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Minidisc vs Mp3 Player

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  • #1

    Minidisc vs Mp3 Player

    I want to torment myself for a bit by looking at electronics beyond my inability to afford them but first, I have to figure out what I want.

    Despite my lovely portable CD player, I'm starting to see CD's as a bit of a limited media. They're bulky, fragile, and the associated equipment (said CD player) suffers the same problems. CD's have really become, in my mind, storage mediums. Great if you want a safe, long term format to keep music/data on but no longer really useful for day to day use.

    So that leaves the two, small and portable options, Minidiscs and mp3 players. Minidiscs, from what I've seen, are popular over here in the UK and I am intrigued by them. Small, high quality, and the discs are cheap. You can carry several CD's worth of music in a pocket. Mp3's however, you can download easily off the Net or rip from a CD. So I'm not sure which one is better.

    My ideal dream however is to get mp3's off of the Net, put them on minidisc for day to day use, and burn them to CD for safekeeping/use. Is this possible?
    Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
    -Richard Dawkins
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  • #2
    Yes, I've got a couple friends who do just that with their minidisc players.
    John Brown did nothing wrong.

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    • #3
      How do they do it?
      Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
      -Richard Dawkins

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      • #4
        I've just replaced my Nomad II (128MB & 64MB card), which was tiny, very durable, and held about 45-50 songs on the 128MB card and 25 on the 64MB card. It had 1 AA battery and lasted 8-10 hours on it.

        I've had my new MP3 player for about a week, it's a Nomad Jukebox Zen. 20GB (~8000 songs), slightly bigger & heavier than the Nomad II, but I can fit my entire music collection (and then some). I can create playlists on the fly, play by artist, play by album, play by genre, search for songs, etc. It lasts "up to 14 hours" (marketing) but I've found 10 is more accurate, but the LiIon battery in it charges in about 2-3 hours. It can even charge when hooked up to the computer via USB (acts as a mobile harddrive, too). It also has a powerful equalizer and EAX effects. Very cool, I love it.

        I would avoid minidiscs, I thought they were on the way out...
        "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
        Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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        • #5
          They had some sort of software bundled with it. It never paid too much attention to the whole thing, but they were able to put a few hours on a minidisc. It may not have been mp3 format exactly, but they used mp3s for the music they put on the minidiscs.

          Trust Asher more than me.
          John Brown did nothing wrong.

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          • #6
            Yeah, the Zen is the only thing that makes me really reconsider minidiscs.

            The MD thing never really caught on in America. I never even saw one before coming to Europe. I know of a few people who have them over here and they seem pretty cool. *FAR* more useful and portable than a CD could ever hope to be.
            Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
            -Richard Dawkins

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            • #7
              Also, the Zen uses a standard laptop HD...people have already replaced the 20GB drive with a 60GB drive and the firmware supports it (probably because a 60GB Nomad Zen is due out at the end of the month )

              My only complaint is the battery is soldered on, so if you have any problems with it you need to RMA...

              But hopefully that won't happen.

              I had my Nomad II for over 3 years, and I used it nearly constantly. People can say what they want about Creative, but that thing was quality. I can't remember how many times I've dropped it, how long I've listened to it, but never had a damn problem.
              "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
              Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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              • #8
                What's a Zen cost in C$?
                Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
                -Richard Dawkins

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Starchild
                  What's a Zen cost in C$?
                  I got it for $459
                  "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                  Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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                  • #10
                    Hmm....that's around £300.

                    It's really hard to argue against the Zen unless you need a portable medium to swap music with friends. oooh but the minidisc just looks so cool, all tiny like that....
                    Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
                    -Richard Dawkins

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Starchild
                      Hmm....that's around £300.

                      It's really hard to argue against the Zen unless you need a portable medium to swap music with friends. oooh but the minidisc just looks so cool, all tiny like that....
                      Well, that's true.
                      If you get the FireWire version of the Zen, you can hook it up with other Zens and transfer music. But that's only if your friends have one (I've got the USB2 one myself).

                      Minidisc is smaller and lighter, it's a tradeoff.
                      "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                      Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Starchild
                        Hmm....that's around £300.
                        Closer to £200; I think you used the US$/£ exchange rate (0.627) instead of the Can$/£ rate (0.448).
                        "If you doubt that an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters would eventually produce the combined works of Shakespeare, consider: it only took 30 billion monkeys and no typewriters." - Unknown

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                        • #13
                          Minidisc went big and affordable

                          MP3 players didn't

                          I've had 3 and 1 and love the former. Happy spending

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                          • #14
                            I would personally recommend Minidisc Players.

                            I am able to fit 65 tracks at 66kbps on a minidisc - about 4.75 hours of music. That equals roughly 5 albums. And I don't have to bugger around downloading songs onto my player each time I want a change.

                            With the OpenMG Jukebox software that came with my player, I am able to convert MP3's to the OpenMG file to transfer onto minidiscs, and I am also able to convert my CD's straight to the minidisc format as would be expected.

                            I haven't had so much fun making compilations since I got my first duel deck cassette player.

                            I can't see Minidisc's Players going away any time soon. Even if they did it wouldn't bother me, because I'm not interested in buying commercial minidiscs as a replacement format to CD's. Having been used to crappy cassette walkman quality portable music for the past 10 years or so, my MD Walkman has been a revelation.


                            Bkeela.
                            Voluntary Human Extinction Movement http://www.vhemt.org/

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                            • #15
                              I'd recommend the Archos Jukebox Recorder. It's pretty affordable relative to the other hd-based mp3 players (I got mine for $250), it has a decent battery life (~10 hours/charge), it doubles as a portable hard drive (it acts like a hard drive to Windows - no extra software needed to interface with it), and it can contain 20 GB of musical goodness. There are even programmers that are changing the OS to add extra features, even putting things like Tetris and Doom (yes, Doom on an mp3 player!) on it.

                              The only problem is that you can't take it for a jog unless you have a method of subjecting it to minimal force (i.e. on a treadmill, putting it in a cup-holder).
                              "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
                              -Bokonon

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