Mini Disc vs. Digital Compact Cassette (MD vs DCC)
Kenji Takeuchi
media:
DCC MD
--- --
You still have to bothered by the Discs are limited to 74 minutes
cumbersome business of auto-reverse (but so are CDs)
and rewind/fast forward
You don't have the random access Not backward compatible with
that CDs and MDs have. regular tapes (but nor are CDs)
Physical wear from friction on tape on Sound not as good as DCC.
both heads and tape.
Not as small (and cute) as Mini Discs
Doesn't have the optical line, I think.
Doesn't have upward compatible
compression algorithm.
Is magnetica media. MagnetoOptical
is the in thing now.
Second generation series isn't out yet.
Damn expensive. Damn expensive.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's all I can think of, any others?
Hans Feil
>Here are the most salient pros and cons of the new digital recordable
>media:
>DCC MD
>--- --
>You still have to bothered by the Discs are limited to 74 minutes
> cumbersome business of auto-reverse (but so are CDs)
> and rewind/fast forward
>You don't have the random access Not backward compatible with
> that CDs and MDs have. regular tapes (but nor are CDs)
>Physical wear from friction on tape on Sound not as good as DCC.
> both heads and tape.
>Not as small (and cute) as Mini Discs
>Doesn't have the optical line, I think.
>Doesn't have upward compatible
> compression algorithm.
>Is magnetica media. MagnetoOptical
> is the in thing now.
Magnetic media too !!
Blank MiniDiscs are expensive
Don't shake while recording.
>Second generation series isn't out yet.
>Damn expensive. Damn expensive.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>That's all I can think of, any others?
Hans Feil.
--
Dr.H.Feil
Philips Research Laboratories, WB-121 | phone : +31-40-742701
Prof. Holstlaan 4 | fax : +31-40-743365
5656 AA Eindhoven, The Netherlands | email : fe...@prl.philips.nl
Marc Heijligers
May become cheap CDs are limited to appr. 80 minutes.
Second generation not needed yet, During recording there is physical
the first generation seems to be (magnetic) contact too (I heard
much more stable than the first about all kind of lubricants which
generation Sony-stuff leave the player after recording).
Does have upward compatible Intrisic expensive technology, which
compression algorithms will hardly become cheaper within the
next few years
THE optical line?
We'd might better wait for recordable
The situations in which I use DCC CD instead of buying Minidisc.
I don't need random access.
Very poor sound quality
I like the capability to play my old
cassettes, so I don't have to replace Pre-recorded material too expensive
my broken analog cassette player
anymore.
Cannot record analog cassettes
No portable available yet which can
also record
Pre-recorded material too expensive
Marc
Marinus van Splunter
>Here are the most salient pros and cons of the new digital recordable
>media:
>DCC MD
>--- --
>You still have to bothered by the Discs are limited to 74 minutes
> cumbersome business of auto-reverse (but so are CDs)
> and rewind/fast forward
>You don't have the random access Not backward compatible with
> that CDs and MDs have. regular tapes (but nor are CDs)
>Physical wear from friction on tape on Sound not as good as DCC.
> both heads and tape.
>Not as small (and cute) as Mini Discs
>Doesn't have the optical line, I think.
>Doesn't have upward compatible
> ^ compression algorithm.
^
Wrongo! New encoding algorithms can be employed without a decoder change,
so no difference to MD in this case.
Marinus van Splunter
Philips Research Laboratories
Eindhoven
R A Smith
In article <1994Mar8.2...@midway.uchicago.edu>, take...@uhuru.uchicago.edu (Kenji Takeuchi) writes:
|> Here are the most salient pros and cons of the new digital recordable
|> media:
|>
|> DCC MD
|> --- --
|> You still have to bothered by the Discs are limited to 74 minutes
|> cumbersome business of auto-reverse (but so are CDs)
|> and rewind/fast forward
The DCC standard allows for fast winding, perhaps approaching that of the high
speed duplicators used to manufacture pre-recorded DCCs. 120 min DCCs are in the
pipeline, allowing for long compilation tapes.
|>
|> You don't have the random access Not backward compatible with
|> that CDs and MDs have. regular tapes (but nor are CDs)
|>
|> Physical wear from friction on tape on Sound not as good as DCC.
|> both heads and tape.
For home use, this shouldn't be much of a problem. High quality tape and heads do
not suffer from this to a great extent, and error correction reduces this problem
considerably. Tape technology has been improved over a period of 50 years or so,
whereas optical discs are relatively new. There have been scare stories about CDs
becoming unplayable after time, recently about sulphur in the packaging attacking
the metal layer. The magneto optical discs are more sensitive than ordinary
optical discs, which is why they are in a protective casing (like a 3.5in
floppy), so it is unreasonable to assume that they will last indefinitely.
|>
|> Not as small (and cute) as Mini Discs
DCCs aren't that big. If they can get the size down to that of the modern walkman
(cassette box sized), I don't see how anyone could complain. It is interesting
that the box used to hold minidiscs is somewhat larger than DCC and analogue
cassette.
|>
|> Doesn't have the optical line, I think.
It does have an optical link, as well as a digital one. It depends on the model,
not on the format.
|>
|> Doesn't have upward compatible
|> compression algorithm.
Yes, it does have an upward compatible compression algorithm. There are nine
tracks on a DCC (per 'side'), 8 of which are used to hold the audio plus text and
simple graphics when this is implemented, the ninth track is a data track,
containing the time code and PASC coefficients. These PASC coefficients are read
in along with the music, and are used to decode it. This allows in theory for the
compression algorithm to change dynamically with music content. The DCC standard
is 18 bit, but so far all machines except those by Marantz have had 16 bit
recording. There is potential for 20 bit recording and higher, and it is the
changing PASC algorithm that allows this, and also the compatibility with 16 bit.
By altering the size of the frequency bands used, PASC can also cope with all the
sampling rates such as 32kHz, 44.1kHz and 48kHz.
By implication you state that ATRAC is an upwardly compatible compression
algorithm. This may be the case, but from the numerous articles I have read, I
was under the impression that the ATRAC coefficients were fixed. Sony had to rush
minidisc in order to compete with DCC, which already had several years
development. They were unable to perfect ATRAC to the same extent that PASC has
been refined by Philips and Decca, and so consequently is an inferior technique.
Within a year or so, it is thought that blue laser diodes will be available,
based on second harmonic generation effect of a conventional IR laser diode, or
eventually a true blue diode. This would allow much higher data density on disc,
and a 'minidisc' using this technology would not require any data compression at
all. When Philips decides to create a high density optical disc standard, the
MiniDisc will then be outdated, and it will not be too long before even newer
products are released, and these will not be compatible with existing machines.
I believe Sony should have waited for these developments, and not tried to rush
to the market.
|>
|> Is magnetica media. MagnetoOptical
|> is the in thing now.
What about the eraseable CD?
|>
|> Second generation series isn't out yet.
