the MD beat in everything but price. Once they start making serious Mp3 recorders instead of those poor audio quality Rio toys. One last thought. I always hear that they reason VHS won out over Beta was because you could fit more time on a VHS cassette. This was because the VHS cassette was a little bigger and could hold more take than Beta. I wonder if Sony had made the MD a little bigger and managed to get 74 minutes on it, uncompressed if that would have made a difference. Regards, Larry - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Data storage through byte-tone conversion?
las wrote: It's unfortunate because I believe that the MD has so much over the CD. Size, durability etc. But flash memory has the MD beat in everything but price. Once they start making serious Mp3 recorders instead of those poor audio quality Rio toys. ATRAC is a lot better sounding than MP3. MD is better for musicians IMHO, because you can edit so easily. One last thought. I always hear that they reason VHS won out over Beta was because you could fit more time on a VHS cassette. This was because the VHS cassette was a little bigger and could hold more take than Beta. I think it has more to do with the fact that Sony refused to license the format to othe vendors. THe competitors all had to go with VHS, and since there was more VHS equipment than Beta, Beta lost out. Same with Apple computers. -- Jim Coon Not just another pretty mandolin picker. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If Gibson made cars, would they sound so sweet? My first web page http://www.tir.com/~liteways - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Data storage through byte-tone conversion?
I think it has more to do with the fact that Sony refused to license the format to othe vendors. THe competitors all had to go with VHS, and since there was more VHS equipment than Beta, Beta lost out. Same with Apple computers. Jim there were several other brand of Bata VCRs available. Using your theory, MD should have caught on big. We all know how good MD is and here is a case where they did license it to others. I have to agree with you that ATRAC (from version 3.5 or 4 up) is better sounding then Mp3s. Which brings me to another question. Why can't they use ATRAC as a format for downloading songs? I'm assuming that ATRAC is pure software, but I'm probably wrong and it is firmware, which means that you would need special hardware added to your computer (or they could incorporate it into a sound card) into your computer to handle ATRAC compression. Take care, Larry - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Data storage through byte-tone conversion?
I had posted some musings about this on usenet a couple of weeks ago as well. Maybe there are enough of us thinking about this now to make something happen. Many years ago, there were early standards for data on cassette tape. One of the earliest was the "Kansas City" standard, which as I recall worked at 300 bps, or about 30 async bytes per second. Then Tarbell came out with a different system, and I think it pushed the rate up to 1200 bps (post corrections if it turns out that my memories of around 25 years ago are a bit fuzzy). Tape systems moved forward, and a company called Braemar Computer Devices moved things closer to how "big" tape data decks worked, by selling small drives that supported true NRZ encoding. This boosted speed and reliability even more, as going to NRZ helped make up for the wow and flutter of tape transports. Here we are today. Wow and flutter have faded away with the MiniDisc's use of digital processing locked to quartz crystals. Now, the big question is what encoding scheme will permit the highest data rate possible after passing both ways through the lossy ATRAC compression algorithm... If a MiniDisc holds around 140MB of uncompressed data, the acutal amount stored by an audio encoding scheme will be somewhat less due to losses. The loss amount would most likely vary somewhat with different implementationas and versions of ATRAC. A good standard would take this into account for cross-hardware compatibility. Let's do some "wild guessing." If there was a one third loss of capacity through the modulator - ATRAC encode - MiniDisc - ATRAC decode - demodulator sequence, we would get about 94MB of useable capacity, or more that a mebagyte per minute. This would mean taking into account using both audio channels. Switching to monaural mode would not result in any overall capacity gain, it would only cut the available bandwidth and data rate in half. While not a huge amount, if the modulation scheme were truly standardized, it would be a nice way to store data on a small and stable media format. It would also make it easy to back up and restore files on both desktop and laptop machines that include sound cards. Using a sound card to encode and decode sound is a pretty popular technique with Amatuer Radio operators, as well as radio weather FAX enthusiats. Maybe someone out there who has developed a software based "sound card modem" would be interested in this. Working out the modulation scheme and data rate is the first step. Quesstions include: 1) Is a single bit two tone stream best, or is a multiple simultaneous frequency stream best given the ATRAC scheme's operation and data rate? 2) How do we label files, or do we just use the MiniDisc's TOC, and if so, do we try to interface the TOC data from the MiniDisc Audio recorder somehow to a PC? If we do, it makes it less standard and more custom as there are many different MiniDisc recorders... 3) Can we come up with "sound card modem" software that will work with PCs and Macs? This would be nice to keep things more interchangeable. 4) How would we promote this as a standard? The chances of getting an audio MiniDisc recorder are a lot better and easier to accomplish than getting a MiniDisc Data drive in my opinion. Also, using audio MiniDisc recorders lets us use inexpensive audio MiniDisc media which is available everywhere. In my opinion (for whatever that's worth) it would be worth the tradeoff of only using a fraction of the MiniDisc's actual capacity to be able to store data on inexpensive and readily available MiniDisc audio discs. Using a MiniDisc audio recorder for this would only require a sound card and software, unlike a "regular" external data drive which would most likely require a SCSI adapter, or in the - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Data storage through byte-tone conversion?
Jack Swindell wrote: I had posted some musings about this on usenet a couple of weeks ago as well. Maybe there are enough of us thinking about this now to make something happen. I agree, if not directly a practical thing, this might turn out to be a good (and fun) brain exercise. [schnipp, schnapp] 1) Is a single bit two tone stream best, or is a multiple simultaneous frequency stream best given the ATRAC scheme's operation and data rate? Given that MiniDisc (ATRAC) produces a high-quality sound output, I suppose multiple frequencies is a plausible option. The amount of data contained in each frequency is then 2log(n) (where n is the number of distinct frequencies used in the encoding scheme). By using stereo recording, the amount of data is squared (n*n). That only leaves the (important) decision of which baudrate to use (how long should each pulse last). Like a modern modem, it would then become possible to achieve a bitrate (data speed and content) that is a multiple of the used baudrate. Heck, a modern modem achieves a bitrate of 56000bps. I daresay that when this signal is recorded to MiniDisc, it can be played back and still will be recognized by the modem. That roughly boils down to 75 * 60s * 5.5kB/s = about 24MB of data using off-the-shelf modem techniques. 2) How do we label files, or do we just use the MiniDisc's TOC, and if so, do we try to interface the TOC data from the MiniDisc Audio recorder somehow to a PC? If we do, it makes it less standard and more custom as there are many different MiniDisc recorders... Not to mention the fact that (through boneheaded copy-protection schemes, which have held MiniDisc from becoming an accepted data storage medium in the first place) most MiniDisc recorders don't allow access to the raw data stored on the disk. The file system would (alomst surely) have to be sequential, ie with start-of-file and end-of-file markers embedded in the data stream. The MiniDisc's track searching features could of course be a great help. 3) Can we come up with "sound card modem" software that will work with PCs and Macs? This would be nice to keep things more interchangeable. 4) How would we promote this as a standard? The chances of getting an audio MiniDisc recorder are a lot better and easier to accomplish than getting a MiniDisc Data drive in my opinion. Also, using audio MiniDisc recorders lets us use inexpensive audio MiniDisc media which is available everywhere. True. However, through this scheme, the MiniDisc essentially becomes a sequential storage medium, meaning it cannot compete with other (disk-based) storage solutions. Competition exists more in the form of backup media such as tape drives. The advantage of MiniDisc then mainly consists of the fact that the disks are cheap, the players are small and versatile, since you can still use them to record high-quality audio. (It'll be a sad day when I have to lug around a tapestreamer to listen to some music on the go... ;) ,xtG .tsooJ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
