Sony killing MiniDisc in March, but will keep making proprietary formats

[Crisp]

Sony killing MiniDisc in March, but will keep making proprietary formats

Japan media giant Sony is saying 'Sayonara' to the MiniDisc format, 21 years after introducing the proprietary format to the market.

A report on tech site Gizmodo cited an Asahi report that Sony announced it will ship its last MiniDisc player in March 2013.

"Launched all the way back in 1992, the optical format squeezed music into what was then a tiny?and secure?little package. A shame, then, that they were cripplingly expensive?and that barely anyone released music using the format," Gizmodo said.

Yet, Gizmodo said the MiniDisc managed to survive for several years despite competition from the now-dominant MP3 format and the iPod music player.

A separate report on Engadget similarly lauded the MiniDisc optical player for sticking around for 20 years - until devices like the iPod "severely cut away at sales around 2000."

However, the Engadget report said the Asahi report also indicated the likes of Onkyo will continue to make similar optical hardware.

On the other hand, it said Sony does not appear finished with making proprietary formats.

"At least frustration for Sony's proprietary media storage lives on in the PS Vita," it noted.

Source

Didn't realise they were still in production :s

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Ah, the MiniDisc Player...a time where I still thought they were going to take off instead of the MP3 player due to the idea that you could swap out the discs for potentially endless music compared to an iPod's 8GB...how silly of me.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

I still use my MiniDisc recorder. Still awesome for recording live music.

[Nashy]

I had a MD player/recorder.

No wonder these idiots don't make any money, why the hell were they still making this sort of crap for what is probably one of the smallest minorities on the planet.

[HawkMan]

Ah, the MiniDisc Player...a time where I still thought they were going to take off instead of the MP3 player due to the idea that you could swap out the discs for potentially endless music compared to an iPod's 8GB...how silly of me.

Wait you believed in it that long.

I saw the first minidisc before there really was any MP3 players, back when they where in 12 and 32 MB and I laughed at both them and MD

One was awkward and low quality(MD at this time only had low quality compressed music) and the other had less music than you had on a regular CD, and also at low quality since they could barely fit a single song in decent quality.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Low quality?

I always thought it launched with (slightly) higher than the 44.1 CD quality?

But yes, slightly less storage, so often missing a track or two (doh!).

[(Account no longer active)]

For their time, they were pretty amazing technology. I liked their (now obsolete) mechanical design, build quality and features.

Before Apple, Sony were one of the leaders in portable music innovation. Teac made decent products too.