It will be, soon. Has anyone got the second generation MiniDisc yet?
|>
|> Damn expensive. Damn expensive.
|>
The price of a DCC machine is now about half the launch price, and this will
come down even further as the popularity grows or Philips becomes more
desperate. The minidisc is a fundamentally more expensive technology than tape,
requiring a laser (expensive and prone to faults) and aligned optics. Blank DCCs
are somewhat cheaper than blank minidiscs, with DCCs being seen as overpriced and
the minidisc not being too dissimilar to an actual cost price. The special
materials required for a magneto optical disc are more expensive than those used
to make the tape, which is just ordinary CrO2.
|> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
|>
|> That's all I can think of, any others?
|>
Sony should have waited for blue laser diodes (which they are researching
themselves) or at least used PASC instead of ATRAC.
Richard.
Ted Monogue
I would like to make a few comments about a previous post, and
defend my favorite recordable media, MiniDisc!
**WARNING**: I do not work for Sony, and am not privy to the inner
design decisions made about MD. All my statements are true to the
best of my knowledge, but I welcome polite corrections.
In article <2ln6co$k...@mercury.dur.ac.uk>, R A Smith
<Richar...@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> The DCC standard allows for fast winding, perhaps approaching that of the high
> speed duplicators used to manufacture pre-recorded DCCs. 120 min DCCs are in the
> pipeline, allowing for long compilation tapes.
But no matter how fast the winding speed, DCC remains a serial-access
media. If your primary mode of listening is sequential songs in the
order recorded, DCC is fine. Don't assume, though, that DCC will work
well for random-access playback applications - in my experience it
doens't. The Optimus (Radio Shack) deck I played with would take in
excess of 30 sec to find a selection I wanted, and that was unaccecptable
for my needs - YMMV, of course.
> There have been scare stories about CDs
> becoming unplayable after time, recently about sulphur in the packaging attacking
> the metal layer. The magneto optical discs are more sensitive than ordinary
> optical discs, which is why they are in a protective casing (like a 3.5in
> floppy), so it is unreasonable to assume that they will last indefinitely.
The problem with some CD's degrading (small to begin with) cannot affect
*recordable* MiniDiscs, as there is no "metal layer" (aluminum) to
oxidize. For *prerecorded* MD's, the same troubles could arise, but as
there is no printing on the disk itself, and the shell protects the media
better from scratches than a raw CD, I for one am not worried about it.
Of course, nothing lasts "indefinitely". While magneto-optical(MO) discs
are more sensitive to surface damage than CD's (hence the shell), there is
*no* physical contact between the surface of the disk and the recording /
playback heads. As long as the casing remains intact, and you don't heat
the disk above the Curie point for the media, the disk will not degrade.
While there is some concern about a limited number of *write* cycles before
the media degrades (many, many thousands), I have never personally heard of
an MO disc degrading yet. On the other hand, I have a collection of
analogue
tapes, videocassettes, and DAT tapes that are either mangled or show signs
of
wear, that I know will have to be replaced soon.
>
> Within a year or so, it is thought that blue laser diodes will be available,
> based on second harmonic generation effect of a conventional IR laser diode, or
> eventually a true blue diode. This would allow much higher data density on disc,
> and a 'minidisc' using this technology would not require any data compression at
> all.
But that's not the issue at all. I have in this office a 5.25" MO drive
that
stores 1.3 GigaBytes of data. Surely that's enough to hold more than a
CD's
worth of music. So why didn't Sony use this technology, and why hasn't
somebody
come out with one of the large MO drives for audio?
In a word, bandwidth.
The magneto-optical writing process does not even begin to have the speed
in
writing to record 16-bit, 44.1KHz, stereo audio at real-time speeds. Even
with the new one-pass writing method Sony developed for the MD (most data
MO's use a two pass write(write 0's/write 1's)), you still need to compress
the data in order for it to be written in real time. And no, you can't use
a RAM buffer to make up for it, as a CD would require a 450 MB buffer, and
your 1 hour of music would finally finish writing 3 hours later.
Doubling the data density might allow slightly faster write times, and
could
certainly reduce the size of the disk required to store the same amount of
data, but would not eliminate the need for compression.
> What about the eraseable CD?
The WHAT? I know about *recordable* CD's (write once only, please), where
the recorders and media cost much more than MD, but the current technology
for what we call "CD" cannot be erased. (Alright, you can erase it with a
very high power laser, or even a sharp knife, but I'll bet it wouldn't
be much good for anything after you were done :-)).
If your talking about data MO drives, see above for why they won't work
without compression.
If your talking about something else, I'd love to hear about it. I don't
know of any process even close to production that would allow something
I'd call a "erasable CD".
> The minidisc is a fundamentally more expensive technology than tape,
> requiring a laser (expensive and prone to faults) and aligned optics.
Yes, of course. That's why I can get a CD player for less than $100
(including the "expensive, fault prone" optics), but can't find a DCC or
DAT deck anywhere near that price.
I have a CD player and a regular analog tape recorder. You only get one
guess which unit is more "prone to faults" and gives me more grief.
There is no reason a playback only MD player should be substantially more
expensive that a CD player (the cost of the ATRAC electronics is not that
high in manufacture, just in R&D). If you are talking about recording, it
gets more expensive no matter what you are using to record with, more due
to marketing decisions than real costs.
> Sony should have waited for blue laser diodes (which they are researching
> themselves) or at least used PASC instead of ATRAC.
Yeah, right. Sony ask Philips "We're designing a product we hope will
compete with (and eventually kill) your new DCC product. Would you
kindly give us your proprietary, secret PASC algorithm?"
>
> Richard.
Nobody has yet mentioned MD's biggest asset - *random-access recording*.
I can add, delete, and edit songs on a 74 min. MD and still get 74 min.
of music. I don't have to find blank space, hope it will fit, leave big
gaps if I delete something, or worry what order the songs are recorded
in.
Try this: I have a short piece of dance music in the middle of a track on
a CD, and I want to record three repititions of it. The transisions have
to be flawless, to the point that the dancers won't even know there is
a transition there.
I can do this with *one, consumer-quality* MD unit - in one try. With
no hassle or queing problems. How about DCC?
Later, I want to insert a transition measure from another selection into
the middle of the song I recorded earlier. Only MD can do this, without
expensive, time consuming, double-deck dubbing.
Or say I'm recording a live performance, and want to eliminate the crowd
noise and other garbage between songs.
For all of these applications, a single MD unit is cheaper and easier to
use than buying and using two DCC decks for editing.
I'll readily admit that the first generation MD units have flaws. I'd
like more recording time, more stability when recording (so shocks would
not disturb it), and bug-free firmware. I wouldn't mind if the ATRAC
recording algorithm improved, although I like it just fine for what I
use it for. MD doesn't sound a good as CD to me in a critical listening
environment, but then again I don't need it to.
MD may someday be replaced by a superior technology, and be retired.
But it won't be DCC, or DAT, or Recordable CD, that does it. (Holographic
crystal/polymer storage, anyone)?
Cheers, not flames,
Ted
--
*************************************************************************
Ted Monogue * Alwyn of Kittisford * "A spirit with a vision is
Cray Computer Corp * Barony of Dragonsspine * a dream with a mission."
e...@craycos.com * Kingdom of the Outlands * -- Rush, "Mission"
Oscar M Fowler
Ted Monogue <e...@craycos.com> wrote:
>But no matter how fast the winding speed, DCC remains a serial-access
>media. If your primary mode of listening is sequential songs in the
>order recorded, DCC is fine.
