08-05-2003 00:32									#1
	Minidisc vs Mp3 Player Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

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?

	08-05-2003 00:47									#2
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Yes, I've got a couple friends who do just that with their minidisc players.

	08-05-2003 00:48									#3
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How do they do it?

	08-05-2003 00:49									#4
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

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...

	08-05-2003 00:51									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

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.

	08-05-2003 00:56									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

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.

	08-05-2003 00:58									#7
	Tired of ads?

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.

	08-05-2003 00:59									#8
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What's a Zen cost in C$?

	08-05-2003 01:00									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by Starchild What's a Zen cost in C$?

I got it for $459

	08-05-2003 01:04									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

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....

	08-05-2003 01:11									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: 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.

	08-05-2003 03:56									#12
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: 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).

	08-05-2003 04:16									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Minidisc went big and affordable

MP3 players didn't

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

	08-05-2003 10:25									#14
	Full PM-box? Change here!

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.

	08-05-2003 10:55									#15
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

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).

	08-05-2003 12:59									#16
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Yeah, if you are planning on jogging with it, go for a flash based player (no moving parts = good!). I have an old old MD player, and it still works, although not that great anymore... Even when it was new though I had problems with skipping if I subjected it to lots of movement.

	08-05-2003 13:04									#17
	Inflate your Upload Space

I went for a MiniDisc over MP3 simply on cost at the time.

There's always the NetMD stuff from Sony:
http://www.comparestoreprices.co.uk...mz-n505-net.asp

(as an example)

£150 is a bit pricey in my mind, though...I think it's cheaper in the States.