Why didn't minidisc take off? Why is it that vinyl and cassettes have gotten a hipster resurgence but not minidisc?

Why didn't minidisc take off? Why is it that vinyl and cassettes have gotten a hipster resurgence but not minidisc?

Attached: 105fx_japan.jpg (1152x864, 157K)

because the audio quality isn't shit

There is nothing nostalgic or hipster about a digital format

can't revive something that was never alive

Because at least in the US, they were never that popular to begin with. While you may not think that's an issue, it means that getting into mini-discs is a lot harder and more inconvenient than the other two. I can go to the used book store and find thousands of LP's and Cassettes and in all likelihood, find a device capable of playing them in come old ass boombox, my beat-up car, or my grandma's radio. Good fucking luck trying to find more than a dozen mini-disc album in any store.

Even nostalgia has standards. There is nothing whatsoever to like about optical discs other than their cost per data density.

Laserdiscs are neat

What appeal do they have beyond being too hipster for hipsters?

They were dead on arrival because they released commercially around the same time mp3 players were gaining popularity and pirating music was becoming big. Consumers place priority on cost, space and ease of use and in all cases, digital files trump mini-discs. It's no surprise then that it only ever became a slight curiosity and nothing more.

Analog that you can hold or digital that is basically magical.
Many people still have their old albums as well.

It's downsampled low-bitrate lossy audio that's inconvenient to record. It was a compelling portable music format until MP3 players took off.

Holy shit they're expensive. Everything is at least $100 in ebay.

Attached: Capture.png (1085x739, 666K)

>tpbp
It was never really widespread to make a comeback. I'd say even laserdisc or betamax was more popular than this.

>they released commercially around the same time mp3 players were gaining popularity

GenXfag here - you're wrong, MiniDisc was out in 1992.

No point buying pre-recorded MD's. They cost exorbitant prices (even back then) and the sound quality would be the same if you record it on your own.

"Blank" (pre-recorded) MDs are pretty cheap and plentiful. Plus you can record a heap of music in an 80 minute disc on LP2 mode. Though you'll have to do it in real time.

Because Sony never wins a format war, because they're retarded.
>Betamax
>minidisc
>memorystick
>whatever the fuck the PSP used

>mp3 player releases in 1997
Ok so 5 years is a decent gap, but after those players hit the scene there was no coming back.

Because of DRM that made it impossible to record things digitally. Sony wanted control of the format but their greed and fear killed it.

First commercial players in the US were 1998 I believe.

Not enough players and disks exist, plus the software for the players contained the Sony rootkit, so they're all garbage now.

>proprietary format that can't be revived
>why wasn't this revived?

I use minidisc because the cost of a box of blank discs was cheaper than an mp3 player and I already got the minidisc player for free. Also I like the colors.

Getting Sonic Stage working is more hassle than it's worth. I wouldn't recommend buying into minidiscs unless you were in my exact situation, and even then it's mostly for the novelty.

Attached: IMG_20190728_220142.jpg (3120x4160, 538K)

going to japan next week
should I bring back some minidisk gear and resell it?

Attached: 1559528820922.jpg (2048x1366, 150K)

Look for minidisc head units, not sure if they're cheaper there but they're expensive as shit in america.

this is wrong since mini-disc culture has a unique character in the physical features of the media, the encoding, and the mechanical workings of the players

Attached: 3492985857_37e360e98c.jpg (499x333, 60K)

this is a good post
minidisc didn't suffer until the lower end mp3 players gained in feature and storage capability

it was really sony's fault for placing DRG restrictions on recording

Hipsters are always up for something that is received by word of mouth but is otherwise unsubstanciated.
They desperately long to be the ones who know something important (for various values of important) that nobody else knows.
They live to impress normies (you and me, like it or not).

why should it have taken off? what did it have going for it?

Players (recorders) were pricey, and by the time they came down, CDRs became fairly accessible.

>tfw no minidisc bluray portable player
>tfw no minidisc bluray games for UMPC

Imagine the comfyness for a sub 11" UMPC with a minidisc bluray drive and all games/movies used it...

The storage capacity was laughable, and they were much more expensive to produce than regular CDs. Essentially the same reason why most other Sony exclusive formats didn't take off. I bet they also tried to charge a ton for licensing.
They were somewhat popular in Japan, by the way.

GET MINIDISC WRITER DRIVES FOR PCS/LAPTOPS

it was just a pain to copy a cd.
it was more of an improved tape player (i.e. same issues) and far more expensive.
t. bought one and sold it a year later

>Why is it that vinyl and cassettes have gotten a hipster resurgence but not minidisc?
Because you can actually make new vinyl and cassettes and players are plentiful. MD production lines are completely gone and players are scarce outside of Japan.