I absolutely agree. People seem to keep glossing over this fact, but
it should be stressed that the random access capability of MD is a *very*
important point for some of us. I don't understand why people keep
favoring DCC over MD here - if you're happy with serial access to your
music, why not stick with DAT? It has better audio quality and has been
proven in the field for quite a few years now. DCC is just an attempt
to keep cassettes from their inevitable death.
Given the marginally higher
quality of the PASC encoding versus ATRAC, it seems that the benefit
of MD's quick access to tracks and editing overshadow that small
benefit in practically all cases. Both of these formats use lossy
compression - either way, you're not getting the best possible recording.
If we all understand this, then what is the benefit of DCC?? The only
valid argument, IMHO, is that DCC players are compatible with good ol'
cassettes. Since most of us already have analog tape players, why do
we need DCC's compatiblity? I'll admit, there may be some rare instances
where this compatiblity would come in handy, but I suspect many of us
would like to make copies of those old tapes and leave them behind for
the archeologists of another era.
Personally, I don't see any reason to move from analog tapes to DCC.
High-quality tapes and recorders will produce tapes which are more than
acceptable for the environments in which they are typically used:
in the car, in a 'boom-box', or some other portable situation. The
existing technology is well established and relatively inexpensive.
The only problems with tapes are that they have low quality (compared to
CD's & DAT's) and that they have serial access to tracks. MD addresses
both of these issues. While DCC is reportedly somewhat better on
the quality front, it doesn't address the access problem at all (in fact,
from what I've seen, DCC players are *slower* at accessing different
tracks than analog players). Now, if this random access ability that
I keep going on about isn't an issue for you, then why not get a DAT
player, since all you seem to really be interested in is quality? On
the other hand, I suspect that in the portable listening environments
which MD's and DCC's are meant to infiltrate, DCC's quality advantage will
be washed-out.
*sigh* Sorry - I just had to get a lot of that out. I feel better
now. No, I don't own an MD player. I've seen too many hot technologies
go down the tubes, leaving the initial investors holding the bag. I'll
wait until they become a bit more of a standard (assuming they ever do).
>Try this: I have a short piece of dance music in the middle of a track on
>a CD, and I want to record three repititions of it. The transisions have
>to be flawless, to the point that the dancers won't even know there is
>a transition there.
>I can do this with *one, consumer-quality* MD unit - in one try. With
>no hassle or queing problems. How about DCC?
This is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to be able to do with MD,
and is the reason why I'm hoping it succeeds in the marketplace. I wish
Sony would just push the units and media out there below-cost to get
everyone using them and get those laws of mass purchasing power working.
Happy weekend...
Oscar
Ken Iisaka
|> (my experience is that CDs wear out when they're used
|> extremely often)
My God!!!! How is it possible!!!????
(Of course, this is rec.audio.bull.shit)
Tony W H Lai
[stuff deleted]
>You should relate the future price of MD to the price of analogue
>cassettes. Ofcourse all formats will become cheaper, but Optical Magneto disks
>are more expensive than ordinary CrO2 tape. The question is HOW MUCH cheaper
>OMD will be in the future. I doubt it will be even halve of the current
>price. I've heard rumours that Sony currently doesn't make any profit on MD
>OMDs. Doesn't sound very hopefull for its price.
But wouldn't prerecorded MDs be cheaper to make than DCCs? After all, a
prerecorded MD is just an optical disc in a plastic shell.
>| > Very poor sound quality
>|
>| (the above comment was for MD)
>| A bit more than just a bit of exaggeration.
>| It's not cd quality. DCC is better, but not cd quality either.
>
>The number of people that can distinguish MD from CD is much greater that the
>number of people that can distinguish DCC from CD. Even ordinary, non-trained
>ears can distinguish MD from CD. Consumer reports in all kind of magzines
>conclude that 'the sound quality of MD is not better than the sound quality of
>analogue cassette'. They also conclude that both DAT and DCC have superior
>sound quality.
Some months ago, Stereophile had a short article on MD sound quality.
(First generation) consumer ATRAC encoders had some artifacts, but
professional ATRAC encoders yielded a sound quality that was very, very
difficult to distinguish from CDs.
C.M. Hicks
>Greetings from a man who may not be as "up" on current technology as I
>hoped I was...
[...deletions...]
>Facinating... I've yet to see an MO drive for a computer that could perform
>like that. Maybe Sony and Co. figure (probably correctly) that computer
>people wouldn't pay that much for a faster drive.
>Are you sure the units you saw didn't use something like an internal
>hard drive for primary, live recording and then write to the MO as a
>removable, secondary storage?
I don't think so, and I would be very surprised.
>This brings me back to the implied question in my original statement -
>why didn't Sony use this technology for MD? 2:1 lossless compression
>chips are cheap (probably cheaper than ATRAC), and you would need only
>double
>the data storage of the current MD format, meaning going from a 2.5 in.
>format to a 3.5 in. one - not a big change, and certainly still "portable".
It seems to me that it is very much the same technology, though I don't
know enough polymer chemistry etc to give a definitive answer on this.
The reason for using ATRAC and a tiny disc as that the aim was to prod-
uce a music-carrying medium of the smallest possible dimensions for port-
able and in-car use. In this I believe Sony has succeeded.
>I don't believe the "they *intentionally* reduced sound quality so as not
>to compete with CD/DAT/whatever" unless someone can provide evidence to
>this point.
Nor me. The aim was to make the format physically tiny - both the medium
and the machine - and to retain all of the benefits of a domestic CD
machine, but with the addition of recordability and portability.
Christopher
--
==============================================================================
Christopher Hicks | It certainly isn't above-board in the shop (5,3,7)
c...@eng.cam.ac.uk |
==============================================================================
Bill Vermillion
LEE H.J.M.H.P.VAN DER <H.J.M.H....@kub.nl> wrote:
>In Article <MARC.94M...@viper.es.ele.tue.nl> "ma...@viper.es.ele.tue.nl (Marc Heijligers)" says:
>> In article <1994Mar8.2...@midway.uchicago.edu> take...@uhuru.uchicago.edu (Kenji Takeuchi) writes:
>>
>> | media:
>> |
>> | DCC MD
>> | --- --
>> | You still have to bothered by the Discs are limited to 74 minutes
>I've got a DCC900 for over a year now and I use it a LOT!
>Besides that I have taped my CDs and play the DCC-cassettes instead to keep
>the CDs in good shape (my experience is that CDs wear out when they're used
>extremely often), I use DCC to record live-concerts.
Gawd - what do you play your CD's with - a turntable. CD's
don't wear out, by their nature they can't.
However you can damage them.
BTW - try not to include all the previous text in your
replies.
> DCC does have the optical link, so don't worry about that anymore. Optical
>taped DCCs give better results than analog ones.
