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MiniDisc - An Appreciation

Techmoan · 2.2M views · 2017-03-18 · 44:40

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Overview

Techmoan's 45-minute retrospective on Sony's MiniDisc, covering the first and last machines, ATRAC, MD-LP, Net-MD and HiMD. It argues the format deserves more credit than its US failure narrative suggests.

On Hacker News

The standard recommendation for MiniDisc history, especially as a non-American counterpoint to the failed-format story.

Recommended by 5 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2019–2023

Topics

Audio & video engineeringConsumer devices & gadgetsHistory of computing
Search by tags
minidiscsonyatracretro techaudio formats

What people said

LeoPanthera · 2019-04 · Strong recommendation

It was a massive success everywhere except the USA. But because the USA defines history, it was a "failure". Wonderful video about the format: [VIDEO]

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NoZebra120vClip · 2023-04 · Recommendation

Reference to Techmoan is de rigeur : [VIDEO] Especially any of you kids who weren't around when the MiniDisc craze swept the world like a wildfire gone berzerk.

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zinekeller · 2021-06 · Recommendation

Ah yes, another American-centric viewpoint (which is correct, no qualms about that part) but in other countries (probably with the exclusion of inner reaches of Africa and, uhm, Canada) MiniDisc (at the late 1990's and early 2000's)... is just there: a reliable way to have portable copies of your music. P.S. British viewpoint by Techmoan (which pointed out the American-centric "MiniDisc is a failure"): [VIDEO] P.P.S. A direct rebuttal (to the point it was titled "The (Not) Forgotten Audio Format That (Never) Failed"): [LINK]

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Sources

Video by Techmoan, played through YouTube.

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