It's the exact same reason why LD will never make more than a niche comeback.

that would have been the only interesting use.
back in the day, cd writers were very expensive and slow. it could have worked on computers (80mb tapes were a thing) but sony didn't see it

they won blu ray tho

it did take off, it was big in japan and europe and started dying when the ipod came out. it's still used tho and some labels still even release records on it.

all the pros from cassette tape and cd without the cons.
bullshit. md was 10 years in the market when mp3player became a serious choice. md also was very popular among studios since it was cheaper and easier to edit than dat.
and not a thing until 2001/02. and even they came with like 64mb capacity. at least in europe people prefered md since audio quality was way better than the shit you could leech on napster.
in case of their licensing policy, yes.
hi-md never got adopted by the consumer audience. regular md are still plentiful to find.
this. md is actually a pretty genius little thing. i wish sony would put that effort in something again.

Because it was fucking Sony proprietary goddamn shit no one fucking wanted.

Minidisc got associated with bomfunk mc's freestyler video. That move knifed the brand in the liver. Now is tech-meme, like laser-discs or zip drives

I remember jamming away with my electric guitar and recording tracks to improvise over.
I used casette tapes at first, then my brother gave me his minidisc player. Good times.
If it hadn't been for that, I would never even have known the format existed. No one used it.

>why not dat or dvhs and a million other also rans

Only game consoles can get away with reinventing media every 5 years because the improvements are(were) extreme.

Have you ever used Sonic Stage? It makes iTunes look like the holy grail of software.

LP2 will sound like shit.

PSP used UMD. As dumb as they were for a portable device I personally found them cute and preferred buying them over the digital copies of games.

Attached: UMD.jpg (495x492, 168K)

blu-ray didn't win anything though, movies went from DVD straight to online streaming services and blu-ray is another expensive niche product
if it wasn't for Playstation nobody would have blu-ray players lmoa

Attached: 0135794038.jpg (210x240, 8K)

>anything I don't like is irrelevant

>everyone loves blu-ray as much as me!

Attached: toranpu-sama.png (480x360, 190K)

Size.

Displaying a load of minidisc originals in no way compares to CDs or definitely vinyls.

They were useful for recording though, but as another posters said, it was the same time that mp3 players were up and coming. Then the iPod killed all of that stone dead.

Yeah, I've never seen an MD in my life. Went from CD's strait to ipods.

They were necessary. A flash card with the capacity of a UMD at that time would've cost as much as the PSP itself

Vinyl never fully left, it was trundling along at a base line before the hipster resurgence shone a light on it.

Cassettes and Minidiscs actually died fully as a market.

b-but cassettes are coming back

Magneto-optical media is pretty interesting in general.
Imagine a 2.3GB ZIP disk without the click of death but with guaranteed data lifespan of 50 years. It's basically that.

Attached: proxy.duckduckgo.com.jpg (474x250, 26K)

They are, I can't disagree with you. But it's only a very niche comeback entirely bouyed by a fashion trend. Which is unfortunate.

the problem with the PSP is the amount of power it took to run the UMD drive, loading games off the memstick quadrupled the battery life.

Tapes are still being made but it won't be much of a comeback until there's a quality deck you can buy new.

Only format that ever actually sounded good. Vinyl is little more than constant snaps and crackles, and cassettes despite sounding half as good as a CD (which by extension is twice as good as a vinyl) are prone to constant failure and bullshit.
Optical on the other hand is Crystal clear audio, zero cassette bullshit and maintenance all with an amazing track skip feature.

>Tapes
>Comeback
Fuck tapes and fuck using a pencil on them. And if you don't know what that means then you have no idea how bad tapes are.

>Why is it that vinyl and cassettes have gotten a hipster resurgence but not minidisc?

Because they are ANALOG
And the analog audio has autismal foloowing, a digital format just isn't that.

Something analog technically is a direct imprint of the original sound people physically made in the studio while digital is a discretely sampled approximation and has no fairies and magic in it.

Unlike vinyl casettes are actually fucking shit.

I was reminded recently when I ran across the case and J-card of one of my favorite tapes that the player in my car ate. I didn't know what I was doing back then and never took care of my shit. I've been messing with cassettes again recently and it hasn't been without frustrations but no casualties yet. Among other things I learned tapes need to be fast forwarded and rewound fully if they haven't been played or recorded in more than a year.