> Er
--
Bill Vermillion - bi...@bilver.oau.org | bill.ve...@oau.org
Albert Zhou
compared to CD and DCC? The reason is that a MD can only store 120MB of
data, and a compression ratio of 6:1 causes slight distortion which Sony
claims to be undiscernable by human ears.
bar...@vax.sbu.ac.uk
>> Sound quality differences are noticible between original and both DCC and
>> MD but the differences are pretty much on par with each other. DCC though
>> is far less capable in the editing department compared with MD which offers
>> track erase, swap, divide, combine, disc title, track title and so on.
>>
> I say: The sound quality of both these systems are much lower than what
> LP's and CD's can offer. Wether DCC or MD has the best sound quality isn't of
> much interest for the users of these systems. The differences are between them
> are very small when compared to LP and CD.
> The MD was designed as a portable unit. The sound was not the main goal.
> The DCC was a result of the blank-tape industry facing recession. They feared
> that MD was going to take over for conventional tape-decks, and had to do
> something!
Cassette industry worried? Who do you think would be making blank MDs.....
Phil.
S S Sturrock
>
>| You cannot attribute the difference in sound to PASC v ATRAC coding. The
>| DAC makes a bigger difference, try sticking DCC and MD machines through the
>| same DAC. Not a big difference between the two is there?
>
>Yes I can. When I compared CD and DCC, I used the same DAC (Audio Alchemy). No
>one could hear any differences when doing ABM testing, however the test was
>rather informal, so no scientifical conclusions should be drawn from this.
>Anyway, in practice the difference in sound seems to be marginal.
I did this test and I could easily detect differences in the sound of DCC
compared with the original CD through the same DAC. Very easy in fact.
The difference is marginal.
>
>I've heard a comparison between CD and MD during the Firato Hifi show in
>Amsterdam. With the audience they made a recording of a CD, and played it
>back. Differences could easily be detected, and the character of these
>differences cannot be subscribed to the DAC (hissling in higher tones).
I am sorry you feel this way, there we some discs recorded by the shop I
bought the player from and they gave to me, these sounded dreadful. It
turned out that the AGC had been left on and so the top was smudged and
compressed. Turn the AGC off, cut back the record level and this goes.
You really have to use a MD machine to make any real statements about the
sound. I was expecting it to sound a lot worse than it does I can tell you
but I didn't buy it for the sound.
>
>| What gets my goat is that blank DCC tapes cost almost as much as blank
>| minidiscs!
>
>Minidiscs are more expensive than DCC tapes here in Europe.
I am in Europe, MDs cost about 6-7 quid depending on where you get them
from, much teh same price as blank DCC tapes.
>
>| This from a format that has a different shell and virtually the
>| same type of tape as video? Hmmmm.
>
>Yes?
So there is no reason to make the damn things so expensive since it is
hardly a new technology. They upped the price because of the digital
nature or the recording. MD prices are set to come down as the MD-data
format comes into use, DCC has no chance as a data format. Of course you
can now get DCC machines for under 250 Pounds UK, seems they can't even
give them away these days......
>
>| Oh, and then there is the question of how many times you can record on the
>| things.
>
>The same question for MD. Sony states they recorded a million times, but they
>didn't mention if this was on the same place of the disc, and how long the
>sample was. Useless data.
True enough but as a zero contact format it has a lot better chance of
surviving than DCC.
>
>| Such sweeping statements. The Sony MZ-1 MD recorder is a portable device,
>| it sounds amazingly good for what it is and outperforms many portable CD
>| players on the sound front even though the CD player is not using a lossy
>| format.
>
>You can't compare a good implementation of a MD player towards a bad
>implementation of a CD player. I do understand that Yoko is inferior towards
>Sony MD.
It is more fair to compare the MD machine with a portable CD player than
to compare with full size sedentary equipment.
>
>| are excellent and useful. DCC is just tape that sounds like CD (which I
>| don't particularly like anyway) whereas MD is a format that actually has
>| significant advantages over all other formats, even CD.
>
>If you like features like editing more than sound quality, you're choice for
>MD might be right. I hope for you and others that the price level of MD will
>decrease, otherwise you will be stucked with an expensive digital format.
The price will drop, no question as the format is very useful for computer
use.
>
>| Side by side comparison of the MD versus my full size cassette deck results
>| in the cassette sounding much the same with metal tapes. On the move the
>| lack of hiss is a bonus.
>
>Do you move along the country side?
Huh?
>
>| MD really isn't about high fidelity, given a
>| direct digital source and output into a full size DAC though it sounds very
>| very close to the original, about as close as the DCC gets (sorry Philips).
>
>Sorry for you that you can't detect the real differences in sound...
>
>| Sound quality differences are noticible between original and both DCC and
>| MD but the differences are pretty much on par with each other.
>
>Try to record some castagnetes on these two formats, and listen to the
>result...
Try some Jazz on the two formats.
>
>| DCC though
>| is far less capable in the editing department compared with MD which offers
>| track erase, swap, divide, combine, disc title, track title and so on.
>
>MD also offers an 'erase all tracks', but this seems to be a probabilistic
>function :-)
It is quite hard to get it into the erase all tracks mode without doing so
deliberately and you can write protect the discs anyway.
>
>| Claims about which format is less lossy than the other are a bit silly,
>
>That's what YOU think. If it has an audible effect, these discussions are not
>very silly.
PASC has an audible effect too so what's the point? If I was really
interested in doing high quality digital recordings on a tape format I
would buy a DAT machine but I don't like tape formats and I don't really
like digital. MD offers me something which no other format has been able
to offer, convenient size plus useful features. The ability to selectively
delete tracks and record others and reorder tracks and so on really makes
MD a powerful format for music on the move.
--
\. That is biological Captain! | Shane Sturrock, BRU, Darwin Building,
(}:-( -- Mr Sturrock | University of Edinburgh, Scotland,
/' | Untied Kingdom (Split now!) :-)
bar...@vax.sbu.ac.uk
[SNIP]
> PASC has an audible effect too so what's the point? If I was really
> interested in doing high quality digital recordings on a tape format I
> would buy a DAT machine but I don't like tape formats and I don't really
> like digital. MD offers me something which no other format has been able
> to offer, convenient size plus useful features. The ability to selectively
> delete tracks and record others and reorder tracks and so on really makes
> MD a powerful format for music on the move.
You don't like digital, but you have a Minidisc player.....
I'm just curious as to *why* you don't like digital formats (this is not a
critisism!).
Phil.
Jan Bielawski
Todd Katz <to...@informix.com> wrote:
<A computernews service that we get reported last week that Sony
<had decided to push 128 meg. mini-disks are the next generation
<'floppy' -- that is, a means of transferring the ever larger
<software programs that are being marketed these days. Sony's
<goal was said to be to increase the demand for mini-disks so
<that the price could drop, leading to an increasing demand for
<minidisk players.
They have to improve the sound quality first.
--
Jan Bielawski
Computervision, San Diego
j...@cvsd.cv.com
Bill Vermillion
Marc Heijligers <ma...@viper.es.ele.tue.nl> wrote:
>DAT is expensive, and will remain expensive because of the intrinsic expensive
>technology. The same counts for Optical Magneto discs. Maybe it will become
>cheaper, but it will NEVER become as cheap as analog cassette. DCC MIGHT
>become as cheap. It uses ordinary CrO2 tape, almost simular to the one used in
>video cassettes. No rotating heads, so almost no tape wear. Tape house is
>closed, so no damage to tapes.
