Re: Sony wakes up and smells the copy, scraps ATRAC.

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:34:31 -0700, Steve Carroll wrote
(in article <noone-3BB953.12343131082007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):

In article <0001HW.C2FDA8BB02E1BF39F0182648@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
George Graves <gmgraves2@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:47:12 -0700, Nashton wrote
(in article <9KWBi.62536$rH6.53645@xxxxxxxxxxxx>):

About time. This can potentially be one of the biggest threats to the
iPod and iTunes since their inception. Sony, after all was the king of
portable music before Apple came up with the iPod/iTunes and before Sony
came up with the bone-headed idea of making its music players
proprietary for their format. Stupid, self-centered Sony.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/08/31/tech-sony-atrac.html

Actually, that's a shame. I find ATRAC much easier to listen to than MP3.

I sure hope that Sony doesn't discontinue the mini-disc. I have a couple
of
Hi-MD MiniDisc recorders that I use for live recording. With a one-gig
capacity Hi-MD disc, I can record approximately one hour and 30 minutes of
Red-Book PCM (16-bit/44.1KHz). Using an outboard "pro" mixer/preamp and
two
studio-quality big-capsule phantom-powered condenser mikes (used as an X-Y
pair on a stereo T-bar), I get stunning recordings! Full symphony or small
jazz quartet in a club, the palpability of the soundstage is thrilling. The
Hi-MD MiniDisc machines never cease to amaze me.

My boys are in a jazz trio that's been working around town (when high school
schedules allow) and I'm in the market for one of these devices to record
them
on a club date. I've put off buying one because I wasn't sure how much longer

the mini-disc was going to be around. I'd like to record them in my studio
but
they have red button-itis at this point in time;)



Go ahead and buy. You won't regret it. My reason for saying this is because
1) even if Sony does discontinue the format, you'll likely be able to still
get discs for it for some time from internet outlets like Minidisco.com. Or
2), you can do what I did. Buy lots of blank Hi-Md Minidiscs. I bought 10
cases of 5 about a year ago. That ought to hold me for a while. OTOH, since I
transfer the digital masters to my Mac using Sony's "Hi-MD Transfer"
application for Mac (download it from Sony's site, it doesn't come on the
included CD which is all Win stuff), I can 3) recycle the discs. IOW, I
wouldn't worry about it (but I would buy an extra battery or two just to be
on the safe side, like a lot of Sony's stuff, they're nonstandard and aren't
even the same from model to model). Also, I understand that the Hi-MD Mindisc
has been adopted by both the broadcasting world and the film industry for
grabbing high-quality sound bytes and doing "wild" dialog capture on
location. If pros use it, it's likely to be available for some time.

I also have an Otari Pro DAT recorder that I use occasionally. Frankly, the
Hi-MD recorder and the DAT recorder sound identical for all practical
purposes (yeah, the DAT has a 48KHz sampling rate which gives a better top
end, but its not really noticeable). The Hi-MD recorder is smaller and
lighter, so guess which I use most? I also find that in spite of the big
microphones and mixer, showing a small jazz ensemble that you're recording to
a little box about the size of a pack of British Player cigarettes, tends to
lessen the anxiety of the musicians. They just don't take the tiny thing
seriously.

I used to use a tiny pistol-shaped Sony electret MS stereo mike called an
ECM-929LT. It ran on a small camera "button" battery and plugged right in to
the microphone input on the Minidisc recorder. While it made nice stereo
recordings, they didn't have much of a bottom-end and the mic-preamp in the
Minidisc recorders isn't that good (noisy, easily overloaded). The big
negative though, is its all to easy to accidently turn the mike on or leave
it on. The result is dead battery every time I wanted to use it. I solved
that by training myself to flip the battery upside down in it's holder before
putting the mike away. When inverted, the positive pole on the battery comes
in contact with nothing. The little mike did have the advantage of being so
small as to be inconspicuous and it had a camera tripod socket on the grip
meaning that I could use one of those travel tripods that have extendable
legs like a car aerial. The microphone weighs nothing so the flimsy tripod
didn't matter.

Cheers.

.

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