Never say never. When the cassettes first came out - mono
machines - 1hour play - 30 minutes per side - they were about
$150. Tapes were about $5.00 each for c60's. That was the
day of $0.30/gallon gasoline and $1200 VW's.
Tape prices slowy came down over the past (almost) 30 years to
where they are CHEAP!
Take another look at rotating head technology. VCRs for home
use came out 1976. I bought one in 1977 - cost me $1200 -
discontinued model. Tapes were $18.00 for ONE HOUR.
The VHS just came out and they had TWO HOUR (WOW) tapes - that
were $22 - $25 each. You can now buy those same tapes at
1/10 the price. And you can find VCRs for under $200
No rotating heads meaning no tape wear is WRONG! You get both
head and tape wear in cassette machines. The tape rubs across
the head - and is pushed onto the head by a pressure pad.
In rotary recording the heads do spin - but the tape is much
higher in quality so the wear on current machines is small.
Depending on model some DAT's need head replacement at 1500
hours. VCRs with their larger head drums will go much longer.
My VCR service manual shows that heads should be checked for
wear and possible replacement at 5000 hours. A cassette
machine with 5000 hours of time is probably due for replacement
too.
Any devices that have motional contact are going to show wear.
Tape recorders will show more because tape by it's very nature
is abrasive.
S S Sturrock
>
>[SNIP]
>
>> like digital. MD offers me something which no other format has been able
>> to offer, convenient size plus useful features. The ability to selectively
>> delete tracks and record others and reorder tracks and so on really makes
>> MD a powerful format for music on the move.
>
>You don't like digital, but you have a Minidisc player.....
Recorder. I also have a Laserdisc Player ,a NICAM TV and VCR.
They all sound pretty blah. Each of these has advantages over previous
technology, the MD is great for shunting music about and portable use, the
Laserdisc simply slaughters VHS and it is nice to get TV in stereo without
the problems of noise that plague the analogue stereo TV systems.
>I'm just curious as to *why* you don't like digital formats (this is not a
>critisism!).
If I want to listen to music LP is the one for me.
Any comments about crackle and wear and distortion > /dev/null.
Joy joy joy, happy happy happy :-)
S S Sturrock
>them to do their work properly. The MD they demonstrated was not a commercial
>model. For demonstration purposes they probably even make things look better
>than they are.
It's very funny you know because the first time I heard DCC was in similer
circumstances and the 'technical crew' were completely without a clue
wittering on about digital and perfect etc etc ad nausium.
>
>I heard a technician that is involved with research in audio coding, and his
>comment on the Sony demonstration was: "They can't be serious".
I can believe it.
Anyway, when I run my MD walkman through my hifi (this is real hifi, not
some Japanese facsimille by the way), there really is very little
difference, certainly less than say a high quality LP versus the piss poor
racket that CD gives out. Recording CD onto MD results in degradation of
sound, recording LP onto MD results in slaughter.
>
>| So there is no reason to make the damn things so expensive since it is
>| hardly a new technology. They upped the price because of the digital
>| nature or the recording.
>
>Yes, they did. That's why I still haven't bought any of these digital
>recording media.
So you haven't even got a DCC machine? Until you have lived with a format
for a while I don't see how you can be qualified to judge. I don't claim
MD to be better than DCC soundwise, I don't see how it can be but my
decision to buy an MD machine was nothing to do with sound quality so
please forget about that, I just don't care which digital format sounds
worse than the other since I don't like *ANY* of these digital sound
systems, lossy or not. Until one comes along that can consistantly sound
better than my LP collection I will buy the one which does for me what I
feel are interesting under particular circumstances and when I want to
listen to music I will bung on an LP and enjoy it thankyou very much
indeed.
>
>| Of course you
>| can now get DCC machines for under 250 Pounds UK, seems they can't even
>| give them away these days......
>
>Here you see how fast this technology becomes cheaper :-)
Oh yes, yes indeed. Also comes from having vast warehouses full of the
damn things unsold. :-)
>
>| True enough but as a zero contact format it has a lot better chance of
>| surviving than DCC.
>
>It's not about 'zero contact' or 'disc versus tape'. It's about price. The
>average consumer only considers 'price' and 'digital'. The V2000 format was
>far more better than the other systems (VHS, Beta), but the technical most bad
>system survived, because of the price and availability of software.
It is about which format will do what the public wants. People wanted to
rent films and VHS offered the best choice so it survived. However,
cuteness clearly has a lot to do with it, CD sold because it was cute. The
first CD players sounded dire, those out today still sound boring but
people like those little silver discs. People I talk to who see DCC don't
see what the point is, a tape that you can record on digitally. Hmm, OK.
But show them MD and they are straining at the leash and love it, hey look,
little silver discs you can record on! They don't give a stuff about sound
quality.
>
>The DCC format isn't bad at all, as most people seem to think. It can be
>produced very cheap (currently DCC is too expensive, that's how companies try
>to increase their profit anyhow), it has a better sound quality than MD (all
>test that I read about it - using the same DAC, my own experiences,
>experiences from industrial investigations all show the same conclusion) and
>it is downward compatible. Yes, I do care to be able to play my old cassettes,
>as I don't like to re-record 200 tapes again.
Then why don't you just keep your old cassette deck, a good cassette deck
sounds much better than a DCC machine playing back analogue tapes and you
can still record on analogue tapes then. This is what I have done, I still
have my NAD for taping and the MD is for mucking about, I am using it in a
play I am directing at the moment because I can put sound effects and
musical snippets on disc, edit them to the exact size I want chop and
change stuff and then when an effect is needed just play the appropriate
track. Neat.
>
>| It is more fair to compare the MD machine with a portable CD player than
>| to compare with full size sedentary equipment.
>
>I didn't compare MD with full size sedentary equipment. You may compare it to
>my Sony portable CD player, which is quite good.
I compared mine with a few Sony portables too and the MD sounded better,
recording directly from the Sony CD there was no sure way of spotting the
recording versus original and when the recording was made from my full size
CD player the MD sounded better! (Unfortunately the Sony portables didn't
have digital out).
>
>| >Do you move along the country side?
>|
>| Huh?
>
>Do you travel along the country side (very silent places), because you seem to
>care about hiss-free paly-back during traveling. You sure must pass silent
>places then.
Depends how quiet your car is.
>
>| Try some Jazz on the two formats.
>
>We did some Jazz on DCC. No one could detect differences in playback using the
>same DA-convertor. This doesn't imply there are no differences, but this shows
>how well it performes in practice.
>
>I can immediately detect differences between MD and CD, even with music I
>don't know beforehand!
So can I, with both formats, it doesn't matter.
>
>| It is quite hard to get it into the erase all tracks mode without doing so
>| deliberately and you can write protect the discs anyway.
>
>You should be aware of the famous TOC bug.
Oh yes, I heard about this, if it gives me any trouble I will take the
machine back and they can give me a new model.
>
>| PASC has an audible effect too so what's the point?
>
>PASC is better than ATRAC. At first Sony competed with one of their first
>versions of ATRAC againts other audio compression formats (to determine the
>ISO-layer 2 standard). I have understood that ATRAC was the first format that
>disappeared. They did some improvements to the format, but numerous of tests
>and opinions show that it just meets the old analogue cassette sound. DAT and
>DCC have more acceptance when you consider the sound quality.
Most people can't tell a good analogue tape from a CD, as I said in this
part of the market it just does not matter what the sound is like
technically as long as it has the right amount of bass and treble as that
is all people seem to care about and is cute.
>
>| to offer, convenient size plus useful features. The ability to selectively
>| delete tracks and record others and reorder tracks and so on really makes
>| MD a powerful format for music on the move.
>
>Huh? So I'm rigt that you buy an expensive car because of its numerous
>features, and you don't like to drive?
It depends on what you want it for. I do not use MD as a main source, it
is purely fun, why is this so difficult for you to accept?
If I really wanted to do high quality recordings I would (in fact I will
eventually) buy an analogue reel to reel which is very inconvenient but
performs in the sound department.
David Breneman
:
: Although I'm posting this message in the "MD vs. DCC" heading,
: I'm not going to take either side, but state my resentment
: about TAPE technology in general.
:
: Having had a recent bout with my portable Compact Cassette deck
: this week (it ate one of my important tapes), I've thought
: twice of why Philips bothered coming out with ANOTHER tape
: system. I'm in fact very suprised by Philips' decision,
: taking into account how prevalent tape system "BUGS" are.
:
: Instead of wasting time and trying to fool the public that TAPE
: technology is still alive, I wish they could have developed
: an economical new disk system. HONESTLY, TAPE technology
: is passe. Is dead. Or at least it's vegetating on the
: respirator by now. Put it out of its misery of a slow death,
: and send it to Dr. Kavorkian, YESTERDAY.
I wasn't going to get involved in this discussion, but I just have to
weigh in on this. take...@uhuru.uchicago.edu's comments about *tape*
in general seem to be based entirely on his experience with a home
recording medium, that began life merely as a kludge for people who are
too butter-fingered to thread a tape deck - the Compact Cassette. Disks
have only two advantages over tape - random access and compactness,
and the second usually ceases to apply with open-reel formats. To
say that tape technology is dead because this silly dictating-machine-
turned-hi-fi technology is finally unable to get pushed and prodded
any further up the audio food chain is like saying that the automobile
industry is dead because you can not longer buy a Yugo.
The finest and most cost-effective audio and video capture media in
the world (DCT, D1, Betacam SP, DASH and RDAT, even good ol' Ampex C),
analogue and digital, are all tape-based technologies. Please
don't draw the silly conclusion that tape is dead just because
the 8-track^H^H^H^H^H^H^HCompact Cassette is!
--
David Breneman Email: da...@jaws.engineering.dgtl.com
System Administrator, Voice: 206 881-7544 Fax: 206 556-8033
Product Development Platforms
Digital Systems International, Inc. Redmond, Washington, U. S. o' A.
peter.w.chen
>
>Although I'm posting this message in the "MD vs. DCC" heading,
>I'm not going to take either side, but state my resentment
>about TAPE technology in general.
>
>Having had a recent bout with my portable Compact Cassette deck
>this week (it ate one of my important tapes), I've thought
>twice of why Philips bothered coming out with ANOTHER tape
>system. I'm in fact very suprised by Philips' decision,
>taking into account how prevalent tape system "BUGS" are.
>
>Instead of wasting time and trying to fool the public that TAPE
>technology is still alive, I wish they could have developed
>an economical new disk system. HONESTLY, TAPE technology
>is passe. Is dead. Or at least it's vegetating on the
>respirator by now. Put it out of its misery of a slow death,
>and send it to Dr. Kavorkian, YESTERDAY.
I share those sentiments exactly. I have a large collection of home-recorded
analog tapes which I can't wait to transfer to MD when the prices come down
a little. I suspect a DCC tape would suffer the same shortcomings as analog
tapes:
* Sequential access, with A and B sides (I assume?). It galls me no end that
you have to worry about finishing a side without leaving too much dead space
or chopping off a song. Pre-recorded tapes often leave several minutes of
dead time at the end of 1 or both sides!
* Fragile medium. I have to keep my tapes well away from all magnetic field
sources (no mean feat in the electronic age), and away from direct sunlight
and heat sources. I haven't tried, but I suspect a CD or MD can survive
being left on the dashboard of a car on a hot summer day much better than any
tape medium.
* Print-through. Does DCC suffer from this?
* Care and feeding of the player. Do you need to clean and demagnetize the
heads on a DCC player?
* Finally, the tape is the home-recordist's worst nightmare when you have
to record over a song in the middle of a tape. It's like using a typewriter
to make a correction on the first page of a 20-page paper - you better make
sure the correction doesn't affect the remaining pages!!!!! Aaaarrrgg!!!!!
Peter
Scott Fisher
>In article <2mj61p$h...@styx.uwa.edu.au> sc...@psy.uwa.edu.au (Scott Fisher) writes:
>| and DCC favour MD by ... (what's the technical term) ... heaps!(yeah that's
>it).
>MD is more 'sexy' than DCC. It looks nicer, and has some nice features that
>you cannot find on DCC (random access, fractioning of songs). That's why
>initial sales figures are higher, but I (and you) can't do any predictions
>what people will choose on the long term.
MD is still outselling DCC..anyhow I said a MD variant will succeed.
>Some months ago Philips had a DCC demonstration about their DCC system at our
>University, and some questions were asked about MD. They told us that the disk
You trust Phillips to give an unbiased appraisal of the future of the market?!
>format probably would not have a future for portable use (don't flame me on
>this, these are their words, and I can;t get the point here too), and that
>recordable CD would be a better alternative anyway. The Philips spokesman said
Isn't that a "disk" format???...
>that recordable CD technically has been finished, but the time to market is
>not right (I can understand why he says so).
Yeah...they have a DCC they are trying to flogg.
>Can you imagine, recordable CD, recordable CD-I, CD-ROM etc. in one format?
Simply a matter of fitting a new ROM into the present CD recorders?
>| In the mean-time stop arguing about ATRAC/PASC and buy a DAT...or a recordable
>| CD :-)
>Recordable CD nowadays is write once read many! Not a very serious recordable
>media for the consumer market.
If the media were cheap enough I think people could live with a write-once
format...how many times do I record over the same tape? Once or twice at most..
after that they are too thrashed to bother with. Obviously a re-recordable
format would be better tho.
Regards Scott.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Scott Fisher [sc...@psy.uwa.oz.au] PH: Aus [61] Perth (09) Local (380 3272).
_--_|\ N
Department of Psychology / \ W + E
University of Western Australia. Perth [32S, 116E]--> *_.--._/ S
Nedlands, 6009. PERTH, W.A. v
Joy is a Jaguar XJ6 with a flat battery, a blown oil seal and an unsympathetic
wife, 9km outside of a small remote town, 3:15am on a cold wet winters morning.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
S S Sturrock
>| racket that CD gives out. Recording CD onto MD results in degradation of
>| sound, recording LP onto MD results in slaughter.
>
Nothing strange, it is possible to site examples where this is true and
other examples where there is degredation. It is even possible to degrade
the sound of a copy by using different cables.
The whole realm of copying is a nightmare and it is very easy to fix it to
come out one way or the other.
>The fact that I don't OWN a DCC machine, does not mean that I haven't tried
>out one extensively at home...
As have I and the format was a pain to use and offered no obvious
improvement in sound over my tape deck. Buying pre-recorded material is
not an option since the price is prohibitive, not that it matters.
To be honest I have absolutely *NO* use for a recording format on my hifi.
>
>Well, I do, so IT IS a valid point, you know? IT IS for a lot of consumers.
>Any speculation about which format has a better acceptance is based on
>predictions from your own perspective.
Fair enough, keep it to yourself then.
>
>The only prediction I give is about price, which seems to be a valid one until
>now. Look at all the other formats,and you can see that price is the most
>important factor.
Ummmm, no since LP was cheaper than CD and still is, I can buy new and used
LPs for 1/3rd the price of the equivalent CD. Price is not important
compared with sexy features.
>
>My preference is sound quality at a good price. I think DCC will offer me this
>in the near future. I don't think MD, DAT or CD-R will. My experiences with LP
>are not so good either.
Your loss.
>
>| But show them MD and they are straining at the leash and love it, hey look,
>| little silver discs you can record on! They don't give a stuff about sound
>| quality.
>
>How about the price? Did they all buy a MD, just because it is cute? People
>who buy equipment 'that is cute' are special people, with lots of money.
They want to buy it and I know a few who are going to shortly, no-one is
interested in DCC even at the rock bottom prices at which it is available
these days.
>
>Don't understand me wrong. MD is a 'sexy' system, and offers lots of nice
>features, but the technology is too expensive to offer me short-term cheap
>technology to record music adequately. So, no MD for me.
For me it was pin money barely making a dent in the price of my audio and
video set up so I figured what the heck.
>
>| Then why don't you just keep your old cassette deck, a good cassette deck
>| sounds much better than a DCC machine playing back analogue tapes and you
>| can still record on analogue tapes then.
>
>My old cassette deck (Denon) is broken. Maybe I'll replace it by a DCC
>recorder, which offers me better sound quality for new recordings anyway.
Why not just get a better analogue cassette deck like a Nakamichi or the
likes and do better than DCC?
>
>| I compared mine with a few Sony portables too and the MD sounded better,
>
>Bad Sony portables? You're comparing implementations, not formats.
It hardly matters.
>
>| recording directly from the Sony CD there was no sure way of spotting the
>| recording versus original and when the recording was made from my full size
>| CD player the MD sounded better! (Unfortunately the Sony portables didn't
>| have digital out).
>
>So you did compare two different things, one using a AD convertor, and one
>that didn't use it. Not what you can call a fair comparison.
Both were recorded via the analogue inputs however it would probably have
been more fair if I had recorded digitally straight to the MD from my CD
player and compared that with the Sony CD portable.
>
>| It depends on what you want it for. I do not use MD as a main source, it
>| is purely fun, why is this so difficult for you to accept?
>
>It isn't difficult for me to accept at all. I just don't agree about your
>statement that MD and DCC sound the same, hence just the cute-ness counts. I
>(and lots of other people) can easily hear the influence of ATRAC on
>recordings in practice. I (and lots of the same bunch of people) cannot hear
>the influence of PASC in recordings in practice. This does not mean that PASC
>is perfect in any sense, it just means that in practice it has much better
>sound quality than ATRAC. And that's a very big issue for a lot of poeple.
>Maybe not enough, only the future can tell...
This is the whole point, due to the inherent problems of a portable machine
it is very very difficult to spot what problems in the sound are due to the
ATRAC coding and which are due to the nature of the product and that is
what I have been trying to get over from the start as all you seem to be
able to think in terms of is ATRAC v PASC neither of which I suspect you
are really comparing at all.
Scott Fisher
ZERO "gee-wiz" factor, while MD does. People don't want to buy DCC machines
(even at $250 a pop) price does not seem to be the real issue with consumer
resistance to this format, people DO seem to want to buy MD machines...but
they are still too expensive and people are waiting for the price to come down.
DCC will fail, MD or some other variant of it will succeed the Compact-Cassette
as the mass recording-format of choice...eventually. The sales figures for MD
and DCC favour MD by ... (what's the technical term) ... heaps!(yeah that's it).
better than the "average" domestic cassette machine. For the portable market
they both sound MUCH MUCH better than the average cassette machine. All you
need to do is show joe-average that it sounds better than his present machine
and he's sold. For 95% of the recording market this will be the case. It's
exactly the same as the CD vs LP thing. In most cases CD blows away the
similarly priced LP set-up....just in this case we are waiting for the price
of the format to drop so this is also true of the MD/DCC-Cassette comparison.
In the mean-time stop arguing about ATRAC/PASC and buy a DAT...or a recordable
CD :-)
Regards Scott.
Vladimir Kuznetsov
. . . stuff deleted . . .
>
>The finest and most cost-effective audio and video capture media in
>the world (DCT, D1, Betacam SP, DASH and RDAT, even good ol' Ampex C),
>analogue and digital, are all tape-based technologies. Please
>don't draw the silly conclusion that tape is dead just because
>the 8-track^H^H^H^H^H^H^HCompact Cassette is!
>
It is not because the tapr is so good, but simply because at the
time when all these technologies were implemented MO drive either
were not invented yet or were too expensive.
But times are changing. I don't think that anybody in his right
mind would vote for sequential access media (like tape) if random
access device is available for the same money.
>--
>David Breneman Email: da...@jaws.engineering.dgtl.com
>System Administrator, Voice: 206 881-7544 Fax: 206 556-8033
>Product Development Platforms
>Digital Systems International, Inc. Redmond, Washington, U. S. o' A.
Thx
vlad
--
Vladimir Kuznetsov (408)252-5455
Natural Intelligence Consulting vl...@netcom.COM
Marc Heijligers
| DCC will fail, MD or some other variant of it will succeed the Compact-Cassette
| as the mass recording-format of choice...eventually. The sales figures for MD
| and DCC favour MD by ... (what's the technical term) ... heaps!(yeah that's
it).
MD is more 'sexy' than DCC. It looks nicer, and has some nice features that
you cannot find on DCC (random access, fractioning of songs). That's why
initial sales figures are higher, but I (and you) can't do any predictions
what people will choose on the long term.
Some months ago Philips had a DCC demonstration about their DCC system at our
University, and some questions were asked about MD. They told us that the disk
format probably would not have a future for portable use (don't flame me on
this, these are their words, and I can;t get the point here too), and that
recordable CD would be a better alternative anyway. The Philips spokesman said
that recordable CD technically has been finished, but the time to market is
not right (I can understand why he says so).
Can you imagine, recordable CD, recordable CD-I, CD-ROM etc. in one format?
| In the mean-time stop arguing about ATRAC/PASC and buy a DAT...or a recordable
| CD :-)
Recordable CD nowadays is write once read many! Not a very serious recordable
media for the consumer market.
Also stop arguing about DAT. It is too expensive (like DCC and MD is now). The
question is what will happen in the near future, when prices will drop, which
prices will drop, and how far will they drop for each format. That will at
least be an important reason for people to decide what they'll buy.
Marc
Ian G Batten
> University, and some questions were asked about MD. They told us that the disk
> format probably would not have a future for portable use (don't flame me on
Philips aren't exactly unbiased observers with nothing but science in
mind, now, are they?
The thing that has killed MD and DCC is the inability of the hardware
vendors to sort out software cross-licensing.
ian
Marc Heijligers
| Anyway, when I run my MD walkman through my hifi (this is real hifi, not
| some Japanese facsimille by the way), there really is very little
| difference, certainly less than say a high quality LP versus the piss poor
| racket that CD gives out. Recording CD onto MD results in degradation of
| sound, recording LP onto MD results in slaughter.
Strange. I've heard of test where LP has been recorded on DAT, and no one
could determine which was the source or recording. So, the analogue LP format
(read format, not implementation) is not any better than the digital format
used on CD or DAT. I also cannot imagine that DCC or MD result in a so called
slaughter.
| So you haven't even got a DCC machine? Until you have lived with a format
| for a while I don't see how you can be qualified to judge.
The fact that I don't OWN a DCC machine, does not mean that I haven't tried
out one extensively at home...
| I just don't care which digital format sounds
| worse than the other since I don't like *ANY* of these digital sound
| systems, lossy or not.
Well, I do, so IT IS a valid point, you know? IT IS for a lot of consumers.
Any speculation about which format has a better acceptance is based on
predictions from your own perspective.
The only prediction I give is about price, which seems to be a valid one until
now. Look at all the other formats,and you can see that price is the most
important factor.
My preference is sound quality at a good price. I think DCC will offer me this
in the near future. I don't think MD, DAT or CD-R will. My experiences with LP
are not so good either.
| But show them MD and they are straining at the leash and love it, hey look,
| little silver discs you can record on! They don't give a stuff about sound
| quality.
How about the price? Did they all buy a MD, just because it is cute? People
who buy equipment 'that is cute' are special people, with lots of money.
Don't understand me wrong. MD is a 'sexy' system, and offers lots of nice
features, but the technology is too expensive to offer me short-term cheap
technology to record music adequately. So, no MD for me.
| Then why don't you just keep your old cassette deck, a good cassette deck
| sounds much better than a DCC machine playing back analogue tapes and you
| can still record on analogue tapes then.
My old cassette deck (Denon) is broken. Maybe I'll replace it by a DCC
recorder, which offers me better sound quality for new recordings anyway.
| I compared mine with a few Sony portables too and the MD sounded better,
Bad Sony portables? You're comparing implementations, not formats.
| recording directly from the Sony CD there was no sure way of spotting the
| recording versus original and when the recording was made from my full size
| CD player the MD sounded better! (Unfortunately the Sony portables didn't
| have digital out).
So you did compare two different things, one using a AD convertor, and one
that didn't use it. Not what you can call a fair comparison.
| It depends on what you want it for. I do not use MD as a main source, it
| is purely fun, why is this so difficult for you to accept?
It isn't difficult for me to accept at all. I just don't agree about your
statement that MD and DCC sound the same, hence just the cute-ness counts. I
(and lots of other people) can easily hear the influence of ATRAC on
recordings in practice. I (and lots of the same bunch of people) cannot hear
the influence of PASC in recordings in practice. This does not mean that PASC
is perfect in any sense, it just means that in practice it has much better
sound quality than ATRAC. And that's a very big issue for a lot of poeple.
Maybe not enough, only the future can tell...
Marc
Mr. Edwin KwanTo Tam
: ma...@viper.es.ele.tue.nl (Marc Heijligers) writes:
: >Recordable CD nowadays is write once read many! Not a very serious recordable
: >media for the consumer market.
: If the media were cheap enough I think people could live with a write-once
: format...how many times do I record over the same tape? Once or twice at most..
: after that they are too thrashed to bother with. Obviously a re-recordable
: format would be better tho.
It is not wether re-recordable that matters, take out the ATRAC chip, make the
disk 5.25 in and you get a re-recordable, lossless device. The question is
whether you will take it out on the street ? I can easily carry with me 5 or
6 mini-discs, which gives me more than 7 hours or music selections, namely
"best collections", all of them. I can't imagine taking 6 CDs given
that I had to carry with me the huge player, too, and not to mention that
only may be 20% of the music is my favorite! And that Tapes are just way too
clumsy to carry around without a knapsac or handbag.
My $0.02 worth.
Marc Heijligers
| Philips aren't exactly unbiased observers with nothing but science in
| mind, now, are they?
In article <Cn0E5...@fulcrum.co.uk> i...@fulcrum.co.uk (Ian G Batten) writes:
| You trust Phillips to give an unbiased appraisal of the future of the
| market?!
Read again:
| They told us that the disk
| format probably would not have a future for portable use (don't flame me on
| this, these are their words, and I can;t get the point here too)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
First read, which may save us these unnecessary remarks...
| Isn't that a "disk" format???...
Yes, but it is a disk format that already gained a large acceptance. I guess
they keep CD-R in stock, and ship it if DCC fails. I can imagine that this
could be the end of MD. Nevertheless, I don't think the software industry will
applaud for a consumer CD-R. And they do have a big influence...
Marc
Gabe M Wiener
Scott Fisher <sc...@psy.uwa.edu.au> wrote:
>MD is still outselling DCC..anyhow I said a MD variant will succeed.
Well, MD may itself succeed in the portable market. Wait until you see the
new generation of players that will be out this summer. We're talking
about the size of a deck of playing cards.
>>Can you imagine, recordable CD, recordable CD-I, CD-ROM etc. in one format?
>
>Simply a matter of fitting a new ROM into the present CD recorders?
Not really. The current CD recorders don't have computer interface
capability. The only one that does is the Sony CDW-900E, which is what
most people are using to author CD-ROM's anyway.
>If the media were cheap enough I think people could live with a write-once
>format...
I doubt the current generation would be acceptable to the consumers,
as they are nothing even *resembling* idiot-proof. Lose input lock as
you're starting your source and you have a nasty SNAP on your CD.
Forget to hit the NEXT button at the right moment to drop a track # in
place, and you cannot back up to fix it.
--
Gabe Wiener -- gm...@columbia.edu -- N2GPZ -- PGP on request
Sound engineering, recording, and digital mastering for classical music
"I am terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music
will be put on records forever." --Sir Arthur Sullivan
Janne Anttila
Gabe> Well, MD may itself succeed in the portable market. Wait until you see the
Gabe> new generation of players that will be out this summer. We're talking
Gabe> about the size of a deck of playing cards.
Or the size of a DCC case... And I bet the next generation will have
recording MD machines of the same size.